Virginia Woolf wasn’t the only one who recognized the use of sickness and bed rest to the writer. Her essay, On Being Ill, exalts the sickbed as creative muse (from The Guardian):
In her writings about illness there is a repeated emphasis on its creative and liberating effects. “I believe these illnesses are in my case–how shall I express it? partly mystical. Something happens in my mind.” On Being Ill tracks that “something” in the “undiscovered countries”, the “virgin forest”, of the experience of the solitary invalid.
As an aside, I’m reading Hermione Lee’s biography of Edith Wharton right now and am once again impressed at Lee’s thorough research and Wharton-like insights into her subjects. Lee also wrote an acclaimed biography of Virginia Woolf (and Willa Cather), for any of you who are as fascinated as I am by the lives of intelligent and intense female writers.
Speaking of intense, Fidel Castro’s new book, Reflections, is one of the tomes produced on his sickbed after abdominal surgery. NPR ran an interesting piece yesterday on what some critics are calling Castro’s “wordy” autobiography. In the book, he criticizes President Bush for bringing us all dangerously close to World War III. I can’t say I disagree.
