Virginia Woolf, una mujer especial
Una escritora que me atrae mucho desde el punto de vista humano, no sólo por los problemas mentales que tuvo o los escándalos que vivió sino también por su extraño mundo interior, es Virginia Woolf.
Hubo una película muy bonita en el 2002, "Las horas", en la que se jugaba con las dimensiones temporales y se mezclaba una novela (Mrs. Dalloway) con el pasado (la vida y muerte de Virginia) y el futuro (una historia paralela a las dos anteriores). Os copio el trailer en el comienzo del artículo.
Este breve texto lo redacté hace dos años cuando estudiaba 4º curso de inglés en la EOI de Ourense, sección de Verín, y en él cuento la biografía de esta mujer con el formato de un episodio de CSI: aparece su cadáver y comienzan a averiguar cómo murió.
VIRGINIA WOOLF´S BIOGRAPHY
A cold April morning, 1941. Although the landscape is full of spring flowers and the sun is shining, as if the Second World War wasn´t being fought, there is something wrong.
A dog approaches the river bank since there is a terrible stench there. After sniffing all over the place it finds a corpse. Almost at the same time a deep voice is heard calling the dog.
He seems absolutely petrified when he notices who the mortal remians belong to: Virginia Woolf. She is a very close friend of his family, especially of his mother´s (Vita Sackville West). He is Nigel Nicolson, a young man who is used to running with his dog every morning in those fields in East Sussex.
After recovering from the shock, he phones the police and an investigation is opened: "How did Virginia Woolf die?"
First of all her lifeless body is examined very carefully, in every detail. Lots of stones are found in her pockets, and as there are no signs of violence neither on her wrists nor on her legs, she is supposed to have been her own killer.
This news falls as a big rock on a mirror, not only because both her husband and her sister Vanessa fall victims to a depression with the news, but also because everyone who has ever read any of her books feels the loss. Actually, she will be rightly considered a genious in the history of literature.
Lots of people are interviewed during this investigation: What kind of reasons can make a person like Virginia Woolf kill herself by weighing her pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home?
The police start their tests by talking to her family: both her half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth show a despising attitude; on the one hand, by leaving their questions unanswered, on the other hand by looking down on them. They seem to be nervous about something. What?
Without knowing the truth about this matter, Vita Sackville West shows a cooperative attitude with the police by giving them one of Virginia´s diaries. After two months of thorough reading tests, they notice that both of her half-brothers had abused her and her sister Vanessa, and that´s the reason why they are sent to prison, waiting for a criminal trial.
This woman, Vita, is the mother of the boy who has found Virginia´s corpse, and although he avoids speaking about the subject, his mother and Virginia were lovers years ago.
This new discovery is not too well received by Virginia´s family, but only one person looks peaceful: her widower. In one of his pockets a love letter is warm and wet. It says:
"I feel certain that I´m going mad again. I feel we can´t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan´t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can´t concentrate. So I´m doing what seems to be the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don´t think two people could have been happier ´til this terrible disease came. I can´t fight any longer. I know that I´m spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can´t even write this properly. I can´t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it..."
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