{"id":96514,"date":"2016-04-04T16:12:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T20:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=96514"},"modified":"2016-04-04T16:59:17","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T20:59:17","slug":"feel-good-candle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/04\/feel-good-candle\/","title":{"rendered":"Feel-Good Candle"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Henri Rousseau, The Pink Candle<\/i>, 1910.<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n

The other day, our Southern editor, John Jeremiah Sullivan, drew our attention to a really interesting recent episode of the BBC\u2019s History Hour<\/a><\/em>. It was a program dedicated in part to the death of Virginia Woolf, who took her own life on March 28, 1941.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, here in the northeast, it\u2019s a particularly dreary day: damp and drizzly, and\u2014after a brief tease of spring\u2014cold. It\u2019s also a Monday. And perhaps, you\u2019re thinking, listening to a discussion of someone drowning herself is not\u00a0precisely<\/em>\u00a0what you need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s of course for you to say. I won\u2019t lie to you: I took certain precautionary measures before I listened to the program myself. I once read that the color orange was cheering, and so I have orange things all around me: a bath towel, a striped Penguin Books mug, a bowl of fruit. I\u2019m secretly (at least, it was<\/em> a secret) a sucker for any of those \u201chappiness\u201d scented products, even though the olfactory equivalent of \u201chappiness\u201d is often an unpleasant mixture of citrus and mint. And at the moment, I may or may not be burning a \u201cFeel-Good Candle,\u201d which I may or may not have claimed was for a \u201cfriend who was down\u201d when I bought it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These things are so tiny in the face of something as large as real sadness, let alone illness. But they are\u00a0something<\/em>. They are consciously undertaken prophylactic measures, and proactivity is always healing, or at least wholesome. And really, what is there in real depths but the texture of the towel or the smell of that cloying candle, and the knowledge that you haven\u2019t given up on your own potential happiness? None of which is to say these things aren\u2019t complete and utter snake oil. So far as that goes, we\u2019re living in a golden age of flimflam such as hasn\u2019t been seen since P. T. Barnum. (Or at least the 1970s.)<\/p>\n

To anyone familiar with the basic facts of Woolf\u2019s suicide, or indeed with the history of the Bloomsbury Group generally, a lot of this program will be familiar. There\u2019s a good bit of background on the general ideals and accomplishments of the storied group of artists, writers, and bohemians, and their experiments in thought and living. But what is noteworthy is the number of recordings this show brings together: you will hear Leonard Woolf discussing the anguish she felt, and Nigel Nicholson on her mental illness, and Vanessa Bell, and her niece, Angelica Garnett, and Elizabeth Bowen on her laugh. And perhaps most interesting and moving of all, there\u2019s\u00a0Louie Mayer\u2014the Woolfs\u2019 housekeeper\u2014relating the events of that day when Mrs. Woolf \u201cwent for a walk\u201d from which she would not return.\u00a0Then, too, the program quotes from Woolf\u2019s writing. This is from\u00a0The Waves:<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man\u2019s, like Percival\u2019s, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, our Southern editor, John Jeremiah Sullivan, drew our attention to a really interesting recent episode of the BBC\u2019s History Hour. It was a program dedicated in part to the death of Virginia Woolf, who took her own life on March 28, 1941.\u00a0 Now, here in the northeast, it\u2019s a particularly dreary day: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[21802,21799,6604,513,7599,6603,21800,6024,21801,969],"class_list":["post-96514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-bbc-history-hour","tag-candles","tag-colors","tag-depression","tag-happiness","tag-orange","tag-scented-candles","tag-suicide","tag-the-waves","tag-virginia-woolf"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFeel-Good Candle by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 4, 2016 \u2013 The other day, our Southern editor, John Jeremiah Sullivan, drew our attention to a really interesting recent episode of the BBC\u2019s History Hour. 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