Don’t Close Your Teeth
February 17, 2026 at 08:30PMVirginia Woolf kept journals for much of her life—more than 30 handwritten volumes in total. Cynthia Zarin examines the prolific entries in order to narrate Woolf’s growing concern with the rise of fascism in the decade leading up to her death by suicide in 1941. Horror juxtaposes constantly with the mundane:
Above Monk’s House, where they live in East Sussex, the airplanes look like sharks. On July 7, Martin Freud, Sigmund’s son, who has left Austria after the Anschluss, comes for lunch. A month later, she observes tanks assembled on the hill by Rat Farm like black beetles. On August 17, she writes, “Hitler has his million men now under arms. […] That is the complete ruin not only of civilisation, in Europe, but of our last lap.” Her nephew Quentin is conscripted. On September 28, she observes men digging trenches on Turnham Green in Chiswick. As she walks down Pall Mall, a loudspeaker is advising the purchase of gas masks; on September 30, evacuation of children from London begins. Amid this militarization, she remarks, “One ceases to think about it—that’s all. Goes on discussing the new room, new chair, new books. What else can a gnat on a blade of grass do?” And later, she adds, “Just as in violent personal anxiety, the public lapses, into complete indifference. One can feel no more at the moment.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2026/02/17/virginia-woolf-diaries-fascism/
via IFTTT
Watch