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Mitz
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Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury by Sigrid Nunez
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I finished Mitz a couple of weeks ago, and recommend that we discuss the book, which gives rise us much material to work with, but also be open to sharing our thoughts on Virginia Woolf, her life, her mental health issues, suicide, controversy, writings, generally, as the month progresses. I came to this having last read a Woolf novel in undergrad, and knowing or at least remembering almost nothing about the Bloomsbury crowd. I didn't recall anything about Woolf's bio, although I went down several Google rabbit holes as I read Mitz because Nunez made me curious.
I am one who was introduced to Nunez last year when I read The Friend, which I found stunningly wonderful, particularly because she tackled grief and loss in a way that didn't drag on the heartstrings. So Mitz was the second book I read by her, and I was intrigued by how she discloses things about Virginia Woolf but leaves more questions than she answers, like on the third page where she tells us that Virginia has to force herself to eat, and generally socializes by mirroring Leonard's statements about the food, the wine ... faking it, basically. No one at the meal comments on this, which suggests they are all used to her mealtime issues, which seem to be part of something larger. But Nunez doesn't explain what is going on.
For anyone who has started it, what were your first impressions?
Hi Carol,I am almost ready to start Mitz. I have my copy and hope to start today or tomorrow.
I decided to read this on a whim. I am not a big fan of Virginia Woolf. The only book I have read (listened on audio) by her was Night and Day. I was not impressed. I thought the characters were snobby and unrelatable. I have a couple of her other books on my TBR list with hopes for a better experience. As for Mitz, I thought it was a heartwarming story. Nunez did a terrific job describing the relationship between Mitz the marmoset and the Woolf's dog Pinka, very sweet.
Virginia does not like ostentatious wealth, yet the life she and Leonard live is quite privileged.
The trip to Germany puzzled me. Were they that out of touch that they did not realize what was happening to the Jews? I would have thought they would have followed the advice given to them and used caution before venturing through a country that was becoming quite dangerous. Or was this yet again an example of their view of their privilege, that they would be untouchable?
Sophie wrote: "I decided to read this on a whim. I am not a big fan of Virginia Woolf. The only book I have read (listened on audio) by her was Night and Day. I was not impressed. I thought the characters were sn..."1. I’m not a fan of Woolf’s writing either. I had to read three of her books in undergrad, all respect for her significance in literary history, but not my jam.
2. I was as bewildered as you with the visit to Germany; they were educated, Leonard’s Jewish, for God’s sake. Is VW just a denial sort of person? Is this part of her mental illness that she’s so self-involved, her risk-assessment is off? It was actually uncomfortable to read those pages.
Kate wrote: "Hi Carol,I am almost ready to start Mitz. I have my copy and hope to start today or tomorrow."
Good deal! It’s a really quick read.
One of the things I enjoyed the most was the learnings I got from my various rabbit holes of research. I knew nothing about the Bloomsbury crowd. Didn’t know Leonard and Virginia published all of her books. Didn’t know she was friends/had flings with various other women authors I’d heard of. Didn’t know she committed suicide.
I’m reading Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry and am thinking about the level of support both Lorraine and Virginia had from spouses/cheerleaders/advocates and the extent to which other women authors struggle to prioritize producing and promoting their art. For every Virginia Woolf, are there 20 other women authors with the same or more talent whose work didn’t get published or promoted or who weren’t connected to the right society folk? Marrying your greatest fan, if he has or generates resources so you can have a room if your own, elevates. No surprise there.
Great, Looking for Lorraine really interests me. I am sort of familiar with Virginia Woolf, from watching the movie The Hours, based on the book by Michael Cunningham. I have not read the book but the movie was good, really focused on the circumstances of Virginia’s suicide and the writing of her book Mrs. Dalloway. There is also a very good novel in letters called Vanessa and Her Sister, which focuses on the Bloomsbury Group, Virginia’s relationship with her sister, Vanessa Bell, and her romantic relationships with other women, especially Vita Sackville-West. I read some of VW’s nonfiction in university (A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas, which is kind of a pacifist manifesto), but it has been awhile since I’ve read anything about Woolf or her work. Looking forward to it!
I am not reading the book, but when does it say did this trip to Germany take place? I have VW's Diary and Letters, I want to see what she writes about it.
lethe wrote: "I am not reading the book, but when does it say did this trip to Germany take place? I have VW's Diary and Letters, I want to see what she writes about it." It was in 1935 before the actual war declared. After the incident, Virginia used it as a "delightful" story to tell her friends. "Remember when Mitz saved us from Hitler?"
Sophie wrote: "It was in 1935 before the actual war declared. After the incident, Virginia used it as a "delightful" story to tell her friends. "Remember when Mitz saved us from Hitler?""Thanks. I found it, May 1935. How very naïve of them and especially of Leonard. With his involvement in politics he should have known better.
lethe wrote: "Sophie wrote: "It was in 1935 before the actual war declared. After the incident, Virginia used it as a "delightful" story to tell her friends. "Remember when Mitz saved us from Hitler?""Thanks. ..."
Indeed.
I am about 1/3 of the way through and ready enjoying it so far. I love how Mitz is kind of a vehicle to see into Leonard and Virginia’s relationship, and I really liked the part at the end of Chapter 5, where it talks about their flaws and how despite all of that, they were so loyal to each other. I have not yet reached the part where it goes into detail about Hitler, but it sounds as if there is a lot to discuss there.
Kate wrote: "I am about 1/3 of the way through and ready enjoying it so far. I love how Mitz is kind of a vehicle to see into Leonard and Virginia’s relationship, and I really liked the part at the end of Chapt..."It's in Chapter 7. I liken reading about their trip, for which route they select requires them to drive through Germany on their way elsewhere, mostly strikes contemporary readers as similar to reading the part of a Karen Slaughter novel where the blonde female protagonist heads into the darkened cabin in the woods without a companion, a weapon, or any reason why she can't wait thirty minutes until her backup arrives. My eyes got big and I wanted to scream, "DON'T GO THERE!!" As a part of the novel, though, it's not all that significant, IMO>
I finished Chapter 7. Like you and Sophie, I find it hard to believe that the Woolfs were so unaware of the political situation in Germany. Not only were they literate and intellectual, they made their living as eeaders and writers of both fixtion qnd bonfiction. You could definitely argue they are self-absorbed, but I would also say that they are both politically aware from their work. Who knows?I love the discussion of pet ownershipand what it means. It’s clear that both L and V love Mitz, but that Leonard is Mitz’s “person”— I think most pet owners could relate to that, since a lot of pets have a favourite fmily nember.
Finally, I find it weird but interesting that Virginia wants ondraw parallwls between Leonard’s care for her and his care for Mitz.
Kate wrote: "I finished Chapter 7. Like you and Sophie, I find it hard to believe that the Woolfs were so unaware of the political situation in Germany. Not only were they literate and intellectual, they made t..."I agree - reading as she draws parallels between the relationships is interesting.
There’s a whole section in that part of the book, too, where Vanessa and others decide they don’t care for Mitz and are hoping he dies sooner rather than later. It did not endear them to me.
Yeah, I didn’t like that too much, either, but I have to say, a monkey might be harder to warm up to than a dog or cat!
Loved it, thank you Carol. What a lovely story!
This was an enjoyable read. Thank you Carol and Kate!
Kate wrote: "Yeah, I didn’t like that too much, either, but I have to say, a monkey might be harder to warm up to than a dog or cat!"Yes, I wouldn't have been the one to adopt Mitz, although once in my home, I'd hope I'd have warmed up a bit more to him.
BUT, early on they mention that Mitz poops and pees anywhere he likes, e.g., all over the house. The maids, of course, are tasked with cleaning up after him. Ugh. Can you imagine what the house smelled like? I mean, even if you clean up solid waste whenever you see it; a certain amount of urine would land on rugs and upholstered furniture and not noticed until it was dry and stinky.
Sophie wrote: "This was an enjoyable read. Thank you Carol and Kate!"I'm glad you enjoyed it! I still can't explain what I think makes it such a great story, even though there are plenty of things about VW and LW that I abhor. Somehow Nunez weaves a great fact-based tale. The bibliography at the end is a great treasure trove as well, for some day.
Re: the stench, I forgot about that, but I agree!
I finished this a few days ago but haven't been able to get to the computer to comment. This was a delightful work and I am wondering if it is a tribute to Woolf's Flush. I am now eager to read that to see if it is equally as delightful.I am a huge fan of Virginia Woolf. I also studied her works while at University, particularly when doing a subject on Women's Writing. The process of reading her for that subject made me love her work even more. I think To the Lighthouse is my favourite, although Orlando is fabulous as well.
As for Mitz, I guess it is a sign of those times that a Marmoset was even in England and that people could have one as a pet, not to mention taking it on trips around Europe with you. Leonard must have been an extraordinary person to have such an impact on all those animals. I feel that Mitz and the dogs must have been substitutes for the children that they weren't able to have.
Carol wrote: "she tells us that Virginia has to force herself to eat, and generally socializes by mirroring Leonard's statements about the food, the wine ... faking it, basically. No one at the meal comments on this, which suggests they are all used to her mealtime issues, which seem to be part of something larger. But Nunez doesn't explain what is going on. ..."I don't think that eating disorders were diagnosed in those days but Emma Woolf, Virginia's niece, has suggested that her aunt suffered from Anorexia. Emma has written a book about her own ordeal with Anorexia. I felt like the book was constantly reflecting Virginia's self-doubt. She seemed to think that her sister was more beautiful, more successful etc. I was looking at some photos and Vanessa was very pretty but looking at some of the younger photos of Virginia she was quite pretty as well. In the later photos her face is not as attractive as it was very drawn and angular, but I wonder if that was because of her anorexia.
As for no-one commenting, I actually think people are not generally observant. So it is quite possible that Virginia was clever enough to disguise her problem by mimicking her husband and not drawing attention to herself. Besides, eating disorders were not something people knew about or talked about in those days so what would they have said?
Sophie wrote: "I decided to read this on a whim. I am not a big fan of Virginia Woolf. The only book I have read (listened on audio) by her was Night and Day. I was not impressed. I thought the characters were sn..."Please don't judge Virginia Woolf by Night and Day. It is completely different to her other works. I feel that it was her attempt at writing Realism but ultimately she was an early proponent of Modernism.
The trip to Germany puzzled me. Were they that out of touch that they did not realize what was happening to the Jews? I would have thought they would have followed the advice given to them and used caution before venturing through a country that was becoming quite dangerous. Or was this yet again an example of their view of their privilege, that they would be untouchable?
As with the eating disorder, I don't think you can judge their decision based upon what we now know about what happened in Germany during WWII. This trip took place before the war had broken out, and there was no social media or 24hours of cable TV news in those times. In this particular trip, they weren't travelling around Germany for a holiday but travelling through it to get to Italy. In the book they mention that Leonard had spoken to the Ambassador to find out if it would be safe to travel through Germany and he was told that it was, and given a letter that he could show if he encountered any difficulties. The fact that he did that shows that they were aware that there could be problems but at that moment in time the Jewish people were not yet being interned in Camps.
Liesl wrote: "Please don't judge Virginia Woolf by Night and Day. It is completely different to her other works."I agree.
Carol wrote: "Didn’t know Leonard and Virginia published all of her books....For every Virginia Woolf, are there 20 other women authors with the same or more talent whose work didn’t get published or promoted or who weren’t connected to the right society folk? Marrying your greatest fan, if he has or generates resources so you can have a room if your own, elevates...."Virginia half owned and ran the publishing business with her husband. The book itself actually illustrated how they would sit down together and read books that people were submitting to them for publishing and they would decide what they would publish and what they wouldn't. She seemed to be her own harshest critic from the way that this book portrays her. Although I think that might be part of her own self-esteem issues.
The Bloomsbury group that you mention was a gathering of friends who were like-minded intellectuals. Virginia was an equal participant in the discussions that took place so she was clearly an intelligent woman. You need to remember that in those days, women were not allowed to study at Oxford or Cambridge so clearly Virginia didn't have the formal education that the men had. However, I think that she would have been capable of completing an education at one of those Universities had she been admitted.
She is recognised as being one of the early pioneers of stream of consciousness writing. People have different tastes in what they enjoy reading but I think her work is deservedly published.
Liesl wrote: "Carol wrote: "she tells us that Virginia has to force herself to eat, and generally socializes by mirroring Leonard's statements about the food, the wine ... faking it, basically. No one at the mea..."People have been commenting on what others have or have not consumed of their plates across cultures for some time, I believe. As they also comment when one isn’t drinking alcohol or declines birthday cake. That was all I meant. People comment. It’s unusual when one’s behavior diverges from norms in one’s social circle for everyone else to be so well-behaved as to ignore it and let one diverge in peace.
Liesl wrote: "Sophie wrote: "I decided to read this on a whim. I am not a big fan of Virginia Woolf. The only book I have read (listened on audio) by her was Night and Day. I was not impressed. I thought the cha..."Great points. My comment was based not on what we know now but on the info in the immediate couple of pages which reveals what they knew prior to leaving. Yes, they spoke to the ambassador , but they also had additional information from their well-traveled social circle. Folks evaluate risk a bit askew every day, but theirs still strikes me as a peculiarly sketchy risk to take at that time. I hear you, however, that you see it as appropriate.
I’m a little confused about your comments on her education, capability and appropriateness for publishing. I’m unaware that there’s any debate on any of those three. Everyone interested in women’s lit should read To The Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own, to understand her influence. The debate that catches my ear most over the last decade is whether she might have uttered racist statements or been classist. But that’s a topic for another day, and I’d need to dig in more on it and haven’t recently.
I'm sorry Carol, I must have misunderstood the comment that you were making about women not being published because they hadn't married someone with the resourses to support a room of their own, or to publish them. I understood that as being a suggestion that Virginia Woolf was only published because her husband had a publishing business.
I just finished Adeline by Norah Vincent which is a bio about Virginia during the last few years of her life. If I understood correctly according to Vincent’s account, Virginia suffered from intestinal issues which made her suffer greatly. Imagine if you end up in the bathroom anytime you eat, ahem.. you kind of weigh the consequences of putting anything in your mouth.
Vincent’s book made me more sympathetic to her plights. She had been sexually abused by her step brother and she was devastated by not having any children. Although she and Leonard had never consummated their marriage. Leonard took Virginia to a physician who checked both her physical and mental condition but missed all the warning signs. She was terrified of being institutionalized. Very sad.
Liesl wrote: "I'm sorry Carol, I must have misunderstood the comment that you were making about women not being published because they hadn't married someone with the resourses to support a room of their own, or..."No problem. I may not have articulated my observation very well. She got a bump. As did Lorraine. They both well-deserved and benefited from it, as did we readers through the ages. presumably there are many other women authors whose greatness is not developed or perhaps discovered perhaps in part because they lack that supportive other.
Sophie wrote: "I just finished Adeline by Norah Vincent which is a bio about Virginia during the last few years of her life. If I understood correctly according to Vincent’s account, Virginia suffered from intes..."
She was institutionalized at some point for depression, if not a mood disorder. Wasn’t she, Sophie? That (very reasonable) fear of being powerless often causes non-stop anxiety. Her commitment to regular consistent writing time is impressive for many reasons but considering the specific mental health issues she faced, it’s astonishing.
On VW’s July 1910 institutionalization, after attempting suicide. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
Carol wrote: "On VW’s July 1910 institutionalization, after attempting suicide. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2..."
Interesting, Thank you for the link Carol.
In the Adeline book, Nunez has her seemingly losing her grip again.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Night and Day (other topics)Flush (other topics)
To the Lighthouse (other topics)
Orlando (other topics)
Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Virginia Woolf (other topics)Virginia Woolf (other topics)
Peter Cameron (other topics)
In a 2006 Poets & Writers profile, she describes Mitz as...:
a “mock biography” of Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s pet marmoset. Nunez calls it a “jeu d’esprit,” and says the book was inspired by Flush, Virginia Woolf’s biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel. More whimsical than her earlier works, Mitz is, by Nunez’s own description, “in the hybrid genre because it contained more nonfiction than fiction. I wanted to tell the story of their lives during that period [the autumn of the Bloomsbury era]. They really had this monkey, and I used authentic Bloomsbury documents—Virginia Woolf’s letters and diaries, biographies, her husband’s autobiography—in order to create what is a completely historically accurate document of those times. But, of course, it’s about a monkey, so I had to invent a certain amount to make the story interesting.”.
Author, Sigrid Nunez
Her own website bio. https://sigridnunez.com/bio/
Sigrid Nunez was born and raised, and now lives, in New York City, the daughter of a German mother and a Chinese-Panamanian father. After graduating with a degree in English from Barnard, in 1972, Nunez worked as an editorial assistant for the New York Review of Books before enrolling in the MFA program at Columbia University. She is the author of short stories and at least 3 collections of stories. She has taught at many universities and won many awards.
An interview with Nunez in October 2020 focused on her approach to writing. No spoilers. https://thecreativeindependent.com/pe...
YouTube interview Sept 2019. (34.02) (no spoilers for Mitz). The intro takes up the initial 4 - 5 minutes. It turns to a discussion of The Friend at the 15 min mark.
NPR Review of Mitz. (No spoilers per se, given that we know early on that we are joining Virginia's and Leonard's lives in 1933.) https://www.npr.org/2019/08/11/749529...
Mitz is many things. 1. only 150 pages, with much white space and a large font. 2. only tangentially about Mitz; primarily about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Leonard, between Virginia and her self-doubt, beween Virginia and the public; 3. quiet and a quick read, not heartbreaking.
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