minor genius
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I used to love the work of woolf but sadly recently i have begun to find her quite irritating. This is without doubt her best book, it is a perfect little prism-a delicacy. But sometimes it seems to me that her language has absolutely no poetic density, or she intertextualises in a rather obvious fashion which doesn't add to her style. This is a book that one can fall in love with for a while, but it becomes apparent eventually that it is insubstantial- that is compared with other modernists of the period. However, it would be a good introduction to proust to read this- someone vastly superior to woolf who also had something she lacks- a sense of humour.
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I was, but not now.
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Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?
She was an author I had put off reading for some time now, for reasons I'm not sure I fully understand, but having finally got around to reading her once, I'm looking forward to a second chance.
For the first time in a long time, I have found myself shocked by a book. By the style as well as the substance. I remember an old friend describing the first time he heard 'Sunshine of your love' by Cream in the sixties and how he thought 'I didn't know you could do that, make that sound with a guitar'. Reading this book shocked me out of the complacency of what a novel could be or achieve.
In a stream of consciousness narrative, echoing the tide's waxing and waning over a single day, the novel follows the life of six friends from childhood to old age. It's a novel of feeling and sound, emotive more than cognitive. Poignant, halcyonic, melancholic - like it's author. A wonderful poetic gift that needs to be felt. A book to return to again and again.
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cutting and revolutionary
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This is the first virginia woolf book that I have had the fortune to read, and I must comment that I was blown away by it's fantastically original style. It reads to me as a beautiful at times haunting long poem, that never ceases to enage the reader. The story is based around 7 individuals and documents their lives from children to adults. The book can be a little confusing at times due to the nature of it's content, but the sheer beauty of the words carries it through it's weaker moments. So lovely I might even read it again.
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Virginias stunning voyage of selfdiscovery in a sea of faces
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Leaving all else aside, this view into the creative mind of genius is tinged with the desperation of a mad woman coping with high brow society at the turn of the century, fighting for women's rights, sexuality and freedom. This book has it all wrapped in a velvetine covering of insane surrealism, a must read.
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Wonderful - but not for the uninitiated!
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In my view this is Woolf's best book. It is less of a novel as one usually expects - more a 300-page poem in prose form. The key to reading the book is to simply let the words flow over you - don't try to decipher the literal meaning of every sentence, just enjoy the sensations that their shape and texture give you. Ostensibly about the lives of five friends from birth to death, the book can actually be interpreted as an attempt by Woolf to delve deep into various facets of her own psyche, and a sharp reader will doubtless notice many of their own deepest psychological experiences in there. A word of warning - don't try it if you've never read Woolf before. This is Woolf at her most abstract and esoteric. Try Mrs. Dalloway or Orlando first to get used to her style, then perhaps To The Lighthouse, before you try this. But for those who read the book with the right approach, the rewards are enormous, and indeed potentially life-changing.
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