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4.21 AVERAGE
4.21 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
fast-paced
What a terribly difficult book this was to rate!! Certainly the best elements here are the mixed-genrefication of the traditional lecture/genre form; the collaborative and/or elusive literary “I” narrator who is also three Marys (a cool allusion btw); the brilliant argument about the ties between financial independence/material reality and intellectual freedom; and even the way the very first word frames the entire work as some kind of mid-discourse interjected response to the listeners/reader.
Virginia Woolf is all talent in a skin-suit. I spent much of the books grappling with the sociopolitical implications of her statements, delineating where I agreed and where I found fault, and yet never did a page pass without beautiful language, beautiful symbolism, beautiful comedic inserts, beautiful fiction, beautiful complication of the narrator, beautiful something. What she writes is just so STYLISH!!
Ultimately, the final pages are great redemption for any failing in the argument itself. She, in fact, indicates hope that the reader has been determining their stance on the argument, stating that “in a question like this truth is only to be had by laying together many varieties of error” which is such a beautiful (always beautiful) way to put value on discourse in delineating social realities.
My only qualm with this work is the meandering nature of it. I recognize the value as part of the un-lecturing of these lectures, perhaps even the feminization or a masculine form of communication, but it didn’t always work for me. I was also a bit startled at times by how intensely she would criticize specific major writers, not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly some intense callouts, particularly of the female writers she claims as our great heritage.
Also, it’s good to know that if I’m ever at an interdimensional dinner party with Woolf, we can fawn over Austen together.
Virginia Woolf is all talent in a skin-suit. I spent much of the books grappling with the sociopolitical implications of her statements, delineating where I agreed and where I found fault, and yet never did a page pass without beautiful language, beautiful symbolism, beautiful comedic inserts, beautiful fiction, beautiful complication of the narrator, beautiful something. What she writes is just so STYLISH!!
Ultimately, the final pages are great redemption for any failing in the argument itself. She, in fact, indicates hope that the reader has been determining their stance on the argument, stating that “in a question like this truth is only to be had by laying together many varieties of error” which is such a beautiful (always beautiful) way to put value on discourse in delineating social realities.
My only qualm with this work is the meandering nature of it. I recognize the value as part of the un-lecturing of these lectures, perhaps even the feminization or a masculine form of communication, but it didn’t always work for me. I was also a bit startled at times by how intensely she would criticize specific major writers, not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly some intense callouts, particularly of the female writers she claims as our great heritage.
Also, it’s good to know that if I’m ever at an interdimensional dinner party with Woolf, we can fawn over Austen together.
It is true that patriarchy seems to have tendency to drowned every masterpiece that could have been surfaced at that time. Even as of today, women still feel (so) unsafe and unsure to create their own space because the normalization of society whom separated women from their own desires. Therefore, "Women have always been poor since the beginning of time, had less intellectual freedom, not a dog's chance of writing poetry, therefore I laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own."
reflective
slow-paced
After settling into her stream-of-consciousness cadence, I felt like I was sat with a hot cup of coffee sitting across from her at a coffee shop while she argued passionately for the equality of women, and, more specifically, why women need these fundamental freedoms to be just as creative as men. An engrossing read that really lit a fire under my ass. Will be reading more Woolf!
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
Took a sec to get in to, but I enjoyed! Want to read one of her novels next
inspiring
reflective