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hazelslate's review against another edition
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
buffalomj's review against another edition
2.0
I love Virginia Woolf. I am in awe of her ability to weave in and out of people's consciousnesses as easily as she does (and in fact she pioneered the stream of consciousness writing style). To the Lighthouse, Mrs Dalloway, and The Waves have remained in my favorite books lists for ages.
And yet, I did not care too much for The Voyage Out. I can absolutely see Woolf's trademark poetic novel begin to take shapes here, and knowing how vastly improved her writing gets over the course of a lifetime is inspiring, but by itself The Voyage Out is immensely forgettable and I would recommend skipping it unless you are (like me) a hardcore Woolf fan.
For starters, the characters here are so bland and tasteless that I could not keep track of them at all. At one point, another character looks at someone and says something like "The two Hirsts" because he (she?) cannot tell them apart himself. That kind of commentary from the author is damning.
Another thing, the book was far longer than it needed to be. Woolf spends pages and pages on minute events. And where it becomes poignant and satirical in a novel like Mrs Dalloway, here it stretches out what could have been a 150 page novel into a 350 page monster.
That's not to say that nothing is gained from reading The Voyage Out. It says some really interesting things about marriage and happiness. The role of women in society is an early theme in Woolf's writing. You also get the uncomfortable feeling that Woolf might be racist with this novel. (I honestly don't know her thoughts on race, but it is something that I'm going to look up now -- there were a few too many references to the savage ways of the locals.)
As far as first novels go, Woolf really hits this out of the park. But reading this after some of her most poetic and powerful later novels, The Voyage Out falls a little below par.
And yet, I did not care too much for The Voyage Out. I can absolutely see Woolf's trademark poetic novel begin to take shapes here, and knowing how vastly improved her writing gets over the course of a lifetime is inspiring, but by itself The Voyage Out is immensely forgettable and I would recommend skipping it unless you are (like me) a hardcore Woolf fan.
For starters, the characters here are so bland and tasteless that I could not keep track of them at all. At one point, another character looks at someone and says something like "The two Hirsts" because he (she?) cannot tell them apart himself. That kind of commentary from the author is damning.
Another thing, the book was far longer than it needed to be. Woolf spends pages and pages on minute events. And where it becomes poignant and satirical in a novel like Mrs Dalloway, here it stretches out what could have been a 150 page novel into a 350 page monster.
That's not to say that nothing is gained from reading The Voyage Out. It says some really interesting things about marriage and happiness. The role of women in society is an early theme in Woolf's writing. You also get the uncomfortable feeling that Woolf might be racist with this novel. (I honestly don't know her thoughts on race, but it is something that I'm going to look up now -- there were a few too many references to the savage ways of the locals.)
As far as first novels go, Woolf really hits this out of the park. But reading this after some of her most poetic and powerful later novels, The Voyage Out falls a little below par.
clempaulsen's review against another edition
2.0
The first novel.
The model is the three-volume victorian work -- there are imitations of Dickens, and others. It's not of much interested unless you're interested in Woolf herself.
Many of the water effects, of ships steaming through fog, being onboard, the stuffy steward, &c.
Too much, and too little little per chapter for the casual reader, I'm guessing.
kristykay22's review against another edition
4.0
I love Virginia Woolf so much that I have invented a book club where we will read all her books, in chronological order. Just read these sentences and tell me you don't want to read everything this woman has written:
"And now the room was dim and quiet, and beautiful silent people passed through it, to whom you could go and say anything you liked. She felt herself amazingly secure as she sat in her arm-chair, and able to review not only the night of the dance, but the entire past, tenderly and humorously, as if she had been turning in a fog for a long time, and could now see exactly where she had turned. For the methods by which she had reached her present position, seemed to her very strange, and the strangest thing about them was that she had not known where they were leading her. That was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living." (p. 354)
The Voyage Out is first on the list, and it's one I hadn't read before. Telling the story of a married couple and their 24-year-old niece who take a boat from England to South America (with Mr. and Mrs. Dalloway!) for a holiday and there meet a hotel full of English folk. Various relationships start and stop and some exciting things happen, but most of the action is observational and interior. The central section of the book in particular had a Women in Love quality to me (with much less sex and frantic melodrama), but that faded a bit as the story moved to focus on Rachel, the niece, and Terence, who has fallen in love with her. This is Woolf's first novel and was heavily revised and edited before its release -- a reconstruction of the original manuscript has been published as Melymbrosia (the original title) and I'm keen to read that one and see a more radical view of these fascinating characters.
Novel #1 did not disappoint!
"And now the room was dim and quiet, and beautiful silent people passed through it, to whom you could go and say anything you liked. She felt herself amazingly secure as she sat in her arm-chair, and able to review not only the night of the dance, but the entire past, tenderly and humorously, as if she had been turning in a fog for a long time, and could now see exactly where she had turned. For the methods by which she had reached her present position, seemed to her very strange, and the strangest thing about them was that she had not known where they were leading her. That was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living." (p. 354)
The Voyage Out is first on the list, and it's one I hadn't read before. Telling the story of a married couple and their 24-year-old niece who take a boat from England to South America (with Mr. and Mrs. Dalloway!) for a holiday and there meet a hotel full of English folk. Various relationships start and stop and some exciting things happen, but most of the action is observational and interior. The central section of the book in particular had a Women in Love quality to me (with much less sex and frantic melodrama), but that faded a bit as the story moved to focus on Rachel, the niece, and Terence, who has fallen in love with her. This is Woolf's first novel and was heavily revised and edited before its release -- a reconstruction of the original manuscript has been published as Melymbrosia (the original title) and I'm keen to read that one and see a more radical view of these fascinating characters.
Novel #1 did not disappoint!
amerynth's review against another edition
2.0
I really didn't enjoy reading Virginia Woolf's debut novel, "The Voyage Out." I just found it incredibly boring... I could only read a few pages at a time before I fell asleep. I didn't connect with any of the characters- none felt particularly realistic nor interesting.
The book more or less follows the story of Rachel Vinrace, a young woman who has lived a sheltered life with her aunts. She gets out into the world and starts learning about herself and others. There are a ton of characters who are living in a hotel who populate much of the book.
The novel did help me appreciate Woolf's later more experimental novels a bit more-- if this is where she started, it's amazing where she ended up. Ultimately, Woolf is just not an author I really enjoy reading, despite feeling like I really should like her work.
The book more or less follows the story of Rachel Vinrace, a young woman who has lived a sheltered life with her aunts. She gets out into the world and starts learning about herself and others. There are a ton of characters who are living in a hotel who populate much of the book.
The novel did help me appreciate Woolf's later more experimental novels a bit more-- if this is where she started, it's amazing where she ended up. Ultimately, Woolf is just not an author I really enjoy reading, despite feeling like I really should like her work.
paigemcloughlin's review against another edition
5.0
Virginia Woolf's early work with many of the modernist seeds seen in later works a beautiful story so lush in the stream of consciousness writing that it literally generated images in my mind's eye as I read it. I really enjoy her work.
Update 7/14/2021
two scenes from this book haunt me (the rainforest scene which is the romantic climax and Rachel playing the piano for the guests at the hotel). They are images I won't shake and Woolf must understand delirium and psychosis she describes it so realistically. She has been there.
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following reviews
READING PROGRESS
November 3, 2020 – Started Reading
November 4, 2020 – Finished Reading
November 27, 2020 – Shelved
November 27, 2020 – Shelved as: to-read
Update 7/14/2021
two scenes from this book haunt me (the rainforest scene which is the romantic climax and Rachel playing the piano for the guests at the hotel). They are images I won't shake and Woolf must understand delirium and psychosis she describes it so realistically. She has been there.
1 like · Like ∙ flag
following reviews
READING PROGRESS
November 3, 2020 – Started Reading
November 4, 2020 – Finished Reading
November 27, 2020 – Shelved
November 27, 2020 – Shelved as: to-read
jennyyates's review against another edition
0.5
This is a romance, set in some imaginary South American seaside resort, and it’s full of beautiful images. Woolf is a master of atmosphere. But while it’s romantic, it’s never sentimental. You can imagine Woolf considering how different emotional states really feel, as opposed to how we’re all programmed to feel. Many of her characters have this kind of self-consciousness, questioning everything. Others rely on habit and expectation.
The story is a simple one. It begins in London, with the main characters boarding a ship, the Euphrosyne. Rachel is the daughter of the ship’s owner, and Helen, her aunt, spontaneously asks her to come along to her villa in Santa Marina. She’s rather amazed by Rachel’s lack of knowledge of the world around her. (Mr. and Mrs. Dalloway show up briefly on shipboard, with Mr. Dalloway impetuously making a pass at Rachel.)
In Santa Marina, there’s a hotel full of mostly British tourists, and the villa-dwellers and the hotel denizens start to do things together. They have dances and excursions, and we see their English sense of propriety, their social discomfort, and their longing for some kind of community. Two young men, St. John Hirst, a rather snobbish scholar, and Terrence Hewet, a writer, form a friendship, and both of them are attracted to Rachel. It’s Terrence who can really talk to her, accepting her as she is, and the bond between them grows, although neither of them really know what to do about it at first. When they finally both acknowledge it, it’s a given that they will be married.
The novel ends powerfully, with Rachel contracting an illness. Woolf writes intensely and clearly about the way personal trauma affects these young people, who are already somewhat untethered in the world.
Some quotes:
< In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded, eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it is better not to be very tall, to wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the air with your left hand. >
< They had left London sitting on its mud. A very thin line of shadow tapered on the horizon, scarcely thick enough to stand the burden of Paris, which nevertheless rested upon it. >
< In the glass she wore an expression of tense melancholy, for she had come to the depressing conclusion, since the arrival of the Dalloways, that her face was not the face she wanted, and in all probability never would be. >
< Men and women sought different corners where they could lie unobserved, and from two to four it might be said without exaggeration that the hotel was inhabited by bodies without souls. Disastrous would have been the result if a fire or a death had suddenly demanded something heroic of human nature, but tragedies come in the hungry hours. Towards four o’clock the human spirit again began to lick the body, as a flame licks a black promontory of coal. >
< Looking up, her eye was caught by the line of the mountains flying out energetically across the sky like the lash of a curling whip. >
< “What is it to be in love?” she demanded, after a long silence; each word as it came into being seemed to shove itself out into an unknown sea. Hypnotized by the wings of the butterfly, and awed by the discovery of a terrible possibility in life, she sat for some time longer. When the butterfly flew away, she rose, and with her two books beneath her arm returned home again, much as a soldier prepared for battle. >
< As they passed into the depths of the forest the light grew dimmer, and the noises of the ordinary world were replaced by those creaking and sighing sounds which suggest to the traveler in a forest that he is walking at the bottom of the sea. >
mescalero_at_bat's review against another edition
5.0
it's kind of hard to believe that this is virginia woolf's first novel. it's possible i avoided investing in it over the years because of it - which is weird, because i tend to like exploring the first film or book by an artist who i admire - and to say that i admire virginia woolf would be understating.
it's not so much the what happens, although what happens is interesting, especially looking at the english views of indigenous life in south america - but it's the inner lives of the characters and the depth of perception that woolf brings that is the hallmark of her work. and with all of that, after so much happening, it was amazing to see how she chose to end the book (i won't give anything away, but just WOW).
and so i think i've read all the novels now, all the diaries, most of the letters and most all of the non-fiction prose. woolf might be an acquired taste, because she tends to examine a very particular society at a very particular era, but if you get past the "otherness" of her perspectives, there is a treasure chest of literature waiting for you. her range of style is intrinsically linked to her subjects, and her ability to see into human consciousness and perception is what brings me back again and again.
it's not so much the what happens, although what happens is interesting, especially looking at the english views of indigenous life in south america - but it's the inner lives of the characters and the depth of perception that woolf brings that is the hallmark of her work. and with all of that, after so much happening, it was amazing to see how she chose to end the book (i won't give anything away, but just WOW).
and so i think i've read all the novels now, all the diaries, most of the letters and most all of the non-fiction prose. woolf might be an acquired taste, because she tends to examine a very particular society at a very particular era, but if you get past the "otherness" of her perspectives, there is a treasure chest of literature waiting for you. her range of style is intrinsically linked to her subjects, and her ability to see into human consciousness and perception is what brings me back again and again.
aseatbelt's review against another edition
This was my first read of this book and I personally do not feel equipped to discuss Rachel. However, Mrs. Ambrose is the WORST kind of woman in my opinion (again this is my first time reading this so if you disagree that’s fine, I may change my mind in the future). Mrs. Ambrose hates other women for being women. Hewet is also the worst, but I like him as a character. Hirst (and my man… thank you to my man) is the most lovely little guy. He just wants to know things and feel love, but not the “get married, have children” love that everyone else wants. He just wants true, genuine, earth-shattering, real, emotional love.
I find myself feeling the need to reiterate that this is only my first time reading this book. SO MUCH happens throughout this story that I may have missed or misinterpreted certain plot points or narratives which is a fault of mine that I can only fix by re-reading this book.
However, my stance on Evelyn is held with much conviction. Justice for my girl Evelyn M. She’s a manic pixie dream girl before manic pixie dream girls existed. It is NOT her fault that she is beautiful and it is NOT her fault that she is extraverted and enjoys forging friendships. She finds a likeness to Hewet because he is the only one who did not fall in love with her and that’s only because Hewet was in love with Rachel.
Hopefully you now understand that Evelyn was my favorite character. I loved reading her dialogue. Don’t get me wrong I loved all of the dialogue in this book. I think each character (and there were A LOT of them) had their very distinct personalities and voices that came through. Props to Virginia Woolf for being able to do this not only with the main characters but also the characters that were small and/or short-lived (haha get it… short-lived… iykyk).
I find myself feeling the need to reiterate that this is only my first time reading this book. SO MUCH happens throughout this story that I may have missed or misinterpreted certain plot points or narratives which is a fault of mine that I can only fix by re-reading this book.
However, my stance on Evelyn is held with much conviction. Justice for my girl Evelyn M. She’s a manic pixie dream girl before manic pixie dream girls existed. It is NOT her fault that she is beautiful and it is NOT her fault that she is extraverted and enjoys forging friendships. She finds a likeness to Hewet because he is the only one who did not fall in love with her and that’s only because Hewet was in love with Rachel.
Hopefully you now understand that Evelyn was my favorite character. I loved reading her dialogue. Don’t get me wrong I loved all of the dialogue in this book. I think each character (and there were A LOT of them) had their very distinct personalities and voices that came through. Props to Virginia Woolf for being able to do this not only with the main characters but also the characters that were small and/or short-lived (haha get it… short-lived… iykyk).
callmeamelia's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75