Reviews - The Voyage Out | The StoryGraph

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369 reviews for:

The Voyage Out

Virginia Woolf

3.65 AVERAGE

chrissi's review against another edition

3.0

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

felicitousculex's review against another edition

4.0

reflective sad medium-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

violetdelightshavevioletends's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

geraldineleyendo's review against another edition

4.0

La novela está llena de personajes tan únicos que te sumergen en su dinámica social como pocos. Absolutamente todos tienen algo que aportar. Es una novela un tanto pesimista, pareciera que Woolf no cree demasiado en los finales felices. A veces da largas con los relatos descriptivos del entorno y cansa un tanto, pero en general consigue llevarte a esa realidad con mucha lucidez. A todas luces, una historia expresa sobre el amor y sutil sobre la identidad y personalidad.

samarakroeger's review against another edition

4.25

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Virginia Woolf's first novel is interesting because it adheres to the form of the 19th century novel but is forward looking in theme and discussion. It is a bridge between the literature of the past and her later, more well-known works.

The narration style and story arc are similar to what I would expect from Jane Austen mixed with George Eliot. I found it really easy to follow (especially in comparison with her more complex stream of consciousness works) and was waiting for her to brush off the past. Woolf soon does, after a brief stint featuring the celebrity appearances of Mr. and Mrs. Dalloway (thank god Richard Dalloway is not a major character in Mrs. Dalloway -- not a fan), the central characters embark on ~the voyage out~ across the Atlantic to an invented South American resort. Along the way, we fall into the various engagement-related plot beats you'd expect in Middlemarch while slowly but surely the characters unravel their staid notions and begin to properly question the shape of their lives and the rigidity of English society. The politics and sense of possibility are what places this firmly in the turn of the century, with significant discussion included on gender roles, religion, marriage, and sex.

Having the context of both what style of literature this was drawing upon and where Woolf later experimented and went to in terms of narrative style is important, I think, to properly appreciate it. I often forgot that I was reading a Woolf novel!

maeveaickin's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

"While Christ spoke they made another effort to fit his interpretation of life upon the lives they lived, but as they were all very different, some practical, some ambitious, some stupid, some wild and experimental, some in love, and others long past any feeling except a feeling of comfort, they did very different things with the words of Christ."