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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Well now. This is an aerobic little title indeed.
I didn't read so much as ROLL AROUND IN this. It's overwhelming, dense, surprising, familiar, overblown, but it's one of those reads you need to start over again once you finish.
Ostensibly monologues by seven characters who know each other from toddlerhood. They develop into adults and their characters either grow from, or are dragged along with. One is in love with nature, another terrified of herself and her life (Woolf, duh), one punctilious, one dead (not a spoiler, it's in all the dustjackets), and so on.
For those cursed with advanced degrees, it might be described as a series of Browning-like monologues with surprisingly similar internal tensions and self-revelations, not delivered to anyone in particular, or anyone at all, really, but that offer a subjective mapping of the group, and the others individually. It's like the UK movie Seven Up, which follows some English kids from the age of seven, in seven year intervals, until -- that are they up to 77 Up yet?
The chapters of the young men (I'm assuming Cambridge) might be confusing without the Baedeker of literary schools of the time. They're Aesthetes: you might want to read up on this before you think they're completely nuts.
Also, some direct references to TS Eliot: gasometers, that creepy urban anonymity, pettiness of certain aspects of domestic life -- mounting stairs, supercilious meals, speech which passes as haunted silences, clocks unwinding, &c. &c.
The last twenty or thirty pages might be cut some. Thank God that's not my job.
Get a new bottle of aspirin. Read it. And, oh yes, you won't think about your friends -- or your life quite the same again.
I didn't read so much as ROLL AROUND IN this. It's overwhelming, dense, surprising, familiar, overblown, but it's one of those reads you need to start over again once you finish.
Ostensibly monologues by seven characters who know each other from toddlerhood. They develop into adults and their characters either grow from, or are dragged along with. One is in love with nature, another terrified of herself and her life (Woolf, duh), one punctilious, one dead (not a spoiler, it's in all the dustjackets), and so on.
For those cursed with advanced degrees, it might be described as a series of Browning-like monologues with surprisingly similar internal tensions and self-revelations, not delivered to anyone in particular, or anyone at all, really, but that offer a subjective mapping of the group, and the others individually. It's like the UK movie Seven Up, which follows some English kids from the age of seven, in seven year intervals, until -- that are they up to 77 Up yet?
The chapters of the young men (I'm assuming Cambridge) might be confusing without the Baedeker of literary schools of the time. They're Aesthetes: you might want to read up on this before you think they're completely nuts.
Also, some direct references to TS Eliot: gasometers, that creepy urban anonymity, pettiness of certain aspects of domestic life -- mounting stairs, supercilious meals, speech which passes as haunted silences, clocks unwinding, &c. &c.
The last twenty or thirty pages might be cut some. Thank God that's not my job.
Get a new bottle of aspirin. Read it. And, oh yes, you won't think about your friends -- or your life quite the same again.
slow-paced
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
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
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I'd say that 80% of the reason I started a Virginia Woolf book club was so that I could re-read this one with a group of friends. Here Woolf follows a group of six friends from their early childhood through old age, but what we see are their thoughts, impressions, and inner workings, with just a hint of what is happening in their outside life. Much like Mrs. Dalloway, reading this again when you are in your mid-40s makes the book hit a lot differently than it did when I was in my early 20s. The chapter in their young adulthood where the characters react to their idolized school friend Percival's death is one of the most affecting and accurate descriptions of grieving that I've ever read, and it brought back my own first brush with death as a young adult (love you, Carlos) with an unexpected gut punch. Not Woolf's easiest read, but one of her most rewarding. Stick with it for the final chapter with Bernard which is one of the best things I've ever read.
[Also working on a The Waves is the Breakfast Club theory -- Rhoda is obviously Ally Sheedy and Jinny is definitely Molly Ringwald. Still need to flesh out the rest of this hypothesis....]
[Also working on a The Waves is the Breakfast Club theory -- Rhoda is obviously Ally Sheedy and Jinny is definitely Molly Ringwald. Still need to flesh out the rest of this hypothesis....]
As eloquent and insightful as Virginia Woolf always is. Note to self, though: please reread this book! It feels like it takes a good 100 pages or so to get the feel for this writing, and there’s so much I miss at the beginning...
Honestly though, I wish I could write like this. I had so many moments of “Gosh, I can’t believe someone else has had this exact thought and put it into writing so perfectly!” - it feels like Virginia Woolf dares put into writing the most simple and yet utterly truthful revelations, something I find very few other writers do. Her writing makes me feel less alone; it makes me feel human. It’s incredible that this was written almost a century ago.
Honestly though, I wish I could write like this. I had so many moments of “Gosh, I can’t believe someone else has had this exact thought and put it into writing so perfectly!” - it feels like Virginia Woolf dares put into writing the most simple and yet utterly truthful revelations, something I find very few other writers do. Her writing makes me feel less alone; it makes me feel human. It’s incredible that this was written almost a century ago.