Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
Can't say you can know a lot about members of Bloomsbury group on whom the characters are based. The "he says" "she says" thingy to dkstinguish between thoughts of dedifferentiation characters was also a bit awkward. But prose is beautiful and lyrical as always with Woolf. And the best thing is characterisation. It is amazing how Woolf tells so much about her characters without giving any material facts about their life that normally form part of biographies - birth, family, spouse , children etc. Woolf looks past all that and only talks about individuals and what made the essence of their personality more than those material facts.
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Have you ever looked at someone and wondered, what is going on inside their head? Well, it seems like Virginia Woolf tries to answer that very same question with this book.
Being the Pirandello nerd that I am, this felt like Woolf’s version of Sei Personaggi in Cerca di Autore, but if Pirandello’s characters look for someone to tell their story so that they can live, these live without the need for a story, telling themselves only through their thoughts. From innocence and infancy to old age and death, a bildungsroman of the brain.
The book is a beautiful exploration of the mechanisms of the mind, split into different sensibilities and mindsets with one thing in common: dissatisfaction. Bernard looks for sense, Neville for beauty, Louis for perfection, Susan for peace, Jinny for fun, Rhoda for self. They are all after a goal, a purpose, happiness and contempt, but they fail: what Woolf seems to say is that ultimately we are all doomed to succumb to the innate melancholy of the human conscience, whatever we do to try and escape it.
As always, the author’s prose is mesmerisingly poetic, and I especially appreciated the parallels she built between the characters’ inner worlds and the outside one, through highly metaphorical natural descriptions. However, it is precisely the lyrical quality of the soliloquies which makes it difficult to follow the narrative, and though it surely fascinates the reader its abstract elements also leave them lost.
I love Virginia Woolf, but I will never cease to believe it takes a lot of brains to fully understand her work.
Being the Pirandello nerd that I am, this felt like Woolf’s version of Sei Personaggi in Cerca di Autore, but if Pirandello’s characters look for someone to tell their story so that they can live, these live without the need for a story, telling themselves only through their thoughts. From innocence and infancy to old age and death, a bildungsroman of the brain.
The book is a beautiful exploration of the mechanisms of the mind, split into different sensibilities and mindsets with one thing in common: dissatisfaction. Bernard looks for sense, Neville for beauty, Louis for perfection, Susan for peace, Jinny for fun, Rhoda for self. They are all after a goal, a purpose, happiness and contempt, but they fail: what Woolf seems to say is that ultimately we are all doomed to succumb to the innate melancholy of the human conscience, whatever we do to try and escape it.
As always, the author’s prose is mesmerisingly poetic, and I especially appreciated the parallels she built between the characters’ inner worlds and the outside one, through highly metaphorical natural descriptions. However, it is precisely the lyrical quality of the soliloquies which makes it difficult to follow the narrative, and though it surely fascinates the reader its abstract elements also leave them lost.
I love Virginia Woolf, but I will never cease to believe it takes a lot of brains to fully understand her work.
I had the embarrassing experience of realizing, part-way in, that not only had I read this novel before -- but that previous time reading it I figured out that I had read it before THAT. So my best guess is this is my third time submitting to these waves, and I still have very little to show for it. Ten years from now I'll pick it up once again like I've never seen it before. Or else by then I'll have finally admitted to myself that I've lost my fanaticism for Virginia Woolf.
challenging
emotional
reflective
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
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
not having read anything by woolf before, this really posed a bigger challenge to me than i ever expected. I've never read anything like this before, and reading this for the first time, I found myself at times forgetting to concentrate or, then again, trying too hard to "make sense" of the prose or narrativize it. I will absolutely return to this work one day, hopefully soon, because what I got out of it, in parts and fragments this time already was really special.
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"There is a sound like the knocking of railway trucks in a siding. That is the happy concatenation of one event following another in our lives. Knock, knock, knock. Must, must, must. Must go, must sleep, must wake, must get up - sober, merciful word which we pretend to revile, which we press tight to our hearts, without which we should be undone."
This is now my third time returning to this book in ten years. There is something so special about the look at how we are who we are through those closest to us.
I also think it's such a deep and specific look at differing personalities, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Rhoda (me) and Jinny (not me)
This is now my third time returning to this book in ten years. There is something so special about the look at how we are who we are through those closest to us.
I also think it's such a deep and specific look at differing personalities, I haven't been able to stop thinking about Rhoda (me) and Jinny (not me)
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Virginia woolf books take me forever to read
adventurous
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
This book is so beautifully crafted, Virginia Woolf is an extremely talented author !! the way she weaves so intricately the lives of 6 people around their shared experiences, their grief and their perception of each other, and how gradually they all change and merge into one another over the years is simply breathtaking. I dare say this has become one of my all time favourite books <3
But now I have not a moment to spare. There is no respite here, no shadow made of quivering leaves, or alcove to which one can retreat from the sun, to sit, with a lover, in the cool of the evening. The weight of the world is on our shoulders;