A review by readingoverbreathing
A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf

5.0

"At any rate when a subject is highly controversial — and any question about sex is that — one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold."

Every time I pick up something new by [a:Virginia Woolf|6765|Virginia Woolf|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1419596619p2/6765.jpg], I am left just more and more in awe of her. No one in the English language writes like she does. No one. The rhythm of her sentences, her choice of words, the flow from paragraph to paragraph — the only way I can describe it is that it's like sitting in the ocean just past the point where the waves break for a long, long time, so long that when you return to the shore you still have that phantom feeling of the water's rocking, ebbing lull about you.

I've read a few essays of Woolf's here and there in my studies as an English student, but before this I hadn't really sat down and read any of her nonfiction in its entirety. I am so glad, however, that I finally did. A Room of One's Own blew me away. I don't think I've ever read anything so well-written in my entire life. I don't know if I ever will again. And I don't know how I've gone for so long, as a student, as a reader, as a woman, without reading this. Anyone, especially any woman, who cares at all about fiction, or even who cares about the place of women in society, ought to read A Room of One's Own. I'll recommend this book now until I die.

Three Guineas I did love less — it's a lot of the same themes, but centered around war rather than fiction, which naturally meant it didn't quite appeal to me as much. But still, Woolf's talent as a writer, the only talent that honestly matters to me anymore, cannot be denied. She's not only a phenomenal writer overall, but is also a gifted essay writer, which, as anyone who has ever undertaken a university degree knows, is quite admirable. Her arguments are brilliant and brilliantly-executed; every time it appeared she'd gone on a tangent, she would suddenly slam home some genius point and leave you totally speechless.

I haven't sticky-tabbed a book like this in years; it took me probably twice as long to read this as it normally would have because I kept having to stop and mark things. That fact alone tells you just how very much I loved this book.