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A review by emilyjessica
A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf
4.0
Unsure about this rating - at times I wanted to give it 4 and at times I was leaning to the low end of 3. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt here (and it ended on a rather good note, so that's what's in my head).
A Room of One's Own, on women and fiction embodied a lot of what I feel, and much of it was still relevant to today, if updated to [modern media]. Little too heavy on the Austen love, but I understood the reasons for (and that in itself is a good reason for a high-ish rating, 'cause I hate Pride and Prejudice with a passion that is possibly misplaced but nonetheless strong. But LOOOOOVE talk about women having a different kind and way of a story to tell, and this is the bit that I have been applying to both books and modern media.
Three Guineas was going to bring it down more, but like I said it ended well. Kinda long, repetitive. Some parts that I genuinely smile during though. Certain little bits and passages seemed so familiar, for various reasons. A decent amount of them were ideas that I have seen further developed in later feminist theory, which was neat 'cause I'm a nerd in that way that I like to see the development of ideas. Other bits were familiar in less delightful ways in that the difficulties they discussed still exist today in largely unchanged ways, and it's sad to see the lack of progress. But that doesn't make the book bad, not her fault there's still idiots out there.
Some bits made me angry because she was a little hard on women, or took things to be much more essential than I think they are - but I believe that has more to do with the state of feminism at that time and that existentialist discussion was not strong. Oh, but she doesn't like the word 'feminism.' I get that people don't (not those idiots who say they're not feminists because it has a bad rap, but people who genuinely feel the term needs refining (aka people who have actually thought about it)), but I didn't feel there was sufficient reason given in the text. We can agree to disagree on that point, Virginia.
A Room of One's Own, on women and fiction embodied a lot of what I feel, and much of it was still relevant to today, if updated to [modern media]. Little too heavy on the Austen love, but I understood the reasons for (and that in itself is a good reason for a high-ish rating, 'cause I hate Pride and Prejudice with a passion that is possibly misplaced but nonetheless strong. But LOOOOOVE talk about women having a different kind and way of a story to tell, and this is the bit that I have been applying to both books and modern media.
Three Guineas was going to bring it down more, but like I said it ended well. Kinda long, repetitive. Some parts that I genuinely smile during though. Certain little bits and passages seemed so familiar, for various reasons. A decent amount of them were ideas that I have seen further developed in later feminist theory, which was neat 'cause I'm a nerd in that way that I like to see the development of ideas. Other bits were familiar in less delightful ways in that the difficulties they discussed still exist today in largely unchanged ways, and it's sad to see the lack of progress. But that doesn't make the book bad, not her fault there's still idiots out there.
Some bits made me angry because she was a little hard on women, or took things to be much more essential than I think they are - but I believe that has more to do with the state of feminism at that time and that existentialist discussion was not strong. Oh, but she doesn't like the word 'feminism.' I get that people don't (not those idiots who say they're not feminists because it has a bad rap, but people who genuinely feel the term needs refining (aka people who have actually thought about it)), but I didn't feel there was sufficient reason given in the text. We can agree to disagree on that point, Virginia.