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A review by daytonm
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
4.0
Virginia Woolf, 1938: "I can't believe any human being can get through Night and Day."
Well, I got through this 1919 novel--and quite enjoyed it! It's definitely too long and the ending was somewhat disappointing, but the characters are engaging and the prose often beautiful. (Not beautiful in the way that To the Lighthouse or The Waves are beautiful--this is only her second novel, and she's not yet at the height of her powers--but still, she can write.)
I found myself deeply invested in at least one of the novel's two main love triangles (it's effectively one big love pentagon), but even more compelling are the ways the novel's young people do and don't challenge the mores of the era, Mary's political commitments and Katherine's yearning for a romantic and social life that go beyond the stale, rigidly gendered codes she had been trained to see as the only right way of doing things.
Well, I got through this 1919 novel--and quite enjoyed it! It's definitely too long and the ending was somewhat disappointing, but the characters are engaging and the prose often beautiful. (Not beautiful in the way that To the Lighthouse or The Waves are beautiful--this is only her second novel, and she's not yet at the height of her powers--but still, she can write.)
I found myself deeply invested in at least one of the novel's two main love triangles (it's effectively one big love pentagon), but even more compelling are the ways the novel's young people do and don't challenge the mores of the era, Mary's political commitments and Katherine's yearning for a romantic and social life that go beyond the stale, rigidly gendered codes she had been trained to see as the only right way of doing things.