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A review by smuds2
The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
3.0
Probably my least favorite VW book to date. There were a couple of things that seemed like they'd be interesting to dive into on a second read -- the value of marriage, the value of the individual, displacement of social structures, etc.
The passages written in delirium were TOP notch. Really liked them. They reminded me of what we would see later in VW's career. I felt like the rest of the writing was... good. But not great. Not what I expected in terms of quality. I feel like it's a testament to VW to say that most of the book is just okay and perfectly passable, for a first book.
There is obviously the issue of how both VW and the characters treat the native population of the community. As far as I can tell - there is just no way to spin it to have VW be like, an indigenous rights queen. She was just bad. Same with how she treated Indian people in this novel.
The initial voyage was very destabilizing, and I'm not sure that was the point. Is this supposed to be like, some tragic reversal of a male coming of age novel? And the voyage is kind of the equivalent of a man losing his initial sense of place or something? Thinking to how cormac mccarthys protagonist just kind of travelled to mexico - losing his sense of place (with agency), at the start of his adventure. Here -- Rachael was kind of dragged along as a child, despite being an adult -- maybe that was the parallel? That might be consistent with the ending -- a coming of age for a man can be heroic. For a woman, it can only end in misery.
It was a very character driven story, which is not exactly a good thing because IMO the characters aren't that strong. Helen is a bit likable -- Helen of Troy? husband translating Pindar? Anyways. Hewet is annoying, Hirst is annoying, Rachael is a blob. Evelyn is interesting, if not likable.
The passages written in delirium were TOP notch. Really liked them. They reminded me of what we would see later in VW's career. I felt like the rest of the writing was... good. But not great. Not what I expected in terms of quality. I feel like it's a testament to VW to say that most of the book is just okay and perfectly passable, for a first book.
There is obviously the issue of how both VW and the characters treat the native population of the community. As far as I can tell - there is just no way to spin it to have VW be like, an indigenous rights queen. She was just bad. Same with how she treated Indian people in this novel.
The initial voyage was very destabilizing, and I'm not sure that was the point. Is this supposed to be like, some tragic reversal of a male coming of age novel? And the voyage is kind of the equivalent of a man losing his initial sense of place or something? Thinking to how cormac mccarthys protagonist just kind of travelled to mexico - losing his sense of place (with agency), at the start of his adventure. Here -- Rachael was kind of dragged along as a child, despite being an adult -- maybe that was the parallel? That might be consistent with the ending -- a coming of age for a man can be heroic. For a woman, it can only end in misery.
It was a very character driven story, which is not exactly a good thing because IMO the characters aren't that strong. Helen is a bit likable -- Helen of Troy? husband translating Pindar? Anyways. Hewet is annoying, Hirst is annoying, Rachael is a blob. Evelyn is interesting, if not likable.