A review by flybyreader
Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf

 

There must be some authors in your life that you have a kind of love and hate relationship, occasionally fascinated and frustrated but keep reading all the same. 

This is my troublesome relationship with Virgina Woolf. I absolutely love her nonfiction books, fell in love with some of her fiction novels including Orlando and Mrs. Dalloway but cannot make peace with her other times. This did not really work out for me, either. 

 

Between the Acts is her final novel published posthumously by her husband and this edition includes a detailed introduction. The novel takes place in a village, whose inhabitants are preparing a pageant to display on stage. Everybody gathers around, talks about their roles, reading, acting, preparing while on the background there are subtle hints to the war that is going on. Well, the show must go on no matter what right? The play covers a mixed time period in the history of England, so lines were quite elaborate for me to fully digest. The whole preparation and staging process progresses too slowly for my taste as is usual for Woolf. Time stops in this little village where nothing other than the pageant talk is going on, everything happens in a day or a year I have no idea. The narrative was too modernist and filled with sub-meanings and attributions that I could not fully comprehend it. Unfortunately not a very pleasurable reading experience for me. I haven’t given up all my hopes for Woolf yet but I guess I will stick to her short essays and nonfiction.