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Virginia Woolf tested the boundaries of fiction in these short stories, developing a new language of sensation, feeling and thought, and recreating in words the 'swarm and confusion of life'. Defying categorization, the stories range from the more traditional narrative style of "Solid Objects" through the fragile impressionism of "Kew Gardens" to the abstract exploration of consciousness in "The Mark on the Wall". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

pure style - beautiful, fresh and vivid
Those short writings are not only a stepstone in modern literature history, they are a manifest.

For the first time the purely sensual sensitivity of an intellectual woman is not only the form but also the real underlying subject of her writing, of which the apparent, tangible subjects become only secondary. Yet there is always an harmonious blend between subject and form. Virginia Woolf wants to stand for female sensitivity: to succeed in making the reader (even male readers) feel how apparently unimportant things can become the most important things to a particular individual. It constantly wanders on the borderline between musing and tangibility. Her language is still beautiful, fresh and vivid. (Even non-English readers should read it in English if possible.) Such style has inspired many writers ever since, but reading this one book is going back to the roots, and realizing than even though she's inspired hundreds, she remains one utter master of the genre.

unexplained succession of very good stories
The main problem with books of Selected material is that the criterion for the choice of stories/poems often appearsto be random and is at best left unexplained. This is the case of this selection of short stories by Virginia Woolf. Nevertheless, the careful editor (whose valuable notes at the end of the book somehow compensate for this) does suggest something which becomes clear from detained surveyance of the stories: all of those which were published within Monday or Tuesday in 1921 seem to be related in the theme of the end of the Great War.

"A Haunted House" is inspired by the house in which the Woolfs spent weekends and holidays before and during the War. It is mostly a sentimental account of a writer's relationship with her dwelling: "What did I come in here for"?, "What did I want to find?"

"A Society" is perhaps the story in the collection most directly concerned with the War. The shock of the outbreak of the War is reflected in the women's society's pursuit of enquiry into the world of men. The symbolic importance of the War is played down in the women's flippant project and their final optimistic decision to believe in the value and persistence of female intuitiveness and continue to hope for the future. Nevertheless, deeper questions are addressed here, such as the issue of the actual relationship betweenthe militaristic elements of our democratic societies and the artistic and cultural elites (it seems to be implied that they go together, and the mission of the women in this little story is to discover the meaning of this mysterious alliance). By turning inwards, the woman-as-authors finds a source of strength, moral and aesthetic, and somehow detached from or indifferent to those worldly (and manly) bellicose pursuits. We must remember that Virginia Woolf was, above all things, an elitist, and this results in her ability to hold herself outside and above world affairs with such grace as this.

"Monday or Tuesday", which gives its meaning to the book of tales, is another little sketch on the writing craft, or of writing in the midst of other things: natural, mechanical, spiritual... all these elements both threaten and inspire the author's imagination.

"An Unwritten Novel" is another exploration of the meanings of life and literature. Literature is seen as a divergent way of approaching the reading of life - as opposed to newspapers' accounts - but yet in deep, though still fully unaccountable agreement with the mechanics of life and history. The whole of reality is seen to be life's text, to be read and interpreted by the inspired author, though with a threat to his/her sanity. The optimist about the continuity of life after the Great War is asserted despite the psychic and moral threat that it supposed to Western Civilization; the survival of the life of the imagination is the best testimony that there are grounds for hope, and if offers spiritual comfort to the author.

"The String Quartet" is an original exposition of the bittersweet persistence of superficial, glitzy enjoyments (a concert at Regent Street) in a world barely recovered from the recent violent conflict: ""If indeed it's true, as they're saying, that Regent Street is up, and the Treaty signed..." Woolf never ceases to wonder at the manic contrapositions between war news and entertainment news and news on illness or housing prices and weather news, etc all in the same report. As a character explains towards the end, it is "Mad! Mad! Mad!" When mixing up with the frivolities of the wider world, the characters seem to lose that sense of repose and surety that made the Conflict at least bearable from the perspective of retired, studious life.

"Blue and Green" is a little experimental piece which according to S. P. Rosenbaum in English Literature and British Philosophy (1971) is an exercise in the rendering of consciousness which is related to the philosopher G. E. Moore's essay "The Refutation of Idealism" (1903).

"Kew Gardens" was included in Monday or Tuesday but had been originally published by the Hogarth Press in 1919. The Woolfs had moved to Richmond in 1914, and the Royal Botanic Gardens soon became a favourite walk. The story is a contraposition of the human and natural worlds in which the mixing of the two results in the highlighting of human aimlessness and the conscientousness of nature. In other words, the richness and variety of nature, even of nature within the midst of a noisy, mechanised city, is not too dissimilar from the mysterious purposefulness of human destinies.

"The Mark on the Wall" dwells on the theme of the artist craft, on the ritual of writing and the difficulty to find concentration, to discover the threads from which a fiction may be pulled through. It is also a very important story because it constitutes a full account of the heralding of a new way of writing, of the twentieth-century style of writing: "Suppose the looking-glass smashes, the image disappears, and the romantic figure ... is there no longer". This way Woolf explains her own formal experiments with the novel, the disappearance of both metaphor and description to give way to "reflection" and a defamiliarisation of the real, or its appropriation for artistic purposes. "And the novelists in future will realize more and more the importance of these reflections, for of course there is not one reflection but an almost infinite number; those are the depths they will explore, those the phantoms they will pursue, leaving the description of reality more and more out of their stories, taking a knowledge of it for granted, as the Greeks did and Shakespeare perhaps..."

"Solid Objects" is the first of the stories in this selection that did not appear in Monday or Tuesday, and this is apparent in its clear thematic divergence. The story is a penetrating warning on the dangers of a solipsistic abstraction from politics and life. Through the story of a mind haunted by the riddle of the accidental in life, we are shown how the artistic world of forms may lead to unfertile alienation, despite the apparent intellectual rewards, if one's motivation is an obsessive sense of philosophical ambition which puts us at odds with our everyday life. The man in this story is preoccupied by the inexplicable curiosity of form - his own form, ultimately, and his sense of purpose in life end up being crushed under the extensive system of inquiry that he develops.

"In the Orchard" consists of a three-perspective narration of a story with virtually no plot but plenty of impressionistic detailling.

"A Woman's College from Outside" tells of a young woman (nineteen years old) at college in Cambridge who experiences the beauty of the world in a sensual night whose odours mix with her ideal memories of Bamborough Castle. If nothing, it could be considered as an ellaborate, delicately woven parody of the author's own narcissistic erotism and elitism.

"The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection" dwells on the nature of our own selves as constituting a reflection of the things that we surround ourselves with in our lives. Our objects and possessions may be more or less imbued with meaning depending of our own capacity to hold love inside.

"The Shooting Party" is another crafty parody, this time of country house life.

"The Duchess and the Jeweller" deals with the theme of the real or genuine versus the counterfeit. The jeweller, himself a counterfeit in upper class society, has not the moral right to question the value of the jewells that the duchess pretends to sell to him at a very high price.

Finally, "Lappin and Lappinova" is about the breakdown of a marriage, or male easy disaffection with the childish feminine imagination which despite its apparent unimportance might have held the marriage together.

The selection leaves us with a sense of unanswered questions, since the stories's themes glide from the big issues in the early ponderations on the shock of World War I to the denial of the previous celebration of the imagination in "Solid Objects" and then the flippant little parodies that appear towards the end. The "Introduction" by the editor tries to redress this lack of balance by reminding us of the creative craft in The Waves, a sure proof of the persistence of the author's belief in art over time.

... Read more

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With grace and style, noted Woolf critic and biographer Julia Briggs reconsiders the author's work from imaginative and unexpected angles, spanning her early fiction experiments to her late short story "The Symbol" and from the most to the least familiar of her novels, such as the neglectedNight and Day.

Briggs investigates links between Woolf and writers like Byron and Shakespeare, her fascination with transitional places and moments, her ambivalent attitudes toward "Englishness" and censorship, and her methods of writing and revision. She examines the differences between the original British and American editions of Woolf's texts and the lesser-known changes she made after publication. Briggs's lively and engaging style will appeal to scholars and general readers alike.

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Virginia Woolf and Her Influences presents papers from the Seventh Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire June 12-15, 1997. These papers fall under the theme of "the influence of something upon somebody" as it arises throughout Woolf's work. The careful arrangement of the essays carries them over from the context of the conference to provide a range of critical and expanded approaches to Woolf's writing under the groupings of Reading/Writing the Individual, Historical Positionings, Creative Revolutions, and Theoretical Foray. Each part concludes with a section of "Teachings" that recognizes the emphasis that Woolf placed on education and its impact on constructions of the body, on constructions of history, and on art and its interpretations. The editors' main goal is to expand the understanding of Woolf so that her creativity and ideas can be appreciated from not only the traditional perspective, but modern, varied perspectives as well. ... Read more

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In A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf considers with energy and wit the implications of the historical exclusion of women from education and from economic independence. In A Room of One's Own (1929), she examines the work of past women writers, and looks ahead to a time when women's creativity will not be hampered by poverty, or by oppression. In Three Guineas (1938), however, Woolf argues that women's historical exclusion offers them the chance to form a political and cultural identity which could challenge the drive towards fascism and war. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

My God What a Great book and What a Great Introduction
This book contains two polemics or extended essays by Virginia Woolf plus some excellent comments in the introduction on her life and works. Woolf was a major force in the English publishing world after WWI. She wrote, she was a critic, and she published for such famous heavy-weights as Freud and T.S.Eliot. In addition, this book has an excellent introduction to Woolf and an overview of her ideas. The two essays are based on talks that she gave.

I read this book three times in order to absorb all the information. The introduction and analysis are simply outstanding. The first non-fiction piece, "A Room of One's own,"is better than the second. That second essay, "Three Guineas," is more of a general commentary. In short, this is a wonderful book with two good essays and one excellent analysis and commentary on Woolf.

Woolf claims not to be a feminist. Instead she wants equality for women. These two polemics, especially the first, are opportunities for Woolf to vent all her frustrations about being treated as a second class citizen and to articulate her arguments, i.e.: she faced a barrier in the literary world as a woman. For example, she was denied a college education. The family money was spent on her brother's education, not hers, even though she was a brighter student. She had to learn Greek at home, etc. She describes much of the discrimination that she had to endure as a woman writer.

Also, she describes other female writers and how they worked under primitive conditions and sometimes even with these primitive conditions were able to emerge as great writers: George Eliot, Jane Austen, etc.

Woolf discusses the question: why was there no woman Shakespeare? That is a question asked by some but answered rather forcibly by Woolf. She points out that Jane Austen did not even have an office; Austen wrote her great novel such as Pride and Prejudice at the kitchen table. Austen worked in social isolation and died at a young age, as did Charlotte Bronte. How would they have developed if they had had longer lives or emerged as social forces?

In the second piece she links some of the problems of the world to men and their aggressive behaviour.

This is a great and entertaining read.



... Read more

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The last two decades have seen a resurgence of critical and popular attention to Virginia Woolf's life and work. Such traditional institutions as The New York Review of Books now pair her with William Shakespeare in promotional advertisements; her face is used to sell everything from Barnes & Noble books to Bass Ale.

Customer Reviews (3)

Get out the magnifying glass!
If you are looking for a round up of the extensive group of people that contributed to what became known as Bloomsbury, you will be disappointed. There are some players that are generously represented and others, such as Sidney Saxon-Turner, Dora Carrington and Ralph Partridge, barely or not at all. As significant a drawback is the size of many reproductions. Whole album pages have been reproduced, which in and of itself is interesting, but is reduces the size of the photos such that frequently the people are so small as to be recognizable. Many of these photos have been reproduced in larger and more satisfactory formats in other biographies and memoirs. Also strange, even within the context, the quantity of photos of nude children reproduced here. Having just reread Quentin Bell's bio of his aunt Virginia I bought hoping to fill out the visual record. No such luck.

Intimate and stylish
I really enjoyed this book. I could pore over the fashions, the interior decoration - it satisfied my desire to see all the details! At the same time, I got a sense of the passage of time in Virginia and Vanessa's lives. Read as a companion to any of Woolf's novels, I think the book would also convey a sense of the writing process.

It evokes the time and place beautifully, and the text is not intrusive: the images are allowed to take centre stage as works of art in their own right.

Fine choice, Sweetpea!

I'm in between
Nutty yet poignant

Have we found the smoking gun here? I doubt it

Bloomsbury has a posse! ... Read more

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In March 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in England’s River Ouse. Her body was found three weeks later. What seemed like a tragic ending at the time was, in fact, just the beginning of a mystery. . . .

Six decades after Virginia Woolf’s death, landscape designer Jo Bellamy has come to Sissinghurst Castle for two reasons: to study the celebrated White Garden created by Woolf’s lover Vita Sackville-West and to recover from the terrible wound of her grandfather’s unexplained suicide. In the shadow of one of England’s most famous castles, Jo makes a shocking find: Woolf’s last diary, its first entry dated the day after she allegedly killed herself.

If authenticated, Jo’s discovery could shatter everything historians believe about Woolf’s final hours. But when the Woolf diary is suddenly stolen, Jo’s quest to uncover the truth will lead her on a perilous journey into the tumultuous inner life of a literary icon whose connection to the White Garden ultimately proved devastating.

Rich with historical detail, The White Garden is an enthralling novel of literary suspense that explores the many ways the past haunts the present–and the dark secrets that lurk beneath the surface of the most carefully tended garden. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Puhlease
A book that in its title promises great things. But Alas! it is poorly conceived and even in its premise is fraudently. I lost it when the main character and her friend from Sotheys dug up supposedly Virginia Woolf's ashes and found instead a letter from Leonard Woolf addressed to The Grave Robbers which he supposedly planted 68 years before! The suspension of disbelief snapped and I didn't finish the book.

Solid Alternate History
Everyone knows that, one day in 1941, famed British author Virginia Woolf filled her coat pockets with heavy rocks before stepping into the cold waters of the river Ouse.Perhaps because of the extra weight she carried into the water with her, Woolf's body would not be found until three weeks later.Woolf's family and friends, aware that she was often in a suicidal frame-of-mind, were not surprised by her end, so the official verdict of suicide was never challenged. Now, in an intriguing piece of alternate history, "The White Garden," Stephanie Barron examines the possibilities of what may have happened during the three weeks between Woolf's disappearance and the recovery of her body in the Ouse.

American Jo Bellamy has come to Kent's Sissinghurst Castle to copy the layout of its famous White Garden for a wealthy client who wants to replicate it on the grounds of his Long Island home.Imogen Cantwell, the castle's head gardener, has grudgingly agreed to allow Jo full access to the White Garden so that she can gather all the measurements and photos she will need to create a perfect copy of the grounds for her client.But, for Jo, this is not just a way to generate revenue for her business; it is an opportunity to visit the part of England in which her beloved grandfather, who killed himself just three weeks earlier, lived for the first two decades of his life.

After Jo discovers that her grandfather spent several months as an apprentice gardener at Sissinghurst (the home of Woolf's lover, Vita Sackville-West), her search for garden records from that period leads her to the discovery of what appears to be a partial diary written in the hand of Virginia Woolf herself.Oddly, however, the journal is bound with a note indicating that, when it was boxed for storage, it actually belonged to Jo's grandfather.Even odder, the first entry in Woolf's handwriting is dated the day after her supposed drowning in the river Ouse.

Already puzzled by her grandfather's so out-of-character suicide, Jo now starts to wonder if her trip to Sissinghurst might have everything to do with the timing of his death.Her quest to have the first half of the journal authenticated, and to find its missing pages, draws the attention of others wanting to exploit the astounding journal for their own purposes.For Jo, it is all about understanding why her grandfather felt it necessary to end his life; others want a piece of the fame, and profit, which will result from proximity to a journal that might literally rewrite a significant portion of literary history.

"The White Garden" works because of the way Barron mixes her intriguing plot of alternate history with a large cast of interesting characters.Admittedly, some of the characters are a little too close to stereotypes to be completely effective but, in the context of the story, even those characters contribute to the fun.Fans of Virginia Woolf, and Anglophiles of all stripes, are likely to enjoy this one a great deal.I certainly did.

Amazing possible account of her last days
I scarcely know how to begin, not something a reviewer should admit publically, I suppose. This wonderfully realized and written novel is a first class literary mystery.It deals with a three-week period in l941 that marks the end of a troubled life, the life of Virginia Woolf.It is serendipitous that this novel comes to my hand at a time that epitomizes a good deal of what she was all about. In a word, independence.Independence for women and independence for writers.

Virginia Woolf was an English writer, essayist and literary critic of the early Twentieth Century. Her parents did not send her to school.She was entirely self-taught and apparently randomly tutored by her literary critic father.She was a major influence on the kind of novels being written today, yet she was always, always, self-published.Hogarth Press, established by Woolf and her husband, Leonard, a political theorist of that era, in their kitchen, published Virginia's writings along with those of E.M. Forester, and Sigmund Freud, among many others.Growing up she knew people like Henry James, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and George Eliot.Her father, Leslie Stephen's, first wife was the daughter of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray.

In addition to her literary credentials as an accomplished novelist, she was a prolific essayist who published over 500 essays.Virginia Wolf helped coalesce the famous (or infamous) Bloomsbury Group, a collection of social, political and economic theorists of varying stripes, including artists, critics, philosophers and writers who wrote, debated, loved, married and argued life throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century.

Woolf was sexually abused by a relative as a child, and clearly had mental problems during her lifetime.Her companions through life, including relatives, were mostly liberated intellectuals who ignored social constraints.On March 28, 1941, she disappeared from her home.Three weeks later, her body was discovered in the nearby river Ouse which had already been extensively searched.Her body was promptly cremated and there was no funeral ceremony, public or private.
Which brings us to this novel.Sixty years after Woolf's death, master garden and landscape designer, Jo Bellamy arrives in England. She is doing research for a wealthy client who wants her to recreate a famous garden of white flowers and plants at his Long Island Estate.Jo is trying to recover from her grandfather's sudden suicide. The celebrated White Garden of the title is located at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent.It was created by Woolf's friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West.

What Bellamy discovers at Sissinghurst has the potential to set decades of literary analysis and speculation on its collective ear.Whilst grubbing about in some boxes in one of the garden sheds, Jo comes upon a diary which appears to have been written by Virginia Woolf.Well and good, the problem is the first entry is dated the day after Virginia Woolf is supposed to have drowned herself.Moreover, there appears to be a connection between the castle, the garden, Woolf and Jo's dead grandfather.Shocked and amid a growing desire to learn more about her grandfather's youth in Kent, Jo Bellamy sets out on a cross-country odyssey to try to authenticate the diary and uncover her grandfather's connection to one of the most famous feminists and literary icons of the past century.

The novel is wonderfully written and mostly moves at an ever-increasing pace as Bellamy encounters an array of character who are far more interested in their own aggrandizement than in helping Jo.The diary is stolen, Jo has help from several people with questionable motives and engages in some pretty far-fetched antics in order to follow some tantalizingly obscure clues.

Ultimately of course, some of the questions surrounding the diary and the last three weeks of Virginia Woolf's life are resolved, but not all.The author, skillfully evoking a past era of English letters and philosophical thought, has provided a rich and thought-provoking experience.

The novel is written with grace and is rich in atmosphere and history.It is presented as a carefully wrought piece that could be true, and that climaxes in a stunning and most satisfying conclusion.

Suspensful Mystery Includes Horticulture and Quaint British Pubs
I enjoyed this well-written, thought-provoking and suspenseful book. Barron is obviously a Virginia Woolf expert. I liked how she wrote a journal in the style of Woolf, within this book, a style much different from her own in which The White Garden itself is written. That was clever. And she also gave snippets of insight into Woolf's suicide: "she was a middle-aged woman who fancied she could see the future, and it wasn't the one she wanted." I liked the the plot, dialogue and characters, with one exception: anything to do with Peter, which somehow felt forced, as if he had been added so that Jo could have a love interest.

"the inversion of what history believes to be true"
I can concur with previous reviews,both positive and negative.But I like this book for what Stephanie Barron says it is: "an alternative in which things were different" to the end-time of Virginia Woolf's lif.The white garden at Sissinghurst certainly comes to life, as does Bloomsbury history and the atmosphere of WWII in England in 1941.The book is a sort of tribute to Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West and their friendship, and the author makes good use of two rather ambiguous bits of history:the three weeks that elapsed between Virginia Woolf's disappearance and the discovery of her body and the story of the German spy "Dutchman Apparent Suicide" reported in The times on 1 April 1941. ... Read more

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'Mepham has produced a book likely to help any reader towards a more perceptive and rewarding reading of Woolf' - Bernard Harrison, The Times Literary Supplement;'...highly informative and insightful...' - Jeanne Dubino, Virginia Woolf Miscellany;In Virginia Woolf's Life, writing was the activity that mattered more than anything else: she would not have survived without it. She was her own publisher and had an unusual degree of control over her own work. This enabled her to pursue a career of extraordinary experimentation and inventiveness. It has never been sufficiently stressed that every one of her books was quite different in technique from every other. John Mepham argues that she never settled on one way of writing because she never settled on one view of life. Her purposes as a writer constantly changed. Mepham tells the story of her career as a series of choices and experiments, always grounded in specific historical contexts. ... Read more

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'A good essay must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in, not out.' According to Virginia Woolf, the goal of the essay 'is simply that it should give pleasure...It should lay us under a spell with its first word, and we should only wake, refreshed, with its last.'One of the best practitioners of the art she analysed so rewardingly, Woolf displayed her essay-writing skills across a wide range of subjects, with all the craftsmanship, substance, and rich allure of her novels. This selection brings together thirty of her best essays, including the famous 'Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown', a clarion call for modern fiction.She discusses the arts of writing and of reading, and the particular role and reputation of women writers.She writes movingly about her father and the art of biography, and of the London scene in the early decades of the twentieth century. Overall, these pieces are as indispensable to an understanding of this great writer as they are enchanting in their own right. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (8)

Interesting, But The Least EngagingOf Woolf's Work
Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was a well known writer, critic, feminist, and publisher. This was her last novel, and it is a departure for Woolf from prior styles, and many like the novel. It is interesting, but falls short of being a masterpeice.

As background information, I read most of her work starting with her first novel "The Voyage Out" published in 1915, skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop, Night and Day from 1919 - and then read "Jacob's Room," her third, then went on and read "Mrs. Dalloway," her fourth, and next read "To The Lighthouse," etc. Also, I read some of Woolf's non-fiction.

"The Voyage Out" is simple and straightforward work and it might remind the reader of a Jane Austen novel, but it set on a ship and then at a remote location. It is over 400 pages long, and has an Austen theme. After her second novel - which did not do very well - Woolf decided to be more risky and creative with the next book. She changed her style and approach to the novel and Woolf uses the stream of consciousness technique to bring a sense of the chaos and shortness of a young man's life around the time of World War I, Jacob's life, i.e.: from the pandemonium of Jacob's life as portrayed by Woolf through the use of the stream of the consciousness technique, we eventually have clarity in the novel. She carries this writing style on into the similarly chaotic story in the novel "Mrs. Dalloway" and most of her later writings - including the present novel - her last written just before her suicide. The subsequent books, including the present novel, are shorter and use the stream of consciousness technique.

The story is a bit similar to "To The Lighthouse" in the setting. It has a rural setting, a home in the country, and it is about a community play held at the home. The story describes some of the family members at the home, the other members of the community, and also, and interestingly here, much of the novel describes the play itself.

I guess what is disappointing here is the structure or plot compared to her best novel, "To The Lighthouse." In that novel, the reader is fully engaged with that story and it is a compelling read, and hard to put down. That book, along with "Jacob's Room," moves the reader emotionally. That is missing here. The novel is short and has a low key "Midsummer Night's Dream" quality. Nothing dramatic happens "between the acts" of the play that one would call interesting or compelling or highly emotional. The reader waits for something to happen - as in her other works - but it never occurs. Also, it lacks sympathetic characters. The story seems very hazy and undefined, and it seems to lack direction. The play itself is interesting and it is unusual to see the play worked into the story. That is a sign of Woolf's genius. But it is not enough to carry the novel and make it a masterpiece.

As a "common reader," as Woolf describes us, we readers of her books, I think her best fiction is "To The Lighthouse" - that is a masterpiece - and her best non-fiction is "A Room of One's Own." I like the Oxford version of the latter published along with "Three Guineas."

A long tone-poem
Much of the writing is beautiful and evocative, but it's hard to know what's going on.The summaries posted here have more "plot" in them than is easily gleaned from the book.Because the stream of consciousness leaps from character to character, it's hard to know the relationships let alone see who is flirting with whom and why it matters.You do figure it out but it takes too long to figure out which characters go with which names.

There is a lovely portrait of an English village in 1939, and the heartbreaking innocent pageant of English history portrayed, but really, you can get such atmosphere from the series Mystery-- and there you get a plot as well.I think this is not a good introduction to Woolf, as it takes certain kinds of experimentation and heightens it.At least with Mrs. Dalloway you see things for the most part from one point of view and come to care about it.

I enjoyed this, but then I'm in theatre, so I enjoyed all of the description of the pageant.This is a little bit like reading the equivalent of a home movie, it's pretty, but you don't know the people portrayed well enough to really care.

The summing up
"Between the Acts" was the last novel Virginia Woolf wrote, and it appropriately feels like a swansong; a sorrowful farewell to a country on the eve of a war that very well might have spelled its devastation.While it uses the modernist experimentation that characterized "To the Lighthouse," it is very easy to follow, but still invites several rereadings to explore its depths more fully.

The novel takes place on a single day in June of 1939 at an English country manor called Pointz Hall, owned by the Olivers, a family with such sentimental ties to its ancestry that a watch that stopped a bullet on an ancient battlefield is deemed worthy of preservation and exhibition.Every year about this time, the Olivers allow their gardens to be used by the local villagers to put on a pageant for raising money for the church.This year, the pageant is supposed to be a series of tableaux celebrating England's history from Chaucerian times up to the present.

The Olivers themselves are tableaux of sorts, each a silent representation of some emotion separated from the others by a wall of miscommunication.Old Bartholomew Oliver and his sister, Lucy Swithin, both widowed, are now living together again with much the same hesitant relationship they had as children.Oliver's son Giles is a stockbroker who commutes to London and considers the pageant a nuisance he has no choice but to suffer.Isa, his discontented wife, feels she has to hide her poetry from him and contemplates an extramarital affair with a village farmer.

Attending the pageant is a garrulous woman named Mrs. Manresa, who is either having or pursuing an affair with Giles.She has brought with her a companion named William Dodge, whose effeminate sexual ambiguity is noticed with reprehension by Giles and with curiosity by Isa.The somewhat romantic interest Isa shows in Dodge implies that she knows Giles would be annoyed less by her infidelity than by his being cuckolded for a fop like Dodge.

The other principal character is not an Oliver at all, and this is Miss La Trobe, the harried writer and director of the pageant.At first, she appears to serve the mere purpose of comic diversion, as she frustrates herself over details that nobody in the audience notices anyway; however, when the pageant is over, a new aspect of her character is revealed, one that has made her an outcast among the village women.Nevertheless, she graciously accepts the role of a struggling, misunderstood woman artist, and in this sense, she echoes the character of Lily Briscoe in "To the Lighthouse," as does Isa with her repressed poetry.

At the end of the pageant, to celebrate the "present," Miss La Trobe has planned something special and startling:She has the players flash mirrors onto the audience as if to say, "Look what England has become.Shameful, isn't it?"Likewise, with this novel Woolf holds up a mirror to humanity, reflecting our unhappiness in her characters.It's not a cheerful notion, but it's a fitting one to sum up the career of a writer like Woolf, one of our greatest chroniclers of sadness.

A work of mature genius by a great writer
This under-appreciated work is slowly gaining the recognition it deserves from Woolf critics... but I would say that, since I wrote my dissertation on it! Woolf's fiction is never light reading, but Woolf lovers will herefind a masterful synthesis of descriptive power, her exhaustive knowledgeof English history and literature, her feminism, her passionate hatred ofwar and her conviction that only aesthetic experience can enable humanityto question the status quo and *perhaps* create a better world...interested readers might consider reading it alongside The Years, ThreeGuineas, Moments of Being, the last volumes of the diary, or such Woolfessays as "Thoughts on Peace During an Air Raid," as well asShakespeare's Tempest. This slim novel speaks volumes; it is a work ofmature genius by one of the 20th century's greatest writers.

Summary and more...
Virginia Stephen Woolf finished Between the Acts in 1941; however, she never revised the novel because of her suicide during the same year.Between the Acts takes place in a small town in England before she hasentered World War II in 1939.The novel, which spans one day, is about theannual village pageant at which villagers present a play to the communityand guests about the history of England.The action splits between theacts concerning England in the Elizabethan Age, the Age of Reason, theVictorian Age, the present day, and the intermissions between the acts. In Between the Acts, there are many characters that are involved inthe immediate action of the novel.Bartholomew Oliver, a retired IndianCivil Service worker, lives in a medium sized home called Pointz Hall withhis widowed sister, Mrs. Swithin, his son Giles Oliver, who is a stockbroker, and Giles' wife, Isa Oliver.Isa and Giles have a son namedGeorge.Two characters show up at Pointz Hall and attend the pageant withthe residents.One of these characters, Mrs. Manresa, who is the onlynon-British character, is very flirtatious with Giles throughout the book. Her companion, William Dodge, is a very poetic yet nervous character.Afinal major character who is behind the scenes for the entire novel is Ms.La Trobe, the director of the play. There are also some minorcharacters that are involved in the action of the novel.Mrs. Haines, thewife of a farmer, appears in the opening scene of the novel.Isa hiresMabel, who plays Reason in the play, to take care of George as his nurse. Lynn Jones, a member of the audience during the play, disagrees with astatement made by Badge, an actor in the play.A final minor character,who is an actor in the play, is Albert the Village Idiot. One theme in this novel is unity.Unity is shown through the acts as thecome together to create the play. The group of main characters alsoexpresses unity.Another theme, which is a dominant theme in Woolf'swritings, is feminism.There are many feminist images and references inthe play.The acts of the play are about the woman rulers of England andlove stories.The personality of Virginia Woolf can be seen in Mrs.Swithin, Isa Oliver, and Ms. La Trobe.These two themes are both majorthemes in Woolf's writings. Between the Acts can be viewedas a conversation that moves from point to point throughout the novel.Thenovel seems choppy and moves around constantly.The narrator sometimesseems like a character in the novel at points where he or she appearsalmost involved in the action of the scene.This is a dominant trait inWoolf's literature.The novel is whole with no chapters or significantbreaks in the action.Instead, the book seems like a play with many scenesdivided by long spaces in between paragraphs.The novel is also acombination of poetry and prose.Many people say that this work is notcomplete because Woolf never revised the novel. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Virginia Woolf: A Biography
Virginia Woolf: A Biography
By now, it is the most chronologically complete biography of Virginia Woolf, also giving interesting details about her ancestors. Some data of the family life might have been omitted in the book but in general it is a pretty objective and accurate work showing a lot of academic research.

somewhat boring to read
This book is very informative, but lacks style. It contains many pictures of Virginia Woolf, her family members and friends which give you some insight into the actual life of the troubled author. I found it difficult to continue reading because the style was so rigid and antiquated.

a bit dull
This book is written in a style that is definitely boring, but it is enhanced by scattered pictures of Virginia Woolf, her friends, husband and family members. The content is very informative, however the style of writing leaves alot to be desired.

Very detailed
history of Virginia Woolf.So much has been written about VW (her life and her works), there is no need to add anything here.This book is written by VW's nephew, and is impressively comprehensive in scope.This is a two-volume biography, but it is sold as a single volume.Chapters are divided by years (e.g., Volume I, Chapter eight, is simply titled "1909").The eight appendices include:Clive Bell and the Writing of "The Voyage Out"; The Dreadnought Hoax; and, Virginia Woolf and Julian Bell.

If she only knew valium
Well, after reading this exhaustive biography I think with more or less reason several things. Virginia Woolf was a woman of great intelligence but unbalanced and at the cost of her instinctive life, I think not homosexual as it's said, but mostly uninterested in the sexual part of life. Shehas the drive to justify this and she said a real artist needed to be nor man nor woman in order to avoid prejudices and to possess a clear vision of the real facts of life, a doubtful point of view because there are great artist with strong sexual drive straight or not. I believe she was surely not primarily so ill at the mental sphere, because all these medications as digital, symptoms as palpitations and physical exhaustion, faints, etc, are symptoms of physical or even social diseases, yes, with repercussion in the psychic life, added to the extremely exigent work of writing his works. For all that I believe V. Woolf was no so mad as it's commonly said and could be saved by a more scientific and modern medicine. Certainly, personal and historical contingences as the death of friends and familiars, WWI and over all WWII with the fear to the Nazi invasion of England and repression against Jews as her husband and intellectuals as herself could not be avoided although I believe by 1941 these fears were objectively less probable. I can' avoid a pity for this woman. ... Read more

Product Description
The earliest works of Virginia Woolf. This edition includes an active talbe of contents to make finding each work easy. Included in this edition:

Jacob's Room
Monday or Tuesday - Eight Stories
Night and Day
The Voyage Out ... Read more

Product Description
Virginia Woolf's only true biography, written to commemorate a devoted friend and one of the most renowned art critics of this century, who helped to bring the Postimpressionist movement from France to England and America. Index; illustrations.
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Customer Reviews (1)

Roger Fry
This biography is written by one of the best writers of the 20th century and concerns one of the most influential art critics of visual art. Roger Fry loved traditional Italian art and was converted through a very gradualand natural process to become an advocate for modern art. Roger Fry came tosee and apprecaite his contemporaries in visual art as making and havingmade important contributions. Time has proved Roger Fry correct and hiscritics wrong. Who among us doesn't not know that van Gogh, Gaugain andCezanne are important artists?Virginia Woolf is a perceptive andexcellent writer. This is her only bow to biography. It is a pleasure toread about a significant personality written by such a good writer. ... Read more

Product Description
A highly acclaimed collection of twenty-eight essays, sketches, and short stories presenting nearly every facet of the author's work. "Up to the author's highest standard in a literary form that was most congenial to her" (Times Literary Supplement (London)). "Exquisitely written" (New Yorker); "The riches of this book are overwhelming" (Christian Science Monitor). Editorial Note by Leonard Woolf.
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Customer Reviews (1)

A supreme artist at work
Woolf is an outstanding essayist. This work edited and put together by her husband Leonard Woolfis her last volume of essays. It contains essays on a wide variety of subjects beginning with her careful depiction of the 'Death of a Moth' and containing essays on Henry James, Madame de Sevigne, the historian Gibbon, Sara Coleridge, George Moore, E.M.Forster, . She also has essays on 'The Art of the Biography''A Letter to a Young Poet' 'Middlebrow''Craftsmanship' ' Professions for Women' 'Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid'.
One of her most revealing set of insights is given in the essay on 'The Art of Biography' There she defends the aesthetic supremacy of her own mode of writing, the novel.

"It seems, then, that when the biographer complained that he was tied by friends, letters and documents he was laying his finger upon a necessary element in biography; and that it is also a necessary limitation. For the invented character lives in a free world where the facts are verified by one person only- the artist himself. Their authenticity lies in the truth of his own inner vision. The world created by that vision is rarer, intenser, and more wholly of a piece than the world that is largely made of authentic information supplied by other people."

Woolf makes an especially beautiful description of the distinguishing character of a writer whose greatness she defends, Henry James.
"For ourselves Henry James seems most entirely in his element , doing that to say what everything favours his doing , when it is a question of recollection. The mellow light which swims over the past, the beauty which suffuses even the commonest little figures of that time, the shadow in which the detail of so many things can be discerned, which the glare of day flattens out, the depth, the richness, the calm, the humour of the whole pageant- all this seems to have been his natural atmosphere and his most abiding mood."
Her stylistic brilliance and acute aesthetic perception pervades these outstanding essays. ... Read more