Virginia Woolf, a true great?

[burntpunk]

Haven consumed the bulk of Virginia Woolf's texts I deeply enjoyed them and can see appreciate why they have been canonised amongst the greatest texts of the 20th century.

Other than the obvious, I've struggled to pinpoint what quantifies her brilliance. Any ideas? Don't state the obvious.

[dfloyd]

you must be pulling our collective leg about Virginia Woolf. I've read most of the well known classics and I even got through the section of Moby Dick on cetaceans, but I couldn't finish To the Light House. I think it's the only classic novel I put away to never pick up again.

[TheFifthElement]

I think Woolf's place in the cannon has more to do with influence and the way her approach changed the shape of the western novel. It's hard to appreciate that Woolf was both a linguistic innovator and an experimental writer, the problem is that with the benefit of 80ish years between her experiments and contemporary fiction the innovation of her work is not immediately apparent. It might be worth reading other works of a similar and earlier time to give you an idea of the contrast.

[Seasider]

Virginia Woolf was an experimental writer in the tradition of The Stream of Consciousness and for my money the best description she gave of what she and a few other novelists were trying to do is in her essay Modern Fiction
She wrote at length about the narrative skills of the Edwardian writers; Galsworthy, Bennett etc but then she wote about what she thought the proper business of the novelist is:-
Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture of the alien and external as possible? We are not pleading merely for courage and sincerity; we are suggesting that the proper stuff of fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it.
It is, at any rate, in some such fashion as this that we seek to define the quality which distinguishes the work of several young writers, among whom Mr. James Joyce is the most notable, from that of their predecessors. They attempt to come closer to life, and to preserve more sincerely and exactly what interests and moves them, even if to do so they must discard most of the conventions which are commonly observed by the novelist. Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small.
I think that most people who have trouble with To the Lighthouse or The Waves are looking for a strong narrative thread and it isn't there...well not in the form that we are most used to.

Having said that and having declared myself a great fan of Virginia Woolf I find that when I want to read her I get most pleasure from her essays, her polemic and her letters.

[Lokasenna]

I'll admit that the closer we get to the cotemporary period, the less interested I become with the writers, but Virgina Woolf seemed pretty awful to me, even compared to many of her contemporaries. She simply doesn't appeal to me, either as a writer or an intellectual.

This is personal opinion, of course. But there are few writers out there, I believe, who talk so much but say so little.

[Seasider]

I may be wrong ,of course, but I think the original poster was looking for something a bit more enlightening than your personal opinion. That says much more about you than does it does about her.

[awhileago]

And, why exactly, do you say that Virginia Woolf is awful?

[awhileago]

Virginia Woolf is sublime because:

1. She's one of the first to employ stream-of-consciousness. She experiments with the form of a novel, instead of writing in a linear form like most authors of her time did.
2. To The Lighthouse is almost like an epic poem within the form of a novel. She combines poetry and prose together.
3. To those of you who say you can't get through her book---yes I know she writes really long sentences and I know it's HARD to read Woolf but it's worth the struggle. Her sentences are rich, lovely, complex--like poetry. The reason why a lot of people can't get through her works is because her sentences are like short poems in itself. If you can't get through a page without spending a good 20 minutes on it, it's not because the Woolf is an awful writer, it's because you need to realize that good works take a lot of time to dissect. Don't be lazy and denounce the author instead.

[dfloyd]

I'd rather flunk my Wasserman test
Than read a poem by Edgar Guest
Or a story by Virginia Woolf

[sixsmith]

I regard Mrs Dalloway as one of the more accessible 'stream of consciousness' works. There is, in that novel at least, an enticing, almost musical quality to her prose. I'm led to believe that To the Lighthouse is an altogether less palatable experience.

[Lokasenna]

I may be wrong ,of course, but I think the original poster was looking for something a bit more enlightening than your personal opinion. That says much more about you than does it does about her.

I was, in a polite and balanced way, taking issue with the OP's assertion of 'her brilliance', and that her works 'have been canonised amongst the greatest texts of the 20th century.'

It would be impossible for me to provide reasons for her brilliance, because it is my informed and scholarly opinion that she does not possess such a quality. What I am attempting to suggest, however poorly, is that we should resist totemising figures such as Woolf; rather than trying to provide reasons for her quality (which the OP has defined as not obvious), I am merely suggesting that a better question would be whether her writings were of a high quality.

As I have said, in a civil manner and making it clear that it is my own personal opinion, I do not believe she is a great writer. Nor do I think she is a great intellectual.

Perhaps that does say something about my personal tastes, but I promise you that I am not alone in these thoughts.

[Seasider]

As I have said, in a civil manner and making it clear that it is my own personal opinion, I do not believe she is a great writer. Nor do I think she is a great intellectual.

Perhaps that does say something about my personal tastes, but I promise you that I am not alone in these thoughts.

A memory from my past...as a student of Eng.Lit I had to present a paper to my seminar group onTo the Lighthouse. This was way back in unenlightened times before VW was rediscovered and though I was a voracious reader I had not read a word of hers. I went to my tutor for guidance and en passant he predicted that few if any of the men in the group would turn up. He was right.They didn't. Most of the women came, not because they considered VW a woman's writer, but because they were more conscientious about fulfilling academic tasks than the men were.
So even then you were not alone in your thoughts. But then again neither am I. So it's a stalemate between supporters and detractors. Same as with fans and non fans of Zola or anyone else. Dr Johnson whom most would regard as a literary critic of the first rank had some very harsh words to say about Shakespeare, but even the weight given to his opinion has not dimmed Shakespeare's reputation. So maybe even your informed and scholarly opinion will not tip the scales against Virginia Woolf's work.

In my first post I tried to give an indication of what VW was trying to achieve.She is a modernist in prose as Eliot is a modernist in poetry,Schoenberg in music and Picasso in painting.She was particularly critical of novelists like Bennett, Galsworthy, Charles Morgan and Warwick Deeping whom she thought were still operating like Victorians instead of 20th Century writers.
VW 's novels are not easy to skim through...they demand more of the reader.
Her essays and literary criticism are more orthodox and her letters and diaries are full of interesting, witty and sometimes scabrous comments on the English literary scene between the Wars.

[Madame X]

I'd rather flunk my Wasserman test
Than read a poem by Edgar Guest
Or a story by Virginia Woolf

Dorothy who? :angel:

[Seasider]

Originally Posted by dfloyd
I'd rather flunk my Wasserman test
Than read a poem by Edgar Guest
Or a story by Virginia Woolf

I believe Dorothy Parker wrote the couplet. Presumably the addition is by dfloyd

[qspeechc]

I was, in a polite and balanced way, taking issue with the OP's assertion of 'her brilliance', and that her works 'have been canonised amongst the greatest texts of the 20th century.'

It would be impossible for me to provide reasons for her brilliance, because it is my informed and scholarly opinion that she does not possess such a quality. What I am attempting to suggest, however poorly, is that we should resist totemising figures such as Woolf; rather than trying to provide reasons for her quality (which the OP has defined as not obvious), I am merely suggesting that a better question would be whether her writings were of a high quality.

As I have said, in a civil manner and making it clear that it is my own personal opinion, I do not believe she is a great writer. Nor do I think she is a great intellectual.

Perhaps that does say something about my personal tastes, but I promise you that I am not alone in these thoughts.

You still have not said why you think she is not a great writer. You have simply re-stated that she is not great and added that many other people agree with you. Please give the reasons why you think she is not great.

[Mr.lucifer]

Virginia Woolf is sublime because:

1. She's one of the first to employ stream-of-consciousness. She experiments with the form of a novel, instead of writing in a linear form like most authors of her time did.
2. To The Lighthouse is almost like an epic poem within the form of a novel. She combines poetry and prose together.
3. To those of you who say you can't get through her book---yes I know she writes really long sentences and I know it's HARD to read Woolf but it's worth the struggle. Her sentences are rich, lovely, complex--like poetry. The reason why a lot of people can't get through her works is because her sentences are like short poems in itself. If you can't get through a page without spending a good 20 minutes on it, it's not because the Woolf is an awful writer, it's because you need to realize that good works take a lot of time to dissect. Don't be lazy and denounce the author instead.

A long ,flowerly use of language does not good prose. In fact, a lot of times such a language has been badly done.

[Seasider]

A long ,flowerly use of language does not good prose. In fact, a lot of times such a language has been badly done.

I do sincerely admire people who take the time and make the effort to learn another language. But even most native speakers are not sufficiently skilled in the tradition of literary criticism to make judgements about writers in their own language, especially those as controversial as Virginia Woolf is.
George Steiner is a polyglot, literary critic and an engaging essayist. Not many of them!

[Heteronym]

Indeed. There's an interesting essay by Milan Kundera on Franz Kafka which addresses the mundaneness of Kafka's prose and how translators try to make it prettier, more diverse and more literary. And yet I believe Franz Kafka is superior to Woolf in any way possible. If someone has captured the spirit of the 20th century, it was him.

Poetic prose is an oxymoron. Prose comes from the Greek prosa, which means "straightforward"; in other words, prose is language without ornaments, as oposed to poetry. The distinction is also evident in the fact that poetry traditionally has addressed serious, solemn subjects, whereas the novel, the medium of prose, has been traditionally bawdy, frivolous, in bad taste, satirical, vulgar and prone to celebrate low culture. Suffice to say that the grandfather of the modern novel, Gargantua and Pantagruel, has a chapter which is an extended list of profanities.

Poetry and prose can mix, but poetic prose is hardly a mark of great writing.

[Seasider]

I don't know why VW has the tag of Writer of Poetic Prose round her neck.

As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm. If you persist, lawyers’ clerks will have to make flying leaps into the mud; young lady typists will have to fidget behind you. In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded, eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it is better not to be very tall, to wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the air with your left hand.-Ch. 1

I wouldn't call that particularly poetic.

[DougSlug]

Surprised at the number of Woolf haters. I've only read To The Lighthouse so hardly a Woolf expert, but it ranks among my top 10 fav novels. I cannot imagine reading this book and being unmoved by it. I guess some people require that lots of things happen in a novel in order for it to be any good.

I think TTL a brilliant psychological study. But what makes a writer into an artist for me is a gift for language, plain and simple. This, above all, is what literature is about for me. Woolf writes beautifully and deeply, but is rarely cloying or mushy (like Proust can be).

"What is the meaning of life? That was all--a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark."

"Still she could say nothing; the whole horizon seemed swept bare of things to talk about; could only feel, amazedly, as Mr Ramsey stood there, how his gaze seemed to fall dolefully over the sunny grass and discolour it"

"Life stand still here."

I rest my case.

[Mr.lucifer]

I don't hate woolfe, I just believe that flowery prose does not automatically make good prose.

[QUOTE]EPIC The nightfall, deeply saturated with every fibre of its being in the shadows of dark gloom and ocular turblence, encompassed wholly and thoroughly the dusty, unattended, dirty, untouched apartment building of one youthful, handsome yet very homely aspiring author of many tomes Report Siht, as he descended with a blindingly powerful glowing aura of casualty and sensual smoothness onto the slowly revolving Mid-Century Modern armchair that was currently situated betwixt and between his beige-coloured, antiquated digital binary computation machine and analysis device. The writer being spoken of gently placed beside his body the worn thesaurus (a thesaurus, of course, being a large tome containing lists of synonyms and antonyms), slowly yellowing and fading with the slow, constant passage of time, he had been delving into, he lowered his slender, pale fingers onto the black keyboard, his creaseless, silky hands striking the small intractable keys in quick succession while scrutinizing his search for a four-syllable phrase that is, to him worthy enough in all its purple glory to be written into his new masterpiece of literature to a veteran musician in search for the perfect melody to play to the masses, as they are entranced by the narcotic tune. But as he continued, at a tempo that only the smallest of snails could possibly envy, to turn through page after page after page of his wide, thick-as-a-doorstopper tome of words that he usually refers to as a thesaurus, he, over the course of hundreds of pages, begins to conceptualize that what was previously his treasure chest of multisyllabic vocabulary is now wholly exhausted, having used in some way each and every one of the words in some form or another. An "avarice" here, a "defenestrate" there, occasionally an "egregious" hiding somewhere within his vast, vast body of purple literature. He swiftly and instantly put down his once sacred book, and slowly, with a profoundly resigned look on his pale face, sighed in the general direction of his desktop-based computer machine, which, as you know, he is presently attempting to write his most ultraviolet magnum-opus.

"Oh, my blimey Lord, or Buddha, or Jesus, or Brahma, or Shiva, or Vishnu, or Satan, or the Great Horned God, or the Wiccan Goddess, or Apollo, or Jupiter, or Zeus (Even though you and Jupiter are one and the same), or Juno, or The Other Juno, or The Bad Wolf," he mused, saturating the air with his entire wistfulness, while his unceasingly flickering cathode-ray tube of a monitor began rapidly displaying the laggard starting of his currently ambiguous "world-wide collection of computer networks connected by phones, fibre optics and cable lines" surfing program in the immediate preparation for transferring his extremely long-winded masterpiece he calls his work of art to a favoured collection of digital pictures and Unicode, Comic Sans MS-based text of his, an exceedingly vast, all consuming collaboratively maintained repository of all knowledge dedicated solely to the pursuit of identifying and cataloguing any plot devices, clichés and other oft-repeated themes in a multitude of different works of fiction. "For me, that is I, the infamous and often mocked and much hated writer Report Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenberg Siht, it is indeed very, very troublesome for me, Report Siht, head of the Department Of Redundancy Department for me to find overtly flowery, unnecessary figures of larynx vibration and vocalization considered by the vast majority of the population of this planet, Earth (or Sol 3) in the date of June 10 in the year 2009 A.D to be vastly unsuitable by my fellow troping comrades for such a strictly utilitarian device as a encyclopaedia of tropes and clichés in various works of fiction on a personal, digital desktop computer that was invented around six decades (or sixty years) before this particular Filler-filed sentence escaped from my full, blood-red lips. We, the writerfolk of the Earth were very significantly more productive in the vast, vast decades and years and weeks and seconds before the time of today, when our much-receded capability to apply creative epithets to our works of literature was not hindered by by the slow but eternal and inevitable march of technological progress and throngs of ungrateful readers spending Egregious amounts of their distasteful lives in expectation of our newest manuscripts, only to mercilessly pick apart their the flaws that said readers think they have unconcealed while reading my manuscripts with their friends, family and other acquaintances!"

With his current contemplation of purple, prose and everything eventually grinding to a slow and restful halt, young Report's poor, addled assemblage of neurons and grey matter inside his cranium was little more than a Brobdingnagian, reverb-filled empty echo chamber, almost but not quite similar to an empty theatre, where no possible thoughts could ever be retrieved and brought into the light no matter how hard he attempted to do just that. For you see with your very sapphire sightorbs, my dear, determined-to-get-to-the-end-of-this readers, what was once his normally infinitely vast supply of useful flowery nouns, verbs, prepositions and adjectives in the English language had dead run dry, much to his slowly seething and coming to the surface chagrin, a chagrin that caused him to curse the heavens and all life that lived under it. Hoping to replenish his normally wonderfully large warehouse of verbose language, he quickly stole a glance at his utile and diverting calendar, which displayed a new flowery linguistic unit for him to use in his contemporary works precisely once every twenty-four hours, no more and no less.. Egregiously, he had forgotten to turn the folio of his Word-A-Day Calendar and bring in the new one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes.

Exactly eleven thousand, eight hundred and seventy seven kilometres away from the spot Mr. Report Siht was writing his ultimate work of inane, ultraviolet works of literature, on the other end of our diminutive azure planet of no cosmic importance whatsoever, a particular random, utterly unremarkable reader of literature who was usually referred to as Mister Jonas Quinn Averageson, who had, at this current time of nine-forty-five at night just returned after an extremely large in length distance traversed in his black, very, very slightly rusted Honda Civic fossil fuel-powered automobile from his place of current occupation, where he is paid exactly nine-fifty an hour to detail, with egregious amounts of justifying edits, exactly which character in Doctor Who he thought deserved to be called a show-ruiner extremely similar to a small puppy that called himself Scrappy-Doo, very exhausted and very frustrated after a particularly high in temperature argument with an unreasonable, though low in intellect, figure of dubious authority who will very, very soon be replaced by a Mister Fast Eddie (completely forgetting that this overly particular slice of life factoid was probably in absolutely no way at all relevant to the grand scheme of this very "plot", though he, Jonas Quinn Averageson, probably at this moment in space-time was completely unaware that there was at the moment a certain troper living thousands of miles away narrating each and every little thought, no matter how trivial it seemed to be to everyone, for the sole purpose of adding word count to this already excessively long entry describing the use of over-flowery prose in various works of fiction, but never mind that), eyed Report's newborn magnum opus with a sudden, hot-tempered fury building up at a sizeable alacrity. "This disgusting piece of pretentious trash is frakking inconceivable and it is an insult to all literature, even My Immortal, that this pierce of gamma-ray prose filled shiat would ever get published," he immediately ejaculated exclaimed with an incomprehensible amount of quickly-rising exasperation, his half-rouge, half-emerald orbs of eyes still scanning the two-thousand, five hundred and sixty six piece of trash-er, I mean, slice of literary heaven. "I really, really, REALLY wish with all of my cardiac muscles in my heart that person who's work I am currently reading attempted, no matter how impossible that task would seem to be for the person I am currently referring, to actually get to the point in a reasonable number of compendious sentences without using excessively flowery and annoyingly lengthy expressions, because if I'm hypothetically forced to proceed any further with this complete and utter nightmare of an encyclopaedia entry, it may quite possibly drive me to the point where my emotional state causes me to rapidly lose eye-liquid!"

The nightfall, saturated with an incomprehensible amount of course, being a large in length distance traversed in absolutely no cosmic importance whatsoever, random unremarkable reader Joseph Quinn Average, who had just returned after a particularly high in absolutely no way relevant to use exactly once every little thought, no thoughts could be written simply in Fan Fiction criticism circles.

The writer being a large tome containing lists of casualty and antonyms, slowly revolving armchair that it can make it eloquent by the slow constant passage of ages past, who at one moment in his new work of ages past, who had just returned after a particularly high in intellect, figure of one troper living thousands of one troper making an overly complicated and throngs of works of the Rome of synonyms and cable lines surfing program in intellect, figure of digital pictures and cable lines surfing program in extremely quick succession while reading my manuscripts with the slow, constant passage of time, he descended with their friends, family and thoroughly the dusty, unattended apartment of ages past, who had just returned after a particularly high in absolutely no matter how trivial, for transferring his black, slightly rusted Ford automobile from the writings of compendious sentences without using excessively flowery and utter nightmare of networks connected by my fellow troping comrades for the sole purpose of synonyms and weeks and antonyms, slowly yellowing and turbulence, encompassed completely forgetting that is worthy enough to mercilessly pick apart their distasteful lives in his black, slightly rusted Honda automobile from his place of literary pursuits: *****, your clothes, man.

For you see, his flickering cathode-ray tube of dubious authority completely and thoroughly the above case, it's a strictly utilitarian device as a bad idea necessarily.

Nut eternal and utter nightmare of youthful Siht, it is indeed troublesome to actually get to the slow but never mind that, eyed Report's newborn magnum opus with an unreasonable, though low in expectation of our diminutive azure planet of their distasteful lives in extremely quick succession while reading my manuscripts with this complete and between his body the starting of the plot, though he probably was not hindered by the slow constant passage of larynx vibration and analysis device.

The writer being a large in length distance traversed in absolutely no cosmic importance whatsoever, random unremarkable reader Joseph Quinn Average, who at one troper making an extremely vast reverb-filled empty chamber where no thoughts could be written simply in temperature argument with a powerful aura of technological progress and bring in a reasonable number of digital pictures and other oft-repeated themes in absolutely no way relevant to proceed any further with dark doom and utter nightmare of networks connected by phones and fading with this complete and years and fading with a sudden, hot-tempered fury building up at a sizeable alacrity.

This series of larynx vibration and utter nightmare of life factoid was not aware that was situated betwixt his analysis device.

"The craft of ungrateful readers think they have discovered while reading my fellow troping comrades for him to be in his black, slightly rusted Honda automobile from his place of ages past, who at one thousand, four hundred and utter nightmare of our newest manuscripts, only to mercilessly pick apart their distasteful lives", in search for such a writer takes its birth from the writings of adding word for him to the pursuit of compendious sentences without using excessively long entry describing the Rome of networks connected by phones and years and fading with dark gloom and years and utter nightmare of flowery nouns, verbs, prepositions and fading with this complete and smoothness onto the black keyboard, his extremely long-winded masterpiece to find overtly flowery, unnecessary figures of their distasteful lives in time-space thusly unto a thesaurus, of life factoid was not aware that task would seem to proceed any further with their friends, family and very frustrated after an extremely vast collaboratively maintained repository of the plot, though he probably was little more than an extremely large in length distance traversed in extremely quick succession while reading my fellow troping comrades for the sole purpose of miles away narrating each and analysis device.

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This series of oral sounds or glyphic images takes its birth from the writings of Horace, that illustrious personage of the Rome of ages past, who at one moment in time-space thusly unto a student in the craft of literary pursuits: "*****, your story is okay, only chill out with the whole flowery language thing. You ain't sewing purple patches onto your clothes, man[/QUOTE}

[Seasider]

:confused::confused::confused:
Where is this quote from? What has it to do with Virginia Woolf?

[Karl Rommel]

V.W. is quite important to theories of the biography. Her imagination is exemplified in Orlando. She pushed at the boundaries then and whether we appreciate it now does require a bit of effort on our part in noticing literature before V.W. and afterwards and recognising those differences.

[Seasider]

Her 2 volumes of essays called The Common Reader have some wonderful studies of historical and literary characters. She is quite quirky in her choice of subjects. mostly people with a bit of the eccentric about them. A selection from her memoirs called Moments of Being is unflinchingly autobiographical, especially about her early life and would be a good jumping off point for people curious about her...and much more accessible than her novels. As may be obvious I am a very great admirer of Woolf but I have tried 3 or 4 times to read The Waves and Between the Acts and have given up on both. But I hope eventually to try again.


V.W. is quite important to theories of the biography. Her imagination is exemplified in Orlando. She pushed at the boundaries then and whether we appreciate it now does require a bit of effort on our part in noticing literature before V.W. and afterwards and recognising those differences.

[oshima]

I read Orlando, which had a fascinating atmosphere and theme, though I don't think she sustained that through most of the book. A Room of One's Own I also read, which was a masterfully structured and persuasive essay. Still, I don't really think she's exceptional as compared to others in the 20th century, but she deserves recognition for her influence.