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爻丕賱鈥属囏�
The Years
丕孬乇 賵賷乇噩賷賳賷丕 賵賵賱賮
丕孬乇 賵賷乇噩賷賳賷丕 賵賵賱賮
568 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1937
636 people are currently reading
13666 people want to read
About the author
Virginia Woolf
1,841听books27.4k听followers(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
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September 11, 2021
(Book 611 from 1001 books) - The Years, Virginia Woolf
The Years is a 1937 novel by Virginia Woolf, the last she published in her lifetime. The complexity of the writing style of "Virginia Woolf" puts the reader in a barrage that, even at the end of his stories, does not leave the readers.
The Years is story of boys, girls, father, mother, uncle, grandfather, cousins, daughters, servants and a family. It traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880's to the "present day" of the mid-1930's.
At the beginning of each section, and sometimes as a transition within sections, Woolf describes the changing weather all over Britain, taking in both London and countryside as if in a bird's-eye view before focusing in on her characters.
Although these descriptions move across the whole of England in single paragraphs, Woolf only rarely and briefly broadens her view to the world outside Britain.
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讴鬲丕亘 亘賴 賮氐賱鈥屬囏� 鬲賯爻蹖賲 卮丿賴 賵 丿乇 賴乇 蹖讴 卮乇丨 夭賳丿诏丕賳蹖 趩賳丿 鬲賳 亘丕夭诏賵 賲蹖卮賵丿貨 芦賵蹖乇噩蹖賳蹖丕 賵賵賱賮禄 丕夭 丿蹖丿诏丕賴 禺賵蹖卮 讴賵卮蹖丿賴 鬲丕 亘蹖賴賵丿诏蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 丕賳爻丕賳貙 禺丕賳賵丕丿賴貙 賵 賮丕賲蹖賱 乇丕 亘賳诏丕乇丿貨 丕賳诏丕乇 讴賳蹖丿 賴賲丕賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 芦爻丕賱鈥属囏回池� 讴賵丿讴蹖 賳蹖夭 賴賲賵丕乇賴 丿乇蹖睾丕蹖 芦賵賵賱賮禄 亘賵丿賴貙 亘乇丕蹖 賴賲蹖賳 丕爻鬲 讴賴 丿乇 讴鬲丕亘鈥屬囏й屫簇� 讴賵丿讴丕賳 賵 讴賵丿讴蹖貙 噩丕蹖诏丕賴蹖 賵蹖跇賴 丿丕乇賳丿貨 亘賳诏乇蹖丿: 芦蹖讴蹖 丕夭 亘丿鬲乇蹖賳 噩賳亘賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 亘夭乇诏 卮丿賳 丕蹖賳 亘賵丿 讴賴 賳賲蹖鈥屫堌з嗀池嗀� 亘丕 賴賲 丿乇丿 丿賱 讴賳賳丿禄貨 賲乇诏 丕夭 賳诏丕賴 芦賵賵賱賮禄 乇禺丿丕丿 乇賵蹖丿丕丿蹖 亘蹖鈥屬囐呚� 賵 亘蹖賴賲丕賳賳丿 丕爻鬲貨 丿乇爻鬲 賴賲丕賳賳丿 夭賳丿诏蹖 芦丿蹖賱蹖丕 丕夭 禺賵丿 倬乇爻蹖丿: 賲乇诏 丕蹖賳 丕爻鬲責 賱丨馗賴鈥� 賴丕蹖蹖 趩賳蹖賳 賲蹖鈥屬嗁呝堌� 讴賴 趩蹖夭蹖 丿乇 卮乇賮 賵賯賵毓 亘賵丿禄貨 丌丿賲鈥屬囏й� 芦賵賵賱賮禄 賲氐賳賵毓蹖 賳蹖爻鬲賳丿貨 賲毓賳蹖 丿丕乇賳丿 賵 诏賵卮鬲貙 倬賵爻鬲 賵 禺賵賳貙 禺賳丿蹖丿賳 亘賴 賴賲賴 趩蹖夭貙 亘賴 夭賳丿诏蹖貙 讴丕乇 丿乇爻鬲 賵 氐丕丿賯丕賳賴 丌賳鈥屬囏ж池�
賳賯賱 丕夭 賲鬲賳: (爻乇賴賳诏 乇賵賶 氐賳丿賱賶賽 爻丕禺鬲賴 丕夭 賳賶 賳卮爻鬲貙 讴賴 氐丿丕賶 噩蹖乇 噩蹖乇 丌賳 亘賱賳丿 卮丿貙 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 爻诏 乇丕 乇賵賶 夭丕賳賵賶 丕賵 诏匕丕卮鬲貨 倬卮鬲 蹖讴賶 丕夭 诏賵卮賴丕賶 爻诏貙 賱讴賴鈥� 丕賶 賯乇賲夭 賭 丕丨鬲賲丕賱丕 丕诏夭賲丕 賭 賵噩賵丿 丿丕卮鬲貨 丕賵 毓蹖賳讴 亘賴 趩卮賲 夭丿貙 賵 禺賲 卮丿 鬲丕 诏賵卮 爻诏 乇丕 賳诏丕賴 讴賳丿貨 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 賯爻賲鬲賶 丕夭 诏乇丿賳 丕賵 乇丕 讴賴 丿乇 鬲賲丕爻 亘丕 蹖賯賴 亘賵丿 亘賵爻蹖丿貨 毓蹖賳讴賽 爻乇賴賳诏 丕夭 趩卮賲卮 丕賮鬲丕丿貨 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 丌賳 乇丕 賯丕倬蹖丿貙 賵 亘賴 趩卮賲 爻诏 诏匕丕卮鬲貨 丨爻 讴乇丿 讴賴 倬蹖乇賲乇丿 丕賲乇賵夭 爻乇丨丕賱 賳蹖爻鬲貨 丿乇 丿賳蹖丕賶 賲乇賲賵夭 亘丕卮诏丕賴貙 賵 夭賳丿诏賶 禺丕賳賵丕丿诏賶鈥屫ж簇� 讴賴 賴乇诏夭 丿乇 賲賵乇丿 丌賳 趩蹖夭賶 亘賴 丕賵 賳賲賶鈥屭佖� 丕鬲賮丕賯賶 丕賮鬲丕丿賴 亘賵丿貨 丕賲乇賵夭 丕賵 倬蹖卮 丕夭 丌賳讴賴 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 賲賵賴丕蹖卮 乇丕 丿乇爻鬲 讴賳丿貙 倬蹖丿丕蹖卮 卮丿賴 亘賵丿貙 讴賴 丕蹖賳 亘丕毓孬 賲夭丕丨賲鬲 亘賵丿貨 賵賱賶 賵馗蹖賮賴鈥� 丕卮 丕蹖賳 亘賵丿 讴賴 倬蹖乇賲乇丿 乇丕 爻乇诏乇賲 讴賳丿貙 亘賳丕亘乇丕蹖賳 丕夭 噩丕 倬乇蹖丿 賭 亘丕 噩孬賴鈥� 丕賶 讴賴 亘夭乇诏鬲乇 賲賶鈥屬嗁呝堌� 賴賳賵夭 賲賶鈥屫堌з嗀池� 亘蹖賳 賲蹖夭 賵 氐賳丿賱賶 丨乇讴鬲 讴賳丿 賭 倬乇丿賴 蹖 亘禺丕乇賶 丿蹖賵丕乇賶 乇丕 亘乇丿丕卮鬲貙 賵 賯亘賱 丕夭 丕蹖賳讴賴 爻乇賴賳诏 亘鬲賵丕賳丿 噩賱賵賶 丕賵 乇丕 亘诏蹖乇丿貙 丌賳 乇丕 乇賵卮賳 讴乇丿貙 讴賴 氐丿丕賶 噩乇賯 噩乇賯 丌鬲卮貙 丿乇 賮囟丕賶 丌賳 禺丕賳賴 讴乇丕蹖賴鈥� 丕賶 胤賳蹖賳 丕賳丿丕禺鬲貨 丌賳诏丕賴 乇賵賶 丿爻鬲賴 蹖 氐賳丿賱賶 爻乇賴賳诏 賳卮爻鬲貨 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 丿乇 丌蹖蹖賳賴 賳馗乇賶 亘賴 禺賵丿 丕賳丿丕禺鬲貙 爻賳噩丕賯 爻乇卮 乇丕 噩丕亘噩丕 讴乇丿貙 賵 诏賮鬲: 芦丕賵賴 賲蹖乇丕貙 趩賴 丿禺鬲乇 跇賵賱蹖丿賴 賵 卮賱禺鬲賴鈥� 丕賶 賴爻鬲賶!禄貨 丕賵 丨賱賯賴鈥� 丕賶 亘賱賳丿 丕夭 賲賵賴丕蹖卮 乇丕 乇賴丕 讴乇丿貙 讴賴 乇賵賶 卮丕賳賴鈥� 賴丕蹖卮 睾賱鬲蹖丿貙 賲賵賴丕賶 胤賱丕蹖賶鈥� 丕卮 賴賳賵夭 夭蹖亘丕 亘賵丿貙 诏乇趩賴 鬲賯乇蹖亘丌 趩賴賱 爻丕賱賴 亘賵丿 賵貙 丕诏乇 丨賯蹖賯鬲 亘乇賲賱丕 賲賶鈥屫簇� 丿禺鬲乇賶 賴卮鬲 爻丕賱賴 丿丕卮鬲 讴賴 丿賵爻鬲丕賳卮 丿乇 芦亘賽丿賮賵乇丿禄 丕夭 丕賵 賳诏賴丿丕乇賶 賲賶鈥屭┴必嗀� 賲賵賴丕賶 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 亘賴 丌乇丕賲賶 賵 亘賴 丿賱禺賵丕賴 禺賵丿 乇賴丕 卮丿貙 賵 賲賵噩 亘乇丿丕卮鬲 賵 芦亘丕诏賶禄 亘丕 丿蹖丿賳 丕蹖賳 氐丨賳賴 禺賲 卮丿貙 賵 賲賵賴丕賶 丕賵 乇丕 亘賵爻蹖丿貙 氐丿丕賶 蹖讴 丕乇诏 丿賳丿丕賳賴鈥� 丕賶貙 丕夭 丕賳鬲賴丕賶 禺蹖丕亘丕賳 亘賴 诏賵卮 乇爻蹖丿貙 賵 亘趩賴鈥屬囏� 亘賴 丌賳 爻賲鬲 賴噩賵賲 亘乇丿賳丿貙 讴賴 亘丕 乇賮鬲賳 丌賳賴丕貙 丌乇丕賲卮賶 賳丕诏賴丕賳賶 亘賴 賵噩賵丿 丌賲丿貙 爻乇賴賳诏 卮乇賵毓 亘賴 賳賵丕夭卮 诏乇丿賳賽 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 讴乇丿.)貨 倬丕蹖丕賳 賳賯賱
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 16/07/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 19/06/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
The Years is a 1937 novel by Virginia Woolf, the last she published in her lifetime. The complexity of the writing style of "Virginia Woolf" puts the reader in a barrage that, even at the end of his stories, does not leave the readers.
The Years is story of boys, girls, father, mother, uncle, grandfather, cousins, daughters, servants and a family. It traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880's to the "present day" of the mid-1930's.
At the beginning of each section, and sometimes as a transition within sections, Woolf describes the changing weather all over Britain, taking in both London and countryside as if in a bird's-eye view before focusing in on her characters.
Although these descriptions move across the whole of England in single paragraphs, Woolf only rarely and briefly broadens her view to the world outside Britain.
毓賳賵丕賳 趩丕倬 卮丿賴 丿乇 丕蹖乇丕賳: 爻丕賱鈥属囏ж� 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 賵蹖乇噩蹖賳蹖丕 賵賵賱賮貨 丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲蹖賴丕 (賳诏丕賴貙 乇賵夭诏丕乇貙 賵 ...) 丕丿亘蹖丕鬲貨 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮 乇賵夭 亘蹖爻鬲 賵 卮卮賲 賲丕賴 丿爻丕賲亘乇 爻丕賱 2007賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 爻丕賱鈥属囏ж� 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 賵蹖乇噩蹖賳蹖丕 賵賵賱賮貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 賮乇賴丕丿 亘丿乇蹖夭丕丿賴貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳诏丕賴貙 1377貨 丿乇 568氐貨 卮丕亘讴 9646174604貨 趩丕倬 爻賵賲 1385貨 趩丕倬 丿蹖诏乇 鬲賴乇丕賳 乇賵夭诏丕乇貨 1394貨 丿乇 504氐貨 卮丕亘讴 9789643746230貨 賲賵囟賵毓 丿丕爻鬲丕賳賴丕蹖 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 亘乇蹖鬲丕賳蹖丕 - 爻丿賴 20賲
倬蹖趩蹖丿诏蹖 爻亘讴 賳诏丕乇卮 芦賵蹖乇噩蹖賳蹖丕 賵賵賱賮禄貙 禺賵丕賳卮诏乇 乇丕 丿乇 亘乇夭禺蹖 賯乇丕乇 賲蹖丿賴丿貙 讴賴 丨鬲蹖 丿乇 倬丕蹖丕賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳賴丕蹖卮 賳蹖夭貙 丕夭 丌賳 乇賴丕蹖蹖 賳賲蹖蹖丕亘丿貨 乇賲丕賳 芦爻丕賱鈥属囏回� 丿丕爻鬲丕賳蹖 丕夭 芦倬爻乇賴丕禄貙 丿禺鬲乇賴丕貙 倬丿乇貙 賲丕丿乇貙 毓賲賵貙 夭賳鈥屫官呝堌� 倬爻乇毓賲賵賴丕貙 丿禺鬲乇毓賲賵賴丕貙 賲爻鬲禺丿賲貙 賵 蹖讴 禺丕賳賵丕丿賴 丕爻鬲
讴鬲丕亘 亘賴 賮氐賱鈥屬囏� 鬲賯爻蹖賲 卮丿賴 賵 丿乇 賴乇 蹖讴 卮乇丨 夭賳丿诏丕賳蹖 趩賳丿 鬲賳 亘丕夭诏賵 賲蹖卮賵丿貨 芦賵蹖乇噩蹖賳蹖丕 賵賵賱賮禄 丕夭 丿蹖丿诏丕賴 禺賵蹖卮 讴賵卮蹖丿賴 鬲丕 亘蹖賴賵丿诏蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 丕賳爻丕賳貙 禺丕賳賵丕丿賴貙 賵 賮丕賲蹖賱 乇丕 亘賳诏丕乇丿貨 丕賳诏丕乇 讴賳蹖丿 賴賲丕賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 芦爻丕賱鈥属囏回池� 讴賵丿讴蹖 賳蹖夭 賴賲賵丕乇賴 丿乇蹖睾丕蹖 芦賵賵賱賮禄 亘賵丿賴貙 亘乇丕蹖 賴賲蹖賳 丕爻鬲 讴賴 丿乇 讴鬲丕亘鈥屬囏й屫簇� 讴賵丿讴丕賳 賵 讴賵丿讴蹖貙 噩丕蹖诏丕賴蹖 賵蹖跇賴 丿丕乇賳丿貨 亘賳诏乇蹖丿: 芦蹖讴蹖 丕夭 亘丿鬲乇蹖賳 噩賳亘賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 亘夭乇诏 卮丿賳 丕蹖賳 亘賵丿 讴賴 賳賲蹖鈥屫堌з嗀池嗀� 亘丕 賴賲 丿乇丿 丿賱 讴賳賳丿禄貨 賲乇诏 丕夭 賳诏丕賴 芦賵賵賱賮禄 乇禺丿丕丿 乇賵蹖丿丕丿蹖 亘蹖鈥屬囐呚� 賵 亘蹖賴賲丕賳賳丿 丕爻鬲貨 丿乇爻鬲 賴賲丕賳賳丿 夭賳丿诏蹖 芦丿蹖賱蹖丕 丕夭 禺賵丿 倬乇爻蹖丿: 賲乇诏 丕蹖賳 丕爻鬲責 賱丨馗賴鈥� 賴丕蹖蹖 趩賳蹖賳 賲蹖鈥屬嗁呝堌� 讴賴 趩蹖夭蹖 丿乇 卮乇賮 賵賯賵毓 亘賵丿禄貨 丌丿賲鈥屬囏й� 芦賵賵賱賮禄 賲氐賳賵毓蹖 賳蹖爻鬲賳丿貨 賲毓賳蹖 丿丕乇賳丿 賵 诏賵卮鬲貙 倬賵爻鬲 賵 禺賵賳貙 禺賳丿蹖丿賳 亘賴 賴賲賴 趩蹖夭貙 亘賴 夭賳丿诏蹖貙 讴丕乇 丿乇爻鬲 賵 氐丕丿賯丕賳賴 丌賳鈥屬囏ж池�
賳賯賱 丕夭 賲鬲賳: (爻乇賴賳诏 乇賵賶 氐賳丿賱賶賽 爻丕禺鬲賴 丕夭 賳賶 賳卮爻鬲貙 讴賴 氐丿丕賶 噩蹖乇 噩蹖乇 丌賳 亘賱賳丿 卮丿貙 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 爻诏 乇丕 乇賵賶 夭丕賳賵賶 丕賵 诏匕丕卮鬲貨 倬卮鬲 蹖讴賶 丕夭 诏賵卮賴丕賶 爻诏貙 賱讴賴鈥� 丕賶 賯乇賲夭 賭 丕丨鬲賲丕賱丕 丕诏夭賲丕 賭 賵噩賵丿 丿丕卮鬲貨 丕賵 毓蹖賳讴 亘賴 趩卮賲 夭丿貙 賵 禺賲 卮丿 鬲丕 诏賵卮 爻诏 乇丕 賳诏丕賴 讴賳丿貨 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 賯爻賲鬲賶 丕夭 诏乇丿賳 丕賵 乇丕 讴賴 丿乇 鬲賲丕爻 亘丕 蹖賯賴 亘賵丿 亘賵爻蹖丿貨 毓蹖賳讴賽 爻乇賴賳诏 丕夭 趩卮賲卮 丕賮鬲丕丿貨 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 丌賳 乇丕 賯丕倬蹖丿貙 賵 亘賴 趩卮賲 爻诏 诏匕丕卮鬲貨 丨爻 讴乇丿 讴賴 倬蹖乇賲乇丿 丕賲乇賵夭 爻乇丨丕賱 賳蹖爻鬲貨 丿乇 丿賳蹖丕賶 賲乇賲賵夭 亘丕卮诏丕賴貙 賵 夭賳丿诏賶 禺丕賳賵丕丿诏賶鈥屫ж簇� 讴賴 賴乇诏夭 丿乇 賲賵乇丿 丌賳 趩蹖夭賶 亘賴 丕賵 賳賲賶鈥屭佖� 丕鬲賮丕賯賶 丕賮鬲丕丿賴 亘賵丿貨 丕賲乇賵夭 丕賵 倬蹖卮 丕夭 丌賳讴賴 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 賲賵賴丕蹖卮 乇丕 丿乇爻鬲 讴賳丿貙 倬蹖丿丕蹖卮 卮丿賴 亘賵丿貙 讴賴 丕蹖賳 亘丕毓孬 賲夭丕丨賲鬲 亘賵丿貨 賵賱賶 賵馗蹖賮賴鈥� 丕卮 丕蹖賳 亘賵丿 讴賴 倬蹖乇賲乇丿 乇丕 爻乇诏乇賲 讴賳丿貙 亘賳丕亘乇丕蹖賳 丕夭 噩丕 倬乇蹖丿 賭 亘丕 噩孬賴鈥� 丕賶 讴賴 亘夭乇诏鬲乇 賲賶鈥屬嗁呝堌� 賴賳賵夭 賲賶鈥屫堌з嗀池� 亘蹖賳 賲蹖夭 賵 氐賳丿賱賶 丨乇讴鬲 讴賳丿 賭 倬乇丿賴 蹖 亘禺丕乇賶 丿蹖賵丕乇賶 乇丕 亘乇丿丕卮鬲貙 賵 賯亘賱 丕夭 丕蹖賳讴賴 爻乇賴賳诏 亘鬲賵丕賳丿 噩賱賵賶 丕賵 乇丕 亘诏蹖乇丿貙 丌賳 乇丕 乇賵卮賳 讴乇丿貙 讴賴 氐丿丕賶 噩乇賯 噩乇賯 丌鬲卮貙 丿乇 賮囟丕賶 丌賳 禺丕賳賴 讴乇丕蹖賴鈥� 丕賶 胤賳蹖賳 丕賳丿丕禺鬲貨 丌賳诏丕賴 乇賵賶 丿爻鬲賴 蹖 氐賳丿賱賶 爻乇賴賳诏 賳卮爻鬲貨 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 丿乇 丌蹖蹖賳賴 賳馗乇賶 亘賴 禺賵丿 丕賳丿丕禺鬲貙 爻賳噩丕賯 爻乇卮 乇丕 噩丕亘噩丕 讴乇丿貙 賵 诏賮鬲: 芦丕賵賴 賲蹖乇丕貙 趩賴 丿禺鬲乇 跇賵賱蹖丿賴 賵 卮賱禺鬲賴鈥� 丕賶 賴爻鬲賶!禄貨 丕賵 丨賱賯賴鈥� 丕賶 亘賱賳丿 丕夭 賲賵賴丕蹖卮 乇丕 乇賴丕 讴乇丿貙 讴賴 乇賵賶 卮丕賳賴鈥� 賴丕蹖卮 睾賱鬲蹖丿貙 賲賵賴丕賶 胤賱丕蹖賶鈥� 丕卮 賴賳賵夭 夭蹖亘丕 亘賵丿貙 诏乇趩賴 鬲賯乇蹖亘丌 趩賴賱 爻丕賱賴 亘賵丿 賵貙 丕诏乇 丨賯蹖賯鬲 亘乇賲賱丕 賲賶鈥屫簇� 丿禺鬲乇賶 賴卮鬲 爻丕賱賴 丿丕卮鬲 讴賴 丿賵爻鬲丕賳卮 丿乇 芦亘賽丿賮賵乇丿禄 丕夭 丕賵 賳诏賴丿丕乇賶 賲賶鈥屭┴必嗀� 賲賵賴丕賶 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 亘賴 丌乇丕賲賶 賵 亘賴 丿賱禺賵丕賴 禺賵丿 乇賴丕 卮丿貙 賵 賲賵噩 亘乇丿丕卮鬲 賵 芦亘丕诏賶禄 亘丕 丿蹖丿賳 丕蹖賳 氐丨賳賴 禺賲 卮丿貙 賵 賲賵賴丕賶 丕賵 乇丕 亘賵爻蹖丿貙 氐丿丕賶 蹖讴 丕乇诏 丿賳丿丕賳賴鈥� 丕賶貙 丕夭 丕賳鬲賴丕賶 禺蹖丕亘丕賳 亘賴 诏賵卮 乇爻蹖丿貙 賵 亘趩賴鈥屬囏� 亘賴 丌賳 爻賲鬲 賴噩賵賲 亘乇丿賳丿貙 讴賴 亘丕 乇賮鬲賳 丌賳賴丕貙 丌乇丕賲卮賶 賳丕诏賴丕賳賶 亘賴 賵噩賵丿 丌賲丿貙 爻乇賴賳诏 卮乇賵毓 亘賴 賳賵丕夭卮 诏乇丿賳賽 芦賲蹖乇丕禄 讴乇丿.)貨 倬丕蹖丕賳 賳賯賱
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 16/07/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 19/06/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
May 3, 2023
Notes on 2nd reading
I鈥檓 glad I returned to this. It鈥檚 wonderful second tier Woolf. Its greatest strength is its highly enigmatic means of advancing the narrative. I don鈥檛 place it up there with or or or or . But it鈥檚 still highly readable鈥攁droitly leaping from consciousness to consciousness. At times Woolf pulls away to indulge a descriptive tchotchke by way of transition. It鈥檚 the only thing, I think, that dates the book. Literary fiction today mostly minimizes such flights. Read to see how she gutted this one out. The severity of her labors seems to me most manifest in the lack of spritely humor which makes a number of the other books such gems.
Notes from 1st reading
I will not call the early going a slog, but the novel did fail to engage me until page 140 or so. After that, all was well. The novel took off as a proper Virginia Woolf novel should. By the end of the long party scene which closes the book I was familiarly dazzled. I have to admit that I find the content almost unsummarizable. There's no plot to speak of. It's the technique that astonishes. Woolf's concern is not the quotidian, and often not the particular, but the structural. There are any number of exchanges between characters, sometimes arguments, in which the reader has no idea of the issues involved. Woolf deliberately takes the emphasis off the particular here and this somehow pulls the characterizations into the foreground more strongly. I'm not sure how she does it. It's impressive. She uses the technique throughout. As for the timeline, it seems almost capricious. Here are the years which form the chapter heads: 1880, 1891, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1917, 1918 and Present Day. As with a bildungsroman, Woolf's interest is in the developmental arc over time. But unlike the bildungsroman there is no movement toward a set goal, life being thinly plotted. Neither is there a single central character but rather an ensemble effect. Much takes place offstage: births and deaths and weddings and childbirth. Woolf's concern is with the interstitial moments, when the effect of time has its cumulative impact.
I鈥檓 glad I returned to this. It鈥檚 wonderful second tier Woolf. Its greatest strength is its highly enigmatic means of advancing the narrative. I don鈥檛 place it up there with or or or or . But it鈥檚 still highly readable鈥攁droitly leaping from consciousness to consciousness. At times Woolf pulls away to indulge a descriptive tchotchke by way of transition. It鈥檚 the only thing, I think, that dates the book. Literary fiction today mostly minimizes such flights. Read to see how she gutted this one out. The severity of her labors seems to me most manifest in the lack of spritely humor which makes a number of the other books such gems.
Notes from 1st reading
I will not call the early going a slog, but the novel did fail to engage me until page 140 or so. After that, all was well. The novel took off as a proper Virginia Woolf novel should. By the end of the long party scene which closes the book I was familiarly dazzled. I have to admit that I find the content almost unsummarizable. There's no plot to speak of. It's the technique that astonishes. Woolf's concern is not the quotidian, and often not the particular, but the structural. There are any number of exchanges between characters, sometimes arguments, in which the reader has no idea of the issues involved. Woolf deliberately takes the emphasis off the particular here and this somehow pulls the characterizations into the foreground more strongly. I'm not sure how she does it. It's impressive. She uses the technique throughout. As for the timeline, it seems almost capricious. Here are the years which form the chapter heads: 1880, 1891, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1917, 1918 and Present Day. As with a bildungsroman, Woolf's interest is in the developmental arc over time. But unlike the bildungsroman there is no movement toward a set goal, life being thinly plotted. Neither is there a single central character but rather an ensemble effect. Much takes place offstage: births and deaths and weddings and childbirth. Woolf's concern is with the interstitial moments, when the effect of time has its cumulative impact.
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April 11, 2025May 2nd 2015
Since is composed of a series of vignettes about the Pargiter family over a period of fifty years, it is tempting to review it as if it were an old photograph album, one of those with layers of tissue to protect the images. As we slide the delicate paper aside, each image gradually assembles itself:
1880. A family group. The bewhiskered patriarch is squarely camped on the only chair, one elbow propped against a little table on which sits an elaborate china teapot. His grown and semi-grown children are massed about him. He looks as if he has just finished speaking. The others look like they haven鈥檛 yet begun. The mother is missing from the picture.
Next page: 1891. This time the image is of a London trolleybus*, the kind that ran on tram tracks and were pulled by horses. There鈥檚 a woman sitting on the upper deck. She looks uncomfortable travelling shoulder to shoulder with strangers but she needs to get to her workplace. She also looks like she doesn鈥檛 speak about her work to many people, least of all to her father when she diligently returns home every afternoon at five o'clock to serve his tea.
1907: In the centre of the photograph a woman pours tea for her daughter. The daughter stares at her mother pouring tea as if she is imagining the scene as a painting. Another daughter sits in a window-seat holding a book and a pen in her hands, staring into the distance. She looks like she may be thinking about writing.
1908: An old man is lying in a bathchair, covered by a blanket. On a table beside him is a tea pot and some newspaper cuttings, one, a photograph of a woman with a brick in her hand, another, an obituary for the King.
1911: A group of women taking tea on a terrace. One of them is brown from the sun. She鈥檚 been travelling on her own in Spain and Italy. There is an owl in the background.
1913: An elderly woman pours tea for herself in a little room on the top floor of a lodging house in Wandsworth using the old china tea pot she saved from the house at St John鈥檚 Wood where she worked all her life as a housekeeper.
1914: Some people sitting in a caf茅 and, yes, you鈥檝e guessed it, they are drinking tea鈥ctually I can鈥檛 do this anymore. This review is turning into a farce and Virginia Woolf鈥檚 book doesn鈥檛 deserve that treatment.
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May 8th 2015
has been the hardest of Woolf鈥檚 novels for me to get through and it has also been a challenge to write about, such a challenge in fact that I鈥檝e been forced to do something I rarely do before writing a review: read up on the writer's life to help me understand her work. I bought a few days ago, and started it in the middle鈥�1932鈥攖he year Woolf began her ninth novel, .
Here鈥檚 an entry from the autumn of 1932: I have entirely remodelled my Essay. It鈥檚 to be called The Pargiters (The Years)鈥攁nd to take in everything, sex, education, life etc.; and come, with the most powerful agile leaps, like a chamois, across precipices from 1880 to here and now鈥verything is running of its own accord into the stream, as with 'Orlando'. What has happened of course is that after abstaining from the novel of fact all these years鈥攕ince 'Night and Day' in 1919鈥擨 find myself infinitely delighting in facts for a change, and in possession of quantities beyond counting: though I feel now and then the tug to vision, but resist it. This is the true line, I am sure, after 'The Waves'鈥攖his is what leads naturally on to the next stage鈥攖he Essay-novel.
The Essay she is talking about at the beginning of that quote is Professions for Women** published in 1931, which was the inspiration for both and , the Essay-novel she spoke of at the end. As we can see, she had great plans for and wrote nearly two hundred thousand words very quickly. In 1933, she wrote in her diary:
I visualise this book now as a series of uneven time sequences鈥攁 series of great balloons, linked by straight passages of narrative. I can take liberties with the representational form which I didn鈥檛 dare when I wrote 'Night and Day'.
She began editing that enormous mass of words soon afterwards but the process took years during which she lurched between loving and hating every scene she had written. It appears that she reduced the body of the novel quite a bit during the rewrites, although it is still one of her longest. She removed many of the themes that would have been of interest to us today, the sex, education, life themes which she had spoken of with such enthusiasm at the beginning. The result is a series of beautifully written vignettes, but without a strong underlying theme to knit them together (that鈥檚 why my initial attempt to review this book failed鈥擨 couldn't find a common thread and was left with nothing but...an elaborate teapot).
was the first of Woolf's novels I read and I remember feeling that there was more beauty than realism in the text. In , she set out to write a book full of realism, full of 鈥榝acts鈥�, but she seemed to become uncomfortable with so much 'fact' and the book had to fall back on 鈥榲ision鈥�, on poetic flights, on beautiful images. The 鈥榝acts鈥� mostly seem to have been in the material Woolf cut from this book and we are left to wonder why. The diary gives accounts of her fragile state of health during this time which may have caused her nerves to fail at the thought of the sniping of her many critics. All books now seem to me to be surrounded by a circle of invisible censors, she noted around this time. She had grown more and more fearful of reading negative criticism, leading as it did to days and weeks of depression, of inability to write.
The five long years which Woolf spent struggling with the manuscript of this book were sad ones, difficult ones, years during which she constantly doubted her own talent. But what is really sad for us today is that the doubts she experienced led to the removal of such a quantity of exciting material from , a project that should have been the high point of her entire novel writing career.
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For Proust enthusiasts (may contain spoilers):
*
**In 'Professions for Women', Woolf argued for the killing of of the 'Angel in the House' figure, the self-sacrificing mother who perpetuates the idea that a woman's role is simply to be decorative and charming. In 'The Years', the mother figure dies at the beginning.
Since is composed of a series of vignettes about the Pargiter family over a period of fifty years, it is tempting to review it as if it were an old photograph album, one of those with layers of tissue to protect the images. As we slide the delicate paper aside, each image gradually assembles itself:
1880. A family group. The bewhiskered patriarch is squarely camped on the only chair, one elbow propped against a little table on which sits an elaborate china teapot. His grown and semi-grown children are massed about him. He looks as if he has just finished speaking. The others look like they haven鈥檛 yet begun. The mother is missing from the picture.
Next page: 1891. This time the image is of a London trolleybus*, the kind that ran on tram tracks and were pulled by horses. There鈥檚 a woman sitting on the upper deck. She looks uncomfortable travelling shoulder to shoulder with strangers but she needs to get to her workplace. She also looks like she doesn鈥檛 speak about her work to many people, least of all to her father when she diligently returns home every afternoon at five o'clock to serve his tea.
1907: In the centre of the photograph a woman pours tea for her daughter. The daughter stares at her mother pouring tea as if she is imagining the scene as a painting. Another daughter sits in a window-seat holding a book and a pen in her hands, staring into the distance. She looks like she may be thinking about writing.
1908: An old man is lying in a bathchair, covered by a blanket. On a table beside him is a tea pot and some newspaper cuttings, one, a photograph of a woman with a brick in her hand, another, an obituary for the King.
1911: A group of women taking tea on a terrace. One of them is brown from the sun. She鈥檚 been travelling on her own in Spain and Italy. There is an owl in the background.
1913: An elderly woman pours tea for herself in a little room on the top floor of a lodging house in Wandsworth using the old china tea pot she saved from the house at St John鈥檚 Wood where she worked all her life as a housekeeper.
1914: Some people sitting in a caf茅 and, yes, you鈥檝e guessed it, they are drinking tea鈥ctually I can鈥檛 do this anymore. This review is turning into a farce and Virginia Woolf鈥檚 book doesn鈥檛 deserve that treatment.
鈥︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌�
May 8th 2015
has been the hardest of Woolf鈥檚 novels for me to get through and it has also been a challenge to write about, such a challenge in fact that I鈥檝e been forced to do something I rarely do before writing a review: read up on the writer's life to help me understand her work. I bought a few days ago, and started it in the middle鈥�1932鈥攖he year Woolf began her ninth novel, .
Here鈥檚 an entry from the autumn of 1932: I have entirely remodelled my Essay. It鈥檚 to be called The Pargiters (The Years)鈥攁nd to take in everything, sex, education, life etc.; and come, with the most powerful agile leaps, like a chamois, across precipices from 1880 to here and now鈥verything is running of its own accord into the stream, as with 'Orlando'. What has happened of course is that after abstaining from the novel of fact all these years鈥攕ince 'Night and Day' in 1919鈥擨 find myself infinitely delighting in facts for a change, and in possession of quantities beyond counting: though I feel now and then the tug to vision, but resist it. This is the true line, I am sure, after 'The Waves'鈥攖his is what leads naturally on to the next stage鈥攖he Essay-novel.
The Essay she is talking about at the beginning of that quote is Professions for Women** published in 1931, which was the inspiration for both and , the Essay-novel she spoke of at the end. As we can see, she had great plans for and wrote nearly two hundred thousand words very quickly. In 1933, she wrote in her diary:
I visualise this book now as a series of uneven time sequences鈥攁 series of great balloons, linked by straight passages of narrative. I can take liberties with the representational form which I didn鈥檛 dare when I wrote 'Night and Day'.
She began editing that enormous mass of words soon afterwards but the process took years during which she lurched between loving and hating every scene she had written. It appears that she reduced the body of the novel quite a bit during the rewrites, although it is still one of her longest. She removed many of the themes that would have been of interest to us today, the sex, education, life themes which she had spoken of with such enthusiasm at the beginning. The result is a series of beautifully written vignettes, but without a strong underlying theme to knit them together (that鈥檚 why my initial attempt to review this book failed鈥擨 couldn't find a common thread and was left with nothing but...an elaborate teapot).
was the first of Woolf's novels I read and I remember feeling that there was more beauty than realism in the text. In , she set out to write a book full of realism, full of 鈥榝acts鈥�, but she seemed to become uncomfortable with so much 'fact' and the book had to fall back on 鈥榲ision鈥�, on poetic flights, on beautiful images. The 鈥榝acts鈥� mostly seem to have been in the material Woolf cut from this book and we are left to wonder why. The diary gives accounts of her fragile state of health during this time which may have caused her nerves to fail at the thought of the sniping of her many critics. All books now seem to me to be surrounded by a circle of invisible censors, she noted around this time. She had grown more and more fearful of reading negative criticism, leading as it did to days and weeks of depression, of inability to write.
The five long years which Woolf spent struggling with the manuscript of this book were sad ones, difficult ones, years during which she constantly doubted her own talent. But what is really sad for us today is that the doubts she experienced led to the removal of such a quantity of exciting material from , a project that should have been the high point of her entire novel writing career.
鈥︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹€︹€︹€︹€︹€�.
For Proust enthusiasts (may contain spoilers):
*
**In 'Professions for Women', Woolf argued for the killing of of the 'Angel in the House' figure, the self-sacrificing mother who perpetuates the idea that a woman's role is simply to be decorative and charming. In 'The Years', the mother figure dies at the beginning.
May 21, 2018
鈥淭he Years鈥� is a mature novel but also a hybrid work straddling a family saga and a collection of robbed moments that would have vanished into the river of time hadn鈥檛 it been for Woolf鈥檚 brilliant descriptive skills.
Capable of capturing the elusiveness of an atmosphere, of words left unsaid, of a particular landscape in any season, of the details that dress a room or the people that come in and go out of it scarcely leaving any trace, Woolf manages to give human quality to the passage of time, the real protagonist of this story.
It鈥檚 true that she uses the Pargiter, a bourgeois family in extinction at the beginning of the twentieth century, to flesh out something as ungraspable as the passage of time. We get to know the Pargiters in their childhood days and observe, in fragmentary manner, the evolution of their personalities as they grow up and become active actors in their lives. Oddly enough, the cumulative changes they suffer only strengthen their innate characters, boosting their childhood traits.
As usual in Woolf鈥檚 novels, London appears as a backdrop to the Pargiters鈥� doings, materializing the transformation of the city and its society over the years. The end of the Victorian era, WWI, the British colonies, women鈥檚 causes or politics are addressed tangentially; it鈥檚 the alternating cycle of rebirth and decline of the main protagonists and their descendants that centers the focus of the storyline.
Despite the lyrical harmony of Woolf鈥檚 subtle prose, this has been a tough novel to get through. There is a certain detachment between the characters as years go by, and the style of the narrative evolves from an initial delightful family portrait to an oblique semi-essay on the generational gap that is most evident in the last section of the novel titled 鈥減resent time鈥�, which takes place in a party reminiscent of Proust鈥檚 long-winded chronicles of the social soirees he loved and despised at once.
What I will mostly remember of this novel is the atmospheric openings of each section and Woolf鈥檚 pristine, heart-lifting passages that provide eternal quality to the ephemeral existence of the passersby who walk in the pathways of unstoppable time.
Capable of capturing the elusiveness of an atmosphere, of words left unsaid, of a particular landscape in any season, of the details that dress a room or the people that come in and go out of it scarcely leaving any trace, Woolf manages to give human quality to the passage of time, the real protagonist of this story.
It鈥檚 true that she uses the Pargiter, a bourgeois family in extinction at the beginning of the twentieth century, to flesh out something as ungraspable as the passage of time. We get to know the Pargiters in their childhood days and observe, in fragmentary manner, the evolution of their personalities as they grow up and become active actors in their lives. Oddly enough, the cumulative changes they suffer only strengthen their innate characters, boosting their childhood traits.
As usual in Woolf鈥檚 novels, London appears as a backdrop to the Pargiters鈥� doings, materializing the transformation of the city and its society over the years. The end of the Victorian era, WWI, the British colonies, women鈥檚 causes or politics are addressed tangentially; it鈥檚 the alternating cycle of rebirth and decline of the main protagonists and their descendants that centers the focus of the storyline.
Despite the lyrical harmony of Woolf鈥檚 subtle prose, this has been a tough novel to get through. There is a certain detachment between the characters as years go by, and the style of the narrative evolves from an initial delightful family portrait to an oblique semi-essay on the generational gap that is most evident in the last section of the novel titled 鈥減resent time鈥�, which takes place in a party reminiscent of Proust鈥檚 long-winded chronicles of the social soirees he loved and despised at once.
What I will mostly remember of this novel is the atmospheric openings of each section and Woolf鈥檚 pristine, heart-lifting passages that provide eternal quality to the ephemeral existence of the passersby who walk in the pathways of unstoppable time.
April 23, 2022
No mi libro preferido de Virginia Woolf, y a煤n as铆 lo he disfrutado, o m谩s bien me he dejado llevar completamente por esa corriente de pensamientos que definen las historias de la autora.
El libro nos lleva a conocer la vida de una familia de clase media/alta inglesa desde finales del siglo XIX hasta los a帽os 30 del XX.
Lo peculiar de esta "saga familiar" es que en cada cap铆tulo veremos un fragmento de la vida de unos o varios personajes, una an茅cdota, un momento concreto, que nos har谩 comprender su vida, pensamiento e incluso la sociedad que le rodeaba.
En los a帽os que narra esta novela tiene lugar un cambio generacional bastante importante, adem谩s de la lucha sufragista o una guerra mundial, pero la autora lo cuenta todo a trav茅s de detalles muy sutiles e ingeniosos, lo que francamente me encant贸 y me demostr贸 de nuevo la genialidad de Woolf.
Tambi茅n es una historia a veces confusa o extra帽a, y no siempre conect茅 con sus personajes (aunque hay algunos maravillosos como Eleanor), al terminar el libro me qued贸 una sensaci贸n extra帽a.
A veces pienso que me perd铆 algo de lo que quer铆a contar Virginia Woolf en esta novela... pero por otro lado creo que lo importante no es tanto entender como sentir y empatizar con todos estos personajes que son piezas de la propia autora. Y eso siempre lo consigo con ella.
El libro nos lleva a conocer la vida de una familia de clase media/alta inglesa desde finales del siglo XIX hasta los a帽os 30 del XX.
Lo peculiar de esta "saga familiar" es que en cada cap铆tulo veremos un fragmento de la vida de unos o varios personajes, una an茅cdota, un momento concreto, que nos har谩 comprender su vida, pensamiento e incluso la sociedad que le rodeaba.
En los a帽os que narra esta novela tiene lugar un cambio generacional bastante importante, adem谩s de la lucha sufragista o una guerra mundial, pero la autora lo cuenta todo a trav茅s de detalles muy sutiles e ingeniosos, lo que francamente me encant贸 y me demostr贸 de nuevo la genialidad de Woolf.
Tambi茅n es una historia a veces confusa o extra帽a, y no siempre conect茅 con sus personajes (aunque hay algunos maravillosos como Eleanor), al terminar el libro me qued贸 una sensaci贸n extra帽a.
A veces pienso que me perd铆 algo de lo que quer铆a contar Virginia Woolf en esta novela... pero por otro lado creo que lo importante no es tanto entender como sentir y empatizar con todos estos personajes que son piezas de la propia autora. Y eso siempre lo consigo con ella.
June 17, 2020
鈥漇lowly wheeling, like the rays of a searchlight, the days, the weeks, the years passed one after another across the sky.鈥�
This novel is tricky; on the surface there is a series of mundane events - dinners, tea, walks in the park - and seemingly no plot. But there is more to meet the eye than that yielded by a superficial glance or reading.
The 3-generation saga of the Pargiter family commences in 1880 and finishes in the 鈥減resent鈥�. The then 鈥減resent 鈥� we are told in the Notes must be 鈥渂etween 1931 and 1933鈥�. There is no story as such, but we encounter various members of the family at intervals doing what they generally seem to do: eat, drink, talk, walk in the park, etc. They repeat old habits; Sara (who always seems scattered anyway) repeatedly looks the wrong way when someone points out something or someone. 鈥溾€榃here?鈥� said Sara. But she looked in the wrong direction.鈥� The reader, as an unseen guest at their dinner parties or other events, listens in to snippets of various conversations by these people, and from that deduces that this one has died or that one is now married and has x number of children. There is no detailed telling of their individual stories.
To me this novel resembles an Impressionist painting; there are dappled glimpses of the individuals, but no strong outline is given. The reader does not really get to know any of the characters. Someone in the novel suggests that as we don鈥檛 truly know ourselves, how can we know others. There is a beautiful description of two of these people walking in the park in dappled sunlight: 鈥漇he too was netted with floating lights from between the leaves. A primal innocence seemed to brood over the scene. The birds made a fitful sweet chirping in the branches; the roar of London encircled the open space in a ring of distant but complete sound. The pink and white chestnut blossoms rode up and down as the branches moved in the breeze. The sun dappling the leaves gave everything a curious look of insubstantiality as if it were broken into separate points of light. He too, himself, seemed dispersed. His mind for a moment was a blank.鈥�, and I thought: 鈥測es, that鈥檚 it, that is how I see all of these people鈥�.
The years go by and not much seems to happen or change, and yet members of the older generation die, the younger people mature and have their own families as well as their personal dramas which are only obliquely alluded to. But whilst it seems that not much is happening or changing (they are still eating, drinking, walking, talking), the world is changing dramatically and many major events take place. We see how these events and changes affect these individuals in some way, whether they play an active part in it or whether they are simply reading it in a newspaper or discussing it at a dinner party or over breakfast kippers. 鈥淧aper-boys were crying, Parnell鈥� Parnell. He鈥檚 dead, she said to herself, still conscious of the two worlds; one flowing in wide sweeps overhead, the other tip-tapping circumscribed upon the pavement.鈥�* We observe some of their thoughts and reactions. One of these characters, Eleanor, gives us some glimpses of how she perceives the passing years and what some of her thoughts about old age are. Someone mentions the first time she saw an aeroplane, another has a new car. There are references to the Suffragettes, the Ulster crisis, WWI, women finally getting the vote, etc. At home there are also changes. Towards the end of the book there is a large party, but guests are no longer formally announced at the door, there are no servants, some people sit on the floor with plates of food instead of being served at table. 鈥淎ll sorts of people were there, she noted. That had always been her aim; to mix people; to do away with the absurd conventions of English life. And she had done it tonight, she thought. There were nobles and commoners; people dressed and people not dressed; people drinking out of mugs, and people waiting with their soup getting cold for a spoon to be brought to them.鈥� Sometimes they ponder the past, and on one occasion someone wonders if one day one would be able to see the person to whom one is speaking when making a telephone call (yes, indeed!). So everything but nothing changes as the years go by...
Do not be put off by the seemingly disjointed first half of the novel, as it all comes together in the second half. If I were to rate the novel based on the first half, I should give it 3 stars. Based on the second half I should give it 5 stars. So, let鈥檚 settle for four.
* Parnell was an Irish politician.
#####
鈥淚 wish I hadn鈥檛 quarrelled so much with my mother, she thought, overcome with a sudden sense of the passage of time and its tragedy. Then the music changed.鈥�
鈥淭hings can鈥檛 go on for ever, she thought. Things pass, things change, she thought, looking up at the ceiling. And where are we going? Where? Where?鈥︹€�
鈥淲hy? she asked herself, looking at the lovely face, empty of meaning, or character, like a page on which nothing has been written but youth.鈥�
鈥淓verything shook slightly. There was a perpetual faint vibration. She seemed to be passing from one world to another; this was the moment of transition.鈥�
鈥淎 blank intervened; her thoughts became spaced; they became muddled. Past and present became jumbled together.鈥�
鈥淎nother door had been opened. Old age must have endless avenues, stretching away and away down its darkness, she supposed, and now one door opened and then another.鈥�
鈥溾€楬ow nice it is,鈥� she said, 鈥榥ot to be young! How nice not to mind what people think! Now one can live as one likes,鈥� she added, 鈥樷€� now that one鈥檚 seventy.鈥欌€�
March 7, 2022
The last of her novels to appear in Virginia Woolf鈥檚 lifetime, The Years was her least favourite but also one of her most commercially successful, even spawning an American Armed Forces edition. It鈥檚 a difficult book to summarize, stretching as it does from the 1880s through to the 1930s. On the surface it鈥檚 a family saga revolving around the sprawling, upper-middle-class, Pargiter family but it quickly becomes clear that they act as a fixed point from which to examine aspects of English history and politics, and the complex interactions between individuals, culture, and society. It鈥檚 a piece that went through various incarnations, edited and reworked over and over again, before Woolf decided on its final form. Woolf deliberately departs from the social realist conventions of popular dramas of family life like Galsworthy鈥檚 Forsyte Saga, her narrative鈥檚 elliptical, fragmented, concerned with inner worlds, thoughts and impressions.
I found Woolf鈥檚 chosen structure a little bewildering at first. Apart from extended opening and closing sections, The Year鈥檚 broken down into segments representing one day within a specified year, sometimes years follow each other in quick succession, sometimes there are large gaps between them. Characters appear, reappear, or disappear entirely, although some figures like Eleanor (Nell) the oldest Pargiter daughter have a substantial role throughout. There鈥檚 a sense of discontinuity but also of webs of connection, each section opens with lyrical descriptions of the weather, nature, and panoramic views of teeming, London streets, before closing in on a character鈥檚 experiences, and in the background, sometimes barely registering, an historical event 鈥� the death of Parnell, the end of WW1. There are recurring images that focus on an interplay of colour and sound, highlighting shifts from light to darkness, paralleling the feelings of Woolf鈥檚 characters as they grope their way through the everyday and grapple with the passing of time.
It's an incredibly wistful, melancholy book but littered with savage observations that unexpectedly shatter the mood, an unsettling preoccupation with 鈥渦gliness鈥� and contamination: Rose the youngest daughter escapes to a local toy shop but is confronted by a leering man masturbating in the street; a woman peddling violets bears signs of some terrible disease. Characters stumble through life in search of an underlying pattern, or some ultimate meaning, alternating between sudden bursts of clarity that hint at the possibility of different ways of living, and contempt or disgust for their surroundings and the people they encounter. There are numerous grating elements, anti-Semitic attitudes attributed to key players but not dissimilar from views expressed by Woolf elsewhere, awkward references to the Empire that forms a backdrop to the Pargiters鈥� sheltered version of reality. But Woolf's adept at communicating profound uncertainty, the gap between an individual鈥檚 notion of self and how they鈥檙e perceived, the constant tension between their present and memories of their past. Sometimes this is accompanied by a sensation of intense grief as everything solid seems to be slowly melting away, sometimes by relief at the prospect of change and renewal. I鈥檓 surprised this isn't more popular, I thought it was fascinating, atmospheric and absorbing, a slice-of-life portrait of Woolf鈥檚 generation, their attitudes and assumptions, an ambitious but deeply flawed attempt to map out the very nature of an individual鈥檚 existence. I read this in the Penguin edition and found the notes invaluable.
I found Woolf鈥檚 chosen structure a little bewildering at first. Apart from extended opening and closing sections, The Year鈥檚 broken down into segments representing one day within a specified year, sometimes years follow each other in quick succession, sometimes there are large gaps between them. Characters appear, reappear, or disappear entirely, although some figures like Eleanor (Nell) the oldest Pargiter daughter have a substantial role throughout. There鈥檚 a sense of discontinuity but also of webs of connection, each section opens with lyrical descriptions of the weather, nature, and panoramic views of teeming, London streets, before closing in on a character鈥檚 experiences, and in the background, sometimes barely registering, an historical event 鈥� the death of Parnell, the end of WW1. There are recurring images that focus on an interplay of colour and sound, highlighting shifts from light to darkness, paralleling the feelings of Woolf鈥檚 characters as they grope their way through the everyday and grapple with the passing of time.
It's an incredibly wistful, melancholy book but littered with savage observations that unexpectedly shatter the mood, an unsettling preoccupation with 鈥渦gliness鈥� and contamination: Rose the youngest daughter escapes to a local toy shop but is confronted by a leering man masturbating in the street; a woman peddling violets bears signs of some terrible disease. Characters stumble through life in search of an underlying pattern, or some ultimate meaning, alternating between sudden bursts of clarity that hint at the possibility of different ways of living, and contempt or disgust for their surroundings and the people they encounter. There are numerous grating elements, anti-Semitic attitudes attributed to key players but not dissimilar from views expressed by Woolf elsewhere, awkward references to the Empire that forms a backdrop to the Pargiters鈥� sheltered version of reality. But Woolf's adept at communicating profound uncertainty, the gap between an individual鈥檚 notion of self and how they鈥檙e perceived, the constant tension between their present and memories of their past. Sometimes this is accompanied by a sensation of intense grief as everything solid seems to be slowly melting away, sometimes by relief at the prospect of change and renewal. I鈥檓 surprised this isn't more popular, I thought it was fascinating, atmospheric and absorbing, a slice-of-life portrait of Woolf鈥檚 generation, their attitudes and assumptions, an ambitious but deeply flawed attempt to map out the very nature of an individual鈥檚 existence. I read this in the Penguin edition and found the notes invaluable.
December 24, 2020
There must be another life, here and now, she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves. We鈥檙e only just beginning, she thought, to understand, here and there.
February 18, 2012
Other reviews tell me that this isn't as good as Mrs Dalloway or To The Lighthouse - having read all three books now, I will concede the Mrs Dalloway point, but I think I liked The Years better than To the Lighthouse. The two stories are similar, in that they deal with an extended family and the perspective switches from person to person and the closest you get to an action scene is everyone sitting around and talking, but the scope of The Years is much wider (it deals with several generations of a family and spans decades, rather than a couple years) and seemed, at least to me, to be slightly easier to follow than To the Lighthouse. I would definitely have better luck explaining the plot of this book to someone who had never read it.
But that's not what I wanted to talk about, and not what you came here to see. The reason I write Woolf book reviews isn't to write a critique of the books (because who am I to analyze Woolf?) but to quote the everloving bejeezus out of whatever I just read, because no one is more equipped to demonstrate the greatness of Virginia Woolf than Woolf herself.
Reading this book made me realize yet another reason I love Woolf's writing - the scope of her writing is immense. She draws back and describes entire cities from a deity-like distance, seen here when she shows us England in the snow:
"Snow was falling; snow had fallen all day. The sky spread like a grey goose's wing from which feathers were falling all over England. The sky was nothing but a flurry of falling flakes. Lanes were levelled; hollows filled; the snow clogged the streams, obscured windows, and lay wedged against doors. There was a faint murmur in the air, a slight crepitation, as if the air itself were turning to snow; otherwise all was silent, save when a sheep coughed, snow flopped from a branch, or slipped in an avalanche down some roof in London. Now and again a shaft of light spread slowly across the sky as a car drove through the muffled roads. But as the night wore on, snow covered the wheel ruts; softened to nothingness the marks of the traffic, and coated monuments, palaces and statues with a thick vestment of snow."
and then she zooms in a little bit, like this perfect description of the crowd at an opera:
"The orchestra was still tuning up; the players were laughing, talking and turning round in their seats as they fiddled busily with their instruments. She stood looking down at the stalls. The floor of the house was in a state of great agitation. People were passing to their seats; they were sitting down and getting up again; they were taking off their cloaks and signalling to friends. They were like birds settling on a field. In the boxes white figures were appearing here and there; white arms rested on the ledges of boxes; white shirt-fronts shone beside them. The whole house glowed - red, gold, cream-colored, and smelt of clothes and flowers, and echoed with the squeaks and trills of the instruments and with the buzz and hum of voices. ...Lights winked on ladies' arms as they turned; ripples of light flashed, stopped, and then flashed the opposite way as they turned their heads."
and then she goes closer, looking at objects on an almost microscopic level, until we share her fascination with ordinary objects and people:
"But what vast gaps there were, what blank spaces, she thought, leaning back in her chair, in her knowledge! How little she knew about anything. Take this cup, for instance; she held it out in front of her. What was it made of? Atoms? And what were atoms, and how did they stick together? The smooth hard surface of the china with its red flowers seemed to her for a second a marvelous mystery."
That's why I love Virginia Woolf: she can look at a snowstorm in a city, and a single china cup, and study both of them with the same level of interest and detail, and make both subjects seem new and fascinating. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go stare at my dishes and think about my life for a while.
But that's not what I wanted to talk about, and not what you came here to see. The reason I write Woolf book reviews isn't to write a critique of the books (because who am I to analyze Woolf?) but to quote the everloving bejeezus out of whatever I just read, because no one is more equipped to demonstrate the greatness of Virginia Woolf than Woolf herself.
Reading this book made me realize yet another reason I love Woolf's writing - the scope of her writing is immense. She draws back and describes entire cities from a deity-like distance, seen here when she shows us England in the snow:
"Snow was falling; snow had fallen all day. The sky spread like a grey goose's wing from which feathers were falling all over England. The sky was nothing but a flurry of falling flakes. Lanes were levelled; hollows filled; the snow clogged the streams, obscured windows, and lay wedged against doors. There was a faint murmur in the air, a slight crepitation, as if the air itself were turning to snow; otherwise all was silent, save when a sheep coughed, snow flopped from a branch, or slipped in an avalanche down some roof in London. Now and again a shaft of light spread slowly across the sky as a car drove through the muffled roads. But as the night wore on, snow covered the wheel ruts; softened to nothingness the marks of the traffic, and coated monuments, palaces and statues with a thick vestment of snow."
and then she zooms in a little bit, like this perfect description of the crowd at an opera:
"The orchestra was still tuning up; the players were laughing, talking and turning round in their seats as they fiddled busily with their instruments. She stood looking down at the stalls. The floor of the house was in a state of great agitation. People were passing to their seats; they were sitting down and getting up again; they were taking off their cloaks and signalling to friends. They were like birds settling on a field. In the boxes white figures were appearing here and there; white arms rested on the ledges of boxes; white shirt-fronts shone beside them. The whole house glowed - red, gold, cream-colored, and smelt of clothes and flowers, and echoed with the squeaks and trills of the instruments and with the buzz and hum of voices. ...Lights winked on ladies' arms as they turned; ripples of light flashed, stopped, and then flashed the opposite way as they turned their heads."
and then she goes closer, looking at objects on an almost microscopic level, until we share her fascination with ordinary objects and people:
"But what vast gaps there were, what blank spaces, she thought, leaning back in her chair, in her knowledge! How little she knew about anything. Take this cup, for instance; she held it out in front of her. What was it made of? Atoms? And what were atoms, and how did they stick together? The smooth hard surface of the china with its red flowers seemed to her for a second a marvelous mystery."
That's why I love Virginia Woolf: she can look at a snowstorm in a city, and a single china cup, and study both of them with the same level of interest and detail, and make both subjects seem new and fascinating. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go stare at my dishes and think about my life for a while.
June 5, 2023
3.5
I鈥檓 not sure how to review this work, or even how to get a handle on it. I reread some of my friends鈥� reviews from years ago, and I see they also struggled and/or were frustrated by it.
I think I prefer the style in the beginning, chapters dedicated to a particular year, better than the last section, 鈥淧resent Day,鈥� where all the living characters are brought together at a party. Neither style is difficult. They鈥檙e just different. I appreciated quite a bit of the last section, so I鈥檓 not sure what I鈥檓 鈥渃omplaining鈥� about, except that, maybe, the whole didn鈥檛 gel for me.
A couple of these reviewers said they struggled to finish the book. I never felt that, but then I read it on a very slow schedule with an online group, and it never felt arduous or even tedious. Only a few in the group expressed some bewilderment at specific junctures. Most of them seem to have connected with this work more than I did, though I want to emphasize I enjoyed its prose and themes. It鈥檚 Woolf after all.
It likely deserves a reread and I have just the friend to join in with when that time arrives.
I鈥檓 not sure how to review this work, or even how to get a handle on it. I reread some of my friends鈥� reviews from years ago, and I see they also struggled and/or were frustrated by it.
I think I prefer the style in the beginning, chapters dedicated to a particular year, better than the last section, 鈥淧resent Day,鈥� where all the living characters are brought together at a party. Neither style is difficult. They鈥檙e just different. I appreciated quite a bit of the last section, so I鈥檓 not sure what I鈥檓 鈥渃omplaining鈥� about, except that, maybe, the whole didn鈥檛 gel for me.
A couple of these reviewers said they struggled to finish the book. I never felt that, but then I read it on a very slow schedule with an online group, and it never felt arduous or even tedious. Only a few in the group expressed some bewilderment at specific junctures. Most of them seem to have connected with this work more than I did, though I want to emphasize I enjoyed its prose and themes. It鈥檚 Woolf after all.
It likely deserves a reread and I have just the friend to join in with when that time arrives.
January 29, 2023
鈥淭ime is a monster that cannot be reasoned with.鈥� ~Joe Wenteworth
Released in 1937, less than four years before Virginia Woolf would fill her coat pockets with stones and stride into the River Ouse, The Years was the last of Woolf鈥檚 novels to be published in her lifetime.
I knew that tidbit going in and I kinda鈥� wish I hadn鈥檛. I am certain that the knowledge tainted my perception. It gave me a hard case of melancholy and, once it sets in, melancholy is a difficult feeling to shake.
鈥淗ow terrible old age was, she thought; shearing off all one's faculties, one by one, but leaving something alive in the center.鈥�
[SPOILERS REMOVED]
In places, The Years reads more like a diary than a novel. Detailed and personal, it has a somewhat Bront毛 feel to it (Emily, not Charlotte). I found it to be rather dispiriting and somber, but just how much of that is me and how much of that is Woolf I cannot begin to say.
鈥淎 book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.鈥� ~Andrei Tarkovsky
Released in 1937, less than four years before Virginia Woolf would fill her coat pockets with stones and stride into the River Ouse, The Years was the last of Woolf鈥檚 novels to be published in her lifetime.
I knew that tidbit going in and I kinda鈥� wish I hadn鈥檛. I am certain that the knowledge tainted my perception. It gave me a hard case of melancholy and, once it sets in, melancholy is a difficult feeling to shake.
鈥淗ow terrible old age was, she thought; shearing off all one's faculties, one by one, but leaving something alive in the center.鈥�
[SPOILERS REMOVED]
In places, The Years reads more like a diary than a novel. Detailed and personal, it has a somewhat Bront毛 feel to it (Emily, not Charlotte). I found it to be rather dispiriting and somber, but just how much of that is me and how much of that is Woolf I cannot begin to say.
鈥淎 book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.鈥� ~Andrei Tarkovsky
June 11, 2013
That is true, Rose thought as she took her pudding. That is myself. Again she had the odd feeling being two people at the same time.
It has been months since I read The Years. There have been many books in my life. Light bulbs switched on and off over my head. They glow and brightness hot to the touch. I don't know how long they'll last but they often come back when I had been trying too hard to get inside other windows. Hey, you forgot about it and left all of the lights on. This next part might sound like a backhanded compliment. In my little book loving heart that could it does not feel like a backhanded compliment. I started to forget about The Pargiters when I was still reading about them. There were men and their faces look like dream faces. If you try to look at them up close you don't see anything. I didn't care about the end or what happened to them. You could sweep everyone out onto lit up streets in the safety of lit up faces for all I could care. I was already in the other room with the lights left on. When I was reading The Years I had a mental conversation going with myself about how I would explain my apathy about how it all turned out and be believed that they and the book had meant something to me. I could have stopped reading it and never found out what happened. What really happens, anyway? People die and the next day and what's left is the other stuff that I'm going to think about anyway.
"You want your supper, do you?" said Maggie. She went into the kitchen and came back with a saucer of milk. "There, poor puss," she said, putting the saucer down on the floor. She stood watching the cat lap up its milk, mouthful by mouthful; then it stretched itself out again with extraordinary grace.
What followed this has come back to bite me, to sting me, to warm me and confuse me. When I wasn't trying to hold it I almost had why I had not felt such acute envy. It was this next part:
Sara, standing at a little distance, watched her. Then she imitated her.
"There, poor puss, there, poor puss," she repeated. "As you rock the cradle, Maggie," she added.
Maggie raised her arms as if to ward off some implacable destiny; then let them fall. Sara smiled as she watched her; then tears brimmed, fell and ran slowly down her cheeks. But as she put up her hand to wipe them there was a sound of knocking; somebody was hammering on the door of the next house. The hammering stopped. Then it began again- hammer, hammer, hammer.
They listened.
It's that Sara imitates her. This much I know. When reading some other books these days that made me feel the loss of I don't know what I wondered if it was that security that I knew they had people who loved them (a soul mate? Another part of me to have faith in? H.D. had an idea I wanted to run away with as my own to have the dog of your own in HERmione. I wanted that dog but make it a mental Mariel dog and it would be as if you could feel your own soul). But I'm not jealous of Maggie it is something about how Sara measures where Maggie fits and it is her measuring that makes it so. Someone loves you. I don't want to say it is altogether that because it isn't. It would also ruin it. I like to think about this scene in The Years. I'll be some place I shouldn't be seen having entire other worlds going on in my head (surely I look off). I wish I could make the gesture, to feed the kitten and be in the warm kitchen and some place safe.
Maggie must have been some kind of great hope for the Pargiters. When she's a baby there is a deal made about purchasing her a necklace. Eleanor must pick it out. The Colonel will pay for it. See to it that it is done. This special important Pargiter baby must have the necklace. If they were in a garden their plants would turn to her as if she was the sun. Maybe they all reenacted the future kitchen scene through things before there was a hungry kitten to be fed in place of the warm family of her own in the future. The safety of her assured warm place in their hearts turned me to her cousins and sister who must make their own, when they can, when they are lucky.
Before there was a who we want to be in young Pargiter flesh there was an angry young woman who secretly wishes that her mother would just die already. I could hear her angry heart beating in her chest. Stop beating, stop bleeding, just die. Before anyone could learn all of the details, before conditions were right I could hear Rose with her lights left on memory. Intense, willed alone. With a knife in her hand she cuts a gash, thin and white still, into her wrist. What made her do such a thing? When she meets another of her own kind. When she finally feels she can talk to another she doesn't choose one of her own kind. She tries to wish on Maggie. My eyes could follow her into the never-ending conversation. The kind where you repeated yourself and said something stupid. When you are not you that you know because you didn't find another of your own kind after all. You found someone who doesn't have to build. My eyes could follow them into all of the rooms they ever go into and see that she doesn't see Eleanor and she doesn't see Sara. I feel lonely when the men talk a lot and know what people are thinking. When they know what each other are thinking. When Eleanor wonders what made Rose do such a thing as to cut herself I had the feeling that she didn't know what else to do. She will remember that forever and I know that. Sometimes I find Rose again in my mind too. She would be felt hot on the other side of concrete of me. Intense memories of not knowing what else to do with not belonging. When you don't feel like yourself. When you don't feel real. Eleanor sits somewhere off to the side, in a half light. Sara must be looking out the window. I know she will be happy some day but I want her to look out the window because I don't feel like me when it is assurance and the great hope. I want to look at their faces and see faces when they get up close because they haven't walked off too far in The Years. I like to think about that kind of stuff. I don't want to be Delia and wanting her mother to die already and let the living people live. I just want to feel that knowing that Sara had that people could. That's probably going to be my The Years for my days. The longing feeling about people I don't really know because they aren't real but they seemed real because they had feelings I've had about wishing stuff was real.
This isn't the review I wanted to write back then. I was happy when I went on goodreads and found reviews from Elizabeth, Sam and William. They all like The Years and mentally I hugged and high five all around. Others dismissed the book as something unspecial because it isn't The Waves or To the Lighthouse. To that I say that the specialness was not only breathing in daring tattoo permanence. I wish the disappointed or scornful The Years faces could see what I see that Woolf used paints on the inside, behind the eyes. Right where you go to cry or something. Something like that. Something intense like a memory you turned into that something intense. To me that is special to capture that. To capture it because you didn't hold it. You let the light come on afterwards by knowing what you held onto about how you feel about your family.
Does everything then come over again a little differently? she thought. If so, is there a pattern; a theme, recurring, like music; half remembered, half forseen?... a gigantic pattern, momentarily perceptible? The thought gave her extreme pleasure: that there was a pattern. But who makes it? Who thinks it? Her mind slipped. She could not finish her thought.
November 10, 2022
袠写械械泄 褝褌芯谐芯 锌褉芯懈蟹胁械写械薪懈褟 褟胁谢褟械褌褋褟, 褔褌芯 胁懈泻褌芯褉懈邪薪褋泻邪褟 褝锌芯褏邪 懈, 胁芯芯斜褖械, 锌褉械卸薪懈械 谐芯写褘 褍褕谢懈 斜械蟹胁芯蟹胁褉邪褌薪芯, 褔褌芯 褌械褏薪懈褔械褋泻懈泄 锌褉芯谐褉械褋褋 懈 写邪卸械 锌褉芯褋褌褘械 泻芯屑屑褍薪邪谢褜薪褘械 褍褋芯胁械褉褕械薪褋褌胁芯胁邪薪懈褟 褋懈谢褜薪芯 懈蟹屑械薪懈谢懈 卸懈蟹薪褜. 袩褉懈屑械褔邪褌械谢褜薪邪 锌褉芯蟹芯褉谢懈胁芯褋褌褜, 胁谢芯卸械薪薪邪褟 胁 褍褋褌邪 袩械谐谐懈 芯 褌芯屑, 褔褌芯 谢褞写懈 斜褍写褍褌 胁 斜褍写褍褖械屑 薪械 褌芯谢褜泻芯 褋谢褘褕邪褌褜, 薪芯 懈 胁懈写械褌褜 锌褉懈 褌械谢械褎芯薪薪褘褏 褉邪蟹谐芯胁芯褉邪褏. 袩懈褋邪褌械谢褜薪懈褑褍 胁芯谢薪褍械褌 褌械屑邪 胁褉械屑械薪懈, 械械 褏芯写邪, 褋褌邪褉械薪懈褟, 锌邪屑褟褌懈, 胁芯褋锌芯屑懈薪邪薪懈泄, 褉邪蟹胁懈褌懈褟, 懈蟹屑械薪械薪懈泄, 胁芯蟹薪懈泻邪褞褖懈褏 褋 褌械褔械薪懈械屑 薪邪褍褔薪芯-褌械褏薪懈褔械褋泻芯谐芯 锌褉芯谐褉械褋褋邪. 袟写械褋褜 芯斜褗械写懈薪械薪褘 褌褉邪写懈褑懈芯薪薪邪褟 褋械屑械泄薪邪褟 褋邪谐邪 芯褌 屑芯屑械薪褌邪 屑芯谢芯写芯褋褌懈 谐谢邪胁薪褘褏 谐械褉芯械胁 懈 褋屑械褉褌懈 懈褏 屑邪褌械褉懈 写芯 屑芯屑械薪褌邪 懈褏 胁褋褌褉械褔懈 胁 锌褉械褋褌邪褉械谢芯屑 胁芯蟹褉邪褋褌械.
协谢懈薪芯褉 褉邪蟹屑褘褕谢褟械褌 胁 褋械屑褜写械褋褟褌 谢械褌, 褔褌芯 褍 薪械械 薪械 斜褘谢芯 卸懈蟹薪懈: 卸懈蟹薪褜 - 褝褌芯 褌芯, 褔褌芯 褌胁芯褉褟褌, 褔械屑 褉邪褋锌芯褉褟卸邪褞褌褋褟. 袗 褍 薪械械 械褋褌褜 褌芯谢褜泻芯 薪邪褋褌芯褟褖懈泄 屑芯屑械薪褌, 芯薪邪 卸懈胁械褌 蟹写械褋褜 懈 褋械泄褔邪褋, 褋谢褍褕邪械褌 褎芯泻褋褌褉芯褌. 携 薪械 蟹薪邪褞, 褝褌芯 谢懈 卸懈蟹薪褜?
袨 胁芯泄薪械 懈蟹谢芯卸械薪芯 褋泻褍锌芯, 薪芯 邪胁褌芯褉 懈蟹谢芯卸懈谢邪 褋胁芯褞 锌芯蟹懈褑懈褞: "袙芯泻褉褍谐 褋褌芯谢褜泻芯 泻褉邪褋芯褌褘... 孝邪泻 褔械谐芯 卸械 褉邪写懈 褝褌懈 谢褞写懈 褋褌褉械谢褟褞褌 写褉褍谐 胁 写褉褍谐邪? "
袚谢邪胁薪邪褟 懈写械褟 锌褉芯懈蟹胁械写械薪懈褟 薪邪 屑芯泄 胁蟹谐谢褟写: 袞懈蟹薪褜 斜褘褋褌褉芯褌械褔薪邪, 懈 薪褍卸薪芯 褑械薪懈褌褜 泻邪卸写褘泄 械械 屑懈谐...
协谢懈薪芯褉 褉邪蟹屑褘褕谢褟械褌 胁 褋械屑褜写械褋褟褌 谢械褌, 褔褌芯 褍 薪械械 薪械 斜褘谢芯 卸懈蟹薪懈: 卸懈蟹薪褜 - 褝褌芯 褌芯, 褔褌芯 褌胁芯褉褟褌, 褔械屑 褉邪褋锌芯褉褟卸邪褞褌褋褟. 袗 褍 薪械械 械褋褌褜 褌芯谢褜泻芯 薪邪褋褌芯褟褖懈泄 屑芯屑械薪褌, 芯薪邪 卸懈胁械褌 蟹写械褋褜 懈 褋械泄褔邪褋, 褋谢褍褕邪械褌 褎芯泻褋褌褉芯褌. 携 薪械 蟹薪邪褞, 褝褌芯 谢懈 卸懈蟹薪褜?
袨 胁芯泄薪械 懈蟹谢芯卸械薪芯 褋泻褍锌芯, 薪芯 邪胁褌芯褉 懈蟹谢芯卸懈谢邪 褋胁芯褞 锌芯蟹懈褑懈褞: "袙芯泻褉褍谐 褋褌芯谢褜泻芯 泻褉邪褋芯褌褘... 孝邪泻 褔械谐芯 卸械 褉邪写懈 褝褌懈 谢褞写懈 褋褌褉械谢褟褞褌 写褉褍谐 胁 写褉褍谐邪? "
袚谢邪胁薪邪褟 懈写械褟 锌褉芯懈蟹胁械写械薪懈褟 薪邪 屑芯泄 胁蟹谐谢褟写: 袞懈蟹薪褜 斜褘褋褌褉芯褌械褔薪邪, 懈 薪褍卸薪芯 褑械薪懈褌褜 泻邪卸写褘泄 械械 屑懈谐...
November 13, 2022
In one word,
The Years
is the chronicle of the passing life. It tells how life, smoothly guided by seasonal cycles, affected the Pargiters, a big London-based family living in a big mansion, starting 1880' till beginning of 1930'.
Extrapolating to two words, the Pargiters family is showing in miniature the trajectory taken by the human race, which is in its infancy sometime in an uncertain spring of 1880鈥�, and presumably grows to its maturity by 1930鈥�, where we find most of them, collected in a house for a summer party, against the window gathered in a group the old brothers (Edward, Morris, Martin) and sisters (Eleanor, Milly, Rose, Delia):the group in the window, the men in their black-and-white evening dress, the women in their crimsons, golds and silvers, wore a statuesque air for a moment, as if they were carved in stone. Their dresses fell in stiff sculptured folds. Then they moved, they changed their attitudes, they began to talk...
I was assuming at the beginning of the book that such a large family would stir the novel pages with some thrilling and exciting episodes, but contrary to my expectations, the Pargiters, as the caravan crossing the desert, do not offer any excitement in their ways of living their lives, or any sensational plot or intrigue. Moreover, I have experienced a deep impression that although the years pass one by one, till they get to their 鈥榩resent鈥�, none of the characters change, slightly or dramatically, despite the fact that change itself forces them to change their lifestyle, from richness to poverty, and vice-versa..
There must be another life ,she thought, sinking back into her chair, exasperated. Not in dreams; but here and now, in this room, with living people . She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice with her hair blown back; she was about to grasp something that just evaded her. There must be another life, here and now , she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves. We鈥檙e only just beginning to understand, here and there . She hollowed her hands in her lap, just as Rose had hollowed her round her ears. She held her hands hollowed; she felt that she wanted to enclose the present moment; to make it stay; to fill it fuller and fuller, with the past, the present and the future, until it shone, whole, bright, deep with understanding.
I felt this novel so peaceful and so safe, as if nothing could trigger any extreme irritation in me. Although I didn鈥檛 get to know in depth each of the member of the Pargiters, I have found more than enough to feed my satisfaction, through all those little snapshot pictures of people, while they are taking part into very mundane, routine daily life habits and events鈥�
...suddenly she saw the sky between two striped tree trunks extraordinarily blue. She came out on the top. The wind ceased, the country spread wide all round her. Her body seemed to shrink, her eyes to widen. She threw herself on the ground, and looked over the billowing land that went rising and falling, away and away, until somewhere far off it reached the sea. Uncultivated, uninhabited, existing by itself, for itself, without towns or houses it looked from this height. Dark wedges of shadow, bright breadths of light lay side by side. Then, as she watched, light moved and dark moved; light and shadow went travelling over the hills and over the valleys. A deep murmur sang in her ears 鈥� the land itself, singing to itself, a chorus, alone. She lay there listening. She was happy, completely. Time had ceased.
Virginia Woolf is a delicate writer to deal with surely, yet The Years is now a favourite with me :)
(Fikret K谋z谋lok feat. Sibel Sezal 鈥� *song Bu Kalp Seni Unutur mu)
Extrapolating to two words, the Pargiters family is showing in miniature the trajectory taken by the human race, which is in its infancy sometime in an uncertain spring of 1880鈥�, and presumably grows to its maturity by 1930鈥�, where we find most of them, collected in a house for a summer party, against the window gathered in a group the old brothers (Edward, Morris, Martin) and sisters (Eleanor, Milly, Rose, Delia):the group in the window, the men in their black-and-white evening dress, the women in their crimsons, golds and silvers, wore a statuesque air for a moment, as if they were carved in stone. Their dresses fell in stiff sculptured folds. Then they moved, they changed their attitudes, they began to talk...
I was assuming at the beginning of the book that such a large family would stir the novel pages with some thrilling and exciting episodes, but contrary to my expectations, the Pargiters, as the caravan crossing the desert, do not offer any excitement in their ways of living their lives, or any sensational plot or intrigue. Moreover, I have experienced a deep impression that although the years pass one by one, till they get to their 鈥榩resent鈥�, none of the characters change, slightly or dramatically, despite the fact that change itself forces them to change their lifestyle, from richness to poverty, and vice-versa..
There must be another life ,she thought, sinking back into her chair, exasperated. Not in dreams; but here and now, in this room, with living people . She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice with her hair blown back; she was about to grasp something that just evaded her. There must be another life, here and now , she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves. We鈥檙e only just beginning to understand, here and there . She hollowed her hands in her lap, just as Rose had hollowed her round her ears. She held her hands hollowed; she felt that she wanted to enclose the present moment; to make it stay; to fill it fuller and fuller, with the past, the present and the future, until it shone, whole, bright, deep with understanding.
I felt this novel so peaceful and so safe, as if nothing could trigger any extreme irritation in me. Although I didn鈥檛 get to know in depth each of the member of the Pargiters, I have found more than enough to feed my satisfaction, through all those little snapshot pictures of people, while they are taking part into very mundane, routine daily life habits and events鈥�
...suddenly she saw the sky between two striped tree trunks extraordinarily blue. She came out on the top. The wind ceased, the country spread wide all round her. Her body seemed to shrink, her eyes to widen. She threw herself on the ground, and looked over the billowing land that went rising and falling, away and away, until somewhere far off it reached the sea. Uncultivated, uninhabited, existing by itself, for itself, without towns or houses it looked from this height. Dark wedges of shadow, bright breadths of light lay side by side. Then, as she watched, light moved and dark moved; light and shadow went travelling over the hills and over the valleys. A deep murmur sang in her ears 鈥� the land itself, singing to itself, a chorus, alone. She lay there listening. She was happy, completely. Time had ceased.
Virginia Woolf is a delicate writer to deal with surely, yet The Years is now a favourite with me :)
(Fikret K谋z谋lok feat. Sibel Sezal 鈥� *song Bu Kalp Seni Unutur mu)
April 6, 2025
禺丕賳賲 賵賵賱賮 毓夭蹖夭貨
賴乇趩賴 亘蹖卮鬲乇 鬲賱丕卮 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁� 亘蹖卮鬲乇 亘賴 丿乇 亘爻鬲賴 賲蹖鈥屫堌辟呚� 丕夭 鬲賵氐蹖賮 賵 鬲卮乇蹖丨 亘胤賵賳 賯賱亘 卮賲丕 毓丕噩夭賲.
丿乇 丕蹖賳 亘賴丕乇 丿賱诏蹖乇 卮丕蹖丿 亘蹖卮鬲乇 丕夭 賴賲蹖卮賴 亘賴 趩卮賲丕賳 夭蹖亘丕蹖 卮賲丕 丕丨鬲蹖丕噩 丿丕卮鬲賲 鬲丕 亘賴 乇賵蹖 丕噩爻丕賲 乇賳诏 亘倬丕卮賲. 賴賲賴鈥屭嗃屫� 丕賲丕 賴賳賵夭 亘乇丕蹖賲 禺丕讴爻鬲乇蹖鈥屫池�.
賴乇趩賴 亘蹖卮鬲乇 鬲賱丕卮 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁� 亘蹖卮鬲乇 亘賴 丿乇 亘爻鬲賴 賲蹖鈥屫堌辟呚� 丕夭 鬲賵氐蹖賮 賵 鬲卮乇蹖丨 亘胤賵賳 賯賱亘 卮賲丕 毓丕噩夭賲.
丿乇 丕蹖賳 亘賴丕乇 丿賱诏蹖乇 卮丕蹖丿 亘蹖卮鬲乇 丕夭 賴賲蹖卮賴 亘賴 趩卮賲丕賳 夭蹖亘丕蹖 卮賲丕 丕丨鬲蹖丕噩 丿丕卮鬲賲 鬲丕 亘賴 乇賵蹖 丕噩爻丕賲 乇賳诏 亘倬丕卮賲. 賴賲賴鈥屭嗃屫� 丕賲丕 賴賳賵夭 亘乇丕蹖賲 禺丕讴爻鬲乇蹖鈥屫池�.
August 7, 2024
'The Years' was jaren de langst-te-wachten-liggende roman op mijn leestafeltje. Ik stelde het lezen telkens uit om twee redenen: de omvang - Woolf lezen vraagt sowieso al meer tijd en concentratie - en het feit dat hij niet tot haar meesterwerken behoort en dus misschien zou kunnen tegenvallen. Toen ik onlangs Woolfs las, werd dat gevoel er niet beter op. De jarenlange worsteling die ze bij het schrijven van dit boek doormaakte, deed me regelmatig innerlijk zuchten: 'Kap ermee, Virginia!'
Maar enkele weken geleden besloten we last-minute in Kent en East-Sussex te kamperen en bezochten we o.a. Monk's House, het buitenhuis in Rodwell bij Lewes waar Virginia en Leonard Woolf de drukte en de verplichtingen van hun Londense leven konden vergeten en er tot rust en tot schrijven kwamen. Het huis en de tuin (met Virginia's 'schrijftuinhuisje'), de vriendelijke en royale uitleg in elke kamer door de vrijwilligers van de National Trust en de vele betekenisvolle of gewoonweg mooie parafernalia in het eenvoudige interieur, dat alles droeg ertoe bij dat ik danig ontroerd raakte. 脡n dat ik de volgende avond bij onze tent aan 'The Years' begon.
Auteur Susan Hill schreef de perfecte inleiding voor deze Vintage-editie. Ja, zo zegt ze, 'The Years' is een mislukking, want het is niet de essayistische, politiek-sociologische, feministische roman geworden die ze voor ogen had. En ja, in het middendeel zitten flauwere passages, maar dan nog stijgt het ver uit boven de doorsnee romans uit die tijd. Daar ben ik het allemaal mee eens. Het werd zelfs zowaar haar meest gelezen roman.
Sterk vond ik hier vooral Woolfs rake beschrijvingen van de wijze waarop de vele personages observeren en reflecteren. De wisselende perspectieven mogen dan niet - zoals in - als een collage van stream-of-consciousness-stemmen door en over elkaar heen vloeien, toch dragen de opeenvolgende sc猫nes die typische Woolf-stempel waarin innerlijke verlangens en sensaties sterk durven contrasteren met uiterlijk vertoon. Wat gedacht en gezegd wordt staat vaak haaks op elkaar en niet zelden is er bij de personages een onderstroom van frustratie en verwarring waarneembaar, omdat ze niet gezegd krijgen wat ze bedoelen of tot uitdrukking willen brengen.
Die innerlijke wervelingen en gedachtenkronkels deden me heel erg aan Proust denken, wetende dat Virginia Woolf hem ook las en bewonderde. Met dat verschil dat zij meer van binnenuit lijkt te schrijven en zoals gezegd constant wisselt van perspectief. Dat ze dat traditioneler en minder experimenteel doet dan in haar beste werk, vergeef je haar, zeker na het laatste deel 'Present day' dat meer dan een vierde van de roman beslaat.
De vroegste protagonisten uit de familie Pargiter, voornamelijk vrouwen, zijn dan zeventigers en komen samen op een feest waarin de verschillende generaties aanwezig zijn. Op een gegeven ogenblik wordt daar - heel terloops en kort - een vraag gesteld over de rol van het koor in het Griekse theater. Niet zo terloops, vond ik, want ook de Grieken las Virginia Woolf graag en met deze roman heeft ze misschien wel haar eigen variatie daarop gecre毛erd. Met dat verschil dat je hier elk koorlid afzonderlijk leert kennen en koesteren: Eleanor, Kitty, Rose, Edward, Martin en in dat laatste deel ook Peggy en North ... ik zal ze niet gauw vergeten.
Tenslotte nog een eervolle vermelding voor de pas laat in het schrijfproces toegevoegde inleidende paragrafen van elk hoofdstuk, waarin Woolf de eeuwige aanwezigheid en invloed van de seizoenen, het weer, de wolken, het licht en het landschap van zowel haar thuisstad Londen als die van het platteland laat spreken. Ze herinnerden me aan dat ene, magistrale hoofdstuk 'Time passes' uit . Of om het met een zin uit Susan Hill's inleiding te besluiten: We honour 'The Years' for what we discover that is is, not for what its author intended it to be. Which is, probably, exactly what would have delighted her.'
Maar enkele weken geleden besloten we last-minute in Kent en East-Sussex te kamperen en bezochten we o.a. Monk's House, het buitenhuis in Rodwell bij Lewes waar Virginia en Leonard Woolf de drukte en de verplichtingen van hun Londense leven konden vergeten en er tot rust en tot schrijven kwamen. Het huis en de tuin (met Virginia's 'schrijftuinhuisje'), de vriendelijke en royale uitleg in elke kamer door de vrijwilligers van de National Trust en de vele betekenisvolle of gewoonweg mooie parafernalia in het eenvoudige interieur, dat alles droeg ertoe bij dat ik danig ontroerd raakte. 脡n dat ik de volgende avond bij onze tent aan 'The Years' begon.
Auteur Susan Hill schreef de perfecte inleiding voor deze Vintage-editie. Ja, zo zegt ze, 'The Years' is een mislukking, want het is niet de essayistische, politiek-sociologische, feministische roman geworden die ze voor ogen had. En ja, in het middendeel zitten flauwere passages, maar dan nog stijgt het ver uit boven de doorsnee romans uit die tijd. Daar ben ik het allemaal mee eens. Het werd zelfs zowaar haar meest gelezen roman.
Sterk vond ik hier vooral Woolfs rake beschrijvingen van de wijze waarop de vele personages observeren en reflecteren. De wisselende perspectieven mogen dan niet - zoals in - als een collage van stream-of-consciousness-stemmen door en over elkaar heen vloeien, toch dragen de opeenvolgende sc猫nes die typische Woolf-stempel waarin innerlijke verlangens en sensaties sterk durven contrasteren met uiterlijk vertoon. Wat gedacht en gezegd wordt staat vaak haaks op elkaar en niet zelden is er bij de personages een onderstroom van frustratie en verwarring waarneembaar, omdat ze niet gezegd krijgen wat ze bedoelen of tot uitdrukking willen brengen.
Die innerlijke wervelingen en gedachtenkronkels deden me heel erg aan Proust denken, wetende dat Virginia Woolf hem ook las en bewonderde. Met dat verschil dat zij meer van binnenuit lijkt te schrijven en zoals gezegd constant wisselt van perspectief. Dat ze dat traditioneler en minder experimenteel doet dan in haar beste werk, vergeef je haar, zeker na het laatste deel 'Present day' dat meer dan een vierde van de roman beslaat.
De vroegste protagonisten uit de familie Pargiter, voornamelijk vrouwen, zijn dan zeventigers en komen samen op een feest waarin de verschillende generaties aanwezig zijn. Op een gegeven ogenblik wordt daar - heel terloops en kort - een vraag gesteld over de rol van het koor in het Griekse theater. Niet zo terloops, vond ik, want ook de Grieken las Virginia Woolf graag en met deze roman heeft ze misschien wel haar eigen variatie daarop gecre毛erd. Met dat verschil dat je hier elk koorlid afzonderlijk leert kennen en koesteren: Eleanor, Kitty, Rose, Edward, Martin en in dat laatste deel ook Peggy en North ... ik zal ze niet gauw vergeten.
Tenslotte nog een eervolle vermelding voor de pas laat in het schrijfproces toegevoegde inleidende paragrafen van elk hoofdstuk, waarin Woolf de eeuwige aanwezigheid en invloed van de seizoenen, het weer, de wolken, het licht en het landschap van zowel haar thuisstad Londen als die van het platteland laat spreken. Ze herinnerden me aan dat ene, magistrale hoofdstuk 'Time passes' uit . Of om het met een zin uit Susan Hill's inleiding te besluiten: We honour 'The Years' for what we discover that is is, not for what its author intended it to be. Which is, probably, exactly what would have delighted her.'
September 3, 2021
Woolf writes of the Pargiter family鈥攁 large family of brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents and grandchildren. We follow the family through three generations, beginning in 1880. The telling leaps forward sometimes by decades, other times, year by year, all the way into the 1930s. We see the life of an upper-middle-class family before, during and after the war. We see societal changes over time and through the characters. The setting is primarily London although life abroad, for example in Africa and India, is spoken of too. We see the young become old, how they see themselves and how in turn their offspring view them. We observe the passage of time and history through the lives of a family.
Although there is not a heavy dose of stream of consciousness in this novel by Woolf, it lurks in the background. Woolf writes with talent and she knew how to draw out the inner core, the essence of a person through her characters. Personally, I am willing to give the book four stars for the prose alone. The prose and the thoughts it gives rise to had more an effect on me than the family story.
At the start I was at times confused how the characters were related to each other. This difficulty clears up as one reads. The usage of pronouns is however not always crystal clear. In one episode roses are spoken of as dying鈥擨 became confused. The writing made me think the character Rose had died鈥︹€ut then she turned up again! Stupid me? Or perhaps, the writing was in fact not sufficiently clear. I very much like Woolf鈥檚 writing. It鈥檚 atmospheric, it鈥檚 lyrical, but not always one hundred percent clear!
Finty (Tara Cressida Frances) Williams narrates the audiobook. She is a contemporary English actress. This is mirrored in her reading. She acts; she gives us a performance. She dramatizes but not excessively, which I appreciate. Most of the characters are easy to recognize through the intonations she gives them. Her intonations fit the characters well. My favorite is Sara Pargiter鈥檚! It鈥檚 spot on. Finty鈥檚 tone enhances the beauty of Woolf鈥檚 descriptive, atmospheric lines. For this reason alone, her audio narration deserves four stars.
The story I would give three stars, the prose four.
I will close with one quote:
鈥淭here must be another life, she thought, sinking back into her chair, exasperated. Not in dreams; but here and now, in this room, with living people. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice with her hair blown back; she was about to grasp something that just evaded her. There must be another life, here and now, she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves.鈥�
****
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 1 star
* 1 star
* 3 stars by
* TBR
Although there is not a heavy dose of stream of consciousness in this novel by Woolf, it lurks in the background. Woolf writes with talent and she knew how to draw out the inner core, the essence of a person through her characters. Personally, I am willing to give the book four stars for the prose alone. The prose and the thoughts it gives rise to had more an effect on me than the family story.
At the start I was at times confused how the characters were related to each other. This difficulty clears up as one reads. The usage of pronouns is however not always crystal clear. In one episode roses are spoken of as dying鈥擨 became confused. The writing made me think the character Rose had died鈥︹€ut then she turned up again! Stupid me? Or perhaps, the writing was in fact not sufficiently clear. I very much like Woolf鈥檚 writing. It鈥檚 atmospheric, it鈥檚 lyrical, but not always one hundred percent clear!
Finty (Tara Cressida Frances) Williams narrates the audiobook. She is a contemporary English actress. This is mirrored in her reading. She acts; she gives us a performance. She dramatizes but not excessively, which I appreciate. Most of the characters are easy to recognize through the intonations she gives them. Her intonations fit the characters well. My favorite is Sara Pargiter鈥檚! It鈥檚 spot on. Finty鈥檚 tone enhances the beauty of Woolf鈥檚 descriptive, atmospheric lines. For this reason alone, her audio narration deserves four stars.
The story I would give three stars, the prose four.
I will close with one quote:
鈥淭here must be another life, she thought, sinking back into her chair, exasperated. Not in dreams; but here and now, in this room, with living people. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice with her hair blown back; she was about to grasp something that just evaded her. There must be another life, here and now, she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves.鈥�
****
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* 4 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 3 stars
* 1 star
* 1 star
* 3 stars by
* TBR
May 31, 2020
4.25|5
I鈥檓 in love 馃槼
I鈥檓 in love 馃槼
June 9, 2024
丕賵丕蹖賱賽 讴鬲丕亘 讴賴 亘賵丿賲 丕夭 丕爻鬲丕丿賲賵賳 倬乇爻蹖丿賲 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賲蹖禺賵丕丿 亘蹖賴賵丿诏蹖賽 夭賳丿诏蹖 乇賵 賳卮賵賳 亘丿賴責趩卮賲丕卮 亘乇賯 夭丿 賵 诏賮鬲 讴丕賲賱丕 亘乇毓讴爻! 丕蹖賳 丕孬乇 賴賳乇蹖貙 賴乇 讴賱賲賴 丿乇 爻鬲丕蹖卮 夭賳丿诏蹖賴! 丕夭 丕賵賳 賱丨馗賴 亘賴 亘毓丿 亘賴 賲毓賳丕蹖 賵丕賯毓蹖 鬲丕夭賴 丿丕卮鬲賲 亘丕賴丕卮 "夭賳丿賴鈥屭�" 賵 賱丨馗丕鬲 賵 爻丕賱鈥属囏й� 夭賵丿诏匕乇卮賵 賲蹖鈥屬矩必池屫�...丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賲孬賱 蹖賴 爻讴賵賳鬲 鬲賵 蹖賴 噩乇蹖丕賳 亘蹖 丕賳鬲賴丕爻.
賱丨馗賴 賴丕蹖 讴賵趩讴蹖 讴賴 亘賴 胤賵賱 爻丕賱 賴丕.
夭賳丿诏蹖賽 丕賳爻丕賳蹖 讴賴 丿乇 賳賴丕蹖鬲 賮賯胤 鬲賵 丌蹖賳賴 讴爻蹖 乇賵 賲蹖亘蹖賳賴 讴賴 蹖賴 乇賵夭蹖 丕賵賳 趩卮賲鈥屬囏ж辟� 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕卮鬲賴 賵 鬲賵 禺丕胤乇丕鬲卮 丕賵賳蹖 乇賵 亘賴 蹖丕丿 賲蹖丕乇賴 讴賴 蹖賴 賱丨馗賴 蹖賴 噩丕 蹖賴 乇賵夭 禺賵卮丨丕賱卮 讴乇丿賴.
禺賵丕賴卮 賲蹖讴賳賲 亘禺賵賳蹖丿卮. 亘賴 讴爻蹖 倬蹖卮賳賴丕丿卮 賲蹖讴賳賲 讴賴 卮賴丕賲鬲 爻鬲丕蹖卮 亘蹖賴賵丿诏蹖 賴丕 賵 賴賲賴鈥屭嗃屫糙� 賴丕蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 乇賵 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮賴.噩賲賱賴 亘賴 噩賲賱賴鈥屰� 鬲禺蹖賱丕鬲 亘蹖賳馗蹖乇 賵 乇蹖夭亘蹖賳丕賳賴鈥屰� 賵蹖乇噩蹖賳蹖丕 乇賵 丿乇賲賵乇丿 爻丕丿賴鈥屫臂屬� 趩蹖夭賴丕蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴賴 賴賲賵賳 賲賴賲 鬲乇蹖賳丕卮賴 賲夭賴 讴賳蹖丿. 丨賵氐賱鬲賵賳 爻乇 賳乇賴貙 丿賳亘丕賱 丕鬲賮丕賯 賳亘丕卮蹖丿貙 賴蹖趩 丿丕爻鬲丕賳蹖 賳丿丕乇賴貙 亘賴 卮丕賴讴丕乇 鬲乇蹖賳 卮讴賱 賲賲讴賳 賵丕丿丕乇鬲賵賳 賲蹖讴賳賴 噩賱賵 亘乇蹖丿 亘丿賵賳 丕蹖賳讴賴 趩蹖夭蹖 噩夭 趩蹖夭賴丕蹖 乇賵夭賲乇賴 丕乇丕卅賴 讴賳賴. 鄄郯郯 氐賮丨賴鈥屰� 丌禺乇 乇賵 鬲賵 蹖讴 乇賵夭 禺賵賳丿賲 賵 丕氐賱丕 賳賲蹖賮賴賲蹖丿賲 趩胤賵乇 賵 趩蹖 丿丕乇賲 賲蹖禺賵賳賲. 賮賯胤 睾乇賯賽 賳孬乇 夭蹖亘丕 賵 噩賵丕賳蹖賽 夭蹖亘丕 賵 丨爻乇鬲鈥屬囏й� 夭蹖亘丕 賵 乇賵丨鈥屬囏й� 賲鬲賮丕賵鬲 賵 夭蹖亘丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 胤賵賱 夭賳丿诏蹖 賲蹖亘蹖賳蹖賲 賵 毓丕卮賯卮賵賳 賲蹖卮蹖賲 賵 倬蹖乇 賲蹖卮蹖賲 賵 賲蹖賲蹖乇蹖賲.
賱丨馗賴 賴丕蹖 讴賵趩讴蹖 讴賴 亘賴 胤賵賱 爻丕賱 賴丕.
夭賳丿诏蹖賽 丕賳爻丕賳蹖 讴賴 丿乇 賳賴丕蹖鬲 賮賯胤 鬲賵 丌蹖賳賴 讴爻蹖 乇賵 賲蹖亘蹖賳賴 讴賴 蹖賴 乇賵夭蹖 丕賵賳 趩卮賲鈥屬囏ж辟� 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕卮鬲賴 賵 鬲賵 禺丕胤乇丕鬲卮 丕賵賳蹖 乇賵 亘賴 蹖丕丿 賲蹖丕乇賴 讴賴 蹖賴 賱丨馗賴 蹖賴 噩丕 蹖賴 乇賵夭 禺賵卮丨丕賱卮 讴乇丿賴.
禺賵丕賴卮 賲蹖讴賳賲 亘禺賵賳蹖丿卮. 亘賴 讴爻蹖 倬蹖卮賳賴丕丿卮 賲蹖讴賳賲 讴賴 卮賴丕賲鬲 爻鬲丕蹖卮 亘蹖賴賵丿诏蹖 賴丕 賵 賴賲賴鈥屭嗃屫糙� 賴丕蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 乇賵 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮賴.噩賲賱賴 亘賴 噩賲賱賴鈥屰� 鬲禺蹖賱丕鬲 亘蹖賳馗蹖乇 賵 乇蹖夭亘蹖賳丕賳賴鈥屰� 賵蹖乇噩蹖賳蹖丕 乇賵 丿乇賲賵乇丿 爻丕丿賴鈥屫臂屬� 趩蹖夭賴丕蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴賴 賴賲賵賳 賲賴賲 鬲乇蹖賳丕卮賴 賲夭賴 讴賳蹖丿. 丨賵氐賱鬲賵賳 爻乇 賳乇賴貙 丿賳亘丕賱 丕鬲賮丕賯 賳亘丕卮蹖丿貙 賴蹖趩 丿丕爻鬲丕賳蹖 賳丿丕乇賴貙 亘賴 卮丕賴讴丕乇 鬲乇蹖賳 卮讴賱 賲賲讴賳 賵丕丿丕乇鬲賵賳 賲蹖讴賳賴 噩賱賵 亘乇蹖丿 亘丿賵賳 丕蹖賳讴賴 趩蹖夭蹖 噩夭 趩蹖夭賴丕蹖 乇賵夭賲乇賴 丕乇丕卅賴 讴賳賴. 鄄郯郯 氐賮丨賴鈥屰� 丌禺乇 乇賵 鬲賵 蹖讴 乇賵夭 禺賵賳丿賲 賵 丕氐賱丕 賳賲蹖賮賴賲蹖丿賲 趩胤賵乇 賵 趩蹖 丿丕乇賲 賲蹖禺賵賳賲. 賮賯胤 睾乇賯賽 賳孬乇 夭蹖亘丕 賵 噩賵丕賳蹖賽 夭蹖亘丕 賵 丨爻乇鬲鈥屬囏й� 夭蹖亘丕 賵 乇賵丨鈥屬囏й� 賲鬲賮丕賵鬲 賵 夭蹖亘丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 胤賵賱 夭賳丿诏蹖 賲蹖亘蹖賳蹖賲 賵 毓丕卮賯卮賵賳 賲蹖卮蹖賲 賵 倬蹖乇 賲蹖卮蹖賲 賵 賲蹖賲蹖乇蹖賲.
July 5, 2015
But you may ask why The Years and not Mrs. Dalloway first? I don't know. I think it was a fortunate to find it in my local library and by reading a few pages of it, I realized that I must read it first. Did you know that I tried to read Mrs. Dalloway for more than 3 times, and even once I read almost half of the book, but I failed to finish it? I was losing my hope. I thought Woolf is not my type.
Reading A room of one's own opened my eyes to many things. That Virginia Woolf mainly concentrates on what kinds of things around us. Let me think. It is a book on women, writing and novels but you see she's describing a cat without a tail in the yard of Oxford University. Amazing huh? And then she compares herself with that cat. I don't think she was a revolutionary feminist. She didn't write a book like The golden notebook of Doris Lessing. She is not The woman destroyed of Simone de Beauvoir, despite her life. I think she was beyond all these things. Although I am not a professional Woolf reader, after reading the years I felt I discovered something new in my life: a new author, a new kind of writing above all kinds of hatred, a new kind of womanhood in fact.
She's smart. She has her own style. She's strong. She's different.
The Years is like I can say The Waves that I have read it years ago, I could finish it but I don't think I wholly understood it, because of a bad translation or perhaps it's untranslatable or maybe I wasn't yet a mature reader. It is the story of a family. There are 4 sisters and 3 brothers living in a big house with their sick mother and father. This is how it starts. The title of each chapter is a certain year. It goes for decades for almost fifty years until each one of the characters gets old.
What we expect from a Woolf novel should not be a mixture of events which supposedly must constitute a special year (chapter). Like chapter 1914 which is describing only one day, they are snapshots of a period od time. I realized that I should read it like a poem, a long poem of winds, clouds, leaves, pigeons, sounds and noise, seasons , streets and London. Each chapter starts with a description of a special season and then characters are floating in these natural frames.
It was January. Snow was falling; snow had fallen all day. The sky spread like a grey goose鈥檚 wing from which feathers were falling all over England. The sky was nothing but a flurry of falling flakes. Lanes were levelled; hollows filled; the snow clogged the streams; obscured windows, and lay wedged against doors.
This is beautiful to see that how characters remain themselves by passing years. How for instance Sara poetically reacts to other people's behavior in her 40's like her 20's. Or how Woolf manages that her characters remembers those memories from years ago that we have read about them in previous chapters and it was for me a reminiscence of reading Proust. I think one main special characteristics of Woolf's is that you have to participate in the novel. Although she puts some clues in different places but you have to guess some things yourself. And that makes it a mysterious reading.
The main characters are mainly women. One thing that I really liked about them was that Woolf sometimes sees them from the eyes of other people, an old man sitting in front of them in a bus for instance:
The man on whose toe she had trodden sized her up; a well-known type; with a bag; philanthropic; well nourished; a spinster; a virgin; like all the women of her class, cold; her passions had never been touched; yet not unattractive. She was laughing. . . .
That above sentence looked so natural to me. I mean as she herself says in A room of one's own, a successful female author writes beyond her gender. And Woolf proves that she is like that.
Reading A room of one's own opened my eyes to many things. That Virginia Woolf mainly concentrates on what kinds of things around us. Let me think. It is a book on women, writing and novels but you see she's describing a cat without a tail in the yard of Oxford University. Amazing huh? And then she compares herself with that cat. I don't think she was a revolutionary feminist. She didn't write a book like The golden notebook of Doris Lessing. She is not The woman destroyed of Simone de Beauvoir, despite her life. I think she was beyond all these things. Although I am not a professional Woolf reader, after reading the years I felt I discovered something new in my life: a new author, a new kind of writing above all kinds of hatred, a new kind of womanhood in fact.
She's smart. She has her own style. She's strong. She's different.
The Years is like I can say The Waves that I have read it years ago, I could finish it but I don't think I wholly understood it, because of a bad translation or perhaps it's untranslatable or maybe I wasn't yet a mature reader. It is the story of a family. There are 4 sisters and 3 brothers living in a big house with their sick mother and father. This is how it starts. The title of each chapter is a certain year. It goes for decades for almost fifty years until each one of the characters gets old.
What we expect from a Woolf novel should not be a mixture of events which supposedly must constitute a special year (chapter). Like chapter 1914 which is describing only one day, they are snapshots of a period od time. I realized that I should read it like a poem, a long poem of winds, clouds, leaves, pigeons, sounds and noise, seasons , streets and London. Each chapter starts with a description of a special season and then characters are floating in these natural frames.
It was January. Snow was falling; snow had fallen all day. The sky spread like a grey goose鈥檚 wing from which feathers were falling all over England. The sky was nothing but a flurry of falling flakes. Lanes were levelled; hollows filled; the snow clogged the streams; obscured windows, and lay wedged against doors.
This is beautiful to see that how characters remain themselves by passing years. How for instance Sara poetically reacts to other people's behavior in her 40's like her 20's. Or how Woolf manages that her characters remembers those memories from years ago that we have read about them in previous chapters and it was for me a reminiscence of reading Proust. I think one main special characteristics of Woolf's is that you have to participate in the novel. Although she puts some clues in different places but you have to guess some things yourself. And that makes it a mysterious reading.
The main characters are mainly women. One thing that I really liked about them was that Woolf sometimes sees them from the eyes of other people, an old man sitting in front of them in a bus for instance:
The man on whose toe she had trodden sized her up; a well-known type; with a bag; philanthropic; well nourished; a spinster; a virgin; like all the women of her class, cold; her passions had never been touched; yet not unattractive. She was laughing. . . .
That above sentence looked so natural to me. I mean as she herself says in A room of one's own, a successful female author writes beyond her gender. And Woolf proves that she is like that.
October 20, 2017
Reviewed in conjunction with Margery Sharp's Lise Lillywhite
One of the things I do in Geneva is hang out at the local flea market trying to suppress my urge听to preserve dead lives. Every week you'll see people disrespectfully pawing over the beloved libraries of the deceased, libraries which with possibly indecent haste, have been taken away by market vendors who, I can imagine, don't pay a cent for them. It is merely enough that they are willing to cart them off. There in the market they sit in boxes, 2CHF a book. Amongst them will often be intimate belongings such as photo albums, travel diaries or autograph books. Every time I see this, I want to save the memory even if nobody else does. Could I not keep just a skeleton of the library's existence?
As it is, my own library is, as much as anything else, a cemetery of book bones, nothing as whole as a skeleton no doubt, but each death provides my shelves with something more. There are many reasons for loving a book. Some of mine I love simply because they belonged to people who cared about them and I have inherited them if only by chance. Not least, the library remnants of the Hautevilles' library.
When the sale of the chateau and its contents was first mooted, the best of the books went to a posh auction house. The refuse of that process ended up at the local flea market. Each time I see one of these discarded deceased estates, lying higgledy-piggledy in boxes, I don't just look at the books one by one, deciding which small treasure to take home. I also read the story of the library itself. Ah, so and so was a jazz and cinema lover, as I see a record collection, the reference books lovingly collected on its side, now the junk man's province. This Swiss person made trips to Australia in the 1950s, here are the photo albums, the travel books of the period. Oh, and he was into....
So it goes on. Most of these deceased book lovers leave only a small tale. The Hautevilles, however, were a prominent family for many generations and their story is told via important legal battles, their castle and through the auction of the contents of that castle. They loved theatre and put on productions, so the auction included the costumery collected over the years. At the 'junk' end, ordinary books not worth anything, was a lovely collection of children's and adult's fiction from the pre and post WWII period. It contained many gems of the period including an author, almost forgotten these days, Margery Sharp. She is perhaps due for the requisite revival, not least because it would not be entirely unreasonable to call her the Jane Austen of her day. I hesitate to do that, but as it may get somebody to read her, and as almost nobody on GR - none of my friends - have read this, I will take the chance.
reset here:
One of the things I do in Geneva is hang out at the local flea market trying to suppress my urge听to preserve dead lives. Every week you'll see people disrespectfully pawing over the beloved libraries of the deceased, libraries which with possibly indecent haste, have been taken away by market vendors who, I can imagine, don't pay a cent for them. It is merely enough that they are willing to cart them off. There in the market they sit in boxes, 2CHF a book. Amongst them will often be intimate belongings such as photo albums, travel diaries or autograph books. Every time I see this, I want to save the memory even if nobody else does. Could I not keep just a skeleton of the library's existence?
As it is, my own library is, as much as anything else, a cemetery of book bones, nothing as whole as a skeleton no doubt, but each death provides my shelves with something more. There are many reasons for loving a book. Some of mine I love simply because they belonged to people who cared about them and I have inherited them if only by chance. Not least, the library remnants of the Hautevilles' library.
When the sale of the chateau and its contents was first mooted, the best of the books went to a posh auction house. The refuse of that process ended up at the local flea market. Each time I see one of these discarded deceased estates, lying higgledy-piggledy in boxes, I don't just look at the books one by one, deciding which small treasure to take home. I also read the story of the library itself. Ah, so and so was a jazz and cinema lover, as I see a record collection, the reference books lovingly collected on its side, now the junk man's province. This Swiss person made trips to Australia in the 1950s, here are the photo albums, the travel books of the period. Oh, and he was into....
So it goes on. Most of these deceased book lovers leave only a small tale. The Hautevilles, however, were a prominent family for many generations and their story is told via important legal battles, their castle and through the auction of the contents of that castle. They loved theatre and put on productions, so the auction included the costumery collected over the years. At the 'junk' end, ordinary books not worth anything, was a lovely collection of children's and adult's fiction from the pre and post WWII period. It contained many gems of the period including an author, almost forgotten these days, Margery Sharp. She is perhaps due for the requisite revival, not least because it would not be entirely unreasonable to call her the Jane Austen of her day. I hesitate to do that, but as it may get somebody to read her, and as almost nobody on GR - none of my friends - have read this, I will take the chance.
reset here:
March 1, 2022
Words can鈥檛 describe how much this book made an impact on me, but I will try to articulate it as much as I can.
At first glance, The Years may seem like a classical family saga, but in fact, is anything but. This novel comes close to what an anti-family novel would be: it鈥檚 a social critic of not only the Pargiters but the suffocating grip of patriarchy on people of the time. It鈥檚 in the tradition of hiding emotional dissatisfaction and masking it with composure, the light shines on the cracks, blurs, and smears of the Pargiters鈥� hypocrisy, it鈥檚 in the generational trauma and misconceptions that are passed down into the next generation, even the likable characters suffer from xenophobia and anti-Semitism inherited from their ancestors(Sara, for example)
A technique characteristical for The Years is the reoccurrence of patterns and repetitive actions, a sudden awareness of oneself as two beings at the same time, an observer and a participant in life (where am I? where am I going? Are the questions the female characters ask themselves throughout the novel).
The central character, Eleanor is in constant search of sense behind the patterns, until she comes to the realization that there is no sense behind them, it will always be out of reach, one should accept that fact in order to live fully in the current time.
The character and social study in The Years is one of the sharpest and cleanest ones I have seen Virginia do, besides in the more famous The Waves and Mrs. Dalloway, this is her most qualitative work. She expresses a wide array of emotions in the character, brilliantly paints a picture of people who are afraid of being themselves, of outside judgment that separates them, the covert and unsurpassed trauma of war, the difference between private I and public I, the repression of emotions, the omnipotence of a father figure, imposed heterosexuality, the generational gap, class, and national differences, stagnation, silence.
The tone, the humanistic under-layer of compassion, and the thoughts of these characters all hit close to home, I cried multiple times while reading this book, I don鈥檛 remember the last time something hit me this hard ever since I read Franny and Zooey in 2020, Virginia continues to surprise me with her intellect and skill; I remember reading her statement after reading Proust鈥檚 In Search of lost time, and I repeat it as a statement true to me after reading her work The Years: What else is there to write about?
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Officially my third favorite Woolf novel after The Waves and Mrs. Dalloway.
鈥淭here must be another life, she thought, sinking back into her chair, exasperated. Not in dreams; but here and now, in this room, with living people. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice with her hair blown back; she was about to grasp something that just evaded her. There must be another life, here and now, she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves.鈥�
At first glance, The Years may seem like a classical family saga, but in fact, is anything but. This novel comes close to what an anti-family novel would be: it鈥檚 a social critic of not only the Pargiters but the suffocating grip of patriarchy on people of the time. It鈥檚 in the tradition of hiding emotional dissatisfaction and masking it with composure, the light shines on the cracks, blurs, and smears of the Pargiters鈥� hypocrisy, it鈥檚 in the generational trauma and misconceptions that are passed down into the next generation, even the likable characters suffer from xenophobia and anti-Semitism inherited from their ancestors(Sara, for example)
鈥滻t was an abominable system, he thought; family life; Abercorn Terrace. No wonder the house would not let. It had one bathroom, and a basement; and there all those different people had lived, boxed up together, telling lies.鈥�
A technique characteristical for The Years is the reoccurrence of patterns and repetitive actions, a sudden awareness of oneself as two beings at the same time, an observer and a participant in life (where am I? where am I going? Are the questions the female characters ask themselves throughout the novel).
The central character, Eleanor is in constant search of sense behind the patterns, until she comes to the realization that there is no sense behind them, it will always be out of reach, one should accept that fact in order to live fully in the current time.
鈥淗er feeling of happiness returned to her, her unreasonable exaltation. It seemed to her that they were all young, with the future before them. Nothing was fixed; nothing was known; life was open and free before them.
鈥淚sn鈥檛 that odd?鈥� she exclaimed. 鈥淚sn鈥檛 that queer? Isn鈥檛 that why life鈥檚 a perpetual鈥攚hat shall I call it?鈥攎iracle? 鈥� I mean,鈥� she tried to explain, for he looked puzzled, 鈥渙ld age they say is like this; but it isn鈥檛. It鈥檚 different; quite different. So when I was a child; so when I was a girl; it鈥檚 been a perpetual discovery, my life. A miracle.鈥�
The character and social study in The Years is one of the sharpest and cleanest ones I have seen Virginia do, besides in the more famous The Waves and Mrs. Dalloway, this is her most qualitative work. She expresses a wide array of emotions in the character, brilliantly paints a picture of people who are afraid of being themselves, of outside judgment that separates them, the covert and unsurpassed trauma of war, the difference between private I and public I, the repression of emotions, the omnipotence of a father figure, imposed heterosexuality, the generational gap, class, and national differences, stagnation, silence.
鈥淗e can鈥檛 say what he wants to say; he鈥檚 afraid. They鈥檙e all afraid; afraid of being laughed at; afraid of giving themselves away. He鈥檚 afraid too, he thought, looking at the young man with a fine forehead and a weak chin who was gesticulating, too emphatically. We鈥檙e all afraid of each other, he thought; afraid of what? Of criticism; of laughter; of people who think differently鈥�. He鈥檚 afraid of me because I鈥檓 a farmer (and he saw again his round face; high cheekbones and small brown eyes). And I鈥檓 afraid of him because he鈥檚 clever. He looked at the big forehead, from which the hair was already receding. That鈥檚 what separates us; fear, he thought.鈥�
The tone, the humanistic under-layer of compassion, and the thoughts of these characters all hit close to home, I cried multiple times while reading this book, I don鈥檛 remember the last time something hit me this hard ever since I read Franny and Zooey in 2020, Virginia continues to surprise me with her intellect and skill; I remember reading her statement after reading Proust鈥檚 In Search of lost time, and I repeat it as a statement true to me after reading her work The Years: What else is there to write about?
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Officially my third favorite Woolf novel after The Waves and Mrs. Dalloway.
December 5, 2009
my favorite
亘毓丿 丕夭 爻賴 爻丕賱 丿賵亘丕乇賴 禺賵賳丿賲卮. 噩丕賱亘 丕蹖賳 噩丕爻鬲 讴賴 鬲賵 丕蹖賳 爻賴 爻丕賱 賴乇 賵賯鬲 亘賴 蹖丕丿 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賲蹖 丕賮鬲丕丿賲 丨爻 禺賵亘蹖 倬蹖丿丕 賲蹖 讴乇丿賲貙 丕賲丕 丿丕爻鬲丕賳卮 亘賴 蹖丕丿賲 賳賲蹖 蹖賵賲丿! 丕夭 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賮賯胤 蹖賴 丨爻 亘乇丕賲 亘丕賯蹖 賲賵賳丿賴 亘賵丿. 丨丕賱丕 賴賲 讴賴 亘乇丕蹖 丿賵賲蹖賳 亘丕乇 禺賵賳丿賲卮 亘丕夭 賴賲 亘乇丕賲 賴賲賵賳 丨爻 禺賵亘 乇賵 夭賳丿賴 讴乇丿 賵 亘丕夭 賴賲 賳賲蹖 鬲賵賳賲 鬲毓乇蹖賮卮 讴賳賲!
丿賱蹖賱卮 丕蹖賳賴 讴賴:
賵蹖乇噩蹖賳蹖丕 賵賵賱賮 毓夭蹖夭 賽 賲賳 鬲賵 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 趩蹖夭蹖 乇賵 鬲氐賵蹖乇 讴乇丿賴 讴賴 亘賴卮 賲蹖 诏蹖賲 "夭賳丿诏蹖"貙 丨爻卮 賲蹖 讴賳蹖賲 賵 賳賲蹖 鬲賵賳蹖賲 鬲毓乇蹖賮卮 讴賳蹖賲.
亘毓丿 丕夭 爻賴 爻丕賱 丿賵亘丕乇賴 禺賵賳丿賲卮. 噩丕賱亘 丕蹖賳 噩丕爻鬲 讴賴 鬲賵 丕蹖賳 爻賴 爻丕賱 賴乇 賵賯鬲 亘賴 蹖丕丿 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賲蹖 丕賮鬲丕丿賲 丨爻 禺賵亘蹖 倬蹖丿丕 賲蹖 讴乇丿賲貙 丕賲丕 丿丕爻鬲丕賳卮 亘賴 蹖丕丿賲 賳賲蹖 蹖賵賲丿! 丕夭 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賮賯胤 蹖賴 丨爻 亘乇丕賲 亘丕賯蹖 賲賵賳丿賴 亘賵丿. 丨丕賱丕 賴賲 讴賴 亘乇丕蹖 丿賵賲蹖賳 亘丕乇 禺賵賳丿賲卮 亘丕夭 賴賲 亘乇丕賲 賴賲賵賳 丨爻 禺賵亘 乇賵 夭賳丿賴 讴乇丿 賵 亘丕夭 賴賲 賳賲蹖 鬲賵賳賲 鬲毓乇蹖賮卮 讴賳賲!
丿賱蹖賱卮 丕蹖賳賴 讴賴:
賵蹖乇噩蹖賳蹖丕 賵賵賱賮 毓夭蹖夭 賽 賲賳 鬲賵 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 趩蹖夭蹖 乇賵 鬲氐賵蹖乇 讴乇丿賴 讴賴 亘賴卮 賲蹖 诏蹖賲 "夭賳丿诏蹖"貙 丨爻卮 賲蹖 讴賳蹖賲 賵 賳賲蹖 鬲賵賳蹖賲 鬲毓乇蹖賮卮 讴賳蹖賲.
February 28, 2017
The story is composed of fragments, moments taken from an entire life. There are things we remember better than other. Some things we forget completely until someone mentions it and than we seem to remember little fragments of the story. It is not always the most important things we remember; it can be just like a shadow that covers a piece of the wall without making difference. What Woolf does is, she constructs a complete novel of assembled fragments of the lives of the family Pargiter. So a complete story reveals itself.
June 7, 2018
Fleeting Moments
When I started the opening section, set in 1880, I had trouble keeping track of the seven or eight children of Colonel Abel Pargiter, in whose London house the book opens. The immensely helpful introduction by Eleanor McNees, who edited and annotated the Harcourt edition, reproduces a sketch of the Pargiter family tree from one of Woolf's notebooks, but it was obvious that some of the names and dates had been changed. In vain did I look for a version online. But I gradually came to see that this did not matter. A few of the children would become major figures, others would reappear only once or twice, and still others would disappear from the story almost completely, to be replaced by various cousins, nephews, and nieces. McNees makes the point that while most novels are focused, centripetal, this one is centrifugal. Think of ripples moving outwards in the pond of time, getting broken up into little wavelets as they move away from the centre, each reflecting a piece of the sky or the world around them.
As she does in , though with greater naturalism, Woolf begins each section with a description of the weather over England; she closes the book in that way too, as in the excerpt above. So even though there is a chronological movement through the decades, it is balanced against the rhythm of the seasons, cyclical and eternal. The chapters, all of different lengths, are headed 1880, 1891, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1917, 1918, and "Present Day" (presumably around 1930). The autumn wind that blows across England in the opening to the 1891 section strikes the houses of two of the characters, one in Northumberland, the other in Devon, who have apparently got married in the eleven-year gap, neither to people whom one might have expected. Another author might have made a whole novel out of either of these鈥攂ut Woolf, after her brief puff of breeze, moves on. For her, such milestone events always take place offstage. Look again at the dates above. The Years is the only novel I know set in the early twentieth century where the reader approaches the First World War without any sense of dread. Woolf observes it, certainly; there is a scene with some people drinking wine in a basement with bombs falling overhead. But when a character joins the army, the main reaction is to question the rightness of war, rather the doomed foreshadowing of death that has become a WW1 novelist's clich茅. At least one member of the family does die, of course, but this is something we learn about much later, as with all the other deaths, which are simply treated as another part of life.
Between them, the Pargiters cover most of the occupations typical of the upper middle classes in that period. Among the men, we have an Oxford don, a chancery lawyer, a financier, and a soldier turned farmer in the colonies. One of the women in the younger generation becomes a doctor, but her aunts have no such professions open to them. Instead, one of them builds housing for the poor, another works for women's suffrage, and another鈥攁 deliciously offbeat character whom Woolf may have based on herself鈥攂ecomes a writer. There are marriages too, both high and low, but Woolf has no time for the "marriage plots" of the 19th-century novel. Many of her characters remain single, and there are hints of homosexual or asexual attractions also. And even the traditional openings are seldom followed through; one of the men in that closing party, for instance, meets a pretty girl and gets her permission to have him call on her the next day鈥攂ut we never discover what happens; we do not even know her name. And although inevitably most of the characters are of a certain class, one of the most moving sections in the entire book, that of 1913, features the old servant Crosby, leaving the house on Abercorn Terrace for the last time after it has been sold.
The Years may not have a plot, but it absolutely has a setting: London. Just as she had done in (and using many of the same devices), Woolf paints the metropolis in glimpses through windows, trips by omnibus or on foot, visits to houses grubby or grand, creating a sensory picture in sight, scent, and above all sound. And unlike that earlier novel, which is set in a single day, this covers a fifty-year span. The sounds of lamplighters' footsteps and horses hooves that came through the window in 1880 are replaced by a less pleasant cacophony in the present day:
But Eleanor was standing with her back to them. She was watching a taxi that was gliding slowly round the square. It stopped in front of a house two doors down.These are the last few lines (with one small omission) of Virginia Woolf's last major novel, The Years, which I find to be at the same time Woolf's most approachable work and also her most original. Were this a normal novel, I would not dream of quoting the closing lines without spoiler alerts. But no spoilers are possible here, because Woolf avoids the normal narrative chain of cause and effect. The couple entering their house in the early morning are people we have not seen before, and probably would not see again even if the book were twice as long. The beauty of the passage is in the moment, one small example of life going on in an entire book about life going on, fleeting moment after fleeting moment. Eleanor Pargiter, a woman now in her seventies, is a major character; her sister Delia, whose party in a London town house is just ending, is a more minor one; but the point is less to show what has happened to these particular women whom we first met when the book began fifty years earlier, but simply to show that they are still alive, as witnesses to the changing world around them.
"Aren't they lovely?" said Delia, holding out the flowers.
Eleanor started.
"The roses? Yes..." she said. But she was watching the cab. A young man had got out; he paid the driver. Then a girl in a tweed travelling suit followed him. He fitted his latch-key to the door. "There," Eleanor murmured, as he opened the door and they stood for a moment on the threshold. "There!" she repeated, as the door shut with a little thud behind them. [...]
The sun had risen, and the sky above the houses wore an air of extraordinary beauty, simplicity and peace.
When I started the opening section, set in 1880, I had trouble keeping track of the seven or eight children of Colonel Abel Pargiter, in whose London house the book opens. The immensely helpful introduction by Eleanor McNees, who edited and annotated the Harcourt edition, reproduces a sketch of the Pargiter family tree from one of Woolf's notebooks, but it was obvious that some of the names and dates had been changed. In vain did I look for a version online. But I gradually came to see that this did not matter. A few of the children would become major figures, others would reappear only once or twice, and still others would disappear from the story almost completely, to be replaced by various cousins, nephews, and nieces. McNees makes the point that while most novels are focused, centripetal, this one is centrifugal. Think of ripples moving outwards in the pond of time, getting broken up into little wavelets as they move away from the centre, each reflecting a piece of the sky or the world around them.
As she does in , though with greater naturalism, Woolf begins each section with a description of the weather over England; she closes the book in that way too, as in the excerpt above. So even though there is a chronological movement through the decades, it is balanced against the rhythm of the seasons, cyclical and eternal. The chapters, all of different lengths, are headed 1880, 1891, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1917, 1918, and "Present Day" (presumably around 1930). The autumn wind that blows across England in the opening to the 1891 section strikes the houses of two of the characters, one in Northumberland, the other in Devon, who have apparently got married in the eleven-year gap, neither to people whom one might have expected. Another author might have made a whole novel out of either of these鈥攂ut Woolf, after her brief puff of breeze, moves on. For her, such milestone events always take place offstage. Look again at the dates above. The Years is the only novel I know set in the early twentieth century where the reader approaches the First World War without any sense of dread. Woolf observes it, certainly; there is a scene with some people drinking wine in a basement with bombs falling overhead. But when a character joins the army, the main reaction is to question the rightness of war, rather the doomed foreshadowing of death that has become a WW1 novelist's clich茅. At least one member of the family does die, of course, but this is something we learn about much later, as with all the other deaths, which are simply treated as another part of life.
Between them, the Pargiters cover most of the occupations typical of the upper middle classes in that period. Among the men, we have an Oxford don, a chancery lawyer, a financier, and a soldier turned farmer in the colonies. One of the women in the younger generation becomes a doctor, but her aunts have no such professions open to them. Instead, one of them builds housing for the poor, another works for women's suffrage, and another鈥攁 deliciously offbeat character whom Woolf may have based on herself鈥攂ecomes a writer. There are marriages too, both high and low, but Woolf has no time for the "marriage plots" of the 19th-century novel. Many of her characters remain single, and there are hints of homosexual or asexual attractions also. And even the traditional openings are seldom followed through; one of the men in that closing party, for instance, meets a pretty girl and gets her permission to have him call on her the next day鈥攂ut we never discover what happens; we do not even know her name. And although inevitably most of the characters are of a certain class, one of the most moving sections in the entire book, that of 1913, features the old servant Crosby, leaving the house on Abercorn Terrace for the last time after it has been sold.
The Years may not have a plot, but it absolutely has a setting: London. Just as she had done in (and using many of the same devices), Woolf paints the metropolis in glimpses through windows, trips by omnibus or on foot, visits to houses grubby or grand, creating a sensory picture in sight, scent, and above all sound. And unlike that earlier novel, which is set in a single day, this covers a fifty-year span. The sounds of lamplighters' footsteps and horses hooves that came through the window in 1880 are replaced by a less pleasant cacophony in the present day:
Against the dull background of traffic noises, of wheels turning and brakes squeaking, there rose near at hand the cry of a woman suddenly alarmed for her child; the monotonous cry of a man selling vegetables; and far away a barrel-organ was playing.And I have just noticed that the 1930s passage with which I opened is prefigured by a similar scene in 1880, just one of Woolf's impressionistic orchestration of fleeting moments that gave me greater delight than any other novel of hers:
The houses opposite all had the same front gardens; the same steps; the same pillars; the same bow windows. But now dusk was falling and they looked spectral and insubstantial in the dim light. Lamps were being lit; a light glowed in the drawing-room opposite; then the curtains were drawn, and the room was blotted out. Delia stood looking down at the street. A woman of the lower classes was wheeling a perambulator; an old man tottered along with his hands behind his back. Then the street was empty; there was a pause. Here came a hansom jingling down the road. Delia was momentarily interested. Was it going to stop at their door or not? She gazed more intently. But then, to her regret, the cabman jerked his reins, the horse stumbled on; the cab stopped two doors lower down.
June 18, 2017
This is my fourth reading because it is a novel that speaks to me ; my very essence I grew up in a four storey Victorian terraced house with faded William Morris wallpaper and service bells in the hallway. The past was always present and maybe we all lived in the past even then
How do you describe the passing of the years ? Your years ? Your family' s years or your country s years ?
Family members die , political parties too and wars are waged and what remains ? what is reliable ? ; if anything. What does it all mean? What was really important ?
Seasons are reliable as all Nature Is , Virginia Woolf shows us that the everyday is all we had -love her
How do you describe the passing of the years ? Your years ? Your family' s years or your country s years ?
Family members die , political parties too and wars are waged and what remains ? what is reliable ? ; if anything. What does it all mean? What was really important ?
Seasons are reliable as all Nature Is , Virginia Woolf shows us that the everyday is all we had -love her
March 28, 2009
賲賳 卮丕蹖丿 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘賴丕蹖蹖 讴賴 蹖讴 賳爻賱 蹖丕 蹖讴 禺丕賳賵丕丿賴 乇丕 爻丕賱賴丕 倬蹖诏蹖乇蹖 賲蹖 讴賳賳丿 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕乇賲. 亘乇丕蹖賲 賲孬丕賱 夭賳丿诏蹖 賵丕賯毓蹖 丕爻鬲 賵 禺賵亘 丿乇讴卮 賲蹖 讴賳賲 丨鬲蹖 丕诏乇 亘乇丕丨鬲蹖 賳卮賵丿 禺賵丕賳丿卮 賲孬賱 丕蹖賳 蹖讴蹖.. 賵賱蹖 亘乇丕蹖 賲賳 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕卮鬲賳蹖 亘賵丿貙 賳爻禺賴 丿乇噩賴 2 蹖丕 3 丕夭 氐丿 爻丕賱 鬲賳賴丕蹖蹖..
March 8, 2019
孝芯胁邪 械 薪邪泄-写芯斜褉懈褟褌 褉芯屑邪薪, 泻芯泄褌芯 褋褗屑 褔械谢 薪邪 袙懈褉写卸懈薪懈褟 校谢褎 写芯褋械谐邪.
袝谢械邪薪芯褉 袩邪褉写卸懈褌褗褉 械 薪邪泄-写芯斜褉邪褌邪 卸械薪邪 谐械褉芯懈薪褟, 泻芯褟褌芯 褋褗屑 褋褉械褖邪谢 胁 谢懈褌械褉邪褌褍褉邪褌邪.
袧械 屑芯谐邪 写邪 泻邪卸邪 薪懈褖芯 锌芯胁械褔械, 芯褋胁械薪 写邪 锌芯褋芯褔邪 薪邪泄-谢械褋薪懈褟 蟹邪 屑械薪 懈蟹胁芯写 - 褉芯屑邪薪褗褌 械 斜褉懈谢褟薪褌械薪.
袩褉械蟹 褑褟谢芯褌芯 胁褉械屑械 褋械 褋械褖邪褏 蟹邪 械写懈薪 锌邪褋邪卸 芯褌 袘褗褉薪褌 袧芯褉褌褗薪 薪邪 孝.小. 袝谢懈褗褌. 袩芯写芯蟹懈褉邪屑, 褔械 懈 袙. 校谢褎 褋褗褖芯 械 斜懈谢邪 胁写褗褏薪芯胁械薪邪 芯褌 薪械谐芯:
袝谢械邪薪芯褉 袩邪褉写卸懈褌褗褉 械 薪邪泄-写芯斜褉邪褌邪 卸械薪邪 谐械褉芯懈薪褟, 泻芯褟褌芯 褋褗屑 褋褉械褖邪谢 胁 谢懈褌械褉邪褌褍褉邪褌邪.
袧械 屑芯谐邪 写邪 泻邪卸邪 薪懈褖芯 锌芯胁械褔械, 芯褋胁械薪 写邪 锌芯褋芯褔邪 薪邪泄-谢械褋薪懈褟 蟹邪 屑械薪 懈蟹胁芯写 - 褉芯屑邪薪褗褌 械 斜褉懈谢褟薪褌械薪.
袩褉械蟹 褑褟谢芯褌芯 胁褉械屑械 褋械 褋械褖邪褏 蟹邪 械写懈薪 锌邪褋邪卸 芯褌 袘褗褉薪褌 袧芯褉褌褗薪 薪邪 孝.小. 袝谢懈褗褌. 袩芯写芯蟹懈褉邪屑, 褔械 懈 袙. 校谢褎 褋褗褖芯 械 斜懈谢邪 胁写褗褏薪芯胁械薪邪 芯褌 薪械谐芯:
"袧邪褋褌芯褟褖械褌芯 泄 屑懈薪邪谢芯褌芯 胁褉械屑械
薪邪胁褟褉薪芯 蟹邪械写薪芯 屑懈薪邪胁邪褌 胁 斜褗写械褖械褌芯 胁褉械屑械,
邪 斜褗写械褖械褌芯 褋械 褋褗写褗褉卸邪 胁 屑懈薪邪谢芯褌芯.
袗泻芯 褑褟谢芯褌芯 胁褉械屑械 胁懈薪邪谐懈 褋褗褖械褋褌胁褍胁邪,
褑褟谢芯褌芯 胁褉械屑械 械 薪械锌芯锌褉邪胁懈屑芯.
袣芯械褌芯 械 屑芯谐谢芯 写邪 斜褗写械, 械 邪斜褋褌褉邪泻褑懈褟 鈥�
锌芯褋褌芯褟薪薪邪 胁褗蟹屑芯卸薪芯褋褌
褋邪屑芯 胁 褋胁械褌邪 薪邪 褉邪蟹褋褗卸写械薪懈褟褌邪.
袣芯械褌芯 械 屑芯谐谢芯 写邪 斜褗写械 懈 泻芯械褌芯 械
褋芯褔邪褌 泻褗屑 械写懈薪 懈 褋褗褖懈 泻褉邪泄 鈥� 胁褋械 胁 薪邪褋褌芯褟褖械褌芯.
小褌褗锌泻懈 芯褌械泻胁邪褌 胁 锌邪屑械褌褌邪
锌褉械蟹 锌褉芯褏芯写邪, 锌芯 泻芯泄褌芯 薪械 锌芯械褏屑械,
泻褗屑 胁褉邪褌邪, 泻芯褟褌芯 薪械 芯褌胁芯褉懈褏屑械
泻褗屑 谐褉邪写懈薪邪褌邪 褋 褉芯蟹懈褌械. "
September 22, 2020
The Years is a sprawling generational tale that follows the just as sprawling members of the Pargiters family. These middle-class and urban-dwelling individuals are first viewed in the spring of 1880 and Woolf invites the reader to follow them, and the altering, war-ravaged, and ever more industrial Britain, until the summer of 1930.
I have now read a number of Woolf's works and have adored and appreciated them all. None, however, have compared to my introduction and personal favourite, . This was the most reminiscent in tone and general theme, as it was through seemingly banal observations or discussions that the reader garnered a true understanding for landscape and individual thought and feeling. Both are surface-level creations of familial life but, through this, seek to expose so much more.
This one family are used merely as figures to present the ungraspable concept of the passage of time. In 400 pages, decades and generations speed by. A small number of pages are allocated for each year and so a limited insight is therefore unavoidable. Woolf works consistently hard to evoke an entire scene, an entire year, entirely new characters, and the sense of shifting time, and I would say she undoubtedly achieves this.
I truly felt the characters alter as they aged and often this was most heavily implied by their stagnation. They became inescapably bound to their roots and so when the novel continued on its ceaseless progression to the present day, they became left behind, first in thought and then in body. The Britain that surrounded them was altering at an even more increased rate and the reactions for those experiencing this was just as dutifully recorded.
It did take me a little while to truly grasp what Woolf was exposing the reader to, but, once I had done so, I became immersed in these scenes from the past and this proved to be another mesmerising and wonderful Woolf.
I have now read a number of Woolf's works and have adored and appreciated them all. None, however, have compared to my introduction and personal favourite, . This was the most reminiscent in tone and general theme, as it was through seemingly banal observations or discussions that the reader garnered a true understanding for landscape and individual thought and feeling. Both are surface-level creations of familial life but, through this, seek to expose so much more.
This one family are used merely as figures to present the ungraspable concept of the passage of time. In 400 pages, decades and generations speed by. A small number of pages are allocated for each year and so a limited insight is therefore unavoidable. Woolf works consistently hard to evoke an entire scene, an entire year, entirely new characters, and the sense of shifting time, and I would say she undoubtedly achieves this.
I truly felt the characters alter as they aged and often this was most heavily implied by their stagnation. They became inescapably bound to their roots and so when the novel continued on its ceaseless progression to the present day, they became left behind, first in thought and then in body. The Britain that surrounded them was altering at an even more increased rate and the reactions for those experiencing this was just as dutifully recorded.
It did take me a little while to truly grasp what Woolf was exposing the reader to, but, once I had done so, I became immersed in these scenes from the past and this proved to be another mesmerising and wonderful Woolf.
November 13, 2017
The sunlight-dappled passages of 'The Years', deciduous and delirious with Woolf's painterly vision hold the key to understanding Woolf's view of the world as an atmosphere of beauty enveloped in a haze of听 human melancholy, regret and isolation; although 'The Years' ostensibly follows the Pargiter family, the true star is the city of London. Verdant and vibrant, from the tree-lined streets to听 bilious听 lamp-light which imbued London with a sickly luminescence, to the maze like streets which have entrapped the characters, few writers had described London with as much verve and originality as Virginia Woolf;
"The moon which was now clear of the clouds lay in a bare space as if the light had consumed the heaviness of the clouds and left a perfectly clear pavement, a dancing ground for revelry. For some time the dappled iridescence of the sky remained unbroken. There was a puff of cloud; and a little cloud crossed the moon"听
London is enveloped in a haze of harlequin colours, of crepuscular dusk and golden rain, Woolf鈥檚 poetic descriptions are a testament to her painterly vision, to an eye which was accustomed to catching the small, unnoticed and unappreciated details of life, of gas-lights shaped like peacock feathers, of the fall of moon-light on tables, of night coalescing into day;
鈥淚t was a clear night and every tree in the square was visible; some were black, others were sprinkled with strange patches of green artificial light. Above the arc lamps rose shafts of darkness. Although it was close on midnight, it scarcely seemed to be night, but rather some ethereal disembodied day,鈥�
Perhaps the weaker element of 鈥楾he Years鈥� is the characters; although part of this is reflective of the fact that Woolf presents their inner lives via snapshots of different days in various years of their lives and so it can come across as slightly disjointed and so it is difficult to form an emotional connection with the family. However, that does not completely detract from the beauty of the story, from the magical atmosphere which Woolf weaves around London.
"The moon which was now clear of the clouds lay in a bare space as if the light had consumed the heaviness of the clouds and left a perfectly clear pavement, a dancing ground for revelry. For some time the dappled iridescence of the sky remained unbroken. There was a puff of cloud; and a little cloud crossed the moon"听
London is enveloped in a haze of harlequin colours, of crepuscular dusk and golden rain, Woolf鈥檚 poetic descriptions are a testament to her painterly vision, to an eye which was accustomed to catching the small, unnoticed and unappreciated details of life, of gas-lights shaped like peacock feathers, of the fall of moon-light on tables, of night coalescing into day;
鈥淚t was a clear night and every tree in the square was visible; some were black, others were sprinkled with strange patches of green artificial light. Above the arc lamps rose shafts of darkness. Although it was close on midnight, it scarcely seemed to be night, but rather some ethereal disembodied day,鈥�
Perhaps the weaker element of 鈥楾he Years鈥� is the characters; although part of this is reflective of the fact that Woolf presents their inner lives via snapshots of different days in various years of their lives and so it can come across as slightly disjointed and so it is difficult to form an emotional connection with the family. However, that does not completely detract from the beauty of the story, from the magical atmosphere which Woolf weaves around London.
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