The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf

It has taken me a while to write this review for The Voyage Out, as I had got myself into a bit of a muddle.

A literary muddle.

After reading such a fine literary classic, full of clever literary devices, I felt duty bound to write a clever, literary review in appreciation.

But, of course, there are already so many of those fine, clever literary discussions out there - what could I possibly add that would be fresh or new or exceptional?

That's when I remembered the raison d'etre for my blog - to document my reading journey and reactions.

Therefore I could talk about rites of passage and the role of civilisation and modern life, or discuss the ideas about internal and external exploration. And we could unpack the feminist issues and Darwinian elements to our hearts content.

But did I enjoy the book?

I attempted To the Lighthouse in my late twenties...and failed miserably. I abandoned the story after the first handful of dense rambling pages that were unable to hook my interest.

I've also dipped into A Room of One's Own a few times over the years with an equal measure of pleasure and rage.

This taught me that I could read Woolf - but perhaps it was only her non-fiction that would suit me?

Therefore when I spotted Ali's #Woolfalong post last year I decided, that if I was going to do Woolf properly with the justice I felt she deserved, I would have to start at the very beginning.

The Voyage Out was Woolf's first novel and one her most highly revised and reworked books.

It is also one of her most accessible works.

Early on, during the actual voyage, I thought it was going to be a Cowardesque country club comedy of class. But Woolf's relationship with her characters was more affectionate than that.

Then I thought it was going to be a clash of cultures novel as the Europeans encountered the natives.

And it was a little bit of that. It was also a little bit of a coming of age story for Rachel, a romance and a Shakespearean tragedy.

But the thing that carried me through and affected me quite deeply, page after page, was Virginia's depression which all her characters wore on their sleeves in one way or another.

From tears and tantrums to thoughts of suicide, despair and hopelessness were experienced by all who inhabited these pages.

Never again would he feel secure; he would never believe in the stability of life, or forget what depths of pain lie beneath small happiness and feelings of content and safety.

They pondered the meaning of life and debated the purpose of human relationships.

The lives of these people," she tried to explain, "the aimlessness, the way they live. One goes from one to another, and it's all the same. One never gets what one wants out of any of them.

Woolf's fragile emotional state clearly shone through but so too did her creative intelligence and her literary knowledge.

As the Introduction in my Oxford World Classic edition says 

the book is full of references to books of all kinds, from Austen and the Brontes to Balzac and Ibsen to Gibbon and Burke to Milton and Shelley, and Sappho and Pindar.

Rachel's story was terribly sad and terribly fascinating at the same time. 

Ali @Heavenali is hosting a year long #Woolfalong.
This post is also part of my Women's Classic Literature Challenge.

Classics Club February Meme

It's been a while since I participated in a Classics Club meme question. Mostly because I answered them first time around but also a little bit due to the fact that my life is busier now than last time around.

However, I have a lovely lazy quiet weekend ahead of me and I've been tempted into talking about the classics I'm reading this month.

February has been all about Louisa May Alcott and Little Women and Good Wives thanks to Suey, Kami and Jenni hosting a readalong this month.

I thoroughly enjoyed dipping back into these childhood favourites...so much so, that I plan to continue on and reread Little Men and Jo's Boys throughout March. If anyone would like to join me in reading these two lesser known Alcott's, please let me know in the comments below.

Although these four books are not on my official Classics Club list, they are on my Womens Classic Literature Challenge list.

Reading the Little Women books as an adult proved to be an interesting experience thanks to some knowledge about Alcott's life that I had picked up along the way.
As a child I didn't appreciate that she wrote these books based loosely on her family situation or that Alcott's family lived a life that was a little unusual to those of mainstream America.

This reread made me curious to know more...which leads me to the third book I hope to read during March - Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louise May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2008. 
Louisa May Alcott is known universally. Yet during Louisa's youth, the famous Alcott was her father, Bronson—an eminent teacher and a friend of Emerson and Thoreau. He desired perfection, for the world and from his family. Louisa challenged him with her mercurial moods and yearnings for money and fame. The other prize she deeply coveted—her father's understanding—seemed hardest to win. This story of Bronson and Louisa's tense yet loving relationship adds dimensions to Louisa's life, her work, and the relationships of fathers and daughters.

These are not the only classics I plan to read in March.
Heavenali is hosting her wonderful #Woolfalong all year. I knew I didn't want to start with the 'toughies' Mrs Dalloway or To the Lighthouse, so I've been waiting for phase two to kick in.

The Voyage Out was her very first novel published in 1915 and I like the idea of starting at the beginning. Given that her writing has been described as experimental and full of 'intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity' (thanks wikipedia) I think reading her books in order will allow me to develop my understanding of her in the same way as she developed her unique style.

In The Voyage Out, one of Woolf's wittiest, socially satirical novels, Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship, and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a modern version of the mythic voyage. Lorna Sage's Introduction and Explanatory Notes offer guidance to the reader new to Woolf, and illuminate Woolf's presence, not identifiable in the heroine, but in the social satire, lyricism and patterning of consciousness in one woman's rite of passage.

If all goes well I will jump into Night and Day (1919) and Jacob's Room (1922) in April, especially since my Wordsworth edition has them conveniently published in the same book.

Virginia Woolf’s second novel, Night and Day (1919), portrays the gradual changes in a society, the patterns and conventions of which are slowly disintegrating; where the representatives of the younger generation struggle to forge their own way, for ‘... life has to be faced: to be rejected; then accepted on new terms with rapture’. Woolf begins to experiment with the novel form while demonstrating her affection for the literature of the past.

Jacob’s Room (1922), Woolf’s third novel, marks the bold affirmation of her own voice and search for a new form to express her view that ‘the human soul … orientates itself afresh every now & then. It is doing so now. No one can see it whole therefore.’ Jacob’s life is presented in subtle, delicate and tantalising glimpses, the novel’s gaps and silences are as replete with meaning as the wicker armchair creaking in the empty room.

Do you have any classic reads on your radar this month?