Virginia Woolf 8-16

 I suspect some who knew me before prison will be surprised I would read Virginia Woolf let alone be impressed by the woman. Blame it on my prison stay. The prison library had a couple of her books.

I first encountered her through her Common Reader and then through To the Lighthouse. Hopefully, you will read my notes on my experiences with those books.

The Modern Novel site has a short bio and a piece on To the Lighthouse. Consider this comment:

This is not an ordinary novel. It some respects it can be said to be like an impressionist painting, focusing less on narrative, character development and reality and more on thoughts, impressions, images, dreams. In this, like its predecessor Mrs. Dalloway and the other novels she was to write, it moves the English novel well away from the realist tradition. Sadly, this was not appreciated then and is still not fully appreciated now. Nevertheless, this remains one of the great books of twentieth century English literature.

The realist novel suffers, in my opinion, when it sticks to being journalistic. Reality includes the emotional, the irrational, the imaginative, and the insufficiently understood fact.  

The Guardian collects its articles relating to Virginia Woolf here.

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