Women and Writing - Virginia Woolf

Advantages: Wonderfully written, moving and thought-provoking
Disadvantages: Due to Woolfe's unique writing style, some confusion is inevitable!

...This is a wonderful book, which explores the inner workings of people's minds as they go through everyday life. The focus is on one family, in particular the mother and father, who are both very complicated psychological character, and Woolf focuses on themes of communication, interruption and isolation, in her own unique third person interior monologue, or stream-of -consciousness style, which constantly shifts from one character's perspective to another, creating a contiually changing, sometimes contradictory narrative which leaves a lasting impression and a deeper, if more confused, idea of the human mind and also of the conventions of society, especially those sutrrounding male and female roles. If you are familiar with Woolf's novel 'Mrs Dalloway', you will see many similarities here, both in terms of writing style and themes... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Poetic descriptions
Disadvantages: Not very readable as a novel

...Reading Orlando was a bit like watching Dallas. Remember when Bobby Ewing stepped out of the shower, when his wife Pam, woke up from a dream which lasted for hundreds of episodes? Nobody remembered her dream starting, but we were reliably informed by the press that what we had actually witnessed for the past few months (or was it years?) was a very badly construed dream sequence that even the writers hadn’t envisaged at the beginning. And so, when reading Orlando I was hoping throughout the novel, that Woolf would then say “It was all a dream, what in fact happened was…” and I would laugh and say “You had me going there”. Orlando is regarded as a classic of the 20th Century and was written as a tongue-in-cheek dedication to Vita Sackville-West, who was Virginia Woolf’s ‘part-time’... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Superbly intense
Disadvantages: Sometimes over philisophical

...Cunningham keeps the reader questioning life and death in all its guises by creating similarities and differences between three women living in 3 different eras: Virginia Woolf in the 20’s, Laura Brown in suburban America in the 40’s and Clarissa in New York in the 90’s. Each woman is fighting an internal battle - with life, death, and sexuality. I love the way that each character wonders what it would be like to not exist. How easy it could be to just end it, end life. One woman considers the idea very seriously, one watches a dear friend commit the act of suicide and one commits suicide herself. In fact, the book opens with the dramatic suicide of Virginia Woolf, making the opening chapter hard hitting. The reader is compelled to keep turning the pages. We are then taken back through a day in the life of Virginia Woolf... Read review

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