The Voyage Out (1915)

Having vowed not to read Woolf again after an aborted attempt at To The Lighthouse in college, I now find myself decades later again engaging with her. I must say I quite enjoyed her this time round. The thrust of the story is Rachel's belated education and growing into adulthood of her 'Voyage Out', which also comprises her trip to South America among a cast of upper class English characters. Although the story concerns her, she is one among a number to receive attention- her aunt Helen and suitor Hewet and his friend Hirst all take up plenty of the narrative. Woolf doesn't make it easy for the reader, giving little biographical detail or description initially but rather using dialogue. Many of the women seemed indistinguishable from another and it would take a further reading to get a rounded picture of them. I'd hazard that I'd rate the book higher on further 'study' and paying full attention to the notes. Nevertheless, it's rid me of my antipathy to Woolf. Overall the social manners reminded me of Austen but it also works as a novel of ideas- education and the roles of women. I enjoyed the introspective passages and hope to read the interior monologues in her other works. Last of all, I hadn't expected the humour in her witty descriptions which had me chortling at intervals ( )

This has to be the dullest book I've ever listened to. The narrator does a very good job, and I admire her perseverance. If I hadn't agreed to prooflisten (for a librivox recording), I'd have stopped after a few chapters. However, I stood by my promise, and hence listened to the whole thing.

Flat, interchangeable characters, and what with the constant switching between Christian names and surnames, I'm still having trouble to know who is who -- no character stands out, and I don't care about a single one of them! There's no plot, nothing happens -- just a get together of completely uninteresting people in an exotic environment. There's no rhyme nor reason to the book that I can discern. If I look at all the four and five star reviews, I guess I completely miss the point of this book -- then again, I found an excerpt of an original review in the New York Times (in 1920), who felt exactly the way I feel about this book, so at least I know now that I'm not alone in my dislike of this book. What a waste of time! ( )

woolf doing realism but it’s woolf so it’s unreal

Los temas clave de la novelistica de Virginia Woolf - la discordancia entre el tiempo newtoniano y el tiempo subjetivo, la fluencia temporal disgregante de la personalidad y, como contrapartida, la realidad de la experiencia concreta, el problema de conciliar un sentido pleno de la individualidad con la necesidad de comunicación con "los otros" - hallan en Fin de Viaje su ajuste expresivo más perfecto. La gran autora de La señora Dalloway y Al Faro, considerada por algunos críticos como el novelista de lengua inglesa más notable del siglo - para Aranguren, ni Joyce, ni Paund ni Eliot ni D. H. Lawrence "alcanzaron la finura poética y de observación, la delicadeza de intuiciones y sentimientos la perfección y la pureza caligrafica de Virginia Woolf" -, inició en 1915, con Fin de Viaje, una obra que cuenta entre las más sutiles indagaciones espirituales de la literatura inglesa.

It's nearly impossible not to compare this to her later novels, but the elements I enjoy in some of Virginia Woolf's fiction writing are already there: her ability to capture the trains of thought of various characters; her ability to conjure the spiritual from the tangible; and her ability (shared with Forster) to render her characters with an affectionate air despite their faults. The real standout for me here is the near disregard for South America as an actual place rather than a mere backdrop to Woolf's drama. My copy includes a back cover blurb from Forster, who refers to the book's "scene" as "a South America not found on any map." I am not sure whether to credit Woolf for capturing the colonialist point of view of the British traveler of this time or to assume she shares the same failing. But I am also still thinking about the title - the various voyages at work here and the various ways of interpreting the word "out." ( )