The Years (Vintage Classics)
by Virginia Woolf
published
January 16th 1992
(first published 1937)
by Vintage
edit
binding
Paperback, 380 pages
isbn
0099982803
(isbn13: 9780099982807)
description
Written in 1937, this was the most popular of Virginia Woolf's novels during her lifetime. It explores a rich variety of themes such as sex, femini...more
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
Where's the love? Add this book to your favorite list.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 452)
Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
those interested in the connective threads that bind us
"When the sun went down a million little gaslights, shaped like the eyes in peacocks' feathers, opened in their glass cages, but nevertheless broad stretches of darkness were left on the pavement. The mixed light of the lamps and the setting sun was reflected equally in the placid waters of the Round Pond and the Serpentine. Diners-out, trotting over the Bridge in hansom cabs, looked for a moment at the charming vista. At length, the moon rose and its polished coin, though obscured now an...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2008
This was a somewhat enjoyable read. It took me a long time to read it and I never really felt "in to it". There isn't really a plot, climax, etc. It is just the story of people and it looks at these people and those that they encounter/give birth to through time. Everyone was pretty discontent and always wished for something else -- old people wish for the future, young people wish for the past, rich people wish to be poor and on and on. Oh and everyone is really isolated and lone...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2008
Something of the painful beauty prevalent in To the Lighthouse is missing from the poetic passages and characters of this book, and the obsession over dramatic statements (or dramatic silences) comes off melodramatic and somewhat clumsy at times. But The Years provides the reader with a churning of time from the various views of an affluent family as they grow some methodically into the graves waiting for us all.
While Woolf explores sibling and other interpersonal relationshi...more
While Woolf explores sibling and other interpersonal relationshi...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2008
I've gained a lot more appreciation for Virginia Woolf over the past three years, but her writing is most definitely not for everyone. But, if you'd like to start reading anything by her, this is a good choice - one of her easier books to get through. A lot about the choices people make, and how we personally feel about what we make of our lives - fairly introspective. . . .
Still good after finishing it. Really does make you think about how our lives depend on how we each react to the events...more
Still good after finishing it. Really does make you think about how our lives depend on how we each react to the events...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
recommends it for:
people who love good prose
Virginia Woolf is a wonderful writer. The prose is full of illusion, allegory, and description. She makes you see and feel what the character see and feel.
But, (and I think this is typical of all of her novels), the stories themselves are rather boring. The Years is the story of ~two families as they flow through life. The speed is the flow is certainly more lazy brook than rushing mountain spring. People talk. Characters enter and leave. They die. Life goes on. I admit that I was hoping the ...more
But, (and I think this is typical of all of her novels), the stories themselves are rather boring. The Years is the story of ~two families as they flow through life. The speed is the flow is certainly more lazy brook than rushing mountain spring. People talk. Characters enter and leave. They die. Life goes on. I admit that I was hoping the ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in July, 2007
One of Woolf's more underrated novels. Page 388: "But how can one be 'happy,' she asked herself, in a world bursting with misery? On every placard at every street corner was Death; or worse--tyranny; brutality; torture; the fall of civilisation; the end of freedom...But why do I notice everything? she thought. She wished that there were blinds like those in railway carriages that came down over the the light and hooded the mind...Thinking was torment; why not give up thinking, and drift and...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2007
This is a beautiful book and very original. It traces the lives of a few characters, many of them related, through 50 or so years of their lives. Woolf is a master of taking the reader inside the minds of her characters, using stream of consciousness, and this book shows her true talent at it. Nothing really "happened" as far as plot goes. It focuses on the inner lives of the characters and the way in which she describes them describing the world and their thoughts is brilliant.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2008
The Years was was more like a 200-page poem than a novel. Despite the fact that the novel spans more than 50 years, not much happens. Books without plot lines are usually not my bag, but I actually enjoyed this book, which is a testament to Woolf's immense gift with language. If you can hold my fruit-fly-like attention with nothing more than "airy and often absent-minded inspirations" (from NY Times book review, April 1937), then you must be a brilliant writer!
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2007
It's my first Virginia Woolfe read and I loved it! It was an interesting story of a family, starting in the 1880's and ending in the 1930's. I wanted there to be more, but the purpose of the writting was that you didn't know all the details in the years that had been skipped...it's a great read! I plan to read more Virginia Woolfe in the future!
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in October, 2008
Woolf considered The Years a cross between Night and Day and the Waves, which I buy, although it's more of the former, with family romance and politics. Woolf has this emotional register locked, where it's intensely moving but also boring and banal. It's kind of eerie.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in November, 2007
The weather, clear moments in life when the greatness passes us by and what remains is an afternoon, a rain-slick street, a tapestry.This is what it looks like to me too.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
سال ها را فرهاد بدره ای به فارسی برگردانده که در سال 1377 توسط انتشارات نگاه چاپ و منتشر شده است.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Oy. I can't do it. As much as I'm loving the novel, itself, it's vessel is so mildewy, it's making me nauseous. Sorry, Virginia. =(
To be continued...
To be continued...
Like this review?
yes
2 comments
Read in January, 2007
I figured Virginia Woolf, it should be good. I was prepared for some older diction but this book was hard to get through and never got better.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in November, 1999
One of my very favorite Woolf novels; looks at Great War and its aftermath through the eyes of various members of the Pargiter family.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in July, 2008
Beautifully written novel! A large cast of characters who come and go, meet, talk, think, drean and inevitably grow old.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
I liked it. A little long, but a solid narrative of life in England at the turn of the century.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
a little too broad in scope, a little messy. but maybe its intended? aging is like that.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
i still have to read the entire woolf catalogue... i'm not going to add them all today.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2007
I don't know how to review this yet--a placeholder until I do.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
