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252nd out of 385 books
—
644 voters
The Voyage Out
Woolf’s first novel is a haunting book, full of light and shadow. It takes Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and their niece, Rachel, on a sea voyage from London to a resort on the South american coast. “It is a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South americanca not found on any map and reached by a boat which would not float on any sea, an americanca whose spiritual boun...more
Paperback, 384 pages
Published
February 3rd 2003
by Mariner Books
(first published 1915)
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Dec 03, 2012
Mariel
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
wanna win don't play
Recommended to Mariel by:
colonize Mars on Earth Day
I wrote a review of The Voyage Out in July, 2012 after I read it. I deleted it because I lash out ("Stupid, stupid, stupid!") at myself. It's just a book review, Mars. I don't know how to use semi colons. I recognize them no more than I would see the brush strokes on a painting. The Virginia Woolf reviews on this site are more than a little intimidating. It isn't just because of the semi-colons but I gotta admit that I feel like Laura in The Glass Menagerie when she arrives to school late and ca...more
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Here's another one. This is Virginia Woolf still finding her voice as a writer. Certainly if she had written like this throughout her career she would have been remembered, but probably not celebrated as a genius. This story still has some of the hallmarks of her famous writing - focus on characters' perceptions, use of setting as a symbol for the characters' journeys, lyrical writing and even irony. This story began calmly and slowly and then came to a pretty sincere climax. The personal voyage...more
There are some writers whose famous lives can intimidate readers. For a long time, Virginia Woolf has been one of those writers to me. Perhaps this stems from the extensive examination and discussion in class when we read The Hours. There is a reason for the reverence but, as usual, no reason to have been intimidated. Woolf examines interpersonal relationships with great depth while establishing a rapport with the reader that progresses from formal to familiar and comfortable, not at all the dau...more
Overall I found the novel on second reading to be very good. The fully developed Woolfian sense of humor is here. In the early going the book doesn't seem at all inferior to later more experimental works. Though those later works are leaner, more engaged with how to represent cognition in a text. In the later works, too, there is a somewhat greater ability to condense events to the numinous moment. That's here, too, but I think such moments get a little lost in the somewhat larger, more expansiv...more
Wow, did I enjoy reading this book! This is not a book I'd ever thought I'd have read, but once again it was the only English-language book available on a shelf full of French and German titles (more than one German traveler carries around the complete short stories of Kafka). Oh wait, there was also a book in English about surviving the apocalypse, but I didn't really feel like reading that while on vacation. Anyway, I expected this book to be kind of crappy since in the introduction the critic...more
I downloaded a Virginia Woolf anthology, and this is the first book in it. I hoping I'll like her later works better. This book had no hook. Forget figuring out the meaning of life as some of the characters occasionally discuss - I don't even see the meaning of this book. It drifts from happenstance to occurrence, from one cluster of characters to another vaguely connected, but it never seems to be going anywhere in particular. It feels like a book written with no plan, meandering in plot and pu...more
"To feel anything strongly was to create an abyss between oneself and others who feel strongly perhaps but differently." (p.32)
"Reality dwelling in what one saw and felt, but did not talk about, one could accept a system in which things went round and round quite satisfactorily to other people, without often troubling to think about it, except as something superficially strange.... Mrs. Ambrose stood thinking for at least two minutes. She then smiled, turned noiselessly away and went, lest the s...more
"Reality dwelling in what one saw and felt, but did not talk about, one could accept a system in which things went round and round quite satisfactorily to other people, without often troubling to think about it, except as something superficially strange.... Mrs. Ambrose stood thinking for at least two minutes. She then smiled, turned noiselessly away and went, lest the s...more
This is Virginia Woolf's first novel, her own "voyage out" into the literary world where she was to accomplish so much. The book is an intriguing reading experience. As a first novel, it is only the slightest bit conventional, as it contains the germs of the style and techniques Mrs. Woolf would perfect in the works to follow. While the basic story is fairly simple (a group of people take a journey on a boat and stay at a town in South America), it is in the characters, their interactions and de...more
For her first attempt at a novel, Voyage Out is an extremely significant moment in Woolf's career. First of all, for how much Woolf brings in aspects of her own life, Bloomsbury, and her own emotional state throughout her career, there's a curious sense that Woolf is taking careful pains to edit herself out of this novel. Written in the years after her first suicide attempt (after her mother and half sister Stella die), Voyage Out is clearly Woolf's attempt to situate herself-- still a young wom...more
Never having read anything by Woolf before, yet acknowledging her place in the literary world I somehow expected more from this classic. This is the story of Rachel, a 24 year old motherless adult-age but naive child who sets off on a transatlantic voyage with her father who owns the boat. The destination is a fictitious south american English colony and the work is set roughly around the turn of the 20th century. The book can roughly be divided into two main parts, the first the voyage and the...more
Mar 12, 2010
El
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
early20th-centurylit,
wanderlust
Freaking fantastic.
Rachel Vinrace is a naive and vulnerable 24-year-old young woman on a sea voyage from London to a South American resort with her aunt and uncle. Having been sheltered the first 24 years of her life, Rachel is exceptionally shy and startled when meeting new people on the ship, particularly when they show genuine interest in her as a person and as an intellectual. The relationships she forms with these people affect her greatly, and she even falls in love. This isn't just a book...more
Rachel Vinrace is a naive and vulnerable 24-year-old young woman on a sea voyage from London to a South American resort with her aunt and uncle. Having been sheltered the first 24 years of her life, Rachel is exceptionally shy and startled when meeting new people on the ship, particularly when they show genuine interest in her as a person and as an intellectual. The relationships she forms with these people affect her greatly, and she even falls in love. This isn't just a book...more
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another great kindle buy - _early works of virginia woolf_ for a buck! this edition includes _jacob's room_, _monday or tuesday_, _night and day_, and _the voyage out_.
_the voyage out_, published in 1915, is her first novel. woolf was 33 when the book was published.
often compared with emily bronte's _wuthering heights_, _the voyage out_ is a socio-economic study of a young woman and the book's heroine, rachel, defining her own place in society arguably as a protofeminist.
i'm a little more than...more
_the voyage out_, published in 1915, is her first novel. woolf was 33 when the book was published.
often compared with emily bronte's _wuthering heights_, _the voyage out_ is a socio-economic study of a young woman and the book's heroine, rachel, defining her own place in society arguably as a protofeminist.
i'm a little more than...more
Reading Woolf after several Dickens novels causes some culture shock. For all his sometimes-maudlin sentimentality, Dickens knows how to drive a plot along. Woolf is more concerned with the interior lives of her characters, and writes more realistically in terms of plot. In other words, not much happens. Given her obvious admiration for Austen, it isn't surprising that this novel reminds me of Austen's works, including a sense claustrophobia they share, induced by social restrictions and convent...more
There is this part at the beginning of The Crying of Lot 49 when Oedipa Mass looks at a beautiful painting that makes her cry:
"For a moment she'd wondered if the seal around her sockets were tight enough to allow the tears simply to go on and fill up the entire lens and never dry. She could carry the sadness of the moment with her that way forever, see the world refracted through those tears, those specific tears, as if indices as yet unfound varied in important ways from cry to cry."
I felt tha...more
"For a moment she'd wondered if the seal around her sockets were tight enough to allow the tears simply to go on and fill up the entire lens and never dry. She could carry the sadness of the moment with her that way forever, see the world refracted through those tears, those specific tears, as if indices as yet unfound varied in important ways from cry to cry."
I felt tha...more
Primeiro livro que li sobre Virginia Woolf (e curiosamente o primeiro livro escrito pela mesma) e devo afirmar que me delicie bastante com a escrita, e com a história. Numa época frágil da escritora presenciamos uma escrita sofisticada, relatando vários assuntos num só contexto. Personagens deslumbrantes que nos evidenciam as suas incertezas e as suas decadências humanas. A viagem é uma história de auto-descoberta e um processo de transformação para a maioridade. Rachel é uma personagem frágil,...more
Well, that was a commitment! I must confess, if it wasn’t for the big name Virginia Woolf on the cover, I might have been tempted to give up. As it was, the curiosity to find out what the fuss about her is, made me finish the book. Now I am mostly confused about what she was trying to communicate with it.
Some people travel to South America. Here they meet some other people, and go about their lives. The end. The only slightly interesting part was the character of Rachel Vinrace. She has lived a...more
Some people travel to South America. Here they meet some other people, and go about their lives. The end. The only slightly interesting part was the character of Rachel Vinrace. She has lived a...more
I love Woolf. To the Lighthouse is probably one of my favorite books ever. The Voyage out is not quite what I was expecting. It’s written in a narrative-style reminiscent of the typical novel of the period, and not quite what I had grown to expect from Woolf. The prose was fantastic, and she manages to capture little ideas and emotions that are generally not dealt with in books. For instance, at one point the main character feels irritated with the actions of all of those around her, merely beca...more
A few months ago I serendipitously met an friend on the train who said he was reading Virginia Woolf and my Kindle happened to flash an image of her at me. Her first novel, The Voyage Out, is the first of hers that I've read. Mostly I found it long. The characters make insufferably sexist remarks while stuck on a boat. After some effort at tracking the narration and dialogue, I became interested in Rachel and Terence's ideas about silence and what people can learn just from looking at each other...more
What I love about Virginia Woolf is that there's always a hint of madness in her prose. The way the sentences bend and weave, ending in dark little corners, the likes of which most of us have never seen. THE VOYAGE OUT is not quite that Virginia Woolf, or maybe more accurately, it is not YET that Virginia Woolf. It is however a first novel in all that means. The plot isn't sure of itself. The tone wavers. The characters don't quite know where to go. But the seeds of her brilliance are there, lit...more
Io non sono una grande fan di Virginia Woolf, ma lei è una di quelle autrici con cui a un certo punto si sente necessario confrontarsi. E io vorrei tanto apprezzarla, come tanti fanno, ma fatico in modo particolare perché non sono un'amante delle narrative sperimentali. Motivo per cui, dopo aver letto il classico Una stanza tutta per sé (molti anni fa, dovrei rileggerlo) Orlando (addirittura riletto, ma ha perso un po' di smalto) e Mrs. Dalloway (una delusione - non tanto il romanzo, quanto la m...more
A Viagem, traduzido de The Voyage Out, é o primeiro romance de Virginia Woolf publicado em 1915 e é o primeiro momento de um ciclo de vários acontecimentos frágeis e de depressões que levaram à depressão e suicídio da escritora. A história tem Rachel Vinrace como protagonista e mudança é a melhor palavra que descreve o primeiro livro de Woolf.
O enredo começa com uma viagem de barco e é dado a conhecer ao leitor várias personagens que culmina na mudança da protagonista para casa da tia, Helen Amb...more
O enredo começa com uma viagem de barco e é dado a conhecer ao leitor várias personagens que culmina na mudança da protagonista para casa da tia, Helen Amb...more
My first Virginia Woolf novel - and chose because I knew it was more linear than her more famous ones just so I could get used to her writing. I was a little disappointed by the beginning part of it - Rachel was hard to get a good grasp on at the start and seemed to be a rather random interaction (not a real person), but quickly once she landed (100 pages into the novel) she was fleshed out and given more feeling. I enjoyed the complexities that each character at this point on brought to the nov...more
Bello, maravilloso, excitante, adorable. Este libro captó mi interés desde las primeras páginas, la suavidad y fluidez de la lectura era tan enternecedora, tan encantadora, que no podía dejar de leer al captar todas esas palabras posicionadas perfectamente una tras otra.
Todos los personajes están tan bien desarrollados que es sorprendente lo lejos que puede llegar Virginia en la expresión de cada uno, tan cuidadosa, tan única. La historia envuelve de tal manera que es imposible preguntarse qué...more
Todos los personajes están tan bien desarrollados que es sorprendente lo lejos que puede llegar Virginia en la expresión de cada uno, tan cuidadosa, tan única. La historia envuelve de tal manera que es imposible preguntarse qué...more
Rachel Vinrace has spent her 24 years of life raised by two maiden aunts, surrounded by books and music. Upon the advent of a journey to South America, she is on the cusp of change. Her aunt Helen takes it upon herself to teach Rachel more bout the circumstances of life, in particular, about men and women, of which Rachel knows zilch. (This is the early 20th century, after all.)
I had never read Virgnia Woolf, though I had learned and read about her (see: The Hours). The first half of the book,...more
I had never read Virgnia Woolf, though I had learned and read about her (see: The Hours). The first half of the book,...more
Virginia Woolf's first book and the first of her works that I read. My determination to read Woolf was probably the one thing that got me through the stagnant parts of the novel. You can see Woolf's stream-of-consciousness style developing here, but it's certainly not at it's peak. Still some beautiful construction of character's, such as Mrs Ambrose, who was the most fleshed out and actualized person in the novel. Also lovely was the episode with Richard and Clarissa Dalloway, the glamorous cou...more
This was Virginia Woolf's first novel which was published in 1919. It is a coming of age story about Rachel Vince who sails aboard her fathers ship bound for South America with a group of interesting characters that Woolf introduces us to, including a brief appearance by the Dalloways (which she devotes an entire book to later in her writings).
Rachel has led a quite sheltered life but has the opportunity to spend time in South American in "English Society" with her Aunt Helen. Through Rachel's w...more
Rachel has led a quite sheltered life but has the opportunity to spend time in South American in "English Society" with her Aunt Helen. Through Rachel's w...more
I really liked this book at first. I liked the style and the way the narration listens in turn to the musings of each of the characters and their judgments about each other. I also liked the feminist theme and the questions Woolf was asking about the relationships between men and women. However, that all kind of got lost, I felt, in the love story between Rachel and Hewet, and from there it all continued almost inevitably to the ending, which disappointed me. I won't spoil it, though - this is a...more
Was it worth it to put together an earlier version? How much racier and political could it be than the published edition? I appreciate the respect for Woolf that went into the huge amount of work necessary to pull it off, but the very difficulty involved also implicates how much the product probably diverges from anything Woolf would've approved.
Nothing hangs together, but flashes struck me, particularly the contrast between intellectual and practical in the first half and the contrast between y...more
Nothing hangs together, but flashes struck me, particularly the contrast between intellectual and practical in the first half and the contrast between y...more
May 29, 2012
Bennievermeer
added it
After tracing Virgina Woolf's increasingly complex modernist experiments - 'Mrs. Dalloway', 'To the Lighthouse', 'The Waves' - reading 'The Voyage Out', her first novel, is like finding a missing link between 19th and 20th century literature. Published in 1915, 'The Voyage Out' contains many of the familiar themes and ideas of Woolf's later work, but it is in the shape of a conventional, 19th century novel - the form that she would later break away from and ultimately abandon completely.
Read my...more
Read my...more
I suppose it's unfair to judge an author's earlier works in the light of the later, but 'The Voyage Out' didn't have for me the concise impact of some of her other novels. There are lovely passages of insight and poetry, but it's a long haul. Rachel's voyage out of her almost autistically self-satisfying life with her aunts in Richmond, to South America, is both outer and inner, as encountering her fellow passengers, especially the two young men Hewet and Hirst, leads her to reflection and reali...more
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(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length es...more
More about Virginia Woolf...
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length es...more
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“I feel so intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one’s own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful.”
—
33 people liked it
“For some time she observed a great yellow butterfly, which was opening and closing its wings very slowly on a little flat stone.
"What is it to be in love?" she demanded, after a long silence; each word as it came into being seemed to shove itself out into an unknown sea. Hypnotized by the wings of the butterfly, and awed by the discovery of a terrible possibility in life, she sat for some time longer. When the butterfly flew away, she rose, and within, her two books beneath her arm returned again, much as a soldier prepares for battle.”
—
15 people liked it
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"What is it to be in love?" she demanded, after a long silence; each word as it came into being seemed to shove itself out into an unknown sea. Hypnotized by the wings of the butterfly, and awed by the discovery of a terrible possibility in life, she sat for some time longer. When the butterfly flew away, she rose, and within, her two books beneath her arm returned again, much as a soldier prepares for battle.”
