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13th out of 103 books
—
20 voters
Virginia Woolf
by
Hermione Lee
"A majestic literary biography, a truly new, surprisingly fresh portrait. --
Newsday
A New York Times Book ReviewEditors' Choice
National Book Critics Circle Award finalist
"A biography wholly worthy of the brilliant woman it chronicles. . . . It rediscovers Virginia Woolf afresh."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
While Virginia Woolf--one of our century's most brilliant and mercuria...more
Newsday
A New York Times Book ReviewEditors' Choice
National Book Critics Circle Award finalist
"A biography wholly worthy of the brilliant woman it chronicles. . . . It rediscovers Virginia Woolf afresh."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
While Virginia Woolf--one of our century's most brilliant and mercuria...more
Paperback, 896 pages
Published
October 5th 1999
by Vintage
(first published December 1st 1982)
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Amazing, stellar, incredible, etc. etc. Has been the centre of my attention since I started reading it, to the chagrin of everyone who's had to hear me talk about the combined awesomeness of both Woolf and Lee non-stop for weeks.
Hermione Lee wrote a meticulously researched, ruthlessly balanced, clear-eyed, compassionate, respectful biography. I got the sense that she seemed to be actively wrestling with the material in order to present VW in the most complete way possible instead of choosing to...more
Hermione Lee wrote a meticulously researched, ruthlessly balanced, clear-eyed, compassionate, respectful biography. I got the sense that she seemed to be actively wrestling with the material in order to present VW in the most complete way possible instead of choosing to...more
"Virginia Woolf's story is reformulated by each generation. She takes on the shape of difficult modernist preoccupied with questions of form, or comedian of manners, or neurotic highbrow aesthete, or inventive fantasist, or pernicious snob, or Marxist feminist, or historian of women's lives, or victim of abuse, or lesbian heroine, or cultural analyst, depending on who's reading her, and when, and in what context." (p. 769)
meer: http://winterlief.blogspot.nl/2012/10...
meer: http://winterlief.blogspot.nl/2012/10...
Hermione Lee's Woolf is a major Modernist who in conscious reaction against Victorian society and in artistic competition with other modern writers (Katherine Mansfield, Lytton Strachey, among others) set herself formal problems and solved them in her novels. Revealing is her process of writing. The intensity of writing a complete first draft gripped her but the coldness of revision was repugnant. She revised with great reluctance and labor, for re-reading what she wrote often shook her confiden...more
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This is an unusual, challenging but ultimately rewarding biography. Each of Lee's chapters in an extended essay on an aspect of Virginia's life and art but at the same time she keeps the chronological thread going and moves through the various eras of her life. I thought this was an amazing feat of research, writing and judgement. I particularly liked her perspective on Virginia's mental and physical health, emphasising her courage and strength - an important correctives to some of the 'Virginia...more
Lee's biography of Woolf is almost scary: what must it be like to know an individual's life and works so comprehensively? Yet this permits her to write this biography with wonderful agility--moving easily back and forth between Woolf's life and writings and thus showing how they are thoroughly continuous with each other. Lee also pushes against the convention of the purely chronological biography in pleasing ways. For instance, the earliest chapters are "Biography" and "Houses." What a delicious...more
Ah man, I REALLY wanted to like this book. Hermione Lee is a stellar biographer. Lyrical, interesting, thorough, accurate, and actually FUN to read. Find THAT in another biographer out there (David McCullough, you WISH you were these things).
And her biography of Wharton was fucking riveting. Like at the end of 800 pages I was like "nooo! please give me more!".
The Woolf biography, on the other hand, was a slog. I'm a big Woolf fan: and a number of her novels had a profound effect on me. And I'm...more
And her biography of Wharton was fucking riveting. Like at the end of 800 pages I was like "nooo! please give me more!".
The Woolf biography, on the other hand, was a slog. I'm a big Woolf fan: and a number of her novels had a profound effect on me. And I'm...more
I can without a moment of doubt say that this is the best biography I have ever read. I was curious to know how such a biography would be handled, given Woolf's own thoughts on the problems of describing other people's lives. Hermione Lee devotes her first chapter to this, and seems to keep this in mind all through the text. She has built a text that is both thematically and chronologically organized, so that one's understanding of Virginia Woolf developes in an organic way. The constant referen...more
Jun 18, 2010
Sessily
added it
As with many wonderful things having to do with words and stories and books, I first discovered Virginia Woolf through Ursula K. Le Guin. I'm guessing it was in Le Guin's essay "Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown" from The Language of the Night, which I read at some point in middle school or early high school (books usually stand out much more clearly in my memory than the surrounding context). And then, of course, Le Guin's later collection of essays, The Wave in the Mind, is titled after a quote f...more
Not even finished yet. This is a mother of a book, coming in just over 700 pages. But, man, this is deliciously addictive. By far, the best biography I've ever read. A blend of her life--filled with the regular bits, then add on a lot of death, war, abuse, and weirdness; her work-- a fascinating look into how a writer's mind forms and functions over time; a meditation on the very nature of biography (from both the author and the subject); and an insight into a time of great change--the slow, cre...more
Ravishing literary biography which I read ravenously. Definitely in the top 3 of lit bios that I've read anyhow, with nothing dull or monotonous, and reflecting a keen, admiring but nuanced viewpoint on the subject. Organized chronologically but taking on in each chapter a particular theme, so that the emphasis is always on the work, the inner life, the friendships, the and how she evolved in her writing and her life.
Very impressive. Lee knows that she has all the information at her fingertips and just doesn't have the space to put it all in. Her theories on how to write life, which mostly coincide with Woolf's own, are masterfully revealed here. I think her biography of Wharton may be a tad better, but - you'll feel - this is the book she has always wanted to write. Woolf has always been a favorite, and this life-story only makes me want to re-read her (and to read other biographies) more. A worthwhile trip...more
I have read 12 or 13 biographical works on Virginia Woolf and I will be listing them all here, once I dust them off and try to remember exactly what it was I read. Lee's book is quite memorable, However. By far the most thoroughly researched, detailed and documented of all the biographies I know of. Yet, I wonder if Lee didn't loose something essential in Woolf's life in the welter of information she presents. Of course, Woolf was a notoriously illusive individual, so I'm not sure that it will e...more
I'm a biography junkie. This is one of the best biographies I've read, ever. Hermione Lee manages to make Woolf more human and less a caricature of by placing her within the context of her time, class, politics, personality and relationships.
I wanted to love this book, because I admired Virginia Woolf but the the writing style was so heavy and loaded with literary critique reserved for the high brow reader that I just felt dumber at every page turn.
A very good book. I thought it was a biography, should have read the cover more closely. It is a literary biography, so if you're very fond of Woolf's writing you'll enjoy this even more than I did.
This was truly a magnificent effort from an author who has made her name writing scholarly biographies of women authors. Not only does it minutely mine Virginia Woolf's diaries & letters, but those of persons who wrote to and about her. I have chosen to go on to the primary sources myself, as I felt there were some overly contrived interpretations of some of these, but believe me, without Hermione Lee pointing the way, my own further studies in Virginia Woolf's life & works would have ha...more
I can't rate this one yet because I've never managed to finish it. *blushes* I've got through her early life on at least two occasions, and if I could manage to get deeper into the Bloomsbury stuff, I'm sure that it will propel me onwards. Not having read a great deal of Woolf's output, one of the aspects of this biography that's both edifying and frustrating (in terms of pace) is that Lee brings relevant quotes and references from Woolf's fiction at almost every opportunity. They can illuminati...more
Reading Virginia Woolf was rather a peculiar experience. At times it felt as though I was wading through a veritable treacle of dates and facts, far too many to take in at once, but at others I was cursing Lee for the sheer lack of information included on some subjects. Why oh why did the chapter on Katherine Mansfield have to be so short in comparison to the rest, for example? I'm not sure I'd read any of Lee's other biographies as I prefer those which are really absorbing, and Virginia Woolf u...more
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Dec 21, 2011
Diann Blakely
added it
Hermione Lee’s superb biography respects Woolf’s own concept of reality as fluid and subjective; thus the scholar carefully structures her study around appropriate thematic—rather than strictly chronological— chapters. These are fittingly titled “Siblings,” “Madness,” “War,” “Anon,” etc., and the resulting texture is genuinely Woolfian, its shifting centers reminiscent of TO THE LIGHTHOUSE and THE WAVES, to which Lee’s book—like all of the very best biographies—returns us with an enlarged perspe...more
even if you're not a pansy academic, it's a good biography, and interested in the right things about Woolf.
This book was an early birthday present to myself. It's massive, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
One of the best biographies, of anyone and by anyone, that I've ever read. A wonderful book.
Very comprehensive biography. Well sourced. Liked its organizational structure.
I gave up on this book about 300 pages in... This is well-written and full of information -- maybe too much information! It is more of an analysis of how Woolf's life affected her writing than a biography. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it felt like reading an academic treatise on Woolf's life, full of references to her novels and letters (both hers and those of friends and family). Although I found it mildly interesting, it was very slow reading and never absorbed me, so when it wa...more
This book is the model of what a literary biography can be. Highly recommended.
Fascinating Woman. Loved this detailed biography.
uitermate boeiende biografie over een bijzondere vrouw
Finally done! At last completed. Exhaustive biography. Learned: the river Ouse is pronounced "Ooze" not "Wheeze" (thanks, wikipedia).
A rather difficult read but worth it.
I usually don't read biography, but this is so good that I stay up too late night after night reading it. (It's about 800 pages long, so plenty of material for staying up too late too often.)
The book is helpfully arranged thematically ("Houses," "Madness", "Reading") which makes it much more engaging (I think) than most biographies that I've encountered.
I found the chapter dealing with VW's experience and analysis of the process of reading particularly thought-provoking.
The book is helpfully arranged thematically ("Houses," "Madness", "Reading") which makes it much more engaging (I think) than most biographies that I've encountered.
I found the chapter dealing with VW's experience and analysis of the process of reading particularly thought-provoking.
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| The Perks of Bein...: 'Virginia Woolf' Discussion Thread (September/October 2012) | 21 | 35 | Oct 29, 2012 03:30am |
Dec 25, 2012 08:02am
YES
May 18, 2013 03:00pm