A Room of One's Own (Vintage Classics)
by Virginia Woolf
|
|
| published
|
September 26th 1996
by Vintage
|
| first published
| 1929 |
| binding
| Paperback |
| isbn
|
0099734311
(isbn13: 9780099734314)
|
| pages
| 320 |
| date added
|
05-12-07
|
|
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There are so many books that one ‘just knows’ what they are going to be about. I have always ‘known’ about this book and ‘knew’ what it would be about. Feminist rant, right? Oh, these people do so preach to the choir, don’t they? Why do they hate men so much? In the end they are no different to the male chauvinists they are attacking. Why can’t they just be more even handed?
That none of this is the case, of course, does not matter at all, because reiterating received wisdom s...more
There are so many books that one ‘just knows’ what they are going to be about. I have always ‘known’ about this book and ‘knew’ what it would be about. Feminist rant, right? Oh, these people do so preach to the choir, don’t they? Why do they hate men so much? In the end they are no different to the male chauvinists they are attacking. Why can’t they just be more even handed?
That none of this is the case, of course, does not matter at all, because reiterating received wisdom seems to be all that is necessary today – read 99% of the critiques of The God Delusion and the horrifying thing you will find is either a mindless acceptance or a mindless rejection of Dawkins. It is enough to fill me with near complete despair.
The blurb on the back of the Penguin edition of this book says that this is “one of the greatest feminist polemics of the century”. There is a quote too from Hermione Lee (apparently, Woolf’s greatest biographer) which reads, “fierce, energetic, humourous”. Look, I really loved this book and would recommend it whole-heartedly – but it is none of those things.
A polemic is a strong verbal or written attack – to say this book is even an attack is really stretching the friendship. This is the most mild of books. Its central argument is that women need money of their own and a room of their own, with a lock on the door, if they want to write. How can one really be ‘fierce’ if that is all one is going to argue? She ends with a quote from a man who provides a list of the greatest poets of the last couple of hundred years (c.1900) of which Keats was the only one who was not either a university person or of independent means.
So, I guess her recommendation is that if you want to write you need to be independently wealthy – something I haven’t quite achieved yet. But eminently sensible advice all the same.
This book is based on a series of lectures she gave to women at Cambridge Uni on Women and Fiction and it is a delight that rather then make this a polemic she actually makes this a work of fiction – creating a series of Marys who go off into the world and be idol – as this is one of the criteria necessary for writing great fiction (no matter what you genitalia are up to) and part of the reason why being wealthy helps.
She also says that the best fiction is not written by men or women, but by men or women who have lost a sense that they are writing as men or women. That writing that focuses too closely on explaining past hurts – however well justified – ends up being bad writing. That fiction, when it is done properly, has a truth of its own that ought to be authentic and followed by the writer despite any agenda of the writer. This is such a lovely idea – and much more interestingly about fiction than about women. And this is as it ought to be.
Some of Woolf’s writing – I’ve also just finish reading To the Lighthouse – feels heavy now, some of her paragraphs go for three pages and that can make reading her feel a bit of a struggle – but she writes so beautifully and has the annoying habit of making sense that it is no wonder that so many people have become so annoyed with her.
In the end I think it is only possible for people to say this is a fierce book or a polemic on the basis of their views, not Virginia’s. Her views on feminism expressed in the book today seem rather depressingly self-evident and expressed in a light and very careful way. But to a society that is not prepared to listen even the mildest expression of unpopular views will seem harsh, polemical and, well, just plain wrong.
Not the book I suspected, infinitely better than that.
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bookshelves:
brit-lit,
favorites,
fiction,
worth-rereading
Every woman should read this. Yes, everyone who told me that, you were absolutely right. Its short, it reads fast, and it completely revitalizes your outlook on life. How many 113 page books and/or hour long lectures (the original format of this text) can say that?
This is Woolf's "Fuck the patriarchy," book, but it is of course done in an overtly polite, very British way- all the while sticking it to them behind their backs until she brings up her fountain pen and stabs them right ...more
Every woman should read this. Yes, everyone who told me that, you were absolutely right. Its short, it reads fast, and it completely revitalizes your outlook on life. How many 113 page books and/or hour long lectures (the original format of this text) can say that?
This is Woolf's "Fuck the patriarchy," book, but it is of course done in an overtly polite, very British way- all the while sticking it to them behind their backs until she brings up her fountain pen and stabs them right between the eyes. She manages, somehow, to make this a work of Romantic sensibility, and yet fully modern, piercing, and absolutely vital.
Woolf was asked to give a speech on "Women and fiction," and ends up with an entire philosophy on the creative spirit, though with special attention to that of women, of course. Her thesis is simply that women must have a fixed income (500 pounds a year in her lucky times) and a room of her own with a lock on the door. It is only with independence and solitude that women will finally be free to create, after all these centuries of being forced to do as men please because they support them, and to work in the middle of a drawing room with a thousand practical interruptions, ten children to see to, and a sheet of blotting paper to cover the shame of wasting her time with "scribbles," (as Jane Austen did whenever someone outside the family came into the room) when there was a house to keep and a family to raise. She also shows the creative powers of women tortured and hidden through the allegory of Shakespeare's sister, who never had a chance to express her genius and killed herself after being utterly defeated at every turn.
Woolf makes sure to take the reader through the history of women writers, and makes sure that the reader cannot fail to see how brief it is, and how limited, and why. She makes sure that all modern women should acknowledge their ancestors who fought for five minutes and a few pieces of paper to jot down lines of Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, or Pride and Prejudice. She makes sure that women know that they can reject the framework, the form, down to the very sentences that are given to them by men, to find their own voice. A voice that should be, ultimately, sexless. In her view, one should be "man-womanly," or "woman-manly," to write enduring classics. She doesn't let women down easy, either. The end of the book points out all the advantages young women have today (even in 1929) and yet they still don't run countries, wars, or companies, and there's no excuse for that. It's an exhortation to not squander everything the women's movement fought for.
I probably could have said this in a much shorter way: "Fuck the patriarchy, find your own way and your own voice in life, seize the day, get off your ass and DO something. How dare you waste the opportunities that so many others would have died to have."
Inspiring words on any topic, I think. I think I'll keep this by my bedside to reach for when I feel discouraged or lazy or bitter about my future or my current situation in life....less
bookshelves:
feminism
I'm read this for May's dangerous challenge. Even though I finished it yesterday, I still can't decide how I feel about it.
On one hand, it was very poignant and ahead of its time. Written in 1928, the book is a combination of lectures given by Woolf about art, fiction, intellectualism and sexism. In particular, I enjoyed her discussion about who controls "knowledge" and who has access to it. Her observations were true then and still ring correct today. I also enjoyed how applicabl...more
I'm read this for May's dangerous challenge. Even though I finished it yesterday, I still can't decide how I feel about it.
On one hand, it was very poignant and ahead of its time. Written in 1928, the book is a combination of lectures given by Woolf about art, fiction, intellectualism and sexism. In particular, I enjoyed her discussion about who controls "knowledge" and who has access to it. Her observations were true then and still ring correct today. I also enjoyed how applicable her words were to all writers and thinkers. I know the book is specifically about fiction but I found a lot of richness about writing in general.
However, the book was so boring. I hate to say it but I found my mind wandering constantly. She used so many examples that her argument got redundant after a while.
Of course, it is only a 2008 world that allows me this critique. I cannot imagine reading this work in 1928. It would have been groundbreaking and controversial.
Despite my boredom, I found lots of words of wisdom:
Pg. 5 "At any rate, when a subject is highly controversial--and any question about sex is that--one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. "
Pg. 30 "The human frame being what it is, heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt i another million years, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."
Pg. 40 "...and I thought of the organ booming in the chapel and of the shut doors of the library; and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in; and, thinking of the safety and prosperity of the one sex and of the poverty and insecurity of the other and of the effect of tradition and of the lack of tradition upon the mind of a writer, I thought at last that it was time to roll up the crumpled skin of the day, with its arguments and its impressions and its anger and its laughter, and case it into the hedge. "
Pg. 152 "It would be a thousand pities of women wrote like men, or lived like men, or looked like men, for if two sexes are quite inadequate, considering the vastness and variety of the world, how should we manage with only one?"
Pg. 188 "Intellectual freedom depends upon material things."
http://dangerouslychallenge.bl......less
bookshelves:
senior-year,
virginia-woolf
Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
everyone, feminists, woolf fans
An incredibly fascinating and illuminating text from one of the greatest writers of our time (and ever). I've read Mrs. Dalloway, and got through most of Jacob's Room and Orlando. I'm taking a Woolf seminar in the fall, and decided to brush up on my Woolf over the summer. This is in a very big sense quite different from Woolf's novels; where her novels are dense and difficult (but of course, undeniably invaluable), A Room of One's Own is accessible but still stunningly written. I think one o...more
An incredibly fascinating and illuminating text from one of the greatest writers of our time (and ever). I've read Mrs. Dalloway, and got through most of Jacob's Room and Orlando. I'm taking a Woolf seminar in the fall, and decided to brush up on my Woolf over the summer. This is in a very big sense quite different from Woolf's novels; where her novels are dense and difficult (but of course, undeniably invaluable), A Room of One's Own is accessible but still stunningly written. I think one of the most fascinating things about reading it now--in a time many have proclaimed "post-feminist" (which is a ridiculous idea anyhow)--is seeing Woolf's visionary genius turned towards a future not entirely unlike the one she imagines.
While the text is clear and readable, it's also very bleak if you're an aspiring writer. For me, Woolf's theory--that great writing can only arise from a writer unimpeded by socioeconomic and psychological limitations (thus, the 500lbs a year and a room of one's own, as well as her declaration that a writer cannot allow his/her own compromised position in society to interfere with their literary vision)--is something almost discouraging to me as a person who wishes to write. Because so few people are able to fulfill Woolf's conception of the potentially great writer, then where is the future of literature in a world where everything and everyone is fast paced, interconnected, and ultimately narcissistic? And of course, everyone should read this if only for Woolf's imagining of Shakespeare's "sister"--a really wonderfully thought out and (I hate to use the word again) illuminating vision of all the wasted genius that has passed through the world in the bodies of women unable to transcend social boundaries that have kept them chained down for so very long. This is only one of many brilliant images Woolf evokes throughout the text. Her often self-deprecating humor and lucid style make it a must-read, and the fact that it just breaks the 100 page mark should prove to all terrified of the gargantuan enigma that is Virginia Woolf that she is, in actuality, a writer everyone can and should access at one point or another. ...less
Read in March, 2008
I had written Virginia Woolf off, rashly and impulsively, after having attempted to read Mrs. Dalloway and finding the stream-of-consciousness style bothersome, as I have historically found it to my tastes. I read this book in order to inform something I was writing, and was pleasantly surprised by how lyrical and enjoyable this was as a read, and how engaging, given the subject matter. What was, written in her time, a seminal piece of work can be judged by today’s standards as merely intuit...more
I had written Virginia Woolf off, rashly and impulsively, after having attempted to read Mrs. Dalloway and finding the stream-of-consciousness style bothersome, as I have historically found it to my tastes. I read this book in order to inform something I was writing, and was pleasantly surprised by how lyrical and enjoyable this was as a read, and how engaging, given the subject matter. What was, written in her time, a seminal piece of work can be judged by today’s standards as merely intuitive and commonsensical, for the idea of freedom from dependence and personal creative space has become so embedded in the popular culture. Her wit is sharp, her sarcasm making several appearances but leaving behind no trace of bitterness, and her argument universally appealing to all who have been oppressed by circumstance, birth conditions, and other unchangeable categories.
One thing that I found interesting, and is also a period-specific peculiarity no longer as prevalent in the non-fiction writing of today, is the role that logical supposition has in building or strengthening an argument. Much of what Woolf does here is postulate, and postulate, and postulate some more, with the logical soundness or intuitive quality of her arguments, as well as the clarity of her expression somehow displacing the need for empirical observation and quantitative proofs. I find that the burden of proof has, since writing such as this has been deemed unacceptable in the course of academic inquiry, stilled much of the art that can be incorporated into writing such as this. Our sentences must now conform to rigid structures, to operational definitions and austere expressions meant to say in exact terms only what is precisely meant, and ignore all attempts at aesthetics. While there are the occasional reductive generalizations and false assumptions, this is still a delightful read, and one that had me thinking and laughing and cringing. Frankly, I loved this, and am glad to have had a chance to prove my earlier experience of Virginia Woolf wrong.
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
writers, especially women writers, looking for inspiration
Virginia Woolf's short and meandering examination of women and fiction asks and attempts to answer two basic questions: Why have so few great works of literature, poetry and history been written by women? And what should women do now?
The answer to the first question, it seems, is that women have always been poor and oppressed, and Woolf bolsters this argument well with evidence. At the time of her writing, women had owned property and obtained educations for only a few decades, had been all...more
Virginia Woolf's short and meandering examination of women and fiction asks and attempts to answer two basic questions: Why have so few great works of literature, poetry and history been written by women? And what should women do now?
The answer to the first question, it seems, is that women have always been poor and oppressed, and Woolf bolsters this argument well with evidence. At the time of her writing, women had owned property and obtained educations for only a few decades, had been allowed to pursue careers and vote for only a few years. And for much of history, while men penned masterpeices, women were held back, beaten and oppressed, and mocked when they dared pick up a pen to express themselves.
Today, meaning in the 1920s when Woolf was writing, women have unprecented freedom and opportunities. And for those who can obtain a private space to write, the room of the book's title, there is the hope that they can add to the growing stable of female-penned literary art. A room of one's own and the financial stability to spend some time there, that's what it takes to become a writer.
This is an inspiring book to read as a woman writer, and an interesting book to read after James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son." Baldwin, the descendant of slaves in a generation of black Americans finally allowed to pursue careers, to vote, to participate in society, grapples with many of the same issues as Virginia Woolf. He is less interested in exhorting his audience to write, and more interested in exploring his place in a culture that does not allow him a history and a past. Still, the parallels between Woolf's and Baldwin's ideas are intriguing....less
Read in June, 2004
recommends it for:
independent women
A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published during 1929, it was based on a series of lectures she delivered at two women's colleges at Cambridge University in 1928. I imagine that it owuld have been better as a lecture~ but the notes are still interesting and many point are still valied 70 years later.
The title comes from Woolf's conception that, 'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction'. It also refers to any author's need fo...more
A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published during 1929, it was based on a series of lectures she delivered at two women's colleges at Cambridge University in 1928. I imagine that it owuld have been better as a lecture~ but the notes are still interesting and many point are still valied 70 years later.
The title comes from Woolf's conception that, 'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction'. It also refers to any author's need for poetic license and the personal liberty to create art. That freedom and interest are the most valuable assets a woman can possess.
The essay examines whether women were capable of producing work of the quality of men. In one section, Woolf invented a fictional character Judith "Shakespeare's Sister", to illustrate that a woman with Shakespeare's gifts would have been denied the same opportunities to develop them because of the doors that were closed to women. Woolf also examines the careers of several female authors, including Jane Austen, and the Brontë sisters.
Notes
______
p.38
Watch in the spring sunshine the stockbroker and the great barrister going indoors to make money and more money and more money when it is a fact that five hundred pounds a year will keep one alive in the sunshine.
p. 110
What is meant by 'reality'? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable- now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now in a daffodil in the sun... whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in January, 2008
I decided to read this book after we started learning about modernism in class to get a taste for the style. This book is more like an essay than a novel; it is a stream of consciousness in which Woolf explores the nature of the relationship and history between women and fiction. Boring as that may sound, Woolf actually makes some very interesting arguments. Drawing on historical evidence and personal musings for support, Woolf argues that women can only have the power to write fiction when they...more
I decided to read this book after we started learning about modernism in class to get a taste for the style. This book is more like an essay than a novel; it is a stream of consciousness in which Woolf explores the nature of the relationship and history between women and fiction. Boring as that may sound, Woolf actually makes some very interesting arguments. Drawing on historical evidence and personal musings for support, Woolf argues that women can only have the power to write fiction when they are self-sufficient and able to provide for themselves. Only when a woman has "a room of her own" can she really have the peace and security necessary for writing great fiction. Women who are stifled by men or worried about money will reflect these emotions in their writing and will not be able to explore their own creativity and become historically revolutionary writers. Perhaps even more compelling and enrapturing than Woolf's ideas is the way in which she present them. In typical modernist fasion, Woolf explores literary techniques and idiosyncratic writing styles. She writes in a unique, defined voice, and flourishes the text with tantalizing metaphors and evocative phrases. Though this book is short, it is bursting with thoughtfulness and creativity and will definately leave you thinking. This book is succinct and infinitely powerful and transforming; I recommend this book to anyone looking to read a book that will really make you rethink your perceptions of society and gender relations....less
Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
Tia Smith
I'm not sure how I got to be this old without reading A Room of One's Own. But in a way, I have read it before, because the arguments Woolf made in 1928 form the foundation of most feminist intellectual thought. But I think if I'd read this book in my twenties or early thirties, it wouldn't have made the impact it made this time. I think this quotation from Woolf is very interesting: "Where books are concerned, it is notoriously difficult to fix labels of merit in such a way that they do n...more
I'm not sure how I got to be this old without reading A Room of One's Own. But in a way, I have read it before, because the arguments Woolf made in 1928 form the foundation of most feminist intellectual thought. But I think if I'd read this book in my twenties or early thirties, it wouldn't have made the impact it made this time. I think this quotation from Woolf is very interesting: "Where books are concerned, it is notoriously difficult to fix labels of merit in such a way that they do not come off. Are not reviews of current literature a perpetual illustration of the difficulty of judgment? “This great book,” “this worthless book,” the same book is called by both names. Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes. So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its color, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery."
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Read in June, 2008
I really need to read Virginia Woolf out loud. Her sentence structures are so complicated that I sometimes get lost when I read silently for too long.
But I still liked this essay. Woolf uses a great deal of humor to make her point that there is a lack of women in fiction throughout history because there was a lack of encouragement for women to read and write and grow as individuals.
At the time of this essay, 1929, women were just beginning to establish a foothold in the literary worl...more
I really need to read Virginia Woolf out loud. Her sentence structures are so complicated that I sometimes get lost when I read silently for too long.
But I still liked this essay. Woolf uses a great deal of humor to make her point that there is a lack of women in fiction throughout history because there was a lack of encouragement for women to read and write and grow as individuals.
At the time of this essay, 1929, women were just beginning to establish a foothold in the literary world. Woolf contends that this is due to the rising intellectual nourishment of women. Empowerment allows a woman to pick up a pen and freedom allows her to put it to paper.
Women need to experience life fully to create characters and environments within the world of fiction. They need basic tools like money and privacy to escape their usual roles and allow their minds to wander.
Woolf is not angry. Though she sites many examples of Man's published belief that women are the inferior sex, she refuses to sink so low as to proclaim that men are inferior to women. She does not need to knock the male sex to floor in order to raise its opposition. There is no opposition, in fact. Woolf believes that there are two sides to the mind...the male and the female. Only when these two sides come together can truly enlightened writing be achieved....less
bookshelves:
literature,
women
This story grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928. It ranges over Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted and imaginary sister, and over the effects of poverty and chastity on female creativity.
I seem to recall British actress Eileen Atkins doing a one-woman production of this on PBS and it was very fine -- I couldn't wait to get my hands on the text and read it for myself.
LATER - I was mot...more
This story grew out of a lecture that Virginia Woolf had been invited to give at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928. It ranges over Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted and imaginary sister, and over the effects of poverty and chastity on female creativity.
I seem to recall British actress Eileen Atkins doing a one-woman production of this on PBS and it was very fine -- I couldn't wait to get my hands on the text and read it for myself.
LATER - I was motivated to search Amazon's review from AudioFile
"Another in Penguin's Virginia Woolf series featuring Atkins. This 1929 essay is perhaps the author's most important work--part feminist manifesto, part literary theory and part personal reflection presaging her suicide. However intriguing on the page, a treatise of this length can easily bore a listener. But Atkins, celebrated for her one-woman play based on this work, never allows the complexity of Woolf's ideas to get the better of her. Instead, she uses the superb writing and rich intellectual capital to best advantage. If she errs, it's in giving the narrative personality greater maturity than is warranted."
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Read in June, 2008
Written to women writers, Virginia talks about the reasons women have not written before her time. She says that 1. they needed an example or tradition to follow, 2. they needed money to remain independent of men and the traditional women's role and 3. they needed a room with a lock on it or the power to think for themselves. Feminists have taken her opinions and worked hard to "liberate" women. However I think there are examples of strong women who lived before Virginia's day who...more
Written to women writers, Virginia talks about the reasons women have not written before her time. She says that 1. they needed an example or tradition to follow, 2. they needed money to remain independent of men and the traditional women's role and 3. they needed a room with a lock on it or the power to think for themselves. Feminists have taken her opinions and worked hard to "liberate" women. However I think there are examples of strong women who lived before Virginia's day who were literate, who did have money and who left a lasting legacy even if it wasn't written. I read this book simultaneously with Four Queens and that book is all about the legacy of four literate women. So I disagree with Virginia that women have been no more than a looking-glass for the man they are with. As to readability, Virginia pioneered the style of writing called "stream of consciousness" so she rambles on in this book stopping to talk to people, eat and look out the window. This book is a little hard to read as a result. I liked it because it made me think....less
Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
Lit Nerds
I freely admit that this is the first of Woolf's writing that I've read, and I have to say – I really enjoyed it. It was the first bit of what I feel was more "academic" reading I've done this year. It definitely reminded me of the 19th and 20th century literature classes I've taken, and seeing as I have a definite interest in women's writing and the ability (or inability) to do so because of cultural climate is one of my favorite things to study. Woolf has some ideas that I think ...more
I freely admit that this is the first of Woolf's writing that I've read, and I have to say – I really enjoyed it. It was the first bit of what I feel was more "academic" reading I've done this year. It definitely reminded me of the 19th and 20th century literature classes I've taken, and seeing as I have a definite interest in women's writing and the ability (or inability) to do so because of cultural climate is one of my favorite things to study. Woolf has some ideas that I think are now a bit antiquated. Writing is no longer associated with the "upper crust" per say, and is often even more valued if it is discovered in the hands of someone that no one would expect could write. I do enjoy her invention of Shakespeare's imaginary sister, Judith. It illustrated much of what I wish I could research further: namely, the inability for women to be recognized as "serious" authors. I enjoyed the bit of history of writers like George Eliot and the Brontë sisters, and I felt myself pondering ideas that Woolf expressed long after I had closed the book.
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Read in October, 2005
recommends it for:
no one
This book is absolutely infuriating!!! (Note the 3 exclamation marks.) Woolf claims that all a woman needs to write is a room and a fixed income. That's not the infuriating part. She goes on to attack all of her fellow female writers, claiming that their opinions about the opposite sex wrecked their novels--that these women (her comments on Bronte were especially enraging) wrote from anger or other emotions and didn't allow the true nature of their characters to come through. Being a writer i...more
This book is absolutely infuriating!!! (Note the 3 exclamation marks.) Woolf claims that all a woman needs to write is a room and a fixed income. That's not the infuriating part. She goes on to attack all of her fellow female writers, claiming that their opinions about the opposite sex wrecked their novels--that these women (her comments on Bronte were especially enraging) wrote from anger or other emotions and didn't allow the true nature of their characters to come through. Being a writer is about being passionate, not impartial. And I think the story should reflect that. Besides, without the brave cultural commentary made by writers such as Bronte, where might the present female writer find her strength? Grrrr....less
Brilliantly crafted essay with evocative poetic interludes. A Room of One's Own is often read through the eyes of "history" -- as a precursor to contemporary identity politics. However, without shortchanging its historical importance, Woolf's arguments are still very much valuable in themselves. (I was especially struck by how focused Woolf is upon the question of aesthetic value, which has become a taboo topic in literary studies.) She approaches her essay with a scope and freshne...more
Brilliantly crafted essay with evocative poetic interludes. A Room of One's Own is often read through the eyes of "history" -- as a precursor to contemporary identity politics. However, without shortchanging its historical importance, Woolf's arguments are still very much valuable in themselves. (I was especially struck by how focused Woolf is upon the question of aesthetic value, which has become a taboo topic in literary studies.) She approaches her essay with a scope and freshness that can only exist at the beginning of a movement, before it has been chopped up and delineated and editorialized. As such, her essay serves as much to rejuvenate and challenge calcified and comfortable forms of contemporary feminism as it does to show such feminism its roots.
This may feel like a book that you don't have to read because it's already sort of "in the water." You do; it isn't....less
Read in January, 2008
One of those classic essays that I should have read a long time ago, but of course one can never read absolutely everything that one should read.
Woolf's argumentative strategy is very different from standard Western philosophical argumentation. One the surface it meanders and goes out on tangents, and yet her arguments are uncommonly powerful. They possess more power than standard Western philosophical argumentation because they are grounded and because her prose is vivid. As I read through, ...more
One of those classic essays that I should have read a long time ago, but of course one can never read absolutely everything that one should read.
Woolf's argumentative strategy is very different from standard Western philosophical argumentation. One the surface it meanders and goes out on tangents, and yet her arguments are uncommonly powerful. They possess more power than standard Western philosophical argumentation because they are grounded and because her prose is vivid. As I read through, I identified many of the Virginia Woolf quotes I have seen elsewhere. Her subject matter and arguments anticipate many of the controversies within feminism for the next century. ...less
Read in July, 2002
I read this book one summer when I was living in an apartment, on my own, and though it didn't do much to inspire skilled writing from me, it made me appreciate that time and space that I was inhabiting, to cherish the solitude. Simultaneously, this book has had a huge impact on my personal ideas and philosophy. The whole premise is that we cannot measure the abilities of women based on their current status. It's because we were silenced for so many years, left out of histories because we wer...more
I read this book one summer when I was living in an apartment, on my own, and though it didn't do much to inspire skilled writing from me, it made me appreciate that time and space that I was inhabiting, to cherish the solitude. Simultaneously, this book has had a huge impact on my personal ideas and philosophy. The whole premise is that we cannot measure the abilities of women based on their current status. It's because we were silenced for so many years, left out of histories because we were too busy taking care of children and surrounded by people (never alone) that we didn't leave behind our own accounts - and for that history will always be missing perspective. ...less
bookshelves:
feminist-womanist
Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in March, 2008
Begins with a first hand account of being rejected from entering a library and being a woman attendee at a writing workshop, truly sidelined. Progresses into a critique of intergenerational disregard for women and segues into an interesting hybridized portrait of a Professor X, a misogynist who uses his male-power to make misogyny scientific, literary, dispensible to the masses. Then it traverses into a multicentury analysis of the presence (or non-presence) of predominantly British female wri...more
Begins with a first hand account of being rejected from entering a library and being a woman attendee at a writing workshop, truly sidelined. Progresses into a critique of intergenerational disregard for women and segues into an interesting hybridized portrait of a Professor X, a misogynist who uses his male-power to make misogyny scientific, literary, dispensible to the masses. Then it traverses into a multicentury analysis of the presence (or non-presence) of predominantly British female writers offering a gamut of historical inferences, situational analyses and recommendations. An interesting read overall with a lot of insight into historical challenges faced by women in literary fields.
...less
Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
feminists and those interested in the history of female writers.
I've always thought that Virginia Woolf was really underrated. This is much different than reading her fiction such as in To The Lighthouse and Orlando because it's a nonfiction examination of many female writers such as Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen. It supposes how difficult writing was for women in the 1800s and earlier as well as how female writers were perceived. It's a really good landmark to show how far women have come through the years. However, Woolf misses the mark in some wa...more
I've always thought that Virginia Woolf was really underrated. This is much different than reading her fiction such as in To The Lighthouse and Orlando because it's a nonfiction examination of many female writers such as Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen. It supposes how difficult writing was for women in the 1800s and earlier as well as how female writers were perceived. It's a really good landmark to show how far women have come through the years. However, Woolf misses the mark in some ways in terms of an elitism in dwelling on the idea of genius existing mainly in the upper and educated classes. Still, a very interesting and thought provoking read....less
Read in February, 2008
"For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice."
Virginia Woolf
I openly admit to marking my library's copy of this book. Tempting insights and descriptive one liners made me do it. I am pleased to announce that I am no longer afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Four star rating if read for leisure.
book data (includes all editions)
avg rating
(all editions):
4.03 (3726 ratings)
avg rating
(this edition): 4.41
(22 ratings)
number of reviews: 219
other editions
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A Room of One's Own (Penguin Modern Classics)
isbn: 0141183535
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A Room of One's Own (Paperback)
isbn: 0156787334
[close]
A Room of One's Own (Bloomsbury Classic)
isbn: 0747515751
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