Virginia Woolf

by Joan Bennett

More than most novelists, Virginia Woolf benefits by an introducer. She is never, either by intention or equipment, the expected novelist. She chose the novel to adapt it deliberately and progressively to be the vehicle of her own subtle perception. Behind this study of the novels is an intense interest in the person revealed in the novelist. The criticism is warm as well as acute and the whole study is felt to be a tribute reasoned and justified - to a woman sensitive, compassionate, passionately honest and eager only for truth; to an artist quite unsparing of her own labour, finely gifted, self-effacing, serious and humourous. Mrs Bennett added two chapters on A Writer's Diary and on Virginia Woolf's critical essays for the second edition. Both can help our understanding of Virginia Woolf the novelist; the Diary by the insight it gives into her creative process and the fuller understanding we can gain of technical problems, the essays because they are about novels and novelists.

184 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 1975

Reviews

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slim volume, first published in 1945, Joan Bennett's Virginia Woolf: Her Art as a Novelist is both informative and compelling. Her prose is lovely; intelligent, but never repetitive. She handles ideas with a deft touch, making her biography eminently readable. Despite its length, a rich appraisal is given of each of Woolf's novels, split into differing sections which deal with aspects such as 'Characters and Human Beings' and 'Morals and Values'. I would not hesitate to recommend it to those who are particularly interested as to the way in which Woolf's narrative style developed over the course of her writing career, and the traditional elements of writing which still suffused her later efforts.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

wonderful critical overview of the oeuvre, but with a little of that oldtimey critic thing where they make grand pronouncements rather than granular analysis.

[Iza · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very insightful read into Virginia Woolf’s methodology as a novelist and critic