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The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster and the Year t...

Bill Goldstein

Start date: December 7, 2018

Finish date: December 31, 2018

Discussion: Buddy Reads

Why we're reading this: An extra surprise buddy read led by Susan and enthusiastically embraced by Roman Clodia. It's a revelator…more
[close] An extra surprise buddy read led by Susan and enthusiastically embraced by Roman Clodia. It's a revelatory narrative charting the lives and works of legendary authors Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence during 1922, the birth year of modernism

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What Members Thought

May 05, 2017 Susan rated it really liked it

Many books have been shaped around the events of a particular year and, in this work, author Bill Goldstein takes a quote from Willa Cather, who said that 1922 was, “the year the world broke in two, ” as a starting point to look at Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence and E.M. Forster and the challenges they faced during that year. It is generally considered the year of modernism, when it seems the whole of literary London was reading Joyce’s, “Ulysses,” and Proust’s first English translati Many books have been shaped around the events of a particular year and, in this work, author Bill Goldstein takes a quote from Willa Cather, who said that 1922 was, “the year the world broke in two, ” as a starting point to look at Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence and E.M. Forster and the challenges they faced during that year. It is generally considered the year of modernism, when it seems the whole of literary London was reading Joyce’s, “Ulysses,” and Proust’s first English translation.

The year began with all four of the authors, who are the subjects of this book, struggling in different ways. Goldstein cleverly weaves potted biographies, alongside the events of the year and the challenges the four authors faced. Virginia Woolf began the year with influenza, her writing limited by illness and unhappy at facing the milestone of turning forty. T.S. Eliot was in Lausanne, recovering from a nervous breakdown, but knowing he had to return to England, a difficult marriage, a job which left him little time to write and financial uncertainty. Forster was returning to England from India, where he faced returning to his dominating mother. Meanwhile, Lawrence started the year in Sicily, before travelling to Australia to write.

During the year, Woolf, Eliot and Forster are in fairly close contact, but Lawrence does not seem to fit the feel of the book as well. There is an interesting part in New York, where the Society for the Suppression of Vice, take exception to “Woman in Love.” However, he is distant in terms of place and, although he was writing, he was certainly not working on one of his best known books. Meanwhile, Woolf was developing, “Mrs Dalloway,” Eliot working on “The Waste Land,” and Forster – after such a long period of not publishing anything that many thought he was dead – continued his, “Indian fragment,” which would evolve into, “A Passage to India.”

In reality, this book is not really what it pretends to be. Not all these great works were published, or even finished, during this year; even if they were started – often after a long period without inspiration or success. Lawrence seems something of a stretch and does not quite work as well. However, the book itself is eminently readable and is a very enjoyable account of literature during the year. As an admirer of Proust, it was gratifying to see the response to his work and interesting to see how the authors reacted to James Joyce. There is much about the trials of publishing, lots of literary gossip and intrigue, and interesting insights into the featured authors. Overall, a very enjoyable read about an important year in literature. ...more

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Dec 06, 2017 Roman Clodia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

There are some dates that seem to change the world into a 'before' and 'after': the first battles of WW1 that saw an unimaginable number of men slaughtered; the liberation of the Nazi death camps that made the Holocaust visual and visceral to the world; the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; 9/11 - Goldstein takes that idea and tries to apply it to 1922 as a 'year that changed literature'. It's a great idea for a book, even if the text itself doesn't quite live up to the progr ...more

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Oct 05, 2020 Laura rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, literary-criticism, read-2020, books-on-books

The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts.
Willa Cather, Not Under Forty

A magnificent book about the Bloomsbury Group. Besides, it covers the literary lives of 4 of my favorite authors. The notes and references provide us with plenty of further bibliography on this subject.

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Jan 13, 2023 Bronwyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: author-a-i, by-men, title-s-z-and-number, 2023-reads, history, non-fiction, european, audiobook

Overall this was very good, just not quite what it set out to be I think. It’s too detailed in some areas and too thin in others. I’m not entirely sure why these four people were picked though. Eliot makes sense, but all I can figure it Goldstein just liked the other three enough that he wanted to include them. Still, this was interesting and I’m glad I read it. I think I’d recommend Constellation of Genius by Kevin Jackson over this if someone was interested in 1922.

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Nov 17, 2018 Gayla Bassham rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018-reads, books-about-books, non-fiction, history

Look, there's no way I'm not going to enjoy a book about Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster. That said, this does feel like a bit of a missed opportunity -- I would have liked to see more analysis about how their work reflected the zeitgeist of 1922 and how they were influenced by the world around them, whereas this is really mostly a straightforward narrative. It's entertaining, but I just felt it could have been more. ...more

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