Questions, Resources, and General Banter - The Voyage Out

[Jim]

Virginia Woolf published her first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915. Woolf began the novel in 1910, but it took many years to complete, in part because of her struggles with mental illness. An earlier version, completed in 1912, was titled Melymbrosia. This version was changed considerably and was renamed The Voyage Out for its 1915 publication.

In 1981, Louise DeSalvo published an alternate version of The Voyage Out featuring its original title, Melymbrosia: A Novel. For those who might be interested in reading and discussing Melymbrosia, I will create a separate discussion thread.


Wikipedia page for Virginia Woolf:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgini...


Wikipedia page for The Voyage Out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voy...


Feel free to use this thread to ask questions and post links to resources for Virginia Woolf and The Voyage Out.

Also, if you’ve written a review of the book, please post a link to share with the group.

[Jim]

Cphe wrote: "The third Woolf I've attempted to date and the most (to me at least)
"readable" for want of a better word.

I've got more of a "sense" of Rachel V and finding that it's easier to identify with her."

Yes, her most straightforward prose. She began working with stream of consciousness in her later books.

Glad you're enjoying it!

[Hugh]

Read this one a couple of years ago, and agree with Cphe- not as innovative as Woolf's later works but very readable and very enjoyable

[Andrea]

While living abroad, I had to take a break from this group since it was rather difficult to come by the books. I am very glad to be able to join in again now. Though I've fallen a bit behind schedule, I am very much enjoying starting the new year with Woolf.

[Lily]

A decent commentary on the use of free indirect style in The Voyage Out:

https://modernism.research.yale.edu/w...

Also, note in the second paragraph the commentary based on James Wood about how close VW gets to stream-of-consciousness at this stage: “Random thought, at this stage in Woolf’s career, can only exist as drowsiness or as dream. It is not yet daydreaming. In this first novel, if you forget yourself, you must fall asleep.” (This may apply somehow to the troublesome quotation in Chapter 21? -- I haven't gotten there yet.)

I have had a sense of Woolf experimenting as she had been composing this novel, but my reactions had more to do with the sequences of putting the plot together, when to introduce characters, and when to provide additional information about them. Also, shifts in point of view.

[Sheila]

Lily wrote: "A decent commentary on the use of free indirect style in The Voyage Out:

https://modernism.research.yale.edu/w... ..."

Thank you for the link, Lily. It's interesting to read how TVO anticipated developments in Woolf's style.

[Cordelia]

Time, I think, to hunt out Jim's list of questions and see how they fit Rachel.

[Lily]

Was wondering this morning (1/24) who were believed to be the "real life" inspirations for characters in TVO. Found these comments in the Wikipedia page on TVO:

"Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage. The mismatched jumble of passengers provide Woolf with an opportunity to satirise Edwardian life. The novel introduces Clarissa Dalloway, the central character of Woolf's later novel, Mrs Dalloway. Two of the other characters were modelled after important figures in Woolf's life. St John Hirst is a fictional portrayal of Lytton Strachey and Helen Ambrose is to some extent inspired by Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell.[7] Rachel's journey from a cloistered life in a London suburb to freedom, challenging intellectual discourse and discovery very likely reflects Woolf's own journey from a repressive household to the intellectual stimulation of the Bloomsbury Group.[8]"

[7] Phyllis Rose, A Woman of Letters: A Life of Virginia Woolf, p.58
[8] Rose, op. cit., p. 57

Literary scholar Phyllis Rose writes in her introduction to the novel, "No later novel of Woolf's will capture so brilliantly the excitement of youth." (Bantam edition, 1991)

Jane Dunn also describes the complicated figure Vanessa was in Virginia's life, as surrogate mother, household manager, sister, nurse, rival in love and in artistic prowess, ...

[Lily]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintin...

The slide show here of 142 paintings by Vanessa Bell, Virginia's sister, often depicting people and places of their acquaintance, has helped me understand the support and competitiveness that existed between these siblings.

[Sylvie]

Lily wrote: "http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintin...

The slide show here of 142 paintings by Vanessa Bell, Virginia's sister, often depicting people and places of their acquaintance, has h..."

Thanks. Quite an output, and very evocative. In Charleston Farmhouse, Vanessa's beautiful home, you get a sense of the atmosphere she helped to create, which must have fed Virginia's imagination.

[Lily]

Sylvie wrote: "In Charleston Farmhouse, Vanessa's beautiful home, you get a sense of the atmosphere she helped to create, which must have fed Virginia's imagination. ..."

Glad you enjoyed, Sylvie. They can provide insights into the artistic genius of these two siblings. In some ways V&V were so supportive of each other, in others so sadly corrosive.

[Lily]

Mkfs inspired me to go looking for a little more information about Lytton Strachey. Specifically, I was looking for a portrait by Vanessa Bell. But in the process I also found this rather interesting entry from the Yale Modernism Lab:

https://modernism.research.yale.edu/w...