The Well-Read Woman Book Club discussion
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A Room of One's Own
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A Room of One's Own
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Who's planning on joining in for the read this month? Give us a shout out here!What are you looking forward to discussing with this book?
Have you read this before or seen a screen adaptation?
Have you read any other work by the author?
Just finished it... and WOW.It was great. The book starts a little slow, and I got bored in the first chapter; however, the following chapters are fantastic. The mix of essay and fiction is perfect, and the author can present challenging topics and made them easy to understand.
Also, I loved the reference to Shakespeare fictional sister; it was compelling.
I have not seen any screen adaptations... which one is the best? I would like to see it.
Carla wrote: "Just finished it... and WOW.It was great. The book starts a little slow, and I got bored in the first chapter; however, the following chapters are fantastic. The mix of essay and fiction is perfe..."
Ok, this has me even more excited for this read now. I'm slow this month, but I think I'm going to pick this one up first!
I also haven't seen any screen adaptations, but I've seen there is a 1991 and 2004 version!
What are your thoughts on A Room of One's Own? Virginia Woolf was part of the modernist writing movement and really contributed to a new wave of generational thought, what do you all think? Have you read any of her work before?
What, if any, lines make you laugh?What problem does the proliferation of male-authored books and views about women pose? Why have so many books been written, and what underlies the pose of "disinterested" (i.e. objective, scientific, dispassionate) male objectivity? What "conclusion" do all the men, according to Woolf, arrive at?
What underlies Professor von X's hostile treatment of women? How does his hostility amount to more than simple anger? According to Woolf, what individual and societal needs has male writing about women served?
A Room of One's Own was published in 1929. In “one hundred years,” wrote Woolf, “women will have ceased to be the protected sex” (40) and, consequently, women, like the fictional Mary Carmichael, will finally become “poet[s]” (93). How much progress have we made toward Woolf's vision of society?
Why is the significance accorded to women by male fiction a kind of sham or dodge with regard to real-life women? How can women address this problem in recovering women's history?
What contrast between Jane Austen / Emily Bronte and Charlotte Bronte does Woolf make? What limitations did Austin and Emily Bronte reject that Charlotte Bronte was unable to reject?
A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered nonfiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.