MJ's Challenge ~ The Voyage Out

[MaryJanet]

It was a time of great invention in the arts. People liked discussing the new back then.

 

[RoyalChick]

It's a very weird novel. She set out to break many of the rules and formats, which is never good for readers. But it turned out ok for the artform, enabling others to strike out after her.

My problem is that I'm too unperceptive to see what she replaces those rules and formats with. And I don't like looking things up because it's not as good for the expansion of my own mind's capabilities.

It really is all quite strange.
I read that it was heavily edited before they agreed to publish and maybe that has messed it up.

 

[Ribh]

It really is all quite strange.
I read that it was heavily edited before they agreed to publish and maybe that has messed it up.

I think Woolfe had an axe to grind & it has affected her storytelling.

 

[RoyalChick]

I think Woolfe had an axe to grind & it has affected her storytelling.

Well one thing, there is no story telling. It is just a series of vignettes as far as I can see.

 

[Ribh]

In a way but there is an underlying theme tying it all together: Rachel's coming of age.

 

[RoyalChick]

In a way but there is an underlying theme tying it all together: Rachel's coming of age.

Yes I get that. It still doesn't hang together for me and Rachel isn't a sympathetic enough character to make the reader (well this reader) care an awful lot about her coming of age!
Sorry - I know it is a classic and all that!
On the bright side, every now and then there are some passages that are almost poetic or some interesting uses of language, and many horrific glimpses into norms of the time, so I am enjoying all that.

 

[Ribh]

Yes I get that. It still doesn't hang together for me and Rachel isn't a sympathetic enough character to make the reader (well this reader) care an awful lot about her coming of age!
Sorry - I know it is a classic and all that!
On the bright side, every now and then there are some passages that are almost poetic or some interesting uses of language, and many horrific glimpses into norms of the time, so I am enjoying all that.

Oh, I think all her characters are horrible. Terribly snobby & not the least sympathetic. As a look into the social norms of the time & class consciousness it is almost interesting but I'd prefer an academic treatise to all these horrible people.

As an aside...has anyone read Jill Paton Walsh's Goldengrove & it's sequel Unleaving? I ask because Walsh uses the same Cornish setting as Woofe does in To the Lighthouse, & a mix of 3rd person & 1st person stream of consciousness. It is very Woolfeish

 

[Scrambles83]

Ah! Poor Susan and Mr Venning, foiled by her aunty.

I believe the term is cockerel blocking, well, for us chicken people

 

[Scrambles83]

Not sure anymore what chapter we should be at
Had an afternoon birthday bath with a few glasses of wine and re-read a couple to catch up to where I thought we ended up.
With the chicken dramas I am lost to where we were at.

 

[Ribh]

Not sure anymore what chapter we should be at
Had an afternoon birthday bath with a few glasses of wine and re-read a couple to catch up to where I thought we ended up.
With the chicken dramas I am lost to where we were at.

I think it's 11 this week as I had to ask last week.