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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780156034852
ISBN: 0156034859
Label: Harvest Books
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 560
Publication Date: 2008-06-23
Publisher: Harvest Books
Studio: Harvest Books

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Misanthrope's Decision
Review: For sixty prolific years, the "Academy" has virtually ignored Virginia Woolf's THE YEARS. Average readers assume that critics would have picked up on the novel's generational gaps, its complicated plotline, or the fact that it's written by Virginia (freaking) Woolf, but they are sadly mistaken. Nobody in academic circles reads this novel, and it sits lonely on library shelves next to irregular printings of TO THE LIGHTHOUSE and ketchup-stained folios of Woolf's forgotten biography, ROGER FRY.

That fact, of course, wasn't enough to deter this huge Virginia fan. The "Academy" isn't always correct - as many Lacanian readings of Chaucer have verified - and THE YEAR's wonderful cover was enough of a sell for this bored college student with an extra weekend. I read the novel once over a spaghetti dinner, and twice over the next day while moving the lawn. Then I devoured it for a final time before writing a review on it. The novel wasn't an awful work, I felt, but it had never really begun: the motor of narrative hadn't started, and the lawn, fecund and fresh, had yet to be mowed. That's not to say I didn't try. I kept a list of characters to kick-start the motor. Here I am, I would say to myself on any given year. I'm following Rose. She's the young feminist, right? Here she is throwing a brick. And she's married, right? No, a little voice in the back of my head would ring. And so would come down the pencil, marking off my list. I made these lists, kept flow-charts, and tried to trace everything into an end. The filmic end came, with its sun shining, but it felt as if I was ready to send the novel away to a publisher, rather than relish it. The experience of reading it was like what writing it must have felt like.

Ultimately, that stylistic complaint is my only major criticism of the novel. Woolf was never a Dickens-esque plotter, but the characters in this novel simply feel like names on the page - and there are a lot of them! We can follow them, but we never feel the desire to. We carry conversations with Mrs. Dalloway because we want to; we talk to Mrs. Ramsay because she perplexes us (and herself); and we yell at Mr. A because he's a jerk. There's a little of that here, but it feels more like a metaphysical trace than a collection. Woolf imprints her face on the glass, rather than waiting for us.

If my experience isn't enough to deter you, I think you should really read it. In a Kaufman-esque moment, you might feel as I did - like the writer on the other side of the page, looking at the reader. I didn't have fun, but I did learn a lot about Woolf. Her hang-ups, frustrations, and impending suicide all mark this novel, and it ranks slightly above average only by feeling like her imaginery autobiography did: honest in its weakness, and weak for its strength.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: it took years to read - just kidding!
Review: I refer to the Penguin edition of this book with an introduction and notes by Jeri Johnson.

This is not my favourite Virginia Woolf novel. It is too shapeless for me - perhaps that's what Virginia Woolf was trying to demonstrate - that life is shapeless in its continuation from generation to generation. But to show any meaningful drift to sameness and change I believe we need a much greater perspective than we get from the Pargiters. And when there isn't much direction, much sense of approaching a climax, then, for me anyway, all Virginia Woolf's fine detail and acute observation becomes a tedious reiteration of the ennui of life which I prefer to avoid in literature rather than be reminded of over and over again.

The notes to this novel are quite comprehensive but I was uncommonly annoyed at one point. There is a novel by Philip Dick that I remember reading in which the author explains the correct pronunciation of the main character's name half-way through the novel. Murphy's Law almost guaranteed that I had selected the incorrect pronunciation and had to resound the character's name from that point on. This was a bit annoying. But not half as annoying as when Virginia Woolf tells us that the character North - again half way through the novel - was having his name pronounced incorrectly as if it were a point of the compass. This, of course, is exactly how I pronounced it in my mind. But what other way is there? Neither Virgina Woolf nor Jeri Johnson tell me. I am still mystified.

And perhaps this is the nub of my disenchantment with this novel. Perceptive as the writing might be, I feel an alien in this company, out of my depth amongst a batch of people who know the proper way to pronounce North.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Excellent!
Review: This is one of Woolf's best, if not THE best. It follows a family through decades, showing the changes in them and the changes in the world around them. That stream-of-consciousness style that she is so famous for runs smoothly in The Years, and just flows over the reader. It was hard for me to tear myself away from this book. . . I had to simply shut the book, often in mid-sentance, to make myself stop reading. This comes highly recommended.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Anticipation
Review: Eleanor felt that the poor enjoyed themselves more than they did. They were stuck at home too much. In 1891 Eleanor Pargiter was a social worker. It is now 1907 and Edward Pargiter, brother of Eleanor, has produced an English translation of Sophocles's Antigone.

Moving forward, it is 1908 and Martin Pargiter has visited his father and his sister, Eleanor. 1911 produces a scene of Rose with her cousins Sarah and Maggie, daughters of Sir Digby. Maggie has married a Frenchman later on.

There is a meeting of Kitty, Lady Lasswade, and Eleanor. Following the meeting Kitty was going to the opera and so she was dressed in formal clothes. Eleanor thought that Kitty had the great lady's manner. Eleanor felt dowdy compared with Kitty. Edward Pargiter was present at the opera. Lucy Craddock had been Kitty's tutor at Oxford.

Eleanor is found at the country place of her brother Morris's mother in law. Her father died. She had no attachments at the moment. Her sister in law Celia told her there was to be a village fete. Eleanor met Sir William Whatney there. She had not seen him since he had been to India. Peggy and North, her niece and nephew, came in. She thought her growing interest in birds was a sign of old age.

Eleanor sold the family house and made arrangements for Crosby, the servant, to depart. She left with the family dog who soon had to be put down because it was aged, disabled, and suffering. Martin, called Captain Pargiter, did not marry. He encountered Kitty who introduced him to Ann Hillier. Martin said to Kitty that Eleanor was a queer old bird.

During the war Eleanor at one point dined with Maggie and her husband. Maggie felt that Eleanor looked like an abbess. The story shifts to the present day and Eleanor is shown having returned from India. It is noted by one of the characters that Edward and Kitty had been very much in love but that Kitty had married another man. Pleasure is increased by sharing it.

This book is a pleasure to have and to read. Is there a pattern, a theme? Virginia Woolf was a pattern maker. This work anticipates THREE GUINEAS and BETWEEN THE ACTS. It is in a new manner for Virginia Woolf. Leonard Woolf wrote that he did not care for it but stifled his displeasure to spare his wife agony.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A True Masterpiece for all Time.
Review: If an immortal were to ask me what is is like to be mortal, and live with a family and with time and with age, I would hand him this book, and feel confident that he would get a grasp of our experience. Mrs. Woolf has gathered the dimension of time in this novel through simple passages of conversation that left my heart sinking and rising. What an achievement!

I read this after reading Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One's Own, and The Waves. In this novel she was trying to cut her style back, making it more concise, and moving away from experimentation. Yet, she produced a most unique novel.

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