Classic Books Store
Flush: A Biography
RRP: $12.00
Our Price: $10.20
You Save: $ 1.80 ( 15% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Harcourt
Author: Virginia Woolf
Publisher: Harcourt
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $10.20
You Save: $ 1.80 ( 15% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Harcourt
Author: Virginia Woolf
Publisher: Harcourt
Average Customer Rating:
Experimental feature: Order Flush: A Biography from the UK, Canada, Germany or France by clicking an appropriate flag below.
Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.
Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.
Flush: A Biography Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780156319522
ISBN: 0156319527
Label: Harcourt
Manufacturer: Harcourt
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 204
Publication Date: 1976-11
Publisher: Harcourt
Studio: Harcourt
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780156319522
ISBN: 0156319527
Label: Harcourt
Manufacturer: Harcourt
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 204
Publication Date: 1976-11
Publisher: Harcourt
Studio: Harcourt
Editorial Review of Flush: A Biography
Customer Reviews of Flush: A Biography
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A Perfect Novella and a Fun Read
Review: Woolf has 16 major works and I think this is one of her funnier works. It would be a good place to start reading Woolf's works.
Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was a well known writer, critic, feminist, and publisher. As background information, I read most of her work starting with her first novel "The Voyage Out" published in 1915, skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop, Night and Day from 1919 - and then read "Jacob's Room," her third, then went on and read "Mrs. Dalloway," her fourth, and next read "To The Lighthouse," etc. Also, I read some of Woolf's non-fiction and put together a Listmania list on Virginia Woolf.
What is her best work? That is a hard question to answer, but overall one I think her novel "To The Lighthouse" is a masterpiece. Her best non-fiction is "A Room of One's Own." I like the Oxford version of the latter published along with "Three Guineas."
But, the present novel or novella is fascinating and a fun way to get to know Woolf. Books to do not have to be long to be a great story or novel, and I point to Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilych" as an example. Is the present book equal to that? Of, course not but the present work is very entertaining. It is a fun read which takes about two hours. Most will be impressed and appreciate Woolf's writing ability.
It is a first person fictional narrative by a dog called Flush, a real dog that was owned by Elizabeth Barrett-Robert Browning. The real dog was stolen three times, but in the novella it is compressed into a story of one theft.
Woolf opens the novel sounding as if the book is non-fiction. After a few pages, it slips into the narrative form with the dog describing his life. She explores the dog's relation to the owner, and tells us what it is like to be a dog. The dog is very sensitive to the moods of the owner, and it is protective and becomes jealous on various occasions. One might say that Woolf gives the dog a soul. Does it all have a deeper meaning? Yes, it tells us about loyalty and love.
This is a fun read.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Good dog, great master
Review: A good friend and I have an ongoing discussion about the anthropomorphization of animals in literature. He's agin' it. I'm not.
The beauty of FLUSH is that Woolf extends her technique of anthropomorphization to the humans. She figures out how to put you inside a dog's mind and desires and habits. Then she uses the same techniques on the humans. And while she is not unkind to any of these characters, she's not lenient toward any of them either.
That's the problem with most anthropomorphization. (Egad, do I have to type that word again?) It skins some poor animal to dress up a fictionally perfect human. Bad anthropomorphization (sigh) symbolizes a flat fraction of our human nature and represents it as the whole thing, or the most desirable part. This cheapens the human and disposes of the animal.
I love Woolf. She never cheapens anyone. She never makes cartoons of people (or of dogs). Read her if you're tired of shallow media portraits or snap judgments at the office water cooler. You know the kind. Comments on character that may be superficially correct, and you can't quite put your finger on it, but you feel the judgment's not fair at all... Woolf never does that to you.
Woolf observes her people (and her canine), lets you understand their most subtle good and bad impulses. With Woolf, we don't have to choose between knowing and loving another person. We can do both.
And we can love Flush, not as the idealized human, but as one actually does love a dog. Woolf has given us Flush - not a fantasy human in fake dog form - but a real dog, in print, a trusted and familiar companion. We feel his fur; we know where Flush is by the bed, in the dark; we know his eyes and their expression, and although Woolf tells us what Flush thinks, as with a real dog, there is something hidden, unhuman.
And then she goes and does the same thing with the PEOPLE. Brilliant.
So hang the critics, Virginia. This book may have been only a practice session for you, and a nuisance one at that, but we learn something about love and respect reading it. Now, can you think such a book unimportant?
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Puppy Love
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I have read a lot of Woolfs work. This little book is easily equal to her more critically acclaimed works like 'To the Lighthouse'. This story allows Woolf to be more playful than in any of the other piece she has done. The mix of fiction/ biography allows her to tell a story filled with heroes and villians that makes the book like an adult fairy tale. By the end I was fully engaged and completely consumed by Flush and his Life. This is a must for any fan of Woolf or anyone who has a love for animals.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: More than just Woolf being cute
Review: FLUSH probably gets the least respect of all of Virginia Woolf's books, and many critics at the time of its publication in 1933 (and since) thought she was being more than a bit twee in telling the satory of the Elizabeth Barrett-Robert Browning courtship from the point of view of Barrett's adored cocker spaniel. But this experiment in biography is much more than that: it's an attempt to understand the world from a non-human point of view, and it also is Woolf's most overt look in her fiction at class difference and (more unusually) at the world of crime. It's also a terrific addition to Woolf's extended engagement from an early 20th-c. perspective with the world of genteel Victorian society and its snobberies and hypocrisies.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A wonderful story.
Review: One of my very favorite reads this year. This is a biography of sorts - and a fiction of sorts. It's the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spanial Flush. An absolute charmer. This is one of those volumes that can truly be read in a single setting - it is possessed of a free flowing lyric quality often absent in this writer's more cerebral fictions. Still, this isn't a slight piece by any means, but a richly detailed work of the imagination by one of the great literary minds of the past century. This is the kind of book you'll want to recommend to all your friends.
Review Summary: A Perfect Novella and a Fun Read
Review: Woolf has 16 major works and I think this is one of her funnier works. It would be a good place to start reading Woolf's works.
Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was a well known writer, critic, feminist, and publisher. As background information, I read most of her work starting with her first novel "The Voyage Out" published in 1915, skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop, Night and Day from 1919 - and then read "Jacob's Room," her third, then went on and read "Mrs. Dalloway," her fourth, and next read "To The Lighthouse," etc. Also, I read some of Woolf's non-fiction and put together a Listmania list on Virginia Woolf.
What is her best work? That is a hard question to answer, but overall one I think her novel "To The Lighthouse" is a masterpiece. Her best non-fiction is "A Room of One's Own." I like the Oxford version of the latter published along with "Three Guineas."
But, the present novel or novella is fascinating and a fun way to get to know Woolf. Books to do not have to be long to be a great story or novel, and I point to Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilych" as an example. Is the present book equal to that? Of, course not but the present work is very entertaining. It is a fun read which takes about two hours. Most will be impressed and appreciate Woolf's writing ability.
It is a first person fictional narrative by a dog called Flush, a real dog that was owned by Elizabeth Barrett-Robert Browning. The real dog was stolen three times, but in the novella it is compressed into a story of one theft.
Woolf opens the novel sounding as if the book is non-fiction. After a few pages, it slips into the narrative form with the dog describing his life. She explores the dog's relation to the owner, and tells us what it is like to be a dog. The dog is very sensitive to the moods of the owner, and it is protective and becomes jealous on various occasions. One might say that Woolf gives the dog a soul. Does it all have a deeper meaning? Yes, it tells us about loyalty and love.
This is a fun read.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Good dog, great master
Review: A good friend and I have an ongoing discussion about the anthropomorphization of animals in literature. He's agin' it. I'm not.
The beauty of FLUSH is that Woolf extends her technique of anthropomorphization to the humans. She figures out how to put you inside a dog's mind and desires and habits. Then she uses the same techniques on the humans. And while she is not unkind to any of these characters, she's not lenient toward any of them either.
That's the problem with most anthropomorphization. (Egad, do I have to type that word again?) It skins some poor animal to dress up a fictionally perfect human. Bad anthropomorphization (sigh) symbolizes a flat fraction of our human nature and represents it as the whole thing, or the most desirable part. This cheapens the human and disposes of the animal.
I love Woolf. She never cheapens anyone. She never makes cartoons of people (or of dogs). Read her if you're tired of shallow media portraits or snap judgments at the office water cooler. You know the kind. Comments on character that may be superficially correct, and you can't quite put your finger on it, but you feel the judgment's not fair at all... Woolf never does that to you.
Woolf observes her people (and her canine), lets you understand their most subtle good and bad impulses. With Woolf, we don't have to choose between knowing and loving another person. We can do both.
And we can love Flush, not as the idealized human, but as one actually does love a dog. Woolf has given us Flush - not a fantasy human in fake dog form - but a real dog, in print, a trusted and familiar companion. We feel his fur; we know where Flush is by the bed, in the dark; we know his eyes and their expression, and although Woolf tells us what Flush thinks, as with a real dog, there is something hidden, unhuman.
And then she goes and does the same thing with the PEOPLE. Brilliant.
So hang the critics, Virginia. This book may have been only a practice session for you, and a nuisance one at that, but we learn something about love and respect reading it. Now, can you think such a book unimportant?
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Puppy Love
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I have read a lot of Woolfs work. This little book is easily equal to her more critically acclaimed works like 'To the Lighthouse'. This story allows Woolf to be more playful than in any of the other piece she has done. The mix of fiction/ biography allows her to tell a story filled with heroes and villians that makes the book like an adult fairy tale. By the end I was fully engaged and completely consumed by Flush and his Life. This is a must for any fan of Woolf or anyone who has a love for animals.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: More than just Woolf being cute
Review: FLUSH probably gets the least respect of all of Virginia Woolf's books, and many critics at the time of its publication in 1933 (and since) thought she was being more than a bit twee in telling the satory of the Elizabeth Barrett-Robert Browning courtship from the point of view of Barrett's adored cocker spaniel. But this experiment in biography is much more than that: it's an attempt to understand the world from a non-human point of view, and it also is Woolf's most overt look in her fiction at class difference and (more unusually) at the world of crime. It's also a terrific addition to Woolf's extended engagement from an early 20th-c. perspective with the world of genteel Victorian society and its snobberies and hypocrisies.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A wonderful story.
Review: One of my very favorite reads this year. This is a biography of sorts - and a fiction of sorts. It's the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spanial Flush. An absolute charmer. This is one of those volumes that can truly be read in a single setting - it is possessed of a free flowing lyric quality often absent in this writer's more cerebral fictions. Still, this isn't a slight piece by any means, but a richly detailed work of the imagination by one of the great literary minds of the past century. This is the kind of book you'll want to recommend to all your friends.