[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 222 KB, 720x1000, 4c_woolf_1902.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7184711 No.7184711 [Reply] [Original]

So why is she meant to be so great?

>> No.7184715

>>7184711
prose, characterization, subtle but effective treatment of themes

honestly even if the only thing she ever wrote was the "Time Passes" section of To the Lighthouse I'd think she was a genius

>> No.7184730

>>7184711
Her writing is insightful and penetrating. Just as she dances around the inner psyche of her many complex characters, her prose is very similar in its cascading, breathtaking rhythm---in the same vein of, say, Proust. And if that wasn't enough, what elevates her in my mind is her depiction of life as poetry, her painting of the atmosphere, the miniature moods and hidden essences floating all around us, from the tulips to the loaf of bread to the easel. She was sensitive to not only the subject, but also the objects in life. People and things. Good writers will excel in one (e.g. Dostoevsky, Lawrence, James for the former, Miller, DeLillo, Burroughs for the latter), but the ability to paint both? That elevates her to the Greats.

>> No.7184737

She isn't bad, but if she'd been a man, her work would have remained in obscurity.

>> No.7184741

>>7184730
Although, for the record, as great as she is, I do find the musical qualities of her prose to be a *bit* lacking.

As Nabokov said of Eliot, Woolf is "not quite first-rate." But with that said, she's still a must-read.

>> No.7184764

>>7184715
>>7184730
What books should I check out? I had to read To The Lighthouse and found it basically unreadable, both for the prose which is a real slog and the way it just didn't ring true to life for me. Is she someone you have to be from a certain upper-class-dinner-party set to appreciate? She just felt so far from the real world

>> No.7184768

>>7184764
you're not ready
read other things first
maybe work up with dalloway

>> No.7184794

>>7184764
night and day

>> No.7184796

>>7184715
>a genius
My fucking sides
She was 6th or 7th rate even among her contemporaries

>> No.7184799

>>7184796
top pleb

she's one of the best prose stylists of all time m8

>> No.7184802

>le feminism writer
>deliberately poses to hide her ugliness
>le deep tortured artist face

>> No.7184808

>>7184796
This tbqhwyf

>> No.7184820

>>7184802
You mean Charlotte Brontë right?

>> No.7184855

>>7184820
woah leave the Brontes the fuck out of this

>> No.7184864

>>7184730
I find her prose only comes into its own once it stops flapping about breathless like poultry Proust, though the proper reading rhythm comes with getting used to it, too.

>>7184711
Can't deny it makes people feel better when they can have a token female writer to praise on hand, and it doesn't get better than her for this writing style.

>> No.7184893

>>7184711
Got damn I found To the Lighthouse to be fucking boring. It was obviously well crafted, can't deny that. But it was such a chore.

>> No.7184897

>>7184737

Is that relevant at all? She is not a man.

"If she were a dog, her work would have remained in obscurity"

>> No.7184900

>>7184893
>reading for enjoyment

>> No.7184902

>>7184897
She could have called herself Virginia Woof though

>> No.7184903

>>7184897
>Is that relevant at all? She is not a man.

Don't be disingenuous, you know exactly what that anon is saying with their post.

>> No.7184905
File: 123 KB, 949x643, you will never drink tea and banter.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7184905

>>7184900

>> No.7184977

>>7184903

Yes but one of the things she wrote about that made her unique was feminism you fuck

Gender influences the way you write

>> No.7184992

>>7184977
Oh I agree, but that still doesn't get to what the other anon is saying. I disagree with it---Woolf is a fine writer either way, perhaps a bit overrated because she's a woman but certainly not raised up from her otherwise would-be obscurity---I'm just saying the gender point isn't 'irrelevant.'

>> No.7185017

>>7184992
>perhaps a bit overrated because she's a woman
Not that anon, but why not the other way around? Women didn't even have equal voting rights when she started getting published. I'd guess it's more likely that people would dismiss/underrate her because she was a woman.

>> No.7185075
File: 64 KB, 512x401, 1437910958920.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7185075

>>7184902

>> No.7185088

>>7185017
Exoticism and market wasn't saturated back then? People don't dismiss a talking dog, but make the talking dog a human or the idiot savant not an idiot and people won't care, true enough?

>> No.7185123

>>7185088
Different things, though. An actual talking dog would be a marvel of nature. People were/are generally aware that a woman can write words, so there's nothing astounding about it- but they might not be bothered to read those words because the author's a woman (see e.g. any thread here about women writers, although those attitudes would be more widespread and less ironic in the early twentieth century).

I'm sure there was an element of exotic appeal and feminist politics involved, but I'm equally sure that there would also be a lot of dismissal out of prejudice. It seems weird to me to just assume that the former would outweigh the latter.

>> No.7185187
File: 48 KB, 620x592, 1443341651219.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7185187

>>7184902
topest kek

>> No.7185335

>>7184902

>> No.7185358

Why don't you all read her and tell us

>> No.7185524

>>7185088
someone didn't read ARoOO

wait a minute
Woolf
wolf
ARoOO

maybe she was a talking dog

>> No.7185533

daily reminder that the virginian wolfsnake should never be let near a typewriter

>> No.7185577 [DELETED] 

Daily reminder that women are inherently inferior to all males. THey can't think as deeply about our existential predicament, they aren't as fully ontologically 'there', i.e. inscribed into reality, they cannot be loyal and they can't be ethical beings.

A woman has no authenticity. A woman cannot truly experience love and suffering. Woman is a sham.

If you're encouraging feminist trash like Woolf, you're effectively trying to undermine whiteness by inadverdently enabling interracial relationships and the breeding out of whiteness which is the goal of bolshevik-Judaic-feminism.

She's a "good" writer for a woman, in the same sense that a dog or a child can excel in something among their equals which still doesn't compare to that of a man.

>> No.7185583

>>7185577

Get back to containment

>> No.7185592 [DELETED] 

>>7185583
>the truth of the redpill is too uncomfortable for me to handle as a good goy feminist cuck, so I'll just tell him to go away so my hugbox can remain intact

Leftist logic everyone

>> No.7185605

>>7185592

Go away

>> No.7185614

>>7185577
>you're effectively trying to undermine whiteness by inadverdently enabling interracial relationships
Wrong board, feckless nincompoop

>> No.7185618 [DELETED] 

>>7185605
>>7185614
So brainwashed

>> No.7186053

Not appreciating Virginia Woolf is just about the plebbiest opinion I can think of.

It's like if you said Faust was shit or Hamlet isn't good.

>> No.7186067

>>7184730
>ITT : pseudo intellectualism

Proust's prose is nothing special you fucking pleb. Céline is known as the greatest French stylist of the 20th Century.

>> No.7186088

>>7184764
Night and Day is indeed a good place to start.

>> No.7186163

>>7186053
Why? She's nothing like Shakespeare or Goethe. It's not really clear why she's so canonical, there's nothing essential about what she writes. What good do her books do for people?