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skaur's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
2.25
the last chapter was the best part of the book
laurasauras's review against another edition
3.0
Feels like sacrilege to rate Virginia Woolf so low, but I really struggled to get through this. Parts of it were beautiful, but it was so circuitous and so uneventful that it was very difficult to stay engaged. Maybe it would have been better if I was studying it so that I had the advantage of context, but as it is I've greatly preferred other modernist works.
jackiedressedincobras's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
oliviasbookshop's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
nlgeorge73's review against another edition
4.0
The Years is the 8th book of Virginia Woolf's that I have read. She is brilliant! I wouldn't pick this one for my first Woolf to read or say that it is one of her best, but I loved how each narrator hands off the story to another person they interact with.
lindsaytt's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
kevin_shepherd's review against another edition
3.0
“Time is a monster that cannot be reasoned with.” ~Joe Wenteworth
Released in 1937, less than four years before Virginia Woolf would fill her coat pockets with stones and stride into the River Ouse, The Years was the last of Woolf’s novels to be published in her lifetime.
I knew that tidbit going in and I kinda’ wish I hadn’t. I am certain that the knowledge tainted my perception. It gave me a hard case of melancholy and, once it sets in, melancholy is a difficult feeling to shake.
“How terrible old age was, she thought; shearing off all one's faculties, one by one, but leaving something alive in the center.”
[SPOILERS REMOVED]
In places, The Years reads more like a diary than a novel. Detailed and personal, it has a somewhat Brontë feel to it (Emily, not Charlotte). I found it to be rather dispiriting and somber, but just how much of that is me and how much of that is Woolf I cannot begin to say.
“A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.” ~Andrei Tarkovsky
Released in 1937, less than four years before Virginia Woolf would fill her coat pockets with stones and stride into the River Ouse, The Years was the last of Woolf’s novels to be published in her lifetime.
I knew that tidbit going in and I kinda’ wish I hadn’t. I am certain that the knowledge tainted my perception. It gave me a hard case of melancholy and, once it sets in, melancholy is a difficult feeling to shake.
“How terrible old age was, she thought; shearing off all one's faculties, one by one, but leaving something alive in the center.”
[SPOILERS REMOVED]
In places, The Years reads more like a diary than a novel. Detailed and personal, it has a somewhat Brontë feel to it (Emily, not Charlotte). I found it to be rather dispiriting and somber, but just how much of that is me and how much of that is Woolf I cannot begin to say.
“A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.” ~Andrei Tarkovsky
sophiefreeman's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0