“But she had nothing. She had forbidden music. Grating her fingers in the bark, she damned the audience. Panic seized her. Blood seemed to pour from her shoes. This is death, death, death, she noted in the margin of her mind; when illusion fails. Unable to lift her hand, she stood facing the audience.

And then the shower fell, sudden, profuse.

No one had seen the cloud coming. There it was, black, swollen, on top of them. Down it poured like all the people in the world weeping. Tears. Tears. Tears.”

This was Virginia Woolf's last book -- finished but not completely edited before she ended her life in March 1941, and published by her husband shortly after her death. She gives us the story of a family living on a country estate in England and hosting the annual local pageant -- a play put on by the people in the community to raise money for the church. The household consists of the elderly Bartholomew Oliver and his sister Lucy Swithin, Mr. Oliver's son, Giles, and Giles' wife Isa and their young son. Before the pageant, two unexpected guests turn up for lunch -- the flirtatious and unconventional Mrs. Mansresa and her friend, an artist, William Dodge. Mrs. Manresa flirts with Giles and Isa gets jealous, but also can't get the thought of a local gentleman farmer out of her head.

In true VW fashion, we move in and out of all the character's heads through the course of the book. We also break from the action of the book to watch the play with the rest of the audience, stopping for a tea break and a brief rain storm. We get a healthy dose of social criticism, particularly in the interplay between the locals watching the play, and no one examines the human drama of aging and the patina our histories leave on our present day better than Virginia Woolf. Written as England entered the war, this is sometimes a dark novel, and often very melancholy, but it it is dark and melancholy in the way of real families, relationships, and personalities. I really liked it.

In the past, I've found that I enjoyed Virginia Woolf's more traditional stories, rather than her experimental (and considered much more brilliant) work. "Between the Acts" is about as traditional a story as you can get and frankly, I found it to be sort boring

The story is about a group of people who put together an annual play -- it's a story that just isn't strong enough, even with Woolf's unique style.

While the book was published posthumously, a forward indicates that Woolfe wasn't likely to revise it much plotwise by that point in its publication process. It seems like this one really missed the mark.

have i outgrown virginia woolf?

or is it that the practice of our current era, i.e., the lack of fortitude in terms of confronting difference, the utter lack of abiding with an ability to disagree has taken its toll?

forgive what may be a long review. lots to say here.

first - this is the last work that woolf wrote before she filled her pockets with large stones and wandered into a stream, never to exit the river alive. strange to find a prediction - a ghost of a woman who drowned in a river appears in the opening pages of the book.

as is common, we find woolf championing, perhaps preaching, albeit lightly, on the human condition, on our frailty and our strengths; on our resiliency.

the narrative, like MRS DALLOWAY, occurs in a single day. a group of britons gather in a small village for a play to be performed: outside, if it is fine, or in a barn if rain threatens. seems like the day will be fine, so ms. la trobe's production, a kind of radically reduced history of england, is mounted out of doors.

it's a community affair; lots of citizens have a part to play, and but the real performers dwell in the audience. their thoughts and conversations, complete and fragmented, are the mirrors held up for the reader to see.

the book, although much shorter, had a similar effect as THE YEARS ... a novel where woolf's stylistic concerns of illustrating a family in fragments over the course of several decades felt a bit flat and overly committed to form. but as the pages turn, so we delve deeper, and the echoes and moments of being begin to gather steam. by the end, a kind of climax occurs and the power of the book comes up off the page.

i can't help compare, as many have done, the writings of woolf and joyce. upon reading ULYSSES (for the first time), woolf dismissed it in her journal - "behind all the stylistic fireworks, there's an adolescent, squeezing his pimples." - or something very close to that, my memory ain't what it used-ta. so it's interesting to see the way woolf uses the day in a life form. writing in her late journals, she offers a more positive assessment of ULYSSES, and joyce in general. there are moments where she pays homage here - the book is also set on a day in june; not 1904, but june 1939. the second world war is about to break out ... germans are mentioned, the first ww is mentioned. one audience member mutters "how can the play not include the british army?" perhaps woolf saw the inevitable and felt it was time to take stock of things held high by the english.

the good stuff is certainly here: woolf's uncanny ability to look into the soul of her character and offer a glimpse that speaks volumes. the perfectly constructed sentences, the perfectly constructed paragraphs. students of writing - take heed these words and the shapes they create. take heed the economy. reduce - reduce - reduce. the book clocks in at 219 pages - one of her shorter novels.

back to my opening lines ... how would young readers receive this book in 2024? i imagine significant (and appropriate) complaints about the use of the N word in one sentence, and in general, a difficult reading of "black" people ... where only a few appear and we are not informed of their being other than their color. it's hard to determine whether what could read as distaste is woolf's opinion, or the opinion of her character(s), and if the latter, is she critiquing this particular strain of racism among her country-folk. imo, it's ambiguous, and nowadays readers, viewers, and listeners don't seem to have much of a taste for that. citizens want the black / white, good / bad spelled clearly and correctly. a firm stance for disagreeing, especially against a choice of words, seems the norm these days.

and on the subject of ambiguity, who are these people? are they all privileged white folk? is that a problem? there are a few common concerns from other woolf narratives: that of the woman married to someone she doesn't love, who longs for deeper connections and longs to free herself of her husband's infidelity. can't blame a sister for that. it seems marriage is to blame - woolf's feminist stance is clear and plays as more of a humanist stance for this reader. perhaps not insignificant that most of the people getting things done: directing a play, serving drinks and food, gathering props, building things, are women.

and also - what does this privilege allow? leisure, possibly, but also enough time to take stock in so many things. the observer/omniscient narrator reveals that the attendants have the luxury of self-reflection. the workers, the machinery that keeps production in place, don't seem to have this luxury; or, at the least, we are not allowed access.

on the subject of who's in the mix here, and the general trend these days to mistrust any writer that isn't reflecting diversity that takes the entire world in to account, i'm reminded of a quote (maybe the wrong word?) that goes something like this: a young writer asked james joyce "how to make the writing universal?" his answer was, "write about the particular and it becomes universal".

and so, BETWEEN THE ACTS ... maybe not my favorite woolf, but the good stuff here is so damn good. it's the writing and the human insight, as always, that keeps her in my highest esteem.

Falling into this work was easier than anything else I've read of Woolf's. She's somehow less direct and more powerful. I believe this was published after her death.

Obra magnífica, o simbolismo presente mesmo abarca não só a história cultural da Inglaterra, como arremata não apenas o momento em que foi em escrito em tintas diacrônicas como também a metalinguagem da autora. Três aspectos importantíssimos a serem considerados na leitura desse livro: 1939 e o século das guerras, modernismo literário e musical, por último mas não menos importante, o fato deste ser o último livro de Woolf antes do suicídio - se você se ater a essas três chaves mestras o simbolismo será destrinchado e se abrirá o leque de uma das mais soberbas obras de Woolf.

Lavish descriptions. I read this in my undergraduate work studying with Louise DeSalvo a Wolf scholar.

"For I hear music, they were saying. Music wakes us. Music makes us see the hidden, join the broken. Look and listen. See the flowers, how they ray their redness, whiteness, silverness and blue. And the trees with their many-tongued much syllabling, their green and yellow leaves hustle us and shuffle us, and bid us, like the starlings, and the rooks, come together, crowd together, to chatter and make merry while the red cow moves forwards and the black cow stands still."
It may seem as though this book has an obscure plot, and at first I thought so too. I thought this would be another rambling book filled with descriptions, with no real substance, or point. However, although a great deal of this story is a description of the beautiful countryside, where the family of Pointz Hall reside, there is a deeper meaning that must be uncovered by the audience. Woolf is a magnificent writer, she brings the setting to life, her work is so very lyrical and beautiful. She moves between poetry, prose, and theatre seamlessly, all the while commenting on the social expectations we face. Woolf manages to bring us all together in the most unexpected way, demonstrating how we are one in and amongst the chaos. Discord unites us.

Feels unfinished. Some lyrical passages but it's badly strung together and feels thin overall.