Virginia Woolf

Voyage Out

Woolf’s first novel is a haunting book, full of light and shadow. It takes Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and their niece, Rachel, on a sea voyage from London to a resort on the South american coast. “It is a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South americanca not found on any map and reached by a boat which would not float on any sea, an americanca whose spiritual boundaries touch Xanadu and Atlantis” (E. M. Forster).

The Voyage Out

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a slight but perceptible wave seemed to roll beneath the floor; then it sank; then another came, more perceptible. lights slid right across the uncurtained window. the ship gave a loud melancholy moan.

to speak or to be silent was equally an effort, for when they were silent they were keenly conscious of each other's presence, and yet words were either too trivial or too large.

that was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living.

clara

I've cared for heaps of people, but not to marry them' she said. 'I suppose I'm too fastidious. all my life I've wanted somebody I could look up to, somebody great and big and splendid. Most men are so small.'

'What do you mean by splendid?' Hewet asked. 'People are-nothing more.

That was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living.

If I were a woman I'd blow some one's brains out. Don't you laugh at us a great deal? Don't you think it all a great humbug? You, I mean-how does it all strike you?"

Rooms, she knew, became more like worlds than rooms at the age of twenty-four.

How little, after all, one can tell anybody about one's life! Here I sit, there you sit- both, I doubt not, chock-full of the most interesting experiences, ideas, emotions - yet how communicate? I've told you what every second person you meet might tell you." ,,I don't think so," she said. "It's the way of saying things, isn't it, not the things?"

believe me when i say im a virginia woolf stan … however … can’t say i adored this one. she started cooking towards the end there though. i also started drinking more camapari and sodas as i kept reading so maybe that’s just it. 

lily taggart

“That was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living.”
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Virginia Woolf novels all have the same effect on me. They are simultaneously captivating and suffocating, diving deep into the consciousness of her characters rather than the flow of the actual plot. The result is a beautifully written but strange warp of sickeningly fast inner dialogue and emotions churning in a snail-paced story.
It is always a big effort for me to get through a Woolf novel, but by the end, I have never come to regret it yet. 
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3.5/5

Arden Kowalski

THE VIRGINIA WOOLF PROJECT: THE VOYAGE OUT

Book 1: Orlando [3.5/5]
Book 2: To The Lighthouse [5/5]
Book 3: Mrs. Dalloway [4/5]
Book 4: The Waves [4.5/5]
Book 4.5: A Room of One's Own [5/5]
Book 5: The Voyage Out [4.5/5]

Welcome back to another instalment of the Virginia Woolf project. I, too, am terrified of the person I will become when I have nothing by Virginia Woolf left to read. Thankfully, there are still four novels of complex prose to tackle before such a thing can happen. 

Some terrified people who followed me while I was lost in the abhorrent grasp of the outdoors (read: on holiday in Vancouver) may be curious as to what the Virginia Woolf project is. I am aiming to read all of Virginia Woolf's novels, a choice I made on a complete whim, and review each of them as I read them so you can suffer with me.* I haven't read a new Woolf novel since June, thanks to the aforementioned existential terror of running out of novels to read, but I enjoyed The Voyage Out quite a lot and I'm excited to tell you all about it.

The Voyage Out is Virginia Woolf's first novel. It depicts the story of a young English woman called Rachel Vinrace who travels to South America. In a very broad sense, it's a coming of age story. Rachel discovers the world and the different types of people who inhabit it, and in doing so discovers more about herself. However, Woolf's true talent lies in her subversion of the genre's conventions; so the story becomes a meaningful portrait of a character who is by nature undefined. It's hard to believe that this was her debut, as it displays a degree of intelligence and accuracy one tends to find only in more experienced author.

The start of the story is rather slow, so the reader is permitted to languish in the beauty of the prose while the important elements of the plot and characters begin to click into place. By the second or third chapter, once the voyage is begun and the primary players are introduced, one finds that the assiduous nature Woolf applied to her novels makes for an original and captivating read. I loved the character of Rachel, as I found her introduction to the world intricate and meaningful to her development as a person, and as a fan of Woolf's in general** I was tickled by the appearance of Richard and Clarissa Dalloway.

Despite the flaws in the key romance that one might pick up on as a reader from the twenty-first century, there can be no doubt that the bloom and joy of a first love is captured with compassion and understanding. I was swept away by the beauty of the descriptions and the understanding between the characters. Within chapters, I went from not anticipating the connection the characters would have to being invested in them as a couple. It was a marvelous thing to watch unfold, and I'm being intentionally vague because I do think that the appeal will be increased if you go into it blind. 

I thought the ending was devastating, narratively compelling, and beautiful; and these words together are of course the highest praise I can bestow upon literature. The Voyage Out accomplishes that ultimate but elusive goal of tragedy; to convince the reader that such an ending was unavoidable but at the same time utterly contrived by the characters themselves. The characters, then, must be well-established enough to choose in specific and distinct ways, and to make choices so obvious to them but so tragic in hindsight. It is a tall order for a debut writer, but not when that debut writer is Virginia Woolf. 

I cannot decide which of Woolf's works to read next—I will devote quite a bit of brainpower to making this decision today—but I do hope that there are people who enjoy these reviews enough to look out for what's to come.


  “For some time she observed a great yellow butterfly, which was opening and closing its wings very slowly on a little flat stone.
"What is it to be in love?" she demanded, after a long silence; each word as it came into being seemed to shove itself out into an unknown sea. Hypnotized by the wings of the butterfly, and awed by the discovery of a terrible possibility in life, she sat for some time longer. When the butterfly flew away, she rose, and within, her two books beneath her arm returned again, much as a soldier prepares for battle.”


* If there's another author who you think I should aim to read the complete works of, please comment below and I might make it my next reading project! 
** She's one of my favourite authors, as this project must make abundantly clear. 

[Much like several of Woolf's works, this book includes some offensive commentary at the expense of native people in South America. It is minimal, but still existent, and I should like to only recommend this book with this warning included.]

Anna Talbot

I tend to rate novels not by how much I enjoyed reading them, but on my ability to speak once I’ve finished. I haven’t a word.

Claire E

Jim Hagan

Joshua Line

We meet young free-spirited Rachel Vinrace aboard her father's ship, the Euphrosyne, departing London for South America. Surrounded by a clutch of genteel companions -- among them her aunt Helen, who judges Rachel to be "vacillating," "emotional," and "more than normally incompetent for her years" -- Rachel displays a startling maturity when she finds her engagement to the writer Terence Hewet listing toward disaster.

Will Vunderink

Vasuta Kalra

edith w.

Romaissa Bellarbi 

McKenna Wheatley

Cams Campbell

Sabrina Z

The Voyage Out (1915) is the story of a rite of passage. When Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship she is launched on a course of self-discovery in a modern version of the mythic voyage. Virginia Woolf knew all too well the forms that she was supposed to follow when writing of a young lady's entrance into the world, and she struggled to subvert the conventions, wittily and assiduously, rewriting and revising the novel many times. The finished work is not, on the face of it, a `portrait of the artist'. However, through The Voyage Out readers will discover Woolf as an emerging and original artist: not identified with the heroine, but present everywhere in the social satire and the lyricism and patterning of consciousness. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Lindsay Hollmann

Jennifer Long

Lulwa

The Modern Library is proud to include Virginia Woolf's first novel, The Voyage Out--together with a new Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Cunningham. Published to acclaim in England in 1915 and in America five years later, The Voyage Out marks Woolf's beginning as one of the twentieth century's most brilliant and prolific writers. Less formally experimental than her later novels, The Voyage Out none-theless clearly lays bare the poetic style and innovative technique--with its multiple figures of consciousness, its detailed portraits of characters' inner lives, and its constant shifting between the quotidian and the profound--that are the signature of Woolf's fiction. Rachel Vinrace, Woolf's first heroine, is a motherless young woman who, at twenty-four, embarks on a sea voyage with a party of other English folk to South America. Guileless, and with only a smattering of education, Rachel is taken under the wing of her aunt Helen, who desires to teach Rachel "how to live."Arriving in Santa Marina, a village on the South American coast, Rachel and Helen are introduced to a group of English expatriates. Among them is the young, sensitive Terence Hewet, an aspiring writer, with whom Rachel falls in love. But theirs is ultimately a tale of doomed love, set against a chorus of other stories and other points of view, as the narrative shifts focus between its central and peripheral characters. E. M. Forster praised The Voyage Out as "a book which attains unity as surely as Wuthering Heights, though by a different path." This edition includes a new Introduction by Michael Cunningham, bestselling author of The Hours. Cunningham at once unfolds an engaging short essay of Woolf's early life and career, an insightful exploration of the themes to which Woolf returns again and again in her fiction, and a spirited defense of the relevance and lasting importance of her art. Katherine Anne Porter wrote of Woolf: "The world of arts was her native territory; she ranged freely under her own sky, speaking her mother tongue fearlessly."

Voyage Out

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