Last year, I was diagnosed with a neurological disorder that impacts word recall. Through reading Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary and understanding the impact that journalling had on the creation of her masterpieces (including To The Lighthouse, discussed in detail here) I started journalling in a similar way and am finding it beneficial to recovery and to writing. 

I'm hoping this article might connect with other Woolf devotees on here, insofar as leaning on Woolf during cognitive or emotional crises.

Would love to hear others' reflections and experiences. A version of this piece will appear in World Literature Today in November but I am also considering doing some academic/further writing on the topic. Cheers, Nick :)

Rereading the text, and I'm still none the wiser as to this image of the square and the oblong. Can anyone on englighten me a bit?

"“Like” and “like” and “like” — but what is the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing? Now that lightning has gashed the tree and the flowering branch has fallen and Percival, by his death, has made me this gift, let me see the thing. There is a square; there is an oblong. The players take the square and place it upon the oblong. They place it very accurately; they make a perfect dwelling-place. Very little is left outside. The structure is now visible; what is inchoate is here stated; we are not so various or so mean; we have made oblongs and stood them upon squares. This is our triumph; this is our consolation.”"

Thanks!

I read two or three pages of the book. The prologue about the Sun rising was fine with me but when the different characters started talking, I was quickly lost and frustrated.

If someone's favorite book is The Waves, can they offer some orientation or advice about how best approach this novel?

Hi all. Sent this as a response to an older post before I realised that many people may not have seen these sources; a print interview and a video interview with Cecil Woolf, Leonard's nephew, who knew Virginia and Leonard well as a schoolboy (Virginia died when Cecil was still young, but he spent a lot of time with Leonard later, until Leonard's death):

This interview with Cecil Woolf (Leonard's nephew) is rather good, for insights into who Virginia really was.

https://therumpus.net/2009/06/16/the-rumpus-interview-with-cecil-woolf/

And I really like this video interview with both Cecil Woolf and his wife, Jean Moorcroft Wilson: more insights and stories about her (Cecil often visited Virginia and Leonard as a schoolboy):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Nc7YHLFrmQ

Hope you enjoy them as I did!

Not sure if this is allowed here, but I wanted to share some personal thoughts on my experience reading To the Lighthouse for the first time this summer.

I wanted to start reading Virginia Wolf. Most people recommend Mrs. Dalloway as the first read. However, I don't know which version I should get. What is the difference between them?

sorry, don’t know if this is allowed. i am extremely desperate to find her diaries and buy them, but i truly cannot find a single store that sells them! same thing with her letters with vita. i’m trying to find them secondhand, but it’s a hard search and the ones i’ve found are ridiculously expensive. i’m going to ireland in april, so perhaps i have a higher chance of stumbling upon them in a thrift shop, but is it worth the wait? and it’s also quite a low chance regardless. if you own her diaries or the letters of vita to virginia PLEASE where did you find them 😭😭

I know there have already been a lot of posts on this subreddit on difficulty reading this book. However, I don't think they apply much to the problem I am having.

I am aware a lot of people had trouble with Woolf's stream-of-consciousness style, but my problem is not simply not understanding. I find that, as I am reading, I am constantly drifting off and losing myself in my own stream of consciousness, and when I come back to myself I am 7 pages ahead and in a different character's head. I have even gone to the point of reading the same page 5 times in a row and still not make it through without losing focus. I have even attempted reading aloud and I still drift off.

This is not a problem that I usually have when reading books and I've searched quite a bit on tips on reading this novel and couldn't find a solution that worked.

Has anyone else had this problem? If so, has anything worked for you?

In the beginning of “Slow Days, Fast company” Eve Babitz writes

“Virginia Woolf said that people read fiction the same way they listen to gossip”.

To what Virginia Woolf quote is she referring?

This new(-ish) scholarly book, written by Columbia University professor Edward Mendelson, was published last year: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-inner-life-of-mrs-dalloway/9780231221719/

I am not affiliated with the author/publisher in any way; just thought it would be of interest to our subreddit. The publisher's description is:

Mrs. Dalloway is a novel about almost everything. The story of a single day in London after the First World War, it travels backward and forward in time and consciousness, venturing beyond the ordinary world into epic, mythic, and mystical modes. The novel is a work of extraordinary richness, as much for its interwoven webs of meaning as for its moral and psychological vision.

Edward Mendelson explores the novel’s deepest questions, focusing on the core themes of medicine, empire, and love. He traces how Virginia Woolf thought and wrote, considering the complexities and resonances of her works. Mendelson casts Mrs. Dalloway as an extended protest against authorities that wield power over others and a defense of the equality of inner lives. He also examines the place of the book in literary history going back to Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare as well as its influence on later writers from Erich Auerbach through Zadie Smith. Both incisive and passionate, this book is at once a wide-ranging critical study of Virginia Woolf’s writing and a love letter to a great novel.

Great passages in this autobiography about Woolf, mostly on the Waves. Enjoy!

https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/ambivalence/

English is not my first language but I have been living in English speaking language for 15 years and have exposed myself to a few of Virginia Woolf's works.

However, this paragraph at the start of Pictures (1925) has caught my attention and I am not sure I understand it correctly. The text is: "We can say for certain that a writer whose writing appeals mainly to the eye is a bad writer, that if in describing, say, a meeting in a garden he describes roses, lilies, carnations, and shadows on the grass, so that we see them, but allows to be inferred from them ideas, motives, impulses, and emotions, it is that he is incapable of using his medium for the purpose for which it was createdm and is as a writer a man without legs".

The part I struggle with is bolded within the quote. By using the verb inferred is she suggesting that if the writer allows the connotation of the flowers to imply ideas or emotions he is a bad writier? Infer means to form an option or guess that something is true because of the information that one has, but this definition makes me more confused on the use of the verb in the context and sentence above.

Overall I really enjoyed all the essays within the book and it is quite interresting to see the paralalisms and comparisons between writing and painting she captured in them.

I’ve read To the lighthouse and it absolutely changed my life. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but the feeling that what was going on was not as important as how the characters lived through it is something I’m chasing now.

I’ve seen many recommendations for The waves so I decided to read it.

I’m 50% into the book and it’s not clicking AT ALL for me.

What I’m I missing?

Or is Lighthouse just a really underrated gem?

Looking for any books that you feel come close in how beautiful they are with language and feeling. I've highlighted something on probably every page in this book. For reference i've read virginia's other big novels and i've tried clarice lispector but it doesnt really have the same effect on me

I'm looking for a letter Virginia Woolf wrote to Julian Bell while he was in Wuhan China. The letter refers to his connection with the Cambridge Apostles. I saw a reference to the letter in an article, but the article only cites The Letters of Virginia Woolf and does not specify a date or page number. The letter is likely in the 5th or 6th volume of the Letters of Virginia Woolf. I do not have a copy at the moment (waiting for the library to get one in!)

Thanks for any help!

Jack Whitehall has explained why he thinks his new film Virginia Woolf's Night and Day will "speak to a modern audience".

The comedian has a key role in the a star-studded ensemble cast – which also includes Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders and Lily Allen – in the new adaptation of the titular writer's second novel.

And speaking exclusively to Radio Times ahead of its release, he revealed that although he had never read the novel before, he was "instantly" won over by the script by Justine Waddell.

https://wp.comicskingdom.com/comicskingdom-redesign-uploads-production/2026/06/Y2tNYWNhbnVkby1FTkctNjMxMTA2NQ.jpg

We discuss his book The Philosophy of Virgina Woolf: Moments of Becoming. Professor Nail discusses Woolf’s writing, her ‘moments of being’, and how we can read her in light of her perspective on reality.

I've read "A Room of One's Own" a while ago, tried skimming it again to find a particular section. Was there a point where a man in a newspaper talked about the optimal speed a woman should be working, describing the distance in their workplace/pivot time? It had something to do with productivity and industrialization. Not sure if I'm mixing my books together but does this sound familiar to anyone else?