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    Virginia Woolf
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    Virginia Woolf
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    Virginia Woolf
    Audiobook5 hours

    Virginia Woolf

    Written by Nigel Nicolson

    Narrated by Karesa McElheny

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Virginia Woolf's life as part of the avant-garde Bloomsbury Group has captured the imagination of millions. Now Nigel Nicolson, the distinguished son of British writers Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West (Vita was one of Woolf's closest and most intimate friends) threads his personal reminiscences through the narrative of her life. In so doing, he paints an astonishing portrait of one of the most remarkable women in history. Nicolson recalls childhood times with Woolf: from her walk around his ancestral home as she planned Orlando to her writing of the modern classics Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One's Own. Virginia Woolf probes keenly her stance on women's issues and the nature of war, drawing new connections between the woman and the literary genius.

    "Nicolson is a sensitive scholar who leads us patiently through a richly varied life with fresh insights."-Booklist
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 27, 2000
    ISBN9781415910849
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Virginia Woolf

    3.5/5

    46 ratings3 reviews

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    • 2/5
      This was the second Penguin Lives book I've checked out of the library. The other was about Proust. Both seem poorly edited with some typos and repeats of information between chapters and even within. Even though this is a rather short book it took me several days because I find Nicolson's writing slow and unsure of itself, something to be done rather than flowing out of inspiration.
    • 4/5
      A balanced biography written by the son of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's one-time lover, this slim book covers a lot of ground without wandering around in the region of speculation. Nicolson writes knowledgeably, without idealizing the person he admits to admiring. As he knew her and her family and contemporaries personally, he was an ideal person to write Virginia Woolf's story, which he accomplished with grace and eloquence.
    • 2/5
      I should have just read Hermione Lee's biography. Nicolson is a son of Vita Sackville-West, as he never tires of telling us, and milks his moments with Woolf, and his mother's connection, for all they're worth. He spends far more time on Vita than Woolf's husband Leonard or sister Vanessa, which I felt a rather poor choice.

      Nicolson provides a good deal of information about her inner life--his time spent editing her letters was well spent. But he clearly disagrees with Woolf's opinions, and spends several pages telling us so every time her pacifism or feminism comes up. His reasons for disagreeing are poorly thought out and not well supported (apparently "women...had little cause for complaint" in Woolf's era, because after all, did not Woolf herself become something of a success? So how bad could the sexism possibly be? Ridonkulous.), but he nevertheless quotes HIS OWN PIECE from 1979 to show how silly Woolf's feminism was. Excuse you, Nicolson, you who have spent your whole life riding on your mother's literary and social successes. He's pretty awful about Woolf's possible childhood sexual assault, as well. Nicolson is in a huff that her half-brothers are accused by modern biographers to have assaulted Woolf, even though Woolf herself has said they did. Here's Nicolson in his own words, "In recollection, Virginia made more of a drama of the affair than the facts justify." For fucks sake!

      My rage at Nicolson's constant inclusion of Sackville-West and his own uncertain claims aside, I did enjoy this book for its descriptions of the Bloomsbury group and for the tidbits of Woolf's writing. She was a true genius.