I think because I stumbled into Virginia Woolf completely by accident it kept me from any preconceived ideas. The same was true for me and Sylvia Plath. I was not a good student and barely escaped with my HS diploma and entered the military quickly. I am only now in my 50’s reading for just pleasure and meaning and understanding the atmosphere surrounding these two writers like i do now I don’t think it would have been the same. Going in blind to Orlando/A Room of Ones Own/The Waves and Plath’s The Bell Jar/and poems was a discovery I cherish and indulge probably daily. Woolf’s wit, asides, admonishments, humor, observations make me smile and gasp and say many things out loud probably more than any writer and still holds up today. Thank you ✌️!
Ohhh perfect timing, I just finished The Waves a couple weeks ago and Orlando last week. I read Mrs. Dalloway a few months ago. The Waves is also my favorite, and Orlando is certainly a great example of Woolf’s humor. For me, reading her persistently (and outside of school now, escaping that intimidation) really helped, and I somehow found The Waves most accessible surprisingly. This will be a great video to come back to over and over!
Thanks! Glad you've been enjoying so many of her books lately too. And it's good to hear The Waves was accessible. It took me a few readings to get the big distinctions between the characters since it's all in such a poetic language.
I am taking a college class entirely centered around Virginia Woolf this semester. I just finished reading Jacob’s Room (literally minutes ago) and was looking for an analysis video on RUclips - sadly there were hardly any results, but your video did come up and I love your enthusiasm! I am an English literature major and love what Woolf has to say about so many topics that are still incredibly relevant to this day. Thank you for your video! It makes me happy to see other people as enthusiastic about books (especially ‘classic’ authors like Woolf) because so many people find it bulky and not worth the effort to read and try to understand.
your passion is so endearing!!!!! also a perspective from someone who has read her work multiple times throughout his life is amazing because my 17 year old self has never read her stuff but im looking forward to it!
I have read a bit of Virginia Woolf but sadly it was many years ago. Clearly I should pick her up again. I loved your video and hearing your passion and excitement for Virginia Woolf. I am quite sure you could get anyone to read. Thank you Eric. The world would be so quite without you.
Oh, wow! I love all of this! In my youth I’ve skimmed more than read Woolf (my impatient brain) and have wanted to go through her writings actually reading all the words. I am knee deep in Victober right now and a promise to myself to see my reading through, but after that it’s mostly new releases and holidays grabbing my time so I could read her then. I think I’d like that. Thanks for bumping her up on my list.
Well, now we know who's NOT afraid of her, do we not... ;) This just makes me want to disappear into a year(s) long Woolf readathon, starting this very minute! I have read Mrs Dalloway three times and loved it more each time; was blown away by my first read of To The Lighthouse last December, but yeah The Waves has a special place in my Woolf-heart. Maybe it was the mid-nineties when I read it, and I remember trying to talk about it to my best (and very bookish) friend and getting all choked up - realizing in the moment that a work of literature had never had that deep of an effect on me before. So yeah, time for a re-read. I am very tentatively planning to re-read it in December and then re-read Red Clocks right after; it would be part of a year-end tradition I am thinking about inaugurating (someone owes me $64 for that word) - setting December aside to re-read all (or at least as many as time permits) of my top reads for the year, to sink that much deeper into them before wrapping the year up as a good BookTuber should. :) Dying to finally read Orlando - looking for a buddy reader to start the year off with that, 2019: wonder if Curtis has read it yet? :) This video made me very happy.
My favourite thing in the world is debating with other people who love The Waves what characters we relate to the most. Of course, this changes all the time for me. One day I'll be Neville and then next I'll feel like Susan. That's a very ambitious Woolf plan already so I'll be eager to follow your progress, but no pressure to get to more of her books when there are so many others to read as well.
Eric Karl Anderson I remember almost nothing about The Waves all these years later, other than how deeply moved I was,, but those character names do ring a bit of a bell. I just ordered the exact same edition as yours, so gorgeous , but don’t worry, no plans to grow a mustache, start using my middle name, or start a blog or anything… 😛
To the Lighthouse has some of the most inspired passages I've ever read. Some of Woolf's essays are fantastic. The Years has moments of genius. Her use of language in her letters is so fluid.
I started my reading of Virginia Woolf this year with Mrs Dalloway. I was prepared that this would be something completely out of my experience, but it made me feel diminished in some way that I am not part of an elitist, intellectual group. I am plannng on reading A Room of One’s Own in November, in the hope that her non fiction will help me get a better grip of her style. Ultimately, Virginia may not be for me, but your help in appreciating her is, well, appreciated! Thank you!
I think Woolf's language is so formalized and precisely laid out it can have that alienating effect. But I think the more you read you get accustomed to that and seeing there is humour and a sense of not taking everything so seriously in her writing. I hope you find her nonfiction illuminating.
Loved this discussion Eric as well as your written review. I read four of the novels at college, twenty odd years ago and Orlando was one of my favorites, as was the film with Tilda Swindon. I think I liked all of them although have recollections The Waves was tricky. Because of this uncertainty about how I felt or to see if I feel differently ow. I’m planning on rereading them gradually as well as reading Jacob’s Room and Night and Day which I recently picked up secondhand, I know very little about these two. My reread of Orlando was a success and I felt like I saw so much more to it this time so am looking forward to future rereadings!
Oh that's great to hear. I need to rewatch the film - I haven't seen it in years! I read Night and Day many years ago and I remember liking it but I think it felt like quite a conventional story compared to her books from Jacob's Room onward. I hope you'll find more in The Waves if you get time to reread this also.
I love it that you've one this Woolf video essay! Woolf is a writer I discovered about 40 years ago and she one of those very special authors who I return to every few years again and again. I also love what Michael Cunningham did with Woolf in The Hours. Have you read her diaries, Eric? (The huge, multi-volume editions I referring to?) They're wonderful. Thanks so much!
Thank you! There's no competition as anyone who reads Woolf wins. Haha. Both the book and the film of The Hours are exquisite. I've read sections of the diaries. Like with Joyce Carol Oates' journals they contain so many nuggets of wisdom and insight it's easy to get lost in them.
Perfect timing! I just downloaded the complete Woolf on my Kindle last night for 99p, and have been immersed in A Writer's Diary. Amazing stuff. Now I'm planning to read everything from start to finish. Hopefully.
Always happy to meet a fellow fan of The Waves. I've had a special project around the novel I've wanted to do for ages but I don't know if I'll ever find the time. And thank you! 😊
Mrs Dalloway used to be my most hated book but then I re-read it earlier this year and it was actually alright, I enjoyed it. Now I need to read some more of her stuff :D
This is fun, because I am just reading "The waves" for the first time and have read "The lonely city" last summer (for the second time), it really is a great book, also a sad one. But so inspiring. Thanks for your video. Very interesting.
I love your enthusiasm for her work! I sadly haven't picked up anything by her yet although I've been wanting to pick up To The Lighthouse and The Waves for years. Maybe next year I will :)
Thanks for sharing videos. They are very nice and informative. Good work!!! I just discovered Virginia Woolf. I enjoyed to the lighthouse and mrs dalloway very much and I read them both twice just because they are just filled with beautiful language and wonderful metaphors. I just started a room of ones own, and find myself struggeling to get into it. I am considering skipping it and going straight to Orlando. I do want to complete it at some point. Do you have any suggestions on how I can approach it?
I have read the waves, orlando, mrs dalloway, to the lighthouse and a room of ones own. I loved the waves, but didn't really get through many of the layers even on the second read and it is really depressing. My favorites are to the lighthouse and a room of ones own. Both are so exact and revealling.
Wonderful! When I was in my twenties, I had a year of reading everything by Woolf, novels, essays, letters , diaries. All but The Waves. So there's that. I remember loving it, of course, but still found some of the fiction strangely impenetrable. Started rereading the novels this year, and now do not understand why I found it difficult back then, it is so precise and clear , so beautiful and wise. Now must overcome my strange fear of The Waves.
How interesting you've felt so intimidated by The Waves. What put you off? But yes, I think her books are very approachable in one way, but are full of so many surprises they are so worth revisiting. I would love to know what you think of The Waves once you finally get to it as I believe you are destined to read it. :)
I am, I am. It has been on my shelves ever since. It is strange, because at the same time I would read things like Ulysses and the postmodernists without any problems. I just now opened it again, and there is something about the first pages that tells me 'stay away', but I won't listen this time
I read my first Woolf this year and really enjoyed it! I would love to dive more into her backlog. Also, I loved your discussion of Woolf's view on Cavendish, who I am also interested in reading. I didn't know that before, even though I'm pretty sure I had to read A Room of One's Own for literary theory in university. Maybe it just didn't stick because I wasn't familiar with Cavendish. But I am particularly fascinated that someone who wrote a fabulist story herself (Orlando) would disparage a writer who also was experimenting with genre and unconventional narratives in fiction. Anyway, lovely and thoughtful video as always :)
Thanks! I'd love to hear what you think of her other books when you get time for them. Whenever a writer talks in that way about another writer's work it feels to me like there must be some jealousy there. But it also feels that Woolf was so precise with everything she wrote that any ideas that aren't perfectly thought out or composed in writing irritate her. And, of course, the gossipy side of me just gets thrilled at hearing what authors think of each other. :)
I've only read Mrs. Dalloway and while I liked it, I didn't like it enough to seek out more Virginia Woolf. However, watching this video makes me want to get my hands on as much Woolf as possible, especially Orlando. I loved your discussion of Virginia Woolf's opinion of Margaret Cavendish's writing. That makes me even more curious about Woolf.
I think you'd be so fascinated by Orlando, Amy! It's so imaginative and inventive and gets you thinking about a number of issues from a unique perspective.
I love Virginia Woolf' s novels! I possess them all and i read them all..almost. .cause "the waves" cut me off. But i think i'll give it another try. Her best novels are "to the lighthouse" and "mrs dalloway". Did you read "who is afraid of Virginia Woolf" by albee?
I've just been reading your blog post about Virginia too. I never knew anything about Orlando but it sounds a really original read. I too love Monks House and visited it many years ago, its such a special place for me because of the atmosphere it still has. I have a blog post about her too if you wanted to read it. bookmagpie.uk/2018/07/22/virginia-woolf-through-the-census-part-1/ Gill
Your enthusiasm for Woolf is infectious. Admittedly, I find her writing to be a bit of a slog. Mind you, I've only read Mrs. Dalloway and went in with high expectations of having this work really challenge and move me. I did think she did a great job of showing the complexity of the interwar period and the decline of empire. It is a text that I didn't love, but really appreciate, if that makes any sense.
Yes, I think that's the best thing about Mrs Dalloway and also how she shows the dilemma of feeling other people's pain. Obviously the soldier with PTSD is suffering horribly, but people in society are so wrapped up in their own subjective troubles they don't know how to relate to it.
I think because I stumbled into Virginia Woolf completely by accident it kept me from any preconceived ideas. The same was true for me and Sylvia Plath. I was not a good student and barely escaped with my HS diploma and entered the military quickly. I am only now in my 50’s reading for just pleasure and meaning and understanding the atmosphere surrounding these two writers like i do now I don’t think it would have been the same. Going in blind to Orlando/A Room of Ones Own/The Waves and Plath’s The Bell Jar/and poems was a discovery I cherish and indulge probably daily. Woolf’s wit, asides, admonishments, humor, observations make me smile and gasp and say many things out loud probably more than any writer and still holds up today. Thank you ✌️!
Ohhh perfect timing, I just finished The Waves a couple weeks ago and Orlando last week. I read Mrs. Dalloway a few months ago. The Waves is also my favorite, and Orlando is certainly a great example of Woolf’s humor. For me, reading her persistently (and outside of school now, escaping that intimidation) really helped, and I somehow found The Waves most accessible surprisingly.
This will be a great video to come back to over and over!
Thanks! Glad you've been enjoying so many of her books lately too. And it's good to hear The Waves was accessible. It took me a few readings to get the big distinctions between the characters since it's all in such a poetic language.
I am taking a college class entirely centered around Virginia Woolf this semester. I just finished reading Jacob’s Room (literally minutes ago) and was looking for an analysis video on RUclips - sadly there were hardly any results, but your video did come up and I love your enthusiasm! I am an English literature major and love what Woolf has to say about so many topics that are still incredibly relevant to this day. Thank you for your video! It makes me happy to see other people as enthusiastic about books (especially ‘classic’ authors like Woolf) because so many people find it bulky and not worth the effort to read and try to understand.
your passion is so endearing!!!!! also a perspective from someone who has read her work multiple times throughout his life is amazing because my 17 year old self has never read her stuff but im looking forward to it!
I didn't get to Orlando in September but I am reading it this weekend. Your admiration for her work certainly makes me want to pick it up today.
Great, I hope you enjoy it. It's such an imaginative journey she takes you on.
I have read a bit of Virginia Woolf but sadly it was many years ago. Clearly I should pick her up again. I loved your video and hearing your passion and excitement for Virginia Woolf. I am quite sure you could get anyone to read. Thank you Eric. The world would be so quite without you.
Thank you Robin! You're so kind.
Oh, wow! I love all of this! In my youth I’ve skimmed more than read Woolf (my impatient brain) and have wanted to go through her writings actually reading all the words. I am knee deep in Victober right now and a promise to myself to see my reading through, but after that it’s mostly new releases and holidays grabbing my time so I could read her then. I think I’d like that. Thanks for bumping her up on my list.
Well, now we know who's NOT afraid of her, do we not... ;)
This just makes me want to disappear into a year(s) long Woolf readathon, starting this very minute! I have read Mrs Dalloway three times and loved it more each time; was blown away by my first read of To The Lighthouse last December, but yeah The Waves has a special place in my Woolf-heart. Maybe it was the mid-nineties when I read it, and I remember trying to talk about it to my best (and very bookish) friend and getting all choked up - realizing in the moment that a work of literature had never had that deep of an effect on me before. So yeah, time for a re-read. I am very tentatively planning to re-read it in December and then re-read Red Clocks right after; it would be part of a year-end tradition I am thinking about inaugurating (someone owes me $64 for that word) - setting December aside to re-read all (or at least as many as time permits) of my top reads for the year, to sink that much deeper into them before wrapping the year up as a good BookTuber should. :) Dying to finally read Orlando - looking for a buddy reader to start the year off with that, 2019: wonder if Curtis has read it yet? :)
This video made me very happy.
My favourite thing in the world is debating with other people who love The Waves what characters we relate to the most. Of course, this changes all the time for me. One day I'll be Neville and then next I'll feel like Susan.
That's a very ambitious Woolf plan already so I'll be eager to follow your progress, but no pressure to get to more of her books when there are so many others to read as well.
Eric Karl Anderson I remember almost nothing about The Waves all these years later, other than how deeply moved I was,, but those character names do ring a bit of a bell. I just ordered the exact same edition as yours, so gorgeous , but don’t worry, no plans to grow a mustache, start using my middle name, or start a blog or anything… 😛
Instablaster.
The waves is beautiful - one of my favourite books
To the Lighthouse has some of the most inspired passages I've ever read. Some of Woolf's essays are fantastic. The Years has moments of genius. Her use of language in her letters is so fluid.
Which essays would you recommend? I would love to read some.
I started my reading of Virginia Woolf this year with Mrs Dalloway. I was prepared that this would be something completely out of my experience, but it made me feel diminished in some way that I am not part of an elitist, intellectual group. I am plannng on reading A Room of One’s Own in November, in the hope that her non fiction will help me get a better grip of her style. Ultimately, Virginia may not be for me, but your help in appreciating her is, well, appreciated! Thank you!
I think Woolf's language is so formalized and precisely laid out it can have that alienating effect. But I think the more you read you get accustomed to that and seeing there is humour and a sense of not taking everything so seriously in her writing. I hope you find her nonfiction illuminating.
Loved this discussion Eric as well as your written review. I read four of the novels at college, twenty odd years ago and Orlando was one of my favorites, as was the film with Tilda Swindon. I think I liked all of them although have recollections The Waves was tricky. Because of this uncertainty about how I felt or to see if I feel differently ow. I’m planning on rereading them gradually as well as reading Jacob’s Room and Night and Day which I recently picked up secondhand, I know very little about these two. My reread of Orlando was a success and I felt like I saw so much more to it this time so am looking forward to future rereadings!
Oh that's great to hear. I need to rewatch the film - I haven't seen it in years! I read Night and Day many years ago and I remember liking it but I think it felt like quite a conventional story compared to her books from Jacob's Room onward. I hope you'll find more in The Waves if you get time to reread this also.
I love it that you've one this Woolf video essay! Woolf is a writer I discovered about 40 years ago and she one of those very special authors who I return to every few years again and again. I also love what Michael Cunningham did with Woolf in The Hours. Have you read her diaries, Eric? (The huge, multi-volume editions I referring to?) They're wonderful. Thanks so much!
Thank you! There's no competition as anyone who reads Woolf wins. Haha.
Both the book and the film of The Hours are exquisite.
I've read sections of the diaries. Like with Joyce Carol Oates' journals they contain so many nuggets of wisdom and insight it's easy to get lost in them.
Perfect timing! I just downloaded the complete Woolf on my Kindle last night for 99p, and have been immersed in A Writer's Diary. Amazing stuff. Now I'm planning to read everything from start to finish. Hopefully.
That's great Curtis! Hope you continue enjoying her. She's endlessly fascinating.
Hi Eric. I recently started but did not finish Mrs. Dalloway. I'm currently reading and enjoying To the Lighthouse.
I love Virginia Woolf so much! The Waves is also my favorite novel of all time. And I think I just fell in love with you, too.
Always happy to meet a fellow fan of The Waves. I've had a special project around the novel I've wanted to do for ages but I don't know if I'll ever find the time.
And thank you! 😊
Mrs Dalloway used to be my most hated book but then I re-read it earlier this year and it was actually alright, I enjoyed it. Now I need to read some more of her stuff :D
Cool, I'd really recommend trying Orlando since it's one of her most enjoyable novels.
@@EricKarlAnderson Thanks for the recommendation, I'll keep my eyes peeled!
This is fun, because I am just reading "The waves" for the first time and have read "The lonely city" last summer (for the second time), it really is a great book, also a sad one. But so inspiring. Thanks for your video. Very interesting.
I love your enthusiasm for her work! I sadly haven't picked up anything by her yet although I've been wanting to pick up To The Lighthouse and The Waves for years. Maybe next year I will :)
Once you start reading her I predict you'll get addicted to Woolf. 😄
Thanks for sharing videos. They are very nice and informative. Good work!!! I just discovered Virginia Woolf. I enjoyed to the lighthouse and mrs dalloway very much and I read them both twice just because they are just filled with beautiful language and wonderful metaphors. I just started a room of ones own, and find myself struggeling to get into it. I am considering skipping it and going straight to Orlando. I do want to complete it at some point. Do you have any suggestions on how I can approach it?
Lovely! This has gotten me so excited to get back into reading Woolf. I want to read something else by her before the year is up😊
Ah, so glad I could spark your enthusiasm. She's wondrous. I hope you're well!
I have read the waves, orlando, mrs dalloway, to the lighthouse and a room of ones own. I loved the waves, but didn't really get through many of the layers even on the second read and it is really depressing. My favorites are to the lighthouse and a room of ones own. Both are so exact and revealling.
Wonderful! When I was in my twenties, I had a year of reading everything by Woolf, novels, essays, letters , diaries. All but The Waves. So there's that. I remember loving it, of course, but still found some of the fiction strangely impenetrable. Started rereading the novels this year, and now do not understand why I found it difficult back then, it is so precise and clear , so beautiful and wise. Now must overcome my strange fear of The Waves.
How interesting you've felt so intimidated by The Waves. What put you off? But yes, I think her books are very approachable in one way, but are full of so many surprises they are so worth revisiting. I would love to know what you think of The Waves once you finally get to it as I believe you are destined to read it. :)
I am, I am. It has been on my shelves ever since. It is strange, because at the same time I would read things like Ulysses and the postmodernists without any problems. I just now opened it again, and there is something about the first pages that tells me 'stay away', but I won't listen this time
I read my first Woolf this year and really enjoyed it! I would love to dive more into her backlog.
Also, I loved your discussion of Woolf's view on Cavendish, who I am also interested in reading. I didn't know that before, even though I'm pretty sure I had to read A Room of One's Own for literary theory in university. Maybe it just didn't stick because I wasn't familiar with Cavendish. But I am particularly fascinated that someone who wrote a fabulist story herself (Orlando) would disparage a writer who also was experimenting with genre and unconventional narratives in fiction.
Anyway, lovely and thoughtful video as always :)
Thanks! I'd love to hear what you think of her other books when you get time for them.
Whenever a writer talks in that way about another writer's work it feels to me like there must be some jealousy there. But it also feels that Woolf was so precise with everything she wrote that any ideas that aren't perfectly thought out or composed in writing irritate her.
And, of course, the gossipy side of me just gets thrilled at hearing what authors think of each other. :)
I've fallen at firs sight after I read The Wave the way she wright is so beautiful
Yes, it's gorgeous!
Reading the biography by Quentin Bell. Really good. I’ve read about half. Will make it a project this summer
Oh I'd be keen to read that at some point. Hope you enjoy it!
I've only read Mrs. Dalloway and while I liked it, I didn't like it enough to seek out more Virginia Woolf. However, watching this video makes me want to get my hands on as much Woolf as possible, especially Orlando. I loved your discussion of Virginia Woolf's opinion of Margaret Cavendish's writing. That makes me even more curious about Woolf.
I think you'd be so fascinated by Orlando, Amy! It's so imaginative and inventive and gets you thinking about a number of issues from a unique perspective.
I love Virginia Woolf' s novels! I possess them all and i read them all..almost. .cause "the waves" cut me off. But i think i'll give it another try. Her best novels are "to the lighthouse" and "mrs dalloway". Did you read "who is afraid of Virginia Woolf" by albee?
I just finished Mrs. Dalloway, and I struggled with it, did not enjoy. I want to try reading her other books, so thank you!
Wonderful Eric. I've only read 'A Room Of One's Own'. Perhaps you should lead a Woolftube next year?
Thank you. And that's a really fun idea!
I love The Waves. Saludos desde Colombia!
Kindred spirit! 😄
I've just been reading your blog post about Virginia too. I never knew anything about Orlando but it sounds a really original read. I too love Monks House and visited it many years ago, its such a special place for me because of the atmosphere it still has. I have a blog post about her too if you wanted to read it. bookmagpie.uk/2018/07/22/virginia-woolf-through-the-census-part-1/
Gill
Thanks Gill. I love how passionate everyone at Monks House is too when giving tours and talking about the Woolfs.
Your enthusiasm for Woolf is infectious. Admittedly, I find her writing to be a bit of a slog. Mind you, I've only read Mrs. Dalloway and went in with high expectations of having this work really challenge and move me. I did think she did a great job of showing the complexity of the interwar period and the decline of empire. It is a text that I didn't love, but really appreciate, if that makes any sense.
Yes, I think that's the best thing about Mrs Dalloway and also how she shows the dilemma of feeling other people's pain. Obviously the soldier with PTSD is suffering horribly, but people in society are so wrapped up in their own subjective troubles they don't know how to relate to it.
😀