The Years: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition

by Virginia Woolf

Book Overview

The principal theme of this ambitious book is Time, threading together three generations of an upper-class English family, the Pargiters. The characters come and go, meet, talk, think, dream, grow older, in a continuous ritual of life that eludes meaning.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156997010
• ISBN13: 9780156997010
• Release Date: October 1969
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 444 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent!

This is one of Woolf's best, if not THE best. It follows a family through decades, showing the changes in them and the changes in the world around them. That stream-of-consciousness style that she is so famous for runs smoothly in The Years, and just flows over the reader. It was hard for me to tear myself away from this book. . . I had to simply shut the book, often in mid-sentance, to make myself stop reading. This comes highly recommended.

Anticipation

Eleanor felt that the poor enjoyed themselves more than they did. They were stuck at home too much. In 1891 Eleanor Pargiter was a social worker. It is now 1907 and Edward Pargiter, brother of Eleanor, has produced an English translation of Sophocles's Antigone. Moving forward, it is 1908 and Martin Pargiter has visited his father and his sister, Eleanor. 1911 produces a scene of Rose with her cousins Sarah and Maggie, daughters of Sir Digby. Maggie has married a Frenchman later on. There is a meeting of Kitty, Lady Lasswade, and Eleanor. Following the meeting Kitty was going to the opera and so she was dressed in formal clothes. Eleanor thought that Kitty had the great lady's manner. Eleanor felt dowdy compared with Kitty. Edward Pargiter was present at the opera. Lucy Craddock had been Kitty's tutor at Oxford. Eleanor is found at the country place of her brother Morris's mother in law. Her father died. She had no attachments at the moment. Her sister in law Celia told her there was to be a village fete. Eleanor met Sir William Whatney there. She had not seen him since he had been to India. Peggy and North, her niece and nephew, came in. She thought her growing interest in birds was a sign of old age. Eleanor sold the family house and made arrangements for Crosby, the servant, to depart. She left with the family dog who soon had to be put down because it was aged, disabled, and suffering. Martin, called Captain Pargiter, did not marry. He encountered Kitty who introduced him to Ann Hillier. Martin said to Kitty that Eleanor was a queer old bird.During the war Eleanor at one point dined with Maggie and her husband. Maggie felt that Eleanor looked like an abbess. The story shifts to the present day and Eleanor is shown having returned from India. It is noted by one of the characters that Edward and Kitty had been very much in love but that Kitty had married another man. Pleasure is increased by sharing it. This book is a pleasure to have and to read. Is there a pattern, a theme? Virginia Woolf was a pattern maker. This work anticipates THREE GUINEAS and BETWEEN THE ACTS. It is in a new manner for Virginia Woolf. Leonard Woolf wrote that he did not care for it but stifled his displeasure to spare his wife agony.

A True Masterpiece for all Time.

If an immortal were to ask me what is is like to be mortal, and live with a family and with time and with age, I would hand him this book, and feel confident that he would get a grasp of our experience. Mrs. Woolf has gathered the dimension of time in this novel through simple passages of conversation that left my heart sinking and rising. What an achievement! I read this after reading Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One's Own, and The Waves. In this novel she was trying to cut her style back, making it more concise, and moving away from experimentation. Yet, she produced a most unique novel.

An under-appreciated gem from Woolf

_The Years_ is the story of three generations of the Pargiter family. Stretching from 1880 to the 1920s, it follows the Pargiters through the tumultuous historical events and social changes of that era. Abel Pargiter is a retired civil servant; his daughter Eleanor is interested in social work; his son Edward becomes an academic; his grandson North is a veteran of the Great War. Their interactions and reflections comment upon their experiences in their always changing world.In my opinion, _The Years_ ranks with as one of Woolf's greatest novels. It shows that Woolf was more than a feminist and more than a stylist--she was also a perceptive critic and observer of her society. She shows the plight of "the daughter of educated men" in a world that denies them education and careers; she shows the effect of the Great War on its survivors. And all the while, she writes her typical lyrical prose she writes about the passage of time: "Slowly wheeling, like the rays of a searchlight, the days, the weeks, the years passed one after another across the sky."It is interesting to note that Woolf originally planned to write _The Years_ (with _Three Guineas) as a novel-essay called _The Pargiters_. The writing of this novel was extremely difficult, and it is much longer than most of her novels. In some ways it is much less experimental in form than _The Waves_, yet Woolf herself worried that the monologues of _The Waves_ left too much of the external world out--_The Years_ is, in part, an answer to that sentiment. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading Woolf or modern fiction. It probably isn't the best starter novel for Woolf (_Mrs Dalloway_ or _To the Lighthouse_ are better introductions to her style), but it's a beautiful piece of work. _Three Guineas_, Woolf's feminist pamphlet about "how to prevent war", is also worth reading after _The Years_. They complement each other very well, which is not surprising in light of their common origins.

Woolf's sharp pricture of England from 1880 to 1920

Spanning perhaps the most important fourty years of English history, Woolf's novel weaves together a fragmented view of life in England from 1880 to roughly 1920. Touching on some common themes from her more well known work, "The Years" focuses on humans attempting to recover part of the past, and build toward an always uncertain future. Woolf's stories of personal interaction in a world becoming increasingly modern still honesty today for a world that could still use more.