Virginia Woolf (January 25 1882-March 28, 1941)
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories (1944)
We find here in this short story an experimental piece of work from Virginia Woolf's production called "The Haunted House". This author is one of the great innovator in the English Language and one of the best Modernist novelists of the twentieth century due to the themes she develops in her stories. Woolf’s chief preoccupations are the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence and meditation on the themes of time and life. Her peculiarity is putting the strenght on darkness, and her telling of the outside life and the inside of human minds.
Through the story, the narrator tells us her feelings when she gets into a house where the sounds of the wind, the shunting doors, allows her to listen to a couple voices searching the house for something they have forgotten. At the same time the house takes part of the dialogue as a living being, with a beating heart, talking to the couple.The abundancy of visual and auditory impressions captures the reader’s attention and holds it to the end.
In her work Woolf experiments with "stream of consciousness", where she underlynes psychological as well as characters’ feelings and her creativity shows an intense lyricism and the exquisite prose of her narrative carries the readers to "a little further against the dark"(E.M.Forster).
“Death was a glass; death was between us” A haunted house is absolutely gripping , quite moving and well thought-out short story. Highly recommended.
11 comments:
Hi there. I don't like the style of Virginia Woolf beacuse I had to deal with it when my english was not good enough and it was too difficult for me to understand and eventually, I left it because I could not follow the situation. Now, maybe I can try with this one and see if it convinces me.
Virginia wolf was a modern writer who diferred in some aspects with the contemporary Ernest Hemingway who, by the way, was a modern writer like her. The latter, however, had an objective, minimalist style of writing. I study in Language and Culture II last year that Virginia Wolf usually focused on the psychological and inner sides of a particular character describing the inner perceptions and sentiments of the character in question and foremost placed in a particular predicament in the story. Different from Hemingway, she was more subjective rather than objective. I guess that the concept 'stream of concioussnes' refers to this idea, does it? Disgracefully, I have no had the opportunity to read any short story about Virginia. However, after reading your article, I instantly remember about her and I would surely start reading this short story.
Néstor
I agree with Robert,I think sometimes it is very difficult to read Virgian Woolfs stories. Last year, in Culture I, we read THE LADY IN THE LOOKING GLASS (it was one of the first stories we read at the profesorado)and i remember that I had to read it two or three times to understand it.However, I think that her style of writing is very interesting because lets the reader know more about her way of thinking,and her feelings.
The only thing I've read about Woolf was a short story called "The Lady in the Looking Glass" which was good, so I'd like to read something else about her.
I agree with Jesica Lopez. Two years ago I read " The lady in the looking glass" by Virginia Woolf and it was awful. I had to read it three times. And it was too difficult to follow.
As Yesica.P and Jesica.L, I read "The Lady in the Looking Glass" by Vinginia Woolf and it was one of the most difficult stories to follow I have ever read. In fact, I read it three times and I still have some doubts about the plot of the story. I don´t like Vinginia Woolf stile of writing.
Well, I finally read "A haunted house" and I think this is the kind of writing you read for pleasure,I mean for the sake of reading, because I think is very difficult to spot the message in Woolfs´stories, in fact I don´t think some of them have a message at all, but well, as I said before, it´s really interesting to deal with different writers so as to discover your own tastes, and to compare between them, such as we do with real life.
Dear mates, I agree that Virginia Woolf is not an easy reading writer. The thing that has helped me was to read her biography and you will understand that her way of writing has a strong connection with her awful childhood. She had not a happy life and she was ahead the thoughts of the modern time.
I agree with Maria Laura. I think that knowing about the author´s background helps to understand their way of writing and the topics they choose to talk about. When we had to read a book written by Doris Lessing, "The Grandmothers", it was very useful to know that she was a feminist when she was younger. By analizing every short story of the book we realizad that the role of women in all of them was the most important. Considering this I think I will read Virginis Woolf´s biography. Maybe it will help me to understand her way of writting, as Maria Laura says.
Hi there! I agree with Maria Laura and Jesica. for understanding better Virginia Woolf's pieces of writimg, you have to know her background. She had a terrible life, and dead too. As Mariana said, I only read a short story called "The lady in the looking glass". I didn't like it very much, but I think that was because I read it in first year and I didn't know much about her "stream of consciousness" way of writing.
I will try to read something by her.
I agree with the most of you because I think that Woolf´s style is very difficult to understand.
I read The Lady in the Looking Glass and it was no a good experience. Despite of this fact, the themes about she used to write were interesting.
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