Elles

by Virginia Woolf, Maxime Rovere (Translator)

Elles sont grandes dames ou simples bourgeoises, débutantes ou femmes du monde. Elles vivent à la Renaissance, en pleine Révolution française, au début ou à la fin du XIXe siècle. Elles fréquentent qui les rois, qui les anarchistes, qui les philosophes. Le plus souvent, elles sont éclipsées par leur père, par leur frère, par leur mari, voire par leur créature. Mais leur point commun n'est pas leur sexe ; c'est le courage avec lequel elles s'élancent dans le vide - celui de la page blanche - pour découvrir en vol des espaces inconnus. Le portrait que Virginia Woolf consacre à chacune d'entre elles fait à chaque fois vibrer une sensibilité unique, précieuse, plus rare que ne furent jamais les diamants. Son livre n'est pas celui d'une militante. De salons en imprimeries, dans la paisible campagne de Madame de Sévigné ou parmi l'activité bouillonnante des poètes métaphysiques, Virginia Woolf, si rarement à l'aise en société, ne construit pas un mausolée aux Grandes Dames. Parmi les figures éternelles du génie féminin, la plus drôle d'entre elles se choisit des amies, simplement.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Classics, Biography, 20th Century, Literature, British Literature

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Reviews

[Kathy Kattenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of some of Virginia Woolf's essays about writers (both of and before her time) is delightful to read. I've always enjoyed Woolf's non-fiction better than her fiction. All of the essays are at least good; many are considerably better than that. The two most remarkable ones for me were her pieces on Henry David Thoreau, and on Rupert Brooke. The last paragraph of the latter almost brought me to tears. I'll quote the first and last sentences: "No one could have doubted that as soon as war broke out he would go without hesitation to enlist. ... One turns from the thought of him not with a sense of completeness and finality, but rather to wonder and to question still: what would he have been, what would he have done?"

[Hiroto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is going to sound cheesy but. I feel so much love and respect for women of word right now. This is my first time reading Virginia Wolf, and reading her writing about intellectual women with sometimes amusement, but always witj respect and with fondness I guess, I absolutely loved it. I feel like, in three pages, I knew and understood everything about the character of each of them, and every conclusion made my heart wanting to know so much more about them, even though their essence were perfectly conveyed. So much talent Wolf had, to make them real and tangible and like I was their contemporary.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sharp, intelligent, witty and irreverent, Woolf's criticism is second to none.

[Ann Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una muestra de nostalgia desde el punto de vista de las cartas y de mujeres que Virginia revive con tanta pasión y tal como si ellas siguieran en movimiento, desvela sus vidas, sentimientos y sobretodo pensamientos, los que estan puestos en palabras, y cómo ellas ven, sienten y reflejan el mundo que las rodea. Mujeres y paisajes vividos y brillantes.

[Daniel Clausen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a collection of Virginia Woolf's short essays and literary criticism, often written for periodicals, often about lesser-known writers and frivolous themes. The book contains one writer’s overlooked treasures. Thus, it is only fitting that I should find this book on the discard table of my university library, along with copies of books like MS Office 2002. It’s never too late to learn MS Office circa 2002 and it’s never too late to discover Virginia Woolf. 

In sharp, sweeping prose that often dwells on the everyday, puts the forgotten and overlooked under a microscope, there is a soft whisper in every sentence: “Pay attention.” 

Take this sentence from the short essay “A Woman College from Outside” – “The feathery white moon never let the sky grow dark, all night the chestnut blossoms were white in the green, and dim was the cow-parsley in the meadows.” 

Take this passage and make it your get-well card for a time when prose and life seem too terse. As you do, be sure to embrace the night, for night is “free pasture, a limitless field unmolded richness, one must tunnel into its darkness. One must hang it with jewels.” The jewels might be the words of an author, found on the discard table of a university library, or it may be a night that teases your own prose jewels into being. 

In the essay, “English Prose,” Woolf asks, “for who reads prose?” (In the 21st century, for that matter, who reads books?) She compares prose writing to Wizardry, almost as a kind of dark art. It does seem to me, as I read Woolf, that perhaps I have been confining myself to a kind of dark ages of prose. In recent memory, other than James Baldwin, I can’t remember reading prose as delightful as this. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I believe, is an altogether different beast, translated as his works are from Spanish, the sentences are complexified too much by magical realist details and abundance.

Woolf’s prose in this book is different. Listen to how Woolf describes bad prose: “But then – what is it? Something bald and bare and glittering – something light and brittle – something which suggests that if this precious fruit were dropped it would shiver into particles of silvery dust like one of those balls that were plucked from the boughs of ancient Christmas trees, and slipped and fell.” 

Good prose – at the very least ornamental prose – to describe bad prose. Oh, what diminished bounty have Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and other instant media left us with? 

It’s June 16th, 2024. Though I am poor, I own a hardback and some paper. More importantly, I own my time on this sunny, windy day. On Ms. Woolf’s prose, I shall endeavor to sail yet further down this warm day’s possibilities. When Woolf gives criticisms, she writes, “Lightly then will I run over a few suggestions and leave them to wither or perhaps fall on fertile soil.” And so, will I suggest that when you live as I do – by the word – give thanks, read, write...and though ungainly for a writer: smile. 

Ms. Woolf makes an interesting point – novelists rarely write good prose. Perhaps that is a good thing – as if writing were a zero-sum game, what is gained in the prose is lost in the scenes, characters, plot, and dialogue. 

In the essay, “Patmore’s Criticism,” Woolf writes a review of her own book. “Books of collected essays are always the hardest to read…it is often only the binding that joins them (the essays) together…our foreboding that we shall be jerked from topic to topic and set down in the end with a litter of broken pieces is in this case quite unfounded.” 

[Katiuska Lucero · Rating 4 out of 5]

*English review at the end

Este es el primer libro que leo de Virginia Woolf y la verdad es que no puedo esperar para comprarme otro de sus libros. Hace algunos años llevo queriendo leer sus obras, pero no generaba la oportunidad; y un día de compras en la librería veo la portada en la que aparece su rostro y dije: “Es ahora o nunca”.
Para mí, este es uno de esos libros que toma tiempo terminar, no porque sea tedioso de leer, sino pues cada párrafo deja reflexionando. Todas las paginas reflejan la pasión que ella siente por la literatura y el arte en general, cosa que me hizo sentir muy identificada y que por ende me encante más. Asimismo, la manera en la que se expresa de otras escritoras, con tanto respeto y admiración; me daba muchas vibras de empoderamiento femenino y no podía estar más encantada con su manera de pensar.
En conclusión, la mezcla de una mente crítica y afilada, y el corazón sensible y excitable frente a la belleza de las palabras, las melodías y las pinturas; hace de los escritos de Virginia Woolf una experiencia única de leer.

English review:
This is the first book I read by Virginia Woolf and the truth is that I can't wait to buy another of her books. I have been wanting to read her works for some years, but it did not generate the opportunity; and one day of shopping in the bookstore I see the cover on which her face appears and I said: "It's now or never."
For me, this is one of those books that takes time to finish, not because it is tedious to read, but because each paragraph is very thought-provoking. All the pages reflect the passion she feels for literature and art in general, something that made me feel very identified and therefore I love it more. Also, the way in which she expresses herself about other female writers/characters, with so much respect and admiration; She gave me so many feminine empowering vibes that I couldn't be more delighted with the way she thinks.
In conclusion, the mixture of a critical and sharp mind, and a sensitive and excitable heart in the face of the beauty of words, melodies and paintings; makes Virginia Woolf's writings a unique reading experience.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Woolf is in the woods and it can be so hard for me to join her there. She weaves her words around herself, to be a map for you, but before you learn the ropes they seem to constitute so many webs. This impression is not helped by the fact that this is a collection of book reviews and 'portraits', the former being largely collections of letters, memoirs, et cetera, the stuff of relationship, the stuff of living lives as they mesh with other ones, which may be my passion but it's certainly not my strength. But Woolf's glowing hawk eye picks up on imperceptible wonders of character and scratches them out onto the page in such a way that you the reader are pulled ably along, to peer into the depths of humanity and fear not, for the guiding hand on your arm underwater. Amazing. Loved the impressions of Dostoevsky the best, I think.

[Arif Abdurahman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bayangkanlah Woolf jadi tukang review Goodreads. Kalau dibaca cowok pasti bakal kerasa lagi baca tulisan seorang feminis sinis hehe.

[maJo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantástico, como siempre. Retratos de mujeres que como ella, marcaron la historia de la literatura.

[Pippindemie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5.

[Pauline (Kiriiti's Blog) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Virgnia Woolf présente dans ce livre des femmes qui se sont démarquées chacune à leur époque d’une manière qui n’a pas toujours plu à la société. Bien que l’idée soit bonne, la plume de l’auteur n’a pas réussi à m’embarquer auprès de ces femmes et j’ai souvent décroché.

[Fernando Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

📚¿Cómo se conoce realmente a una persona? Es muy difícil comprender los pensamientos, creencias e ideologías que esconde cada mente; aspectos que cambian y evolucionan con el pasar de los años. #VirginiaWoolf encontró en las correspondencias escritas por cinco destacadas mujeres, la herramienta perfecta para adentrarse en la mente de "#Ellas". Limitadas por los regímenes de la sociedad de su época, encontraron en las cartas la forma de sacar de adentro ese espíritu literario acallado por su comunidad. Woolf las describe como notables mujeres que tuvieron la mala suerte de nacer en una época que no las dejó desarrollarse por completo. Quizás hoy tendríamos novelas y poesías salidas de las mentes de estas ilustres mujeres.

Woolf supo construir cada historia teniendo solo como instrumento (a veces una ventaja, otras una desventaja) la correspondencia que ellas compartieron con amigos, amantes y familiares. Muchas veces la vida matrimonial, los hijos, u otras responsabilidades hicieron que sus almas de escritoras permaneciera dormida por periodos.

Con finales muy desgarradores y otros satisfactorios, este libro puede ser un ejemplo para nosotros, que muchas veces frenados por la presión social, nos dejamos absorber y mantenemos dormidas nuestras verdaderas pasiones.

Sígueme en Instagram @kevinrodriguezgiron

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to read reviews of novels in translation (Constance Garnett's translation of Dostoevsky) which were then being published. I enjoy Woolf's non-fiction.