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Мысли о мире во время воздушного налета
В сборник эссе знаменитой английской писательницы Вирджинии Вульф (1882–1941) вошли небольшие аналитические тексты, написанные тем же насыщенным художественным языком, что и ее большая проза. Одни работы были задуманы как брутальная социальная полемика, другие напоминают скорее литературные очерки, пробники модернистских романов или психологические этюды. В каждом эссе этого сборника Вулф проявляет себя чутким регистратором современности, создавая тексты-мгновения, трудно уловимые наброски, картины и интуиции нового века.
Заглавная работа «Мысли о мире во время воздушного налета» была написана в августе 1940 года для американского симпозиума о проблемах современных женщин. В ней Вулф рассуждает, как патриархальное стремление властвовать и порабощать приводит к войнам и диктатурам.
Заглавная работа «Мысли о мире во время воздушного налета» была написана в августе 1940 года для американского симпозиума о проблемах современных женщин. В ней Вулф рассуждает, как патриархальное стремление властвовать и порабощать приводит к войнам и диктатурам.
113 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1941
9 people are currently reading
828 people want to read
About the author
Virginia Woolf
1,853 books28.9k followers(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."
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."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
November 14, 2009
This slim collection (roughly 100 pages) of ten essays by Virgina Woolf, published as part of the "Penguin Great Ideas" series may be the best book I've read in the past ten years. It's also one of the hardest to review. The explanation is straightforward - every time I try, the review just devolves into tired cliches ("shimmering prose", "scintillating wit", "a writer at the height of her powers", anyone?) or fills up with direct quotes from the work itself. Not just skimpy little quotelets either, but huge, copyright-infringing, chunks of text. Pagesfull. I want to share every genius-soaked paragraph with you, and once I start, I just can't stop.
So, how to proceed? Why not implement a little self-restraint by resorting to that tired old device of listing the individual essay titles (easy) and - for a selected few - giving a few brief comments on wherein I think their genius lies (hard).
Well, duh, the genius lies in Virginia, of course. It pains me to acknowledge that, until about 6 months ago, I had this image of VW that was pretty much completely at odds with her warmth, wit, and ability to write prose that sparkles and enchants. (I'm sorry - that sounds so ridiculously pretentiously critspeak, but it's bloody well true. I will try to avoid the words "limpid" and "limn" in this review, if that's any consolation). How could I have been so wrong - she's smart as a whip, she's funny, and writes as if taking dictation from on high. Boy, can this woman write. I really, really, really hope that you will beg, borrow, or steal this collection to experience it for yourself.
So what does she write about here?
1. Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid.
2. Street Haunting.
3. Oxford Street Tide.
4. Craftsmanship.
5. The Art of Biography.
6. How it Strikes a Contemporary.
7. Why?
8. The Patron and the Crocus.
9. Modern Fiction.
10. How Should One Read a Book?
Each of the 9 essays I've read so far has blown me away, either because it contains one or more flashes of pure insight, or because of the incomparable quality of the writing, and - in most cases - some combination of the two. In six pages, the title essay contains some of the sanest observations about war in anything I've read outside of Orwell. The second two essays capture the quotidian pleasures of walking the streets of London with a wit and perspicacity that leaves me slack-jawed in admiration. Essay #4, one of my favorites (together with the final essay, which is simply perfect) is a spellbinding discourse on the slippery charm of words. Essays 6, 8, and 9 contain some of the most cogent remarks about writing that I have ever read. #7 is a hilarious takedown of those who would write or lecture about literature.
But it's the final essay in this book that raises the whole collection to my top 5 books of all time list (there's going to be some ugly rearranging that will have to take place on my "top 20" shelf, and a difficult choice lies ahead).
"How Should One Read a Book?" is where my self-discipline breaks down. This is an essay that demands to be quoted from. In whole chunks. With difficulty, I will confine myself to three:
The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. ... To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions - there we have none.
In your face, Harold Bloom!
Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words.
I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns ... the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy, as He sees us coming with our books under our arms: "Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading."
By the time the title essay of this collection was published, Virgina Woolf had already filled her pockets with stones and walked into the river Ouse. I find her suicide enormously saddening, particularly given the brilliance of these essays. Subsequent deaths, such as those of Sylvia Plath and David Foster Wallace, suggests that such brilliance comes at a price.
But the work lives on. You have to read these essays! They are astonishing, in the best possible way.
So, how to proceed? Why not implement a little self-restraint by resorting to that tired old device of listing the individual essay titles (easy) and - for a selected few - giving a few brief comments on wherein I think their genius lies (hard).
Well, duh, the genius lies in Virginia, of course. It pains me to acknowledge that, until about 6 months ago, I had this image of VW that was pretty much completely at odds with her warmth, wit, and ability to write prose that sparkles and enchants. (I'm sorry - that sounds so ridiculously pretentiously critspeak, but it's bloody well true. I will try to avoid the words "limpid" and "limn" in this review, if that's any consolation). How could I have been so wrong - she's smart as a whip, she's funny, and writes as if taking dictation from on high. Boy, can this woman write. I really, really, really hope that you will beg, borrow, or steal this collection to experience it for yourself.
So what does she write about here?
1. Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid.
2. Street Haunting.
3. Oxford Street Tide.
4. Craftsmanship.
5. The Art of Biography.
6. How it Strikes a Contemporary.
7. Why?
8. The Patron and the Crocus.
9. Modern Fiction.
10. How Should One Read a Book?
Each of the 9 essays I've read so far has blown me away, either because it contains one or more flashes of pure insight, or because of the incomparable quality of the writing, and - in most cases - some combination of the two. In six pages, the title essay contains some of the sanest observations about war in anything I've read outside of Orwell. The second two essays capture the quotidian pleasures of walking the streets of London with a wit and perspicacity that leaves me slack-jawed in admiration. Essay #4, one of my favorites (together with the final essay, which is simply perfect) is a spellbinding discourse on the slippery charm of words. Essays 6, 8, and 9 contain some of the most cogent remarks about writing that I have ever read. #7 is a hilarious takedown of those who would write or lecture about literature.
But it's the final essay in this book that raises the whole collection to my top 5 books of all time list (there's going to be some ugly rearranging that will have to take place on my "top 20" shelf, and a difficult choice lies ahead).
"How Should One Read a Book?" is where my self-discipline breaks down. This is an essay that demands to be quoted from. In whole chunks. With difficulty, I will confine myself to three:
The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. ... To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions - there we have none.
In your face, Harold Bloom!
Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words.
I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns ... the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy, as He sees us coming with our books under our arms: "Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading."
By the time the title essay of this collection was published, Virgina Woolf had already filled her pockets with stones and walked into the river Ouse. I find her suicide enormously saddening, particularly given the brilliance of these essays. Subsequent deaths, such as those of Sylvia Plath and David Foster Wallace, suggests that such brilliance comes at a price.
But the work lives on. You have to read these essays! They are astonishing, in the best possible way.
October 21, 2025
Virginia Woolf’un ağırlıklı olarak Londra, edebiyat ve yazmak konularındaki denemelerinden oluşan bir kitap.
Okumaya karar verme sebebim, kitaba başlığını veren Bir Hava Taarruzu Sırasında Barış Üzerine Düşünceler, ilk denemeydi. Kendine Ait Bir Oda tadında ilerlerken bir anda bitti. Woolf’un kurgu dışı eserlerini sevenlerin ilgisini çekecek bir eser.
Okumaya karar verme sebebim, kitaba başlığını veren Bir Hava Taarruzu Sırasında Barış Üzerine Düşünceler, ilk denemeydi. Kendine Ait Bir Oda tadında ilerlerken bir anda bitti. Woolf’un kurgu dışı eserlerini sevenlerin ilgisini çekecek bir eser.
May 15, 2017
This is only my second Virginia Woolf having previously read her fantastic essay "Three Guineas" which I frantically marked up with notes. I didn't think I'd do that to that extreme again but here I am with "Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid" which is equally stunning.
I really don't know what to say about her that hasn't been said already other than she is in my mind the most outstanding, persuasive, uncompromising social critic of the 20th century. Reading her essays, I often imagine her at a cocktail party and some poor fool trying to debate her about women's rights, modern literature, or the necessity of warfare, only to have her rip him apart and scurrying back to his room to break down in tears.
Her ability to cut right to the heart of an argument with wit and unassailable logic truly is unparalleled. In this collection, all of her literary gifts are on full display but in particular, "Street Haunting" and "Why?" are exceptional.
In the former, she walks aimlessly around London at dusk and observes all of the wonderful little things in a city so many of us take for granted.
In the latter, she constructs an ode to simply asking questions. Why in fact, do we do what we do? I laughed out loud when she wondered about the purpose of lectures. One she attended in particular whose speed resembled:
"...the painful progress of a three-legged fly that has survived the winter. How many flies on an average survive the English winter, and what would be the thoughts of such an insect on waking to find itself being lectured on the French Revolution? The inquiry was fatal. A link had been lost – a paragraph dropped. It was useless to ask the lecturer to repeat his words; on he plodded with dogged pertinacity. The origin of the French Revolution was being sought for – also the thoughts of flies. Now there came one of those flat stretches of discourse when minute objects can be seen coming for two or three miles ahead. ‘Skip!’ we entreated him – vainly. He did not skip. There was a joke. Then the voice went on again; then it seemed that the windows wanted washing; then a woman sneezed; then the voice quickened; then there was a peroration; and then – thank Heaven! – the lecture was over.."
This book of essays is filled with wonderful passages such as these which I'm sure Woolf would be gratified to know that I enjoyed far more than any lecture I've ever attended.
I really don't know what to say about her that hasn't been said already other than she is in my mind the most outstanding, persuasive, uncompromising social critic of the 20th century. Reading her essays, I often imagine her at a cocktail party and some poor fool trying to debate her about women's rights, modern literature, or the necessity of warfare, only to have her rip him apart and scurrying back to his room to break down in tears.
Her ability to cut right to the heart of an argument with wit and unassailable logic truly is unparalleled. In this collection, all of her literary gifts are on full display but in particular, "Street Haunting" and "Why?" are exceptional.
In the former, she walks aimlessly around London at dusk and observes all of the wonderful little things in a city so many of us take for granted.
In the latter, she constructs an ode to simply asking questions. Why in fact, do we do what we do? I laughed out loud when she wondered about the purpose of lectures. One she attended in particular whose speed resembled:
"...the painful progress of a three-legged fly that has survived the winter. How many flies on an average survive the English winter, and what would be the thoughts of such an insect on waking to find itself being lectured on the French Revolution? The inquiry was fatal. A link had been lost – a paragraph dropped. It was useless to ask the lecturer to repeat his words; on he plodded with dogged pertinacity. The origin of the French Revolution was being sought for – also the thoughts of flies. Now there came one of those flat stretches of discourse when minute objects can be seen coming for two or three miles ahead. ‘Skip!’ we entreated him – vainly. He did not skip. There was a joke. Then the voice went on again; then it seemed that the windows wanted washing; then a woman sneezed; then the voice quickened; then there was a peroration; and then – thank Heaven! – the lecture was over.."
This book of essays is filled with wonderful passages such as these which I'm sure Woolf would be gratified to know that I enjoyed far more than any lecture I've ever attended.
February 26, 2023
'We must help the young Englishmen to root out from themselves the love of medals and decorations. We must create more honorable activities for those who try to conquer in themselves their fighting instinct, their subconscious Hitlerism. We must compensate the man for the loss of his gun.'
'Tonight, let us think what we can do to create the only efficient air-raid shelter while the guns on the hill go pop pop pop and the searchlights finger the clouds and now and then, sometimes close at hand, sometimes far away, a bomb drops.'
'Tonight, let us think what we can do to create the only efficient air-raid shelter while the guns on the hill go pop pop pop and the searchlights finger the clouds and now and then, sometimes close at hand, sometimes far away, a bomb drops.'
July 1, 2025
Livro curtinho, mas poderoso — ainda mais agora, quando podemos ver, ao vivo, bombas cruzando o céu em movimento, em vez de apenas nos depararmos com elas nos frames estáticos dos livros de história. Nesse ensaio, Woolf me lembrou de algo que costumo esquecer nas minhas falas, no meu ativismo, na minha escrita: o papel das mesas de chá — ou seja, do espaço doméstico — na construção da paz.
Não são apenas nas grandes mesas de negociação que as decisões importantes são tomadas. Afinal, se as mulheres são excluídas de um espaço, elas criam outro, porque ninguém detém a nossa força seminal.
O ensaio, como um todo, me levou a refletir sobre nossas definições reducionistas desses espaços de decisão. O que é, afinal, um espaço de decisão? Quanto já foi decidido ao redor de uma mesa de plástico, ou diante de um fogão? Quanta paz podemos construir nos espaços cotidianos?
Acompanhe as minhas leituras em @leiturasdagabrielle
Não são apenas nas grandes mesas de negociação que as decisões importantes são tomadas. Afinal, se as mulheres são excluídas de um espaço, elas criam outro, porque ninguém detém a nossa força seminal.
O ensaio, como um todo, me levou a refletir sobre nossas definições reducionistas desses espaços de decisão. O que é, afinal, um espaço de decisão? Quanto já foi decidido ao redor de uma mesa de plástico, ou diante de um fogão? Quanta paz podemos construir nos espaços cotidianos?
Acompanhe as minhas leituras em @leiturasdagabrielle
August 8, 2020
3.5
• thoughts on peace in an air raid, street haunting & craftmanship were my favs
• thoughts on peace in an air raid, street haunting & craftmanship were my favs
August 7, 2025
это было очень-очень хорошо. я обожаю эссеистику, особенно эссеистику вулф 😭
легенда
(прочла несколько раз подряд)
легенда
(прочла несколько раз подряд)
September 4, 2021
Paguei pra ler pq fiquei pensando em como estamos de certa forma numa mesma: no caos e tentando sobreviver (seja guerra ou pandemia).
Virgínia tem uma forma muito interessantes de colocar as coisas.
Em dado momento ela diz que "Hitler foi gerado por uma escrava", e embora me incomode um pouco o uso da escravidão sem levar em consideração a questão racial (embora né... Hitler), a ausência de liberdade faz sentido.
Ela fala do pensamento como uma forma de combate, mas também vai além e não diz que é só pensar, tem que haver mobilização.
Enfim... Super curtinho e muito interessante, principalmente quando ela escreve falando dos sons de aviões e bombas e nó estamos aqui usando máscara na rua pra não contrair um vírus e morrer, além das guerras de sempre pelo mundo. E a tal da paz?
Virgínia tem uma forma muito interessantes de colocar as coisas.
Em dado momento ela diz que "Hitler foi gerado por uma escrava", e embora me incomode um pouco o uso da escravidão sem levar em consideração a questão racial (embora né... Hitler), a ausência de liberdade faz sentido.
Ela fala do pensamento como uma forma de combate, mas também vai além e não diz que é só pensar, tem que haver mobilização.
Enfim... Super curtinho e muito interessante, principalmente quando ela escreve falando dos sons de aviões e bombas e nó estamos aqui usando máscara na rua pra não contrair um vírus e morrer, além das guerras de sempre pelo mundo. E a tal da paz?
November 12, 2016
1. Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid.
2. Street Haunting.
3. Oxford Street Tide.
4. Craftsmanship.
5. The Art of Biography.
6. How it Strikes a Contemporary.
7. Why?
8. The Patron and the Crocus.
9. Modern Fiction.
10. How Should One Read a Book?
2. Street Haunting.
3. Oxford Street Tide.
4. Craftsmanship.
5. The Art of Biography.
6. How it Strikes a Contemporary.
7. Why?
8. The Patron and the Crocus.
9. Modern Fiction.
10. How Should One Read a Book?
October 24, 2021
I just read the one essay with the title of the book… it’s the size of a article so I cannot give it more then 3 stars but it’s good tho… like everything she wrote!
July 28, 2023
Türkçe çeviriyi yapan çevirmenim :)
January 18, 2025
uma faceta de virgínia que eu ainda não conhecia: os ensaios que ela escreveu tão potentes e grandiosos que, mesmo curtos, não podemos deixar passar. virgínia era pura sabedoria.
August 16, 2022
Thinking is my fighting.
I read this more or less as an accident. Because I thought that the quote above was part of this extremely short essay. Spoiler alert, it's not. It's actually from her diaries, though the idea is definitely in the core of this work.
The sound of sawing overhead has increased. All the searchlights are erect. They point at a spot exactly above this roof. At any moment a bomb may fall on this very room. One, two, three, four, five, six ... the seconds pass. The bomb did not fall. But during those seconds of suspense all thinking stopped. All feeling, save one dull dread, ceased. A nail fixed the whole being to one hard board. The emotion of fear and of hate is therefore sterile, unfertile. Directly that fear passes, the mind reaches out and instinctively revives itself by trying to create. Since the room is dark it can create only from memory. It reaches out to the memory of other Augusts—in Bayreuth, listening to Wagner; in Rome, walking over the Campagna; in London. Friends’ voices come back. Scraps of poetry return. Each of those thoughts, even in memory, was far more positive, reviving, healing and creative than the dull dread made of fear and hate.
And as always with Woolf, it's hard to distinguish whether something is a short story or an essay. This piece very much feels like both. Because there is a whole story. A woman lying in her bead with a gas mask on her nightstand can't sleep because for a second night in a row there are planes above London. You can feel her dread and fear radiating from the pages, but she is trying to take her mind away from it by trying to find a solution to this problem. How to stop wars? She asks which certainly isn't a small question. I consequently just finished Earthsong which deals with a similar question of how to end violence and even though their answers are different they feel strangely related to me.
Therefore if we are to compensate the young man for the loss of his glory and of his gun, we must give him access to the creative feelings. We must make happiness. We must free him from the machine. We must bring him out of his prison into the open air. But what is the use of freeing the young Englishman if the young German and the young Italian remain slaves?
Not that Woolf really gave us a straight answer. Or that her answer doesn't seem a bit naïve from contemporary point of view. Intellectually, this probably isn't one of Woolf's best essays, but damn is it exquisitely written!
You can read it for free here: https://newrepublic.com/article/11365...
Disclaimer: Most of the editions on this page are actually collections of essays, I really only read this one.
November 23, 2024
Романы как-то производят куда больше впечатления.
Эссе, несмотря на всю комплиментарность послесловия (с ожидаемым душком современного нареза феминизма), остаются продуктом своего времени и своих реалий. Менее наблюдательной автор не становится, слог не теряет остроты и красоты, но, чтобы понять изюминку отдельных моментов, воображения и фантазии не хватает - надо бы быть там.
В будущем, шутят, будет ещё полная версия поздних эссе Вулф, потому что текущий вариант уже является расширенным и улучшенным. Буду ждать, наверное.
Эссе, несмотря на всю комплиментарность послесловия (с ожидаемым душком современного нареза феминизма), остаются продуктом своего времени и своих реалий. Менее наблюдательной автор не становится, слог не теряет остроты и красоты, но, чтобы понять изюминку отдельных моментов, воображения и фантазии не хватает - надо бы быть там.
В будущем, шутят, будет ещё полная версия поздних эссе Вулф, потому что текущий вариант уже является расширенным и улучшенным. Буду ждать, наверное.
January 1, 2026
Em Pensamentos de Paz durante um Ataque Aéreo, Virginia Woolf analisa o lugar da mulher no século XX em meio à guerra. A reflexão expõe como estruturas sociais antigas sustentam um “hitlerismo inconsciente"" (como ela mesma chama), ou seja, padrões de dominação que existem mesmo longe do campo de batalha. Apesar de reconhecer esse ponto, vejo o ensaio como idealista. A autora projeta uma saída ética para a violência que, no contexto real da Segunda Guerra, parece distante das condições políticas daquele momento.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 18, 2018
I really enjoyed some of these essays, the first and last in particular but I don’t think I have this book the time it deserves to absorb it fully.
December 10, 2018
Beautiful, thought provoking and poetic. Am very tempted to read it again soon.
April 3, 2023
Pure genius✌🏽
June 11, 2023
به نظرم نوشتارهای به نام "اندیشههایی در باب صلح هنگام حملهی هوایی" و "چطور باید کتاب خواند" ارزش چندبار خواندن را دارند.
July 29, 2023
ela literalmente no meio da guerra
December 17, 2023
★★★★★★★★★✩
9/10 Extremamente bom
9/10 Extremamente bom
December 31, 2024
больше всего понравилось «мастерство», но запомнилось ещё эссе о покупке карандаша и о кинематографе, потому что его немного разбирали на ридинг группе о видеоэссе
March 21, 2025
5 stars
Kind of makes me want to read everything she s ever written
At the very least it undid the damage from that awful play
This is what we should be studying in school in my opinion
Kind of makes me want to read everything she s ever written
At the very least it undid the damage from that awful play
This is what we should be studying in school in my opinion
April 16, 2024
(li apenas o ensaio em si): Adorei tanto este ensaio que esqueci-me que era para fins académicos! Uma excelente visão da guerra e do feminismo! Adoro Virginia Woolf!
March 14, 2017
Street Haunting, among the others in the book was one of the most beautiful essays I read by Woolf.
November 24, 2015
Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid by Virginia Woolf is a collection of ten short essays:
1) Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid,
2) Street Haunting,
3) Oxford Street Tide,
4) Craftsmanship,
5) The Art of Biography,
6) How It Strikes a Contemporary,
7) Why?,
8) The Patron and the Crocus,
9) Modern Fiction,
10) How Should One Read a Book?
Most of the essays (4-10) dealt with Literature and Writing and these were great - Woolf's intelligence, wit and humour fascinated me in every one of them. "Street Haunting" was amazing, it reminded me of "Poem of Ecstasy" by Scriabin and Mrs Dalloway. "Oxford Street Tide" gives a picutre of London's Oxford Street that situates you in an atmosphere similar to one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales. Finally, let me say a few words to the essay giving this small volume it's name: "Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid" left me wanting for something when I finished it. I wondered if it was cut short (but there was no sign, so that cannot be the case) because she didn't 'convince' me as much as her writing usually does - the way I remembered it from A Room of One's Own. I re-read it to see if it was my mistake - maybe I didn't read with enough concentration or something. After the second try I saw the points she wanted to make in a brighter light but nevertheless, a feeling of uneasiness stuck. Maybe the reason for this feeling is that I wasn't convinced with the impression of plains flying over her house WHILE she was writing it - which does not mean that she is lying but that she did not make it vividly in her essay. I didn't really feel her fear or anxiousness. All in all, it is a good essay but not as good as the other ones of this collection in my opinion.
1) Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid,
2) Street Haunting,
3) Oxford Street Tide,
4) Craftsmanship,
5) The Art of Biography,
6) How It Strikes a Contemporary,
7) Why?,
8) The Patron and the Crocus,
9) Modern Fiction,
10) How Should One Read a Book?
Most of the essays (4-10) dealt with Literature and Writing and these were great - Woolf's intelligence, wit and humour fascinated me in every one of them. "Street Haunting" was amazing, it reminded me of "Poem of Ecstasy" by Scriabin and Mrs Dalloway. "Oxford Street Tide" gives a picutre of London's Oxford Street that situates you in an atmosphere similar to one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales. Finally, let me say a few words to the essay giving this small volume it's name: "Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid" left me wanting for something when I finished it. I wondered if it was cut short (but there was no sign, so that cannot be the case) because she didn't 'convince' me as much as her writing usually does - the way I remembered it from A Room of One's Own. I re-read it to see if it was my mistake - maybe I didn't read with enough concentration or something. After the second try I saw the points she wanted to make in a brighter light but nevertheless, a feeling of uneasiness stuck. Maybe the reason for this feeling is that I wasn't convinced with the impression of plains flying over her house WHILE she was writing it - which does not mean that she is lying but that she did not make it vividly in her essay. I didn't really feel her fear or anxiousness. All in all, it is a good essay but not as good as the other ones of this collection in my opinion.
September 10, 2015
I grew up knowing about Woolf through my mother, who deeply loves her, but I never really read much Woolf, to be honest. While she is not really my "style" of writer, she is a beautiful essayist with both sharp humor and critical thinking skills and an amazing breadth. This is especially true in the first and most famous piece, but this little volume is so short and well compiled that all of the selections are worth the time. This is an excellent little foray into Woolf for those wanting to make the leap.
July 1, 2022
Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid
Woolf’s thoughts on the role of women during the war, who were often being neglected or oppressed for their efforts to take part in fighting against the army. Woolf used a soldier’s letter to express the possibility of ‘dearmification’ - how to fill in the emptiness of men after removing the glory of war and fighting.
Poignant thoughts.
(I read this book at a bookstore in Lisbon, Livraria da Travessa - Lisboa. It has air con, and a charging cable! LOVE)
Woolf’s thoughts on the role of women during the war, who were often being neglected or oppressed for their efforts to take part in fighting against the army. Woolf used a soldier’s letter to express the possibility of ‘dearmification’ - how to fill in the emptiness of men after removing the glory of war and fighting.
Poignant thoughts.
(I read this book at a bookstore in Lisbon, Livraria da Travessa - Lisboa. It has air con, and a charging cable! LOVE)
July 4, 2011
Don't be mislead by the title, this is a collection of essays. Only the first one is called "Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid", and it is by far the greatest in the series. Woolf's thoughts are as revolutionary as they are engaging, and it is wonderful to get an impression of her personal beliefs and ideas, but the essays do get less organised and interesting the closer you get to the end.
December 15, 2009
I am not a Virginia Woolf fan, but I was intrigued by this collection of essays and thought I'd give her another try. I loved the first few essays, but man, can this girl ramble. I do like her essays more than her novels, but I'm still not a fan of her.
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