Melymbrosia

by Virginia Woolf, Louise DeSalvo (Editor)

Virginia Woolf completed Melymbrosia in 1912 when she was thirty years old. The story concerned the emotional and sexual awakening of a young Englishwoman traveling abroad, and bristled with social commentary on issues as varied as homosexuality, the suffrage movement, and colonialism. She was warned by colleagues, however, that publishing an outspoken indictment of Britain could prove disastrous to her fledgling career as a novelist. Moreover, the critical offensive from men would be especially harsh towards a woman author. Woolf thus revised the novel extensively, omitting much of the political candor until, in 1915, the quieter book was published under the title The Voyage Out. The original Melymbrosia offers a rare look into the formative mind of the modernist master who revolutionized twentieth century literature. Here, one sees the young Virginia Woolf learning her craft.

Like James Joyce’s Stephen Hero, the original treatment of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or Ralph Ellison’s posthumously published Juneteenth, Melymbrosia is a "lost classic" that owes its existence to the research of a devoted scholar, in this instance Louise DeSalvo, who spent seven years uncovering the original novel from Woolf’s papers in the archives of the New York Public Library.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Novels, Feminism, Female Authors, British Literature

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

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

[Lizzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now, I don't usually write reviews of the books I read (thought maybe I should start?) but after finishing Melymbrosia, I felt that I needed to mention it.

This book is yet another reason why I love Virginia Woolf. It remained in manuscript form for many years after Woolf's death, who chose, upon advice from those around her, to tone down certain themes she had included - feminism, homosexuality, social critique, etc, and mould it into The Voyage Out (1915), and has admirably been put back together by Woolf scholar Louise de Salvo. It focuses on Rachel Vinrace, the heroine (of sorts) who bears striking similarities to the young Virginia, in terms of her awkwardness and feelings of detachment from the society she lives in.

Okay, I'm going to stop before I can get started (I'm a master rambler, believe me!) and simply say: WOW. This book is good. This book is VERY good, in fact. Certain passages jump out at you and stick in your mind for days afterwards (Woolf is great at this). We are also introduced to the That Brilliant Literary Creation that is Clarissa Dalloway, and she certainly makes an impression. The plot manages to keep you interested (there were very few moments where I drifted away into my own thoughts). Maybe I enjoyed it because I felt an affinity with Rachel. We've all had those moments where we feel horribly out of place in a crowded room, haven't we? You end up feeling kind of sorry for her. She is like a fish out of water, so to speak. I just loved her.

(Oh, one more thing, watch out for the twist ending; I teared up at it, despite being aware throughout the novel that it was going to happen. Damn you Virginia, for being such a good writer. Gah.)

[Daffney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers familiar with Virginia Woolf’s first published novel, The Voyage Out, often note how peculiar the novel is with its inaccurate depictions of the southern hemisphere and puzzling interactions between characters. Truly, there is something decidedly naive, almost fearful about The Voyage Out that makes it an uncomfortable read. The recently published Melymbrosia, the result of years of scholarship by a Woolf scholar, provides an explanation for why The Voyage Out is the flawed read it is: Melymbrosia is the novel Woolf had meant to publish but, for its unabashed critique of British society, was cautioned against publishing. Heavily rewritten, the novel was later published as The Voyage Out. Now, Woolf readers are are presented with the novel Woolf had originally intended-- and it is brilliant. While certainly representative of Woolf’s early pre-stream of conscious narratives, Melymbrosia is a coming of age novel that takes a scathing look at what it meant to be a young women coming of age at the twilight of the British Empire. This is a delicious read for anyone who loves Woolf.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 4.5

All around I like this even better than The Voyage Out. It is a shame this was not the published version. The first 100 pages are significantly better.....even if much of it is the same. It is sharper and cuts deeper.

There were a few things THO did better. in this version, when Hewitt and Hirst are introduced, they feel thrown into the story, they are not flushed out. As the chapters go by, they grow (and I liked them more). And THO has a little bit better flow overall.

Chapter 19 was the highlight for me! Wolff lays it on the line about what it is like to be a woman, and how ridiculous men are. Loved it.

Glad I took the time to read this version.

[Susan Detlefsen]

Reads like unpolished raw material for a novel. Reader can see nascent preoccupation with drowning, and the multi-layered obsession with love, in particular, Sapphic love. Set on a ship, and later in a village somewhere in South America, with river trip.

[Yan · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the ~original version of 'voyage out' & it is MUCH BETTER & like austen levels of savage.

also i got to read a sort-of-new woolf novel which i didnt think wld ever happen again so i was well pleased!

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeepers, I wish my first drafts of a novel turned out this good. Granted, it is rough — raw in places, and there are things that develop in later drafts that grow from knowledge and time, and so The Voyage Out grew from Melymbrosia as it should have. I can see why VW’s male friends cringed and insisted that she tone it down. (Here is where I must remind readers that it is a book of their time, not ours.) I read it from my size 6 ½’s in the 21st century and thought, “Really? That’s pretty tame.” Maybe because I’m so cynical at this point in my life, I’m just numb to it all — who knows. Whatever. It’s been a long time since I read The Voyage Out so I had to dig out my copy and poke through it while I wrote this bit and admired it for what it is, fleshed out to a density that was typical of her early novels. I noted that Hewet never had his revelation of “dreams and realities” until The Voyage Out — it’s the same musing that Ralph Denham had about Katharine Hilbery in Night and Day (the original title was Dreams and Realities.) So it is interesting to see the overlapping of themes between the two novels — how often do we imagine a person being a certain way, thinking certain thoughts, creating a mold and filling the qualities of our dreams into it, and then when faced with the real person the mold is shattered completely and we feel certain that they do not love us in the same way as we love them.

The title Melymbrosia is a mystery, apparently, VW never gave an explanation for it — Louise DeSalvo speculates in her introduction (which you must read after reading the book) that perhaps it is a combination of the Greek words for honey and ambrosia, but I wonder if it is instead, melancholy and ambrosia — a strange combination — sadness, gloominess, miserable moodiness, delicious, delightful, intoxicating loveliness — the beauty and the terror, the sublime. In my opinion, it is sort of in the vein of the sublime as in “the beauty and the terror”. It’s a Victorian aesthetic that creeps into British writing ever since the Romantic era. Mr. Dalloway suggested that Rachel should read Burke, tho’ he mused over the more political books about the French and the American Revolutions, but I thought Burke’s book, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) was more appropriate for this journey. " WHATEVER is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Without all doubt, the torments which we may be made to suffer are much greater in their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasure which the most learned voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination, and the most sound and exquisitely sensible body, could enjoy. " Burke believed that the sublime — such as vastness, infinity, magnificence of a stormy ocean or an unexplored landscape — has the power to destroy, it was something that could incite terror, and yet, “pleasure” enters into this intense emotion, as in a sense of being “ravished”, the passion of fear (especially the fear of death.) It is a complex human experience — ambiguous in its nature. The tension between representation (imagination) and concepts (reason); the waffling of harmony and disharmony, pleasure and displeasure, anguish and joy — there and back again — all very human feelings. Virginia Woolf knows the language of the sublime, and perhaps she felt it much too keenly — when writers write, their emotional spigots are on full blast, it’s exhausting to say the least, rummaging around within the inner depths and dragging out a treasure of words—

“—while the gulls are squawking above, the sea is running round the world, and the plants are opening on earth? I live, I die; the sea comes over me; it’s the blue that lasts.” – page 42

Sublime.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me make a couple of comments about Melymbrosia, and then I am going to put the remainder of this review in spoiler format, because it is going to be an excerpt from the book that I consider to be a reaction to the chief plot denouement of the story – a brilliant response that, at least to me, illustrates a method of thought that Woolf brings into the practice of literary writing.

I truly enjoyed reading Melymbrosia from the perspective of observing a master-to-be develop her skills. At times, I stumbled. De Salvo wasn’t always able to smoothly patch together the pieces available to her. Unsettling editorial, grammatical, proofing lacks occurred – many seeming to add to the authenticity of the available text, but still strange.

One sequence that really caught my eye was watching Woolf use a series of vignettes on nightly ablutions in oft adjoining hotel rooms to introduce a considerable array of characters and then to continue revealing them to the reader on a lengthy outing to the mountains. Not always the easiest of introductions, but in-close and intimate, fascinating to decipher. Woolf’s descriptions seemed to belong very much to the ordinary, to the here and now, which the current mindfulness buzz is trying to teach us are so relevant to living life deeply and well. The hotel room sequence almost felt like reading the results of a prompt at a writing retreat.

I won’t deal here with the early part of the journey, before reaching South America, which is complex and interesting in itself. (I enjoyed much the couple walking to the boat along the streets of London. So much is said about society, politics, culture in those short pages.)

But --

Rachel has died. The community is still reacting to the death of this young woman who had been among them, newly in love, seemingly healthy and vibrant, gone on adventures with them, in the days immediately before. To me, the storm here acts as an analogy for the emotions that descended upon the hotel where these traveling acquaintances had known Rachel.

So strange were the lights that far less chatter than usual rose from the numbers of tables in the dining room though between fifty and sixty people were eating there. The clatter of knives upon plates rose into prominence. The first roll of thunder and the first heavy drops striking the pane caused a little stir.

"It's coming" was said in three or four different languages. There was then an extraordinary silence, as if the thunder had withdrawn far away. Eating was again in full swing when a gust of cold air came through the open windows lifting skirts and table cloths, a light flashed, and was instantly followed by a clap of thunder right over the hotel; rain swished with it and immediately a dozen waiters ran about the room shutting windows. The room grew suddenly several degrees darker; the wind seemed to drive waves of darkness across the garden. Doors could be heard banging and windows shutting all over the house. All eating was suspended, people sitting with forks in air. Then another flash came, lighting up faces as if they were going to be photographed. The clap was close and violent upon it. Several women half rose from their chairs and then sat down again, but dinner was continued uneasily with eyes upon the garden. All the bushes there were showing the white undersides of their leaves; the wind pressed upon them so that they seemed to stoop to the ground. In a minute a large pool stood in the middle of the terrace, usually as dry and hard of surface as eggs in a basket. The waiter had to press dishes upon the diners' notice; and the diners had to draw the attention of waiters for they were all absorbed in looking at the storm. As the thunder showed no signs of withdrawing but seemed massed right overhead, while the lightning aimed straight at the garden every time a certain gloom replaced the first excitement. People congregated in the hall which felt more secure than any other place, because one could retreat far from the windows. A little Portuguese boy was carried away sobbing in the arms of his nurse.

For some reason no one seemed inclined to sit down, although two people less regardful of thunder than Mr Pepper and Mrs. Thornbury could not well be imagined. They stood under the central skylight, as if they were standing at a religious service, and the look of them standing there under the queer yellow light gave undefined comfort to one or two like Susan, who felt vaguely uneasy. Unwittingly they became the centre of a little group of English people most of whom had come to know each other during the weeks of their stay.

Light sliced right across their faces and a terrific clap came, making the panes of the skylight lift at their joints.

"Ah" they breathed.

"Something's struck" said a man's voice.

The rain rushed down; the rain seemed now to extinguish the lightning and the thunder, and the hall became almost dark. After a minute or two when nothing was heard except the rattle of water upon the glass a voice said "The storm is over." It was Mr. Pepper whose lean little form, the head raised looking upward was hardly to be distinguished.

Suddenly all the electric lights were turned on, and revealed a crowd of people all standing, all looking with somewhat strained faces up at the skylight. They dwindled away or sat down all talking about the storm except the English who sat down where they had stood. For some minutes the rain continued to rattle upon the skylight and the thunder gave another shake or two; but it was evident that the great disturbed ocean of air was travelling away from them passing high overhead with its yellow clouds and rods of fire. As it drew off out to sea the people in the hall of the hotel sat down and began to talk about storms and to produce their occupations for the evening.

The chess board was brought out,….

Virginia Woolf. Melymbrosia. (Kindle Locations 4521-4548). Kindle Edition.

In a more hyperbolic sense, the entire book could be read as the struggle of a young woman to reach full womanhood who is struck down in her journey and thus side steps forces that, probably mostly blindly, would have thwarted such an attainment. Such is the poignancy of reading Woolf, including in the context of her life itself.

This book brought back for me memories of reading Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych and of Charming Billy by Alice McDermott – each a (very different) look at the impact of death on the living “left behind.”

[K.m. · Rating 2 out of 5]

From all that I had heard of this books' progressive treatment of sexuality, feminism, colonialism, etc I had expected a very different novel. In the past I have admired Woolf's virtuoso skill, but found it hard to really love her staid closed-off-ness here. Subtle she is, depressed obviously, and I can appreciate these qualities, but there is something in her writing that won't really let you in. This story is a preliminary sketch of what would later be published as The Voyage Out. It's roughness is an asset, but there was so little to relate to. Rachel, the blossoming protagonist, has her head so far up in the clouds that she is left in a fog you can't penetrate. On her travels to an unnamed region of South America (how is this a progressive treatment of colonialism?), she meets various British travelers, who are painted satirically through cripplingly British manners and attitudes. Woolf's voice was so guarded, the clouds cleared only in brief infrequent, unsatisfying bursts.

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a reconstructed version of Virginia Woolf's first novel (using manuscripts from her archival collections -- woo hoo!), which was ultimately reworked into the published The Voyage Out. The plot of both books is pretty identical, and many scenes are duplicated, but the focus on politics and gender, the focus on sexuality, and most of all the more exuberant and less interior character of Rachel make Melymbrosia a different book. Louise Desalvo's archival research and painstaking piecing together of these pages is to be commended (although, honestly, I didn't love her intro). A must read for true Woolf fans!

[LS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never knew this book existed, VW's first novel later edited and published as THE VOYAGE OUT ... therefore was curious [undergrad thesis on 4 VW novels & philosophy] to see original origin! I read the two books side by side, trying to observe the author's expression and self-editing. The scholar who put all this together wrote a helpful introduction to MELYMBROSIA [title's meaning can only be speculated - hard to remember!] I liked the original better than THE VOYAGE OUT, though both aren't VW at her best. But she's never bad. Fluent, honest, Austen/Wharton cocked eye at society, in this case early 20th c. British imperialism. Altogether, reading the two novels for comparison/contrast felt like a worthwhile endeavor, a non-scholarly excursion on this reader's part. Better than so much currently extolled.

[Cassiel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful writing about the dullest damned people on the planet, of any era.

[Diana Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to read this to compare with the published version. I didn't find that much of a difference between the two novels so with one is The Voyage Out.

[Debbie Robson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I menioned in my blog http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
Virginia and I go way back. I have read a number of her books including Moments of Being, To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own, all a while ago but I don't remember her writing ever being so vivid as in this novel. For instance here is a wonderful passage:
"It was as though the room was instantly flooded with water. After a moment's hesitation first one couple, then another, leapt into midstream and went around and around in the eddies. The rhythmic swish of the dancers sounded like a swirling pool. By degrees the room got perceptibly hotter. The smell of kid gloves mingled with the strong flower scent. The eddies seemed to circle faster and faster, until the music wrought itself into a crash; stopped; and the circles were smashed into little separate bits. The couples struck off in different directions, leaving a thin row of elderly people stuck fast to the walls. Here and there a piece of trimming or a handkerchief or a flower lay upon the floor." Wonderful!
This is Virginia Woolf's first novel lost for many years. After her first major breakdown on completion of this book Woolf penned two more complete drafts of what became The Voyage Out but as the editor DeSalvo states in her introduction (which should be read after the book not before) Melymbrosia is in many ways a bolder rendering of that later work.
I applaud DeSalvo's painstaking work over many years in recovering this very interesting first novel of Virgian Woolf's.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here we find yet another British novelist (Wilkie Collins, Orwell, Conrad) whose first story is set far beyond the shores of England—in this case, the eastern coast of South America. This is an editorial recreation of the original version of Virginia Woolf's first novel, The Voyage Out (1915). I have yet to read the 1915 edition, but the editor, Louise DeSalvo, claims that Melymbrosia contains much more explicit commentary on imperial politics, education, and sex. The final product is a little bit rough at time (both the novel, and the editorial job), but the first and final chapters, in particular, are alone worth the seven years of mind-numbing archival work that DeSalvo put into the project.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly this version isn't a final version--there are typos and the narrative isn't tight. But holy shit, the biting sarcasm and satire are hilarious.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very early woolf, her first novel published posthumously; she reworked it as The Voyage Out. this version has been restored from her archives.