The Years by Virginia Woolf

In my final year at University, I specialised in British history from 1919 – 1945.  My supervisor was a Professor who was into right-on, trendy history.  As a result, to this day, I have only a very shaky grasp of dates and facts (otherwise known as, any useful knowledge of history at all, particularly in pub quizzes).  Massively significant events such as the General Strike more or less passed me by.  But I have read a lot of literature and watched a lot of films written in and about this period.  (We watched Brief Encounter over and over again: it was my professor’s favourite film.  We simply used it as an opportunity to mock their accents.  I thought he was going to automatically fail me when I said that Celia Johnson looked like Cherie Blair.  He was not-so-secretly in love with her).

In particular, we read three books over and over and over again: ‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elizabeth Bowen, ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ by George Orwell and ‘Three Guineas’ by Virginia Woolf.  Here’s a fact well known to any student who has had ‘Pride and Prejudice’ forced down their throat by well-meaning teacher after well-meaning teacher.   The problem with studying books, instead of reading them, is that you analyse and dissect them until they are devoid of meaning and you end up hating the author.  Until not so long ago, I was still able to quote ‘Three Guineas’ at will, as if I was constantly in a state of being about to take my final exams.

This probably means I will never be able to read George and Elizabeth without being trapped back in my stifling seminar room with ten other people each wishing we had chosen some other degree.  But fortunately, that Professor has not managed to ruin Virginia for me.

I haven’t yet worked my way through all her books.  I’m ashamed to say that often my choice of reading is dictated by ‘what is suitable to read on the tube.’  Virginia is certainly not commuter-friendly.  She demands attention.  But I do read her about once a year, when I’ve got the time to dedicate to her, and it’s Virginia-time again now.

The connection to my rather rambly introduction is that ‘The Years’ is the fictional companion piece to ‘Three Guineas’.  Virginia started writing these two works together, to continue answering some of the questions asked in ‘A Room of One’s Own’ about the opportunities open to the daughters of educated men.  She began a painful and lengthy process to try and combine fiction and essay in one form.  In the end, she gave it up and the work split in two.

So in many ways, ‘The Years’ is one of the most traditional and recognisable as ‘a novel’ of all Virginia Woolf’s books.  In other ways, though, it isn’t really like a novel at all.  It doesn’t have a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.  It is a series of snapshots of one family over about fifty years.  The main character is Eleanor, the responsible eldest sister, who tries to hold the family together (even if some of them don’t want to be held).  Events are followed from the perspective of different family members at different times.

There is a line in the book about ‘the passage of time and the accidents of life’.  For me, this summarises the whole work.  It is about how everything changes, and nothing changes.  Objects, sounds and memories reappear and recur down the years: searchlights, the sound of hammering.  Different characters across the generations experience the same sense of isolation and loneliness.  They ask themselves the same questions: who am I?  What am I doing here?  How am I connected to this person?  Each finds it hard to express themselves or to articulate their feelings.  They are constantly missing opportunities to make the connections which they are searching for.

I found it melancholy but not hopeless.  Over the course of the book, opportunities for women do start to open up.  One becomes a doctor.  Though there are no easy answers: this character’s career is not as fulfilling as she had hoped.

I was right about this not being a commutor friendly book.  For that reason, it’s not beach reading either.  I recommend the garden.  Preferably a garden in London; because this is also very much a book about London.

Leonard Woolf thought this was the worst of her books.  She went through significant internal anguish to write this, and he thought the results weren’t worth the effort.  He disguised his feelings to prevent another onset of her illness.  The reading public disagreed.  This was the only one of Woolf’s books to reach the New York Times Bestseller list during her lifetime.  Probably because it is more easily classed as a straightforward ’novel’.  It is as lyrical as many of her other works, but easier to follow, so long as you can keep up with the complicated family relationships.  The original New York Times review from 1937 is online and worth a read.  The reviewer describes it as ‘rich and lovely with the poetry of life.’  That is what I meant to write but could not find the words.  This is one of the many reasons why I am not a New York Times reviewer.