Between the Acts (Annotated) [Paperback]

Virginia Woolf (Author), Mark Hussey (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2008

In Woolf's final novel, villagers present their annual pageant, made up of scenes from the history of England, at a house in the heart of the country as personal dramas simmer and World War II looms.

 

Annotated and with an introduction by Melba Cuddy-Keane

Editorial Reviews

Review

Here, in her last book, is Virginia Woolf at her most tenuous, elusive, unreal. The various terms which have been applied to her art seem all to apply - "evocative", "fragile", "unsubstantial", "eclectic". The scene and the compass of this book is a pageant in a small English village, alternating with the actors of the local pageant are the figures in a private pageant of spectators:- Giles, stockbroker, at odds with his wife, Mrs. Manress, hearty, blowsy woman of forty who assumes the role of child of nature; Giles' father, withered, dry, his sister a vague old lady, etc. There is no action, save in the pageant which is reproduced now in poetry, now in prose. The quality of the book lies in its nuance, its shadows, its reflections, its aestheticism. There is an ethereal, haunting, beauty, strangely distant. Sharply limited market. (Kirkus Reviews )

'Together these ten volumes make an attractive and reasonably priced (the volumes vary between L3.99 and L4.99) working edition of Virginia Woolf's best-known writing. One can only hope that their success will prompt World's Classics to add her other essays to the series in due course.' 

(Elisabeth Jay, Westminster College, Oxford ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

Unlike most previous editions, the Cambridge edition returns to the final version of the novel as Woolf left it. With detailed explanatory notes, a chronology and an informative critical introduction, this volume will allow scholars to develop a fuller understanding of Woolf's last work. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (June 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156034735
• ISBN-13: 978-0156034739
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #741,620 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The summing up October 2, 2002

By A.J.

Format:Paperback

"Between the Acts" was the last novel Virginia Woolf wrote, and it appropriately feels like a swansong; a sorrowful farewell to a country on the eve of a war that very well might have spelled its devastation. While it uses the modernist experimentation that characterized "To the Lighthouse," it is very easy to follow, but still invites several rereadings to explore its depths more fully.

The novel takes place on a single day in June of 1939 at an English country manor called Pointz Hall, owned by the Olivers, a family with such sentimental ties to its ancestry that a watch that stopped a bullet on an ancient battlefield is deemed worthy of preservation and exhibition. Every year about this time, the Olivers allow their gardens to be used by the local villagers to put on a pageant for raising money for the church. This year, the pageant is supposed to be a series of tableaux celebrating England's history from Chaucerian times up to the present.

The Olivers themselves are tableaux of sorts, each a silent representation of some emotion separated from the others by a wall of miscommunication. Old Bartholomew Oliver and his sister, Lucy Swithin, both widowed, are now living together again with much the same hesitant relationship they had as children. Oliver's son Giles is a stockbroker who commutes to London and considers the pageant a nuisance he has no choice but to suffer. Isa, his discontented wife, feels she has to hide her poetry from him and contemplates an extramarital affair with a village farmer.

Attending the pageant is a garrulous woman named Mrs. Manresa, who is either having or pursuing an affair with Giles. She has brought with her a companion named William Dodge, whose effeminate sexual ambiguity is noticed with reprehension by Giles and with curiosity by Isa.... The somewhat romantic interest Isa shows in Dodge implies that she knows Giles would be annoyed less by her infidelity than by his being cuckolded for a fop like Dodge.

The other principal character is not an Oliver at all, and this is Miss La Trobe, the harried writer and director of the pageant. At first, she appears to serve the mere purpose of comic diversion, as she frustrates herself over details that nobody in the audience notices anyway; however, when the pageant is over, a new aspect of her character is revealed, one that has made her an outcast among the village women. Nevertheless, she graciously accepts the role of a struggling, misunderstood woman artist, and in this sense, she echoes the character of Lily Briscoe in "To the Lighthouse," as does Isa with her repressed poetry.

At the end of the pageant, to celebrate the "present," Miss La Trobe has planned something special and startling: She has the players flash mirrors onto the audience as if to say, "Look what England has become. Shameful, isn't it?" Likewise, with this novel Woolf holds up a mirror to humanity, reflecting our unhappiness in her characters. It's not a cheerful notion, but it's a fitting one to sum up the career of a writer like Woolf, one of our greatest chroniclers of sadness. Read more ›

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A work of mature genius by a great writer August 1, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This under-appreciated work is slowly gaining the recognition it deserves from Woolf critics... but I would say that, since I wrote my dissertation on it! Woolf's fiction is never light reading, but Woolf lovers will here find a masterful synthesis of descriptive power, her exhaustive knowledge of English history and literature, her feminism, her passionate hatred of war and her conviction that only aesthetic experience can enable humanity to question the status quo and *perhaps* create a better world... interested readers might consider reading it alongside The Years, Three Guineas, Moments of Being, the last volumes of the diary, or such Woolf essays as "Thoughts on Peace During an Air Raid," as well as Shakespeare's Tempest. This slim novel speaks volumes; it is a work of mature genius by one of the 20th century's greatest writers.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Woolf's last novel June 18, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Between the Acts (BtA) was Woolf's last novel, finished but not yet revised before her death in 1941. It is, like Woolf's other novels, experimental. She takes some of her already established techniques and adds new things. She sets it in the span of a single day (i.e. Mrs Dalloway), depicts and parodies historical events (i.e. Orlando). Woolf centers the action around a village play (a bad play, but that is part of the fun). The social commentary on Britain is there, but BtA is far from the "usual British stuff." In the course of the novel the reader should look at the actors and the audience, drawing parallels to our own daily acting. Woolf includes a number of literary allusions. See if you can find the use of Gerard Manley Hopkins in the narrative, for example. As with Woolf's other writings, plot is not the focus. Even though she died thinking it was unsuitable for publication (she was mistaken), BtA is a fine novel from a master writer.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars one of Woolf's most exciting and experimental June 12, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This book is not about what goes on outside the play so much as it is about Woolf's new expression of her continued criticism of English society. There is humor in the book. Her Victorian policeman is a biting and explicit critique of the sexism, racism, and general destructive intolerance that was actively supported by the Victorian imperialist discourse. I only wish she'd lived so we could see what she would have tried next.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, But The Least Engaging Of Woolf's Work July 23, 2007

By J. Robinson

Format:Paperback

Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was a well known writer, critic, feminist, and publisher. This was her last novel, and it is a departure for Woolf from prior styles, and many like the novel. It is interesting, but falls short of being a masterpeice.

As background information, I read most of her work starting with her first novel "The Voyage Out" published in 1915, skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop, Night and Day from 1919 - and then read "Jacob's Room," her third, then went on and read "Mrs. Dalloway," her fourth, and next read "To The Lighthouse," etc. Also, I read some of Woolf's non-fiction.

"The Voyage Out" is simple and straightforward work and it might remind the reader of a Jane Austen novel, but it set on a ship and then at a remote location. It is over 400 pages long, and has an Austen theme. After her second novel - which did not do very well - Woolf decided to be more risky and creative with the next book. She changed her style and approach to the novel and Woolf uses the stream of consciousness technique to bring a sense of the chaos and shortness of a young man's life around the time of World War I, Jacob's life, i.e.: from the pandemonium of Jacob's life as portrayed by Woolf through the use of the stream of the consciousness technique, we eventually have clarity in the novel. She carries this writing style on into the similarly chaotic story in the novel "Mrs. Dalloway" and most of her later writings - including the present novel - her last written just before her suicide. The subsequent books, including the present novel, are shorter and use the stream of consciousness technique.

The story is a bit similar to "To The Lighthouse" in the setting.... It has a rural setting, a home in the country, and it is about a community play held at the home. The story describes some of the family members at the home, the other members of the community, and also, and interestingly here, much of the novel describes the play itself.

I guess what is disappointing here is the structure or plot compared to her best novel, "To The Lighthouse." In that novel, the reader is fully engaged with that story and it is a compelling read, and hard to put down. That book, along with "Jacob's Room," moves the reader emotionally. That is missing here. The novel is short and has a low key "Midsummer Night's Dream" quality. Nothing dramatic happens "between the acts" of the play that one would call interesting or compelling or highly emotional. The reader waits for something to happen - as in her other works - but it never occurs. Also, it lacks sympathetic characters. The story seems very hazy and undefined, and it seems to lack direction. The play itself is interesting and it is unusual to see the play worked into the story. That is a sign of Woolf's genius. But it is not enough to carry the novel and make it a masterpiece.

As a "common reader," as Woolf describes us, we readers of her books, I think her best fiction is "To The Lighthouse" - that is a masterpiece - and her best non-fiction is "A Room of One's Own." I like the Oxford version of the latter published along with "Three Guineas." Read more ›