Customer Reviews

The Voyage Out (Modern Library Classics)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First published in 1915, The Voyage Out is Virginia Woolf's first novel. It begins as Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose embark on a sea voyage for South America. Throughout their voyage and once they reach land there are many characters that float in and out of the text. Indeed, one is not sure who the main characters are until halfway through the novel. Clarissa and Richard Dalloway, the main characters of Woolf's later novel Mrs. Dalloway, even make an appearance.

Once reaching land, Mrs. Ambrose along with her niece, Rachel, explore the environs and make friends with other tourists-notably with two young men, Hewet and Hirst. Here these four friends form several intertwining and interesting relationships that guide us through the rest of the story.

Woolf's style is striking in the almost exclusive use of dialog interspersed with short, vivid descriptions of the characters' inner thoughts. Through this innovative style she is able to communicate, among many other things, a candid and realistic portrayal of the act of falling in love and all emotions that come along with it-heartbreak and loss, desire and contentment, longing and questioning, quiet happiness and quiet despair.

Several interesting details in the novel will strike the modern reader, such as the almost total absence of interaction with the natives. Geographically, the location is supposed to be near the Amazon river system, but Woolf has imagined an Amazon where the natives speak a mix of Spanish and French, the mountains rise majestically out of the sea, and one lights the fire after dinner. While Woolf can easily be criticized for neglecting to research the technical details and for writing only about the upper classes and their manias, to dwell on these issues would be entirely beside the point. E. M. Forster put it best when he described The Voyage Out as "...a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South America not found on any map and reached by a boat which would not float on any sea, an America whose spiritual boundaries touch Xanadu and Atlantis." ('The Novels of Virginia Woolf', New Criterion, April 1926, 277.)

On a personal note, I'd like to say that my only previous experience with Woolf was reading Mrs. Dalloway for a class in college. Perhaps one must grow into reading Woolf, because I admit I remember almost nothing of this book except that it was boring and depressing. I picked up The Voyage Out expecting much of the same, but how wrong I was! This book is beautiful, one that you will remember long after you read it. I recommend it highly-but not too highly, as making your own discovery of its worth is part of the charm.

This novel is not necessarily the best overall story that I have read in terms of style and content. The plot follows a simplistic, sequential pattern and the supposed climax is not as surprising as it is portrayed to be. Luckily, this is not the reason to read this novel. The Voyage Out is in no way the greatest novel ever written, but the ideas that it represents and the thought that it provokes on topics ranging from imperialism to gender roles in society to love among intellectuals is more than worth the read.

We first meet Rachel aboard her father's ship and from the first conversation we are privey to, it is obvious that she is not an ordinary woman. She in no way realistically approaches her proper place in London Society and of course it is through Woolf's feminist viewpoint that we discover how much more of a human being Rachel can become by not following those patterns. In fact, we are introduced to many women throughout the novel, all ranging in their places from aristocratic wife to single author to inexperienced flirt to old widow and all that is in between. Woolf never truly tells which she prefers, but the reader is given an in depth look into the advantages of each lifestyle.

The men on the other hand are portrayed most basically as heartless, unpitying, logical beings, or in other words, the common man of that time, the common educated man of the time that is. Though each man has his own story, it is only Hewet, the one man who in hindsight acts as a woman, who is able to win the heart of Rachel and in fairness, fall madly in love with also. It is also shown in the end of the novel how there is a certain strength in men, a strength that can be both good and bad. The reader is surprised how some of the men handle disaster while they are dissapointed with how others could be so uncaring.

The character sketches set forth in this book are nothing short of spectacular in everything they represent. I consider myself well read and it is this book that I would say most accurately portrays the idea of falling in love. It is not love at first sight, nor is it a burning passion that cannot be quenched. Instead, it is two ordinary, if not so unonrdianary, people who realize that their lives just might not be the same without each other in it. There are no fireworks, there need be none and as the book is being read, a strange joy begins to creep up inside of one. Then again, all joy is not meant to last forever and I must admit that the lasting impressions is one of depression, not joy. This is not necessarily a bad thing though. Somehow, Woolf is able to show us through a seemingly random cast of 19th century characters that the world today has perhaps not changed as much as we would like to believe and it is that timelessness that makes this novel more than worth the small time it takes to read it

This review is for the General Books LLC edition of this book, and is not a critique of Virginia Woolf herself or her writing style. My neighbor made the mistake of purchasing this book on Amazon, actually thinking that it would be readable. It was not. From the looks of things, the contents of this edition were taken from an OCR scan, and just dumped on the page willy-nilly by a high speed book printer. There was not even the slightest attempt to edit the contents of this edition. No spellcheck was completed, and I doubt if anybody even looked at the contents of this edition before it was sold. I was unable to read even a few paragraphs without being forced to parse out garbage characters, odd paragraph breaks, obvious errors, and missing punctuation. In a few cases, entire sentences are illegible.

In fact, there is a disclaimer opposite the Table Of Contents which claims:

"Limit of liability, disclaimer of warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose." It sounds as if the publisher knows that their edition is unedited garbage.

"No warranty may be created ore extended by sales representatives or written sales materials." Note that there is a typo in the disclaimer. Does the publisher even have employees that speak English?

"We have recreated this book from the original using Optical Character Recognition software to keep the cost of the book as low as possible. Therefore, could you please forgive any spelling mistakes, missing or extraneous characters that may have resulted from worn or smudged pages? When in doubt, please consult the original scanned book which may be available from our website." Think about it. If you had the chance to read this disclaimer before purchasing this book, would you actually pay money for it?

I've dealt with raw OCR scans before, and it does take quite a bit of editing to clean them up enough to be legible. A simple spell-check would have found most of these errors. Given the raw data and PDFs of the scans, I could probably do it myself in a day or so. The problem is that this publisher didn't even make an effort to do so. In fact, I doubt if they even have one editor on their staff. The fact that they have typos in their legal boilerplate is probably proof of that theory.

I think the publisher is doing a serious disservice to Virginia Woolf, Amazon's customers, and Amazon.com itself by attempting to market this book as anything but kindling. It is a waste of paper, ink, money, and time.

One of the greatest of twentieth century English novelists is Virginia Woolf (1882-suicide victim in 1941). She was often mentally ill; lost four close family members to death within a decade and suffered periods of madness. She was also a brilliant author; the doyen of the Bloomsbury group of intellectuals and an innovator in fiction. Her later novels such as
"To the Lighthouse" and "Mrs Dalloway" use flashbacks;, interior monologues and symbolism to move the novel into new modes of narrative story.
All of these achievements were years in advance when Virginia produced "The Voyage Out." She labored on the book from 1905-15. The plot deals with Rachel Vinrace's journey from England to South America. She is a passenger aboard her father Willoughby Vinrace's ship. Along the way she meets Richard and Clarissa Dalloway a conservative political couple as well as
chess playing scholar Mr. Pepper; the amorous Evely M. and the English teacher Miss Allan. Ridley and Susan Ambrose and her love Terence Hewitt. Hewitt and his friend Hirst are witty companions. There are several eccentric and minor characters. I think Woolf spent too much time on them when she needed to focus more on the narrative thread being woven by Rachel's development.
Terence is a budding author who falls in love with Rachel (who much resembles the author Virginia Woolf). Tragedy strikes the young couple. At the end of the novel we have come to care for Rachel. The world is a mysterious and dangerous place but love makes life worthwhile.
The novel is written in a traditional style with much literary and political commentary made by the verbose characters. Some readers will find little action in the book which explores the characters inner thoughts and beliefs. Rachel is a callow woman of 24 who is a virgin who has been poorly educated at home by spinster aunts. Her voyage is a journey of inner discovery as she grows into a woman in love.
The book was interesting but needed editing-I found it overlong and talky. Woolf's characters all come from the British upper class. She was a snob! Despite its faults, "The Voyage Out" is still a worthy novel which I have come to appreciate through a second reading. Woolf was on her way to a great career in English literature.

It is hard to believe that "The Voyage Out" was Virginia Woolf's first novel, begun in the early 1900s but not published until 1915, having been rewritten several times. It is a grand story, almost epic in scope, of a young woman's inner voyage of discovery. In "The Voyage Out" are all the trademarks of Woolf's writing that were to come - her poetic lyricism, her social satire, and her experimentation with point of view and charcter.

"The Voyage Out" follows the inexperienced Rachel Vinrace as she travels from England to South America on her father's ship with her aunt and uncle. Instead of traveling on with her father, Rachel chooses to reside with Helen, her aunt, in the fictional town of Santa Marina so that her aunt can teach her about life. Once there, their lives become entwined with the residents of the local hotel, a random assortment of scholars and wealthy vacationers. With these newfound friendships Rachel is finally able to explore feelings she has never experienced and try to discover who she is and who she wants to be.

Woolf's writing in "The Voyage Out" is much more mature and established than one would expect for a first novel, but it is not without fault. The story is long, almost five hundred pages, and at times almost too heavily charactered as if Woolf were trying to paint too many images at once. However, the central story, that of the blossoming relationship between Rachel and Terence Hewet, offers a classic modern depiction of two souls struggling to find their place in this world and to discover what it truly means to love. Woolf's portrait of Rachel is not a self-portrait, although the character does share some of the same life experiences. Woolf shines through her writing in the satirical elements and in the beautiful way that she can explore some of the hardest to capture feelings of love and loss. "The Voyage Out" is a truly remarkable achievement as a first novel and one that definitely reaffirms Woolf's reputation as one of the finest writers of the modern era, or perhaps of any era.

A powerful story of self-actualization. Rachel is a young woman who ventures on a long journey to South America where the fact that she is long away from home, and away from past influences, she is now able to make choices for herself, and adapt to change.

This is one of the best books I have ever read, and one of the worst reviews I have ever written. Don't use it to NOT buy the book, just read it say to yourself, so lame reviewer said it was great. If I could write well, I'd write a book, as I don't write well, I enjoy wonderful and brilliant books like The Voyage Out! Enjoy!

Others have done a great job reviewing this wonderful Woolf novel, I'll only add that I was just as happy re-reading this masterpiece over the summer.

This is a charming edition, and I loved the beautiful cover too!

Don't really have time for a long, in-depth review, but I'll hit my major point. Never before have I read such poignant, eloquent prose. Every word carries meaning; there's no excess, pointless pasages. As to the actual tale, I enjoyed it excessively. Romantic in its own way, but even better it presents the insecurities and trials of actual people. Nothing is smoothed over or romanticized. That gives it a flavor of originality. As to which version to get....in this case it doesn't really matter, since there's no translations, but I was very impressed with the Barnes and Nobles version. The notes and introduction were excellent in their explanations. Since I haven't gotten the Peguin Classics edition or the Oxford edition I can't say which is superior, but the B&N was satisfactory. Anyways, very pleased with my buy, and I hope to read more of Woolf's work.....I think Night and Day is the next one on my list!

Rachel Vinrace, a young woman not quite acquainted with the ways of the world, accompanies her aunt and uncle (the Ambroses) to South America, where she eventually falls in love with a young aspiring writer. Swirling around this tale of doomed love are the many other characters who all influence each other and are themselves influenced. Most of the novel is about Rachel, but Helen Ambrose is equally central to the story, as a comparison to her niece and in her own internal voyage. Chronicling the inner lives of her characters, Woolf, in her first novel, explores the awakening of first love, the influences of men (and the culture they have control over) upon women, the confusions we as human beings have in our daily communications with others. Originally entitled "Melymbrosia", "The Voyage Out" went through many revisions as Woolf claimed language for her own uses and effectively began a new literature (for her time), where the internal life and the interconnectedness of humanity are the central themes.

This is a horrible edition! FULL of printing mistakes that made it absolutely unreadable. Really looks like the book was just scanned and process with OCR without anyone ever bothering to read what came out of it, not even the first page, which was just as unreadable as the rest of them.
As I had to read the book for class, I had to run over to the closest book store to buy a normal copy.
Really, a very annoying experience.

A review titled "Hideous unedited OCR garbage" by Antony W. Serio describes this edition best.