Customer Reviews

The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf (Random House Reader's Circle)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I snatched this one up, first because the cover caught my eye, and second, the title led me to believe it was a work of historical fiction. After reading the back cover and learning that it's really a mystery set in modern times, I was still gung-ho to read it.There is a little bit of history--and that part I liked, though I have to wonder about its authenticity. But for me, the rest of it was awfully contrived--"awfully" as both an intensifier and as in "exceptionally bad and displeasing." I thought the characters were flat and the plot devices were obvious and forced: Jo thinks Peter should open a restaurant just because "'You know you want to (cook)'"? This unconvincing and out-of-left-field device enables the two to hook up at the end, of course--because Jo will design and maintain his potager! How sweet it is. And boy, did Peter manage to tie up all those loose ends at the end in his and Jo's favor. When did he have the time to get the family to sign all those papers, much less agree to his ideas? As Peter and Jo were running around trying to solve the mystery of the lost pages of the manuscript and its connection to the secret brotherhood of the Apostles, while Margaux and Marcus were teaming up with the evil manipulator Grey, I had to wonder if Barron was under the influence. The influence, that is, of the Da Vinci Code.

I enjoyed this well-written, thought-provoking and suspenseful book. Barron is obviously a Virginia Woolf expert. I liked how she wrote a journal in the style of Woolf, within this book, a style much different from her own in which The White Garden itself is written. That was clever. And she also gave snippets of insight into Woolf's suicide: "she was a middle-aged woman who fancied she could see the future, and it wasn't the one she wanted." I liked the the plot, dialogue and characters, with one exception: anything to do with Peter, which somehow felt forced, as if he had been added so that Jo could have a love interest.

Kudos to you Ms. Barron, you are simply marvelous. This book, set in the wonderful countryside of Kent for the most part, echoes those beautiful descriptions conjured up by Jane Austen; this however is written from the perspective of a professional gardner with a fully detailed list of flowers and shrubs used to create a White Garden -- the brainchild supposedly of Virginia Woolf. The idea for it came up during England's attack from Germany in the second World War where all light was blacked out to create a foil for the bombers using light and landmarks to bomb England. The white garden would be luminous at night helping to guide the family along the pathways. As the story unfolds about the last months of Virginia Woolf's life, the leading character gains insight into her Grandfather's life from documents found in the Gardener's shed. The conflict immediately begins as to ownership of those documents and whether or not Virginia Woolf had written them before she died. A lively mystery ensues with so many twists and turns, one hasn't time to do much wondering at what the end will be as you are completely swept up by the story line moving artfully towards the conclusion.

I bought this book with enthusiasm and started happily reading. Virginia Woolf! Vita Sackville West! Sissinghurst! The fabulous white garden! An American abroad! A handsome billionaire! A charming Englishman! A mystery! Seemingly unrelated threads to be pulled together! It starts well. Then the author tries to fake Virginia Woolf's writing. Not a good idea. Then--oh my--they are racing around England with The Notebook. It vanishes. They look for it. "Odd" and "quirky" characters show up and chase after The Notebook or demand its return. A bit of a travelogue of Bloomsbury and Oxbridge. I start speed-reading. I want to toss it, but just in case I stick with it. We get to the end. The mystery is solved. The evil "Westminister" grey men murdered Virginia Woolf because she knows they killed a German spy who, by the way, probably worked for the Gestapo in the early days of WWII when England's survival was hanging literally by a thread and people were expecting an imminent invasion bring unspeakable oppression. Good work, I say. If the author could have blamed George W. Bush for it, she would have, but, alas, he wasn't yet born. Still there are always evil "Westminster men" as opposed to the sensitive women poets, writers, and gardeners to beat up. Bah phooney. Having thankfully finished it, I tossed it.

American Jo Bellamy comes to England to study the famous White Garden at Sissinhurst Castle. The landscape designer has been hired by wealthy Long Island patrons to recreate the work of Vita Sackville West, lover of Virginia Woolf.

Jo conceals that her visit also contains a personal need. Her grandfather who worked at the White Garden committed suicide. The present gardener gives Jo a six decade old journal he found while rummaging in the tool shed; he believes Ms. Woolf was the author. Jo is stunned especially when the last entry occurs after Ms. Woolf died. She begins to follow the footsteps of Ms. Woolf seeking missing pages and answers to what happened in March 1941 when Virginia Woolf drowned in the Ouse with her pockets filled with stones.

Purposely loaded with hyperbolic stereotypes to accentuate the writings of Virginia Woolf, THE WHITE GARDEN is a terrific literary mystery that hooks readers from the onset and never slows down as Jo tracks her heroine's death. The suspenseful story line is fast-paced throughout, but driven by the insight into the late writer's life and works; these are seen through Jo's follow her not afraid of Virginia Woolf thread. Stephanie Barron allows Jane Austen a breather as she successfully switches to another writing legend.

Harriet Klausner

The characters couldn't be more annoying, the mannerisms utterly fake. Does she really think the English speak like this? It's not only poorly written but its maddenly insulting.

A good premise and interesting historical period to explore more closely. Best bits here are Virginia's diary & Vita's poem. The contemporary story seems shallow, rushed, illogical, and derivative; many plot points and characters seem far too reminiscent of "Possession" (A.S.Byatt), or maybe there exists an entire genre of time-crossing, romantic-literary-detective novels set in England. This is weak tea with lots of milk and sugar.

A book that in its title promises great things. But Alas! it is poorly conceived and even in its premise is fraudently. I lost it when the main character and her friend from Sotheys dug up supposedly Virginia Woolf's ashes and found instead a letter from Leonard Woolf addressed to The Grave Robbers which he supposedly planted 68 years before! The suspension of disbelief snapped and I didn't finish the book.

Everyone knows that, one day in 1941, famed British author Virginia Woolf filled her coat pockets with heavy rocks before stepping into the cold waters of the river Ouse. Perhaps because of the extra weight she carried into the water with her, Woolf's body would not be found until three weeks later. Woolf's family and friends, aware that she was often in a suicidal frame-of-mind, were not surprised by her end, so the official verdict of suicide was never challenged. Now, in an intriguing piece of alternate history, "The White Garden," Stephanie Barron examines the possibilities of what may have happened during the three weeks between Woolf's disappearance and the recovery of her body in the Ouse.

American Jo Bellamy has come to Kent's Sissinghurst Castle to copy the layout of its famous White Garden for a wealthy client who wants to replicate it on the grounds of his Long Island home. Imogen Cantwell, the castle's head gardener, has grudgingly agreed to allow Jo full access to the White Garden so that she can gather all the measurements and photos she will need to create a perfect copy of the grounds for her client. But, for Jo, this is not just a way to generate revenue for her business; it is an opportunity to visit the part of England in which her beloved grandfather, who killed himself just three weeks earlier, lived for the first two decades of his life.

After Jo discovers that her grandfather spent several months as an apprentice gardener at Sissinghurst (the home of Woolf's lover, Vita Sackville-West), her search for garden records from that period leads her to the discovery of what appears to be a partial diary written in the hand of Virginia Woolf herself. Oddly, however, the journal is bound with a note indicating that, when it was boxed for storage, it actually belonged to Jo's grandfather. Even odder, the first entry in Woolf's handwriting is dated the day after her supposed drowning in the river Ouse.

Already puzzled by her grandfather's so out-of-character suicide, Jo now starts to wonder if her trip to Sissinghurst might have everything to do with the timing of his death. Her quest to have the first half of the journal authenticated, and to find its missing pages, draws the attention of others wanting to exploit the astounding journal for their own purposes. For Jo, it is all about understanding why her grandfather felt it necessary to end his life; others want a piece of the fame, and profit, which will result from proximity to a journal that might literally rewrite a significant portion of literary history.

"The White Garden" works because of the way Barron mixes her intriguing plot of alternate history with a large cast of interesting characters. Admittedly, some of the characters are a little too close to stereotypes to be completely effective but, in the context of the story, even those characters contribute to the fun. Fans of Virginia Woolf, and Anglophiles of all stripes, are likely to enjoy this one a great deal. I certainly did.

I scarcely know how to begin, not something a reviewer should admit publically, I suppose. This wonderfully realized and written novel is a first class literary mystery. It deals with a three-week period in l941 that marks the end of a troubled life, the life of Virginia Woolf. It is serendipitous that this novel comes to my hand at a time that epitomizes a good deal of what she was all about. In a word, independence. Independence for women and independence for writers.

Virginia Woolf was an English writer, essayist and literary critic of the early Twentieth Century. Her parents did not send her to school. She was entirely self-taught and apparently randomly tutored by her literary critic father. She was a major influence on the kind of novels being written today, yet she was always, always, self-published. Hogarth Press, established by Woolf and her husband, Leonard, a political theorist of that era, in their kitchen, published Virginia's writings along with those of E.M. Forester, and Sigmund Freud, among many others. Growing up she knew people like Henry James, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and George Eliot. Her father, Leslie Stephen's, first wife was the daughter of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray.

In addition to her literary credentials as an accomplished novelist, she was a prolific essayist who published over 500 essays. Virginia Wolf helped coalesce the famous (or infamous) Bloomsbury Group, a collection of social, political and economic theorists of varying stripes, including artists, critics, philosophers and writers who wrote, debated, loved, married and argued life throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century.

Woolf was sexually abused by a relative as a child, and clearly had mental problems during her lifetime. Her companions through life, including relatives, were mostly liberated intellectuals who ignored social constraints. On March 28, 1941, she disappeared from her home. Three weeks later, her body was discovered in the nearby river Ouse which had already been extensively searched. Her body was promptly cremated and there was no funeral ceremony, public or private.
Which brings us to this novel. Sixty years after Woolf's death, master garden and landscape designer, Jo Bellamy arrives in England. She is doing research for a wealthy client who wants her to recreate a famous garden of white flowers and plants at his Long Island Estate. Jo is trying to recover from her grandfather's sudden suicide. The celebrated White Garden of the title is located at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent. It was created by Woolf's friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West.

What Bellamy discovers at Sissinghurst has the potential to set decades of literary analysis and speculation on its collective ear. Whilst grubbing about in some boxes in one of the garden sheds, Jo comes upon a diary which appears to have been written by Virginia Woolf. Well and good, the problem is the first entry is dated the day after Virginia Woolf is supposed to have drowned herself. Moreover, there appears to be a connection between the castle, the garden, Woolf and Jo's dead grandfather. Shocked and amid a growing desire to learn more about her grandfather's youth in Kent, Jo Bellamy sets out on a cross-country odyssey to try to authenticate the diary and uncover her grandfather's connection to one of the most famous feminists and literary icons of the past century.

The novel is wonderfully written and mostly moves at an ever-increasing pace as Bellamy encounters an array of character who are far more interested in their own aggrandizement than in helping Jo. The diary is stolen, Jo has help from several people with questionable motives and engages in some pretty far-fetched antics in order to follow some tantalizingly obscure clues.

Ultimately of course, some of the questions surrounding the diary and the last three weeks of Virginia Woolf's life are resolved, but not all. The author, skillfully evoking a past era of English letters and philosophical thought, has provided a rich and thought-provoking experience.

The novel is written with grace and is rich in atmosphere and history. It is presented as a carefully wrought piece that could be true, and that climaxes in a stunning and most satisfying conclusion.