The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf

My favorite story in this collection is "A Society." Playing off of the premise of Aristophanes Lysistrata, the women who found this society decide that until they've determined to their satisfaction that the men of the world are holding up their end of the gender-deal by producing good works of literature, law, science, etc., they will not continue to produce and raise children. If it is the woman's duty to give birth and bring about future generations who will create good things, then these women figure it is within their rights to make certain that the men are upholding their duties. The women aren't satisfied...and they leave the society for the future generation, to figure all this out. The ironic distance of the narrative saves show more this piece from portraying the women as scatterbrained, which I think they otherwise would be.
The rest of the works included here demonstrate Woolf's development as a writer beautifully. And any lover of Mrs. Dalloway will get his or her fill of interesting party conversation. show less

This is an interesting, but I feel fundamentally flawed collection of short fiction by Virginia Woolf. As explained in the preface, many of her shorter works were experiments and exercises in technique, form, and composition that she would use namely to exert her skills in her novels. They feel a little unrefined and many, in my opinion, do not stand very tall or serve as great pieces in themselves. That is why I have given the collection this rating.

2.5 stars.

Does what it says on the package: this is all the shorter prose Virginia Woolf wrote, in a straight chronological order. Such a broad and unedited spread is of course an uneven read – these stories were never meant to be read back to back in this order. And there are indeed both ups and downs here. I like the ones that have that Woolf feel, like the stories that take place at Clarissa Dalloway’s party, but find it interesting that I’m more drawn to the earliest stories, or the late ones Woolf dismissed as “bread writing for the American audience”. Those are straighter, more of stories and less of tableaus or streams of consciousness.

There are some real gems in here, for sure, but for me too many of these stories are slippery, show more vague and hard to focus on. Quite a few I wouldn’t be able to give a summary of ten minutes after I finished them, even if someone held a gun to my head. This is a Woolf book for real fans and completists. If you’re only going to read three books by Virginia Woolf (which you should), this probably isn’t one of them. show less

I'm not afraid of Va Woolf. Reading her on and off for 40 years, her prose still resonants beauty, a visualness that I particularly seek when choosing to spend my free time in escape.

An essential addition to any Virginia Woolf fan, all her shorter fiction gathered together in one volume. The stories here date from 1917 - 1941 and cover a wide range of styles. Among the stories are KEW GARDENS, THE MARK ON THE WALL, LAPPIN AND LAPINOVA and A HAUNTED HOUSE.

Short or long, any fiction of Woolf is worth reading.

Reunindo pela primeira vez os contos completos de Virginia Woolf, o que inclui o inédito no Brasil "Um diálogo no monte Pentélico", e com uma nova tradução, pelo poeta Leonardo Fróes, este volume se destaca por trazer à tona a rica tessitura literária de uma das maiores autoras inglesas do século XX (1882-1941).
Sendo escritora modernista por excelência, Virginia reinventa a narrativa de forma a quase sempre fugir da descrição de uma ação linear. As falas, os pensamentos e as ações de seus personagens são reembaralhados, e distribuídos de forma original, muitas vezes imbricados às reflexões da narradora. Como no conto "Kew Gardens", por exemplo, no qual não há sequer uma ação propriamente dita, todo ele se show more passando durante uma caminhada pelos jardins públicos, preenchida por reflexões e por um olhar desviante desprezados pela narrativa tradicional, como o simples andar de um caramujo pelo chão. show less