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A review by eheslosz
Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee
5.0
I felt a sad sense of closure as I finally finished this book. I've had it on the go for a long time, reading a chapter before bed every now and then, and it brought me comfort in many moments throughout the last months. This was very well researched, and both academically precise – saturated with quotation and direct sources – and yet also so well written and compelling to read.
Somehow Hermione Lee manages to mould a beautifully coherent structure out of such a complex life with so much conflicting material. There were some particularly poignant moments at the ends of some chapters which tied together passages from Virginia Woolf's novels with moments of her life pertinent to that moment of the biography, where I genuinely just thought, wow, Hermione Lee is so good at this. But at the same time this biography takes care not to overly reduce Woolf's novels to a reflection of her personal life story.
Lee does not gloss over some of the eugenics and racism and classism of Virginia Woolf and her contemporaries, and handles it quite well, though I think still not critically enough for me. Overall the "life" Lee constructs of Virginia Woolf is thoughtful and endearing but not sappy hagiography, and has such an impressive balance and conciseness. I definitely plan to read some of her other biographies (perhaps Willa Cather or Edith Wharton) at some point. This is certainly the best non-fiction book I have read this year.
Somehow Hermione Lee manages to mould a beautifully coherent structure out of such a complex life with so much conflicting material. There were some particularly poignant moments at the ends of some chapters which tied together passages from Virginia Woolf's novels with moments of her life pertinent to that moment of the biography, where I genuinely just thought, wow, Hermione Lee is so good at this. But at the same time this biography takes care not to overly reduce Woolf's novels to a reflection of her personal life story.
Lee does not gloss over some of the eugenics and racism and classism of Virginia Woolf and her contemporaries, and handles it quite well, though I think still not critically enough for me. Overall the "life" Lee constructs of Virginia Woolf is thoughtful and endearing but not sappy hagiography, and has such an impressive balance and conciseness. I definitely plan to read some of her other biographies (perhaps Willa Cather or Edith Wharton) at some point. This is certainly the best non-fiction book I have read this year.