I have read and heard for many years of this book and its importance for women. It is IMPORTANT. Finally, a book written for women in the era when books were beginning to be written and published which were by women. A novel idea (pun intended). As a woman of 60 in the year 2016, I am appalled by the determination of men to block women from being educated, entering libraries and ridiculing and forbidding their attempts at writing anything other than letters and lists. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of happenings of 50% of the population are lost except for the writings men wrote that occasionally and sparsely included women. And these women usually royAl or rich. Most writings of men saw women as harlots, whores, servants, dirty, promiscuous, conniving, none of which were virtues. Women were either not allowed to make money or if they did, not allowed to keep it. It must go to the husband, father, brother, son, or a solicitor as she was considered incapable of its handling. Even in 1928 when this book was written, we had come a long way and in 2016,we still have a long way to go.
I disagree with Ms. Woolf in her opinion of the Bronte sisters and how they let their emotions burst into their novels. Indeed, where would the story have gone without emotions? We women are emotional. Perhaps men can write without emotion but surely not in the genre of the novel. Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle write without emotion? Or Shakespeare? Or Walden? Or Tennyson? I do not believe so. What I do believe is that a woman attempting to write without her emotions very possibly could not do so. We wouldn't have the Brontes or Austen, Mitchell, Browning and even her lady of note who wrote Life's Adventure, Mary Carmichael.
And none of these women, probably, had a room of her own and five hundred a year.
I will never read an 18th or 19th century work written by a woman in the same manner again. Ms. Woolf has pushed me to be way more analytical, not necessarily in the best way. It sounds as though Carmichael wrote entertaining stories while some of the weightier tomes about may have left me stiff with boredom. Ms. Woolf has forgotten, or perhaps she never knew, that books have more uses than education, enlightenment, or education. Sometimes one just wants to enjoy a rollicking good time with a laugh or a twist or a horror on every page.
The conclusion for me is that if women had the same opportunities as men (a room of one's own and five hundred a year) how differently we might be reading today. An inspiring if maddening book.