V. Woolf's The Years

As a sort of New Year's resolution, I've decided to post something about the books I've been reading. My idea is, not so much that all of you care about what I'm reading and thinking, but that this is a way for me to think though the reading I'm doing, both for work and for pleasure.

Virginia Woolf, however, is somehow ineffable. I find her writing so intensely moving, yet I don't know what to say about it, somehow.

The Years traces several generations of a single, extended family and the patterns and reoccurences that their lives seem to follow. It's not easy reading, as the point of view shifts often. As with much Woolf, it's internal-dialogue, stream-of-consciousness kind of stuff. I don't know: I think it speaks to the relationships between the old and the young. Woolf herself, of course, committed suicide when she was middle-aged, but she seems to have an understanding of how it feels to grow old.

I felt almost as though I were evesdropping on people's most intimate thoughts, maybe impressions would be a better word. There's something almost voyeristic about reading Woolf, yet it's healthy and life-affirming somehow.

I'm not articulating this very well.

I think that reading Woolf is chaning who I am in some important way.