A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (1928)

A Room of One's Own is Virginia Woolf's discussion of women and fiction.

Book Review:  One of the greatest women who ever wrote, writing about women writers -- it doesn't get any better than this.  Virginia Woolf's central argument about women and fiction is economic and classist.  It's tempting to look at A Room of One's Own as dated when 12 of the top 15 books on the NYT's fiction best sellers list (13 Mar 16) are by women (wouldn't she be amazed?), but this book still needs to be read. It contains an important historical viewpoint and it's inspirational. Even from another time she understands the difficulty, as does anyone who's tried it, of working a full time job and coming home and trying to write anything of worth. She's also a big Emily Bronte fan, so that's good. But rather than say why I like it, I'm just going to let Woolf speak for herself.  Here are some of her provocative thoughts in A Room of One's Own: she notes that genius is not found among women or the working class (although genius "of a sort" must have existed there), because they have to work; only the wealthy can afford to be writers, but even the daughters of the wealthy had their written work met with hostility (cf. the indifference accorded working class men (Keats) who succeeded in writing); she accords primacy to Aphra Behn, who I'd not heard of before reading this book; she notes that Charlotte Bronte had more genius than Jane Austen (go Charlotte!), but since Bronte wrote from anger or indignation rather than from her genius, Austen was the superior writer (sorry, Charlotte); she notes that only Austen and Emily Bronte had the integrity to write as women write, not as men write, to write what they valued, despite the lack of models; that a woman should write as a woman, but as a woman who has forgotten that she is a woman; that women and men each have male and female aspects to their minds, and the fully developed mind does not think "specially or separately" of sex, the androgynous mind transmits emotion without impediment, is naturally creative and undivided, and is the superior mind for a writer; it is fatal for any one who writes to think of their sex; the importance of writing about female friendships, rather than solely about women in relation to men (still true today!);  that men are no longer the opposing faction and there is no need to rail against them; intellectual freedom depends on material things.  At the end of A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf notes some positive developments of the time: there have been two women's colleges, and married women have been able to own property, for a period of time, women have the vote, "most" professions are now open to women, and so "the excuse of lack of opportunity, training, encouragement, leisure and money no longer holds good" (tho she feels that women should have fewer children than previously).  All this in 1928.  If you are surprised, angered, encouraged, or intrigued, A Room of One's Own is the book for you. [4 Stars]