Night and Day
Virginia Woolf
3/5 stars
Katherine Hilbury, well-to-do daughter of an intellectual and artistic family, becomes engaged to William Rodney, a budding poet/dramatist. A young lawyer, Ralph Denham, is introduced to the family through Mr. Hilbury, falls in love with Katherine, and they begin an unusual courtship.
On the surface, this 1927 novel is a simple and straight-forward story of Katherine and her two very different suitors. Underneath, however, it is a discussion of love, marriage, independence, and even the rights of women. It's, unfortunately, not a gripping drama, and at times it is hard to remain interested in the plot.
This is Woolf's second novel, and she hasn't yet developed her stream-of-consciousness style that I like so much. She does, however, have her characters do nearly as much thinking as acting. Despite not being enthralling, the story generally flows well, and there were many passages worth noting.
The downside was it's length. Woolf, herself, called it "interminable" and said "I can't believe any human being can get through Night and Day." At nearly 450 pages of dense content, I agree that it is quite the task, and frankly, had it been another author, I would have quit well before the half-way point.
Bottom line is that it's a good novel, but not a great one, and I'd only recommend it to Woolf fans trying to read all that she wrote.
