Review: Downhill All the Way
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsThis is the fourth volume in the continuum (Sowing, Growing, etc.) covering the years 1919 to 1939--the most active and rewarding years in the lives of both Leonard and Virginia Woolf when he was inevitably involved in the insistent public events of the time, when he extended the Hogarth Press, and when Virginia Woolf wrote her most important books and began to achieve the recognition that would ultimately be hers. This is in a sense a rebuttal of the title which refers primarily to the advent of Hitler and the decline of a civilization he so eminently represents, and secondarily to the personal events with which the book closes and the ""erosion of life by death."" Before this is reached however there is a very full recapitulation of his work and hers--his as an editor and as a writer, as a practical politician and as a theoretical ""heretical socialist""; hers as each book was more demanding and Jeopardizing to her precarious emotional equilibrium. Once again there are portraits of their close friends, Tom Eliot, Lytton Strachey, Vita Sackville-West, or lesser ones (more, much more, on Bertrand Russell's Lady Ottoline). If he finds it ""almost impossible to tell the truth""--an abstraction he cultivates still this seems to be a fastidiously sometimes at the expense of warmth, precise record, and it certainly has many more points of contact with the common reader than the initial volumes; all cumulate to a distinguished retrospective.
Review: Downhill All The Way: An Autobiography Of The Years 1919 To 1939 (Autobiography of Leonard Woolf #4)
User Review - Matt - GoodreadsI very much enjoyed this installment of Leonard Woolf's autobiography. Once again, he provides deeper insights into his wife, Virginia Woolf, and their life together. A substantial portion of the book ... Read full review
Review: Downhill All The Way: An Autobiography Of The Years 1919 To 1939 (Autobiography of Leonard Woolf #4)
User Review - Lisa Davis-craig - GoodreadsAgain Woolf presents his life sometimes with the most minute details and with that same air of detachment as in the earlier volumes of his autobiography. Despite his seeming transparency, I had the sense of him holding back as much as he was giving. Read full review
Review: Downhill All The Way: An Autobiography Of The Years 1919 To 1939 (Autobiography of Leonard Woolf #4)
User Review - Roanne - GoodreadsThis volume, of course, describes more of Leonard and Virginia's life together, as their years together (unknowingly) wound to a close. Intriguing descriptions of the development of the Hogarth Press ... Read full review
Review: Downhill All The Way: An Autobiography Of The Years 1919 To 1939 (Autobiography of Leonard Woolf #4)
User Review - Padraic - GoodreadsTwenty years of living with madness, brilliance, anti-Semitism, and odd-man-out'ism. Surely Leonard amassed sufficient points with the literary gods to spring Ted Hughes? If he hadn't parked himself alongside Virginia's pyrotechnics, his personal brilliance would have seemed much brighter. Read full review
Review: Downhill All The Way: An Autobiography Of The Years 1919 To 1939 (Autobiography of Leonard Woolf #4)
User Review - Kathryn - GoodreadsFelt that this book was not as well written as "Sowing," his first volume of autobiography, but I still enjoyed this one. There are some quite political sections that were difficult for me to ... Read full review
