The Voyage Out

De: Virginia Woolf

Narrado por: Juliet Stevenson

The Voyage Out is Virginia Woolf's haunting tale about a naïve young woman's sea voyage from London to a small resort on the South American coast. In symbolic, lyrical, and intoxicating prose, her outward journey begins to mirror her internal voyage into adulthood as she searches for her personal identity, grapples with love, and learns how to face life intellectually and emotionally. Its wit and exquisiteness and its profound depth and insight into humanity will capture the imagination of the listener.

Download the accompanying reference guide.Public Domain (P)2015 Naxos AudioBooks

Wonderful reader

Juliet Stevens has a beautiful voice and reads expressively but with restraint. Just right for this novel.

Great novel and excellent presentation

I can’t imagine anyone better to give voice to this novel than Juliette Stevenson; every character came alive in her reading of this first novel of Virginia Woolf.
And the novel itself? How is it possible that this is her first? It’s powerful and real. The writing is exquisite. Her observations of the world and her fellow countrymen are acute and accurate and uncanny and many still hold true. She was far ahead of her times.

It sneaks up on you.

The subject is consciousness. The setting is the English upper middle class, approximately 1910, on a long vacation in South America. The placid colonialist attitudes are well ensconced. Within these boundaries, with impeccable prose, we learn of the interior and exterior lives of many people. There are no heroics. There are those things we call love, and more. There is texture, and substance, woven into language. You, too, will take the voyage out. Juliet Stevenson is one of my favorite narrators.

Engaging

The story is engaging, nonetheless a bit confusing as many characters disappeared and the end was cute abrupt, but you can feel that Virginia Woolf was experimenting in this amazing first novel of hers. The narration is impeccable!

Narrator was VERY impressive

Enjoyed the story. LOVED the narrator. She gave different tones to all the speakers and it really brought the book alive.

Timeless insight into our mind’s perceptions

Current to any time period in showing us the spinning tales in our minds.
Maybe this is her allowing us some insight into what her own mind has seen? Really interesting and wonderful… Virginia Woolf’s writing is exceptional and Juliet Stevenson’s reading does the book justice. Highly recommend.

Masterful

A very slow build, as is Woolf's wont, but a deeply satisfying, hypnotic story. Stevenson's narration is pitch perfect.

surprising

a simple story of human interaction rendered with all of the grandeur and insipidity of all of us. A precise and powerfully moving rendition of our natures.
Juliet Stevenson did credit to the writing with every shaped syllable spoken. Brava!

Excellent narration

This isn't the extremely experimental Woolf, though her impressionist impulse wells up periodically. It's a lot of sensory pleasure and psychological insight with very little plot. Delightful narration of this early glimpse of the great woman's powers.

Lovely

Woolf creates a world of English travellers, first on a ship, later in port. In her inimitable way, she provides the thoughts and feelings behind each character's very proper interactions with the others, the things felt but not said. This sounds dull and may be for readers who need lots of action: car chases, martinis and sex. But it isn't dull at all. It is a lovely narrative, the unspoken passions of those living in the era, just before World War I, when expressing one's feelings plainly was unacceptable. Woolf articulates the longings and frustrations of women of her class not yet allowed good educations and careers other than caring for others, a generation of women ripe for the liberations which the war and suffrage would bring.

I was surprised to learn that this novel was one of Woolf's first as I'd never heard of it. I enjoyed it as much as Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse and hope it will enjoy broader acceptance.

If you haven't heard Miss Stevenson read, you've a treat in store. She's terrific, a highly creative actress who brings each character alive and knits it all together with her smooth narration of the action. Never rushed, she gives the deep music of her voice to each and every phrase.