Form as Compensation for Life

Reading a novel by Virginia Woolf involves an element of `double reflexiveness': first, the reader's interaction with Woolf's words and what they describe, and second, the interaction of these words with the world Woolf perceivedand attempted to represent. Oddvar Holmesland takes this paradox and shows that it is not the invention of recent critics but something of which Woolf herself is well aware. In a number of analyses of Woolf's major works - MrsDalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves - he explores the ambiguity that Woolf's reader must work through in order to reach the insights and rewards that her fiction offers. Professor ODDVAR HOLMESLAND is Professor of English at the University of Tromso, Norway.