“It was an Uncertain Spring”

What is it about?

The abundant weather descriptions distinguish The Years from Virginia Woolf's other works. These descriptions were added spontaneously as a final touch: the passages describing the weather and setting the scene that begin each chapter and separate scenes within chapters were not added to the novel until the final months before publication. This chapter suggests that the reason why the weather was inserted at the book's final stage might be that Woolf resorted to the weather as an alternative solution to what she perceived as the novel's main problem: extremely abrupt and incoherent transition between scenes. Woolf perceived the book as a “complete failure”. Her sense of failure might be an inevitable result of the weather's “uncertainty” or, in other words, its Janus-faced ambivalence.

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Why is it important?

The abundant weather descriptions distinguish The Years from Virginia Woolf's other works. These descriptions were added spontaneously as a final touch: the passages describing the weather and setting the scene that begin each chapter and separate scenes within chapters were not added to the novel until the final months before publication. This chapter suggests that the reason why the weather was inserted at the book's final stage might be that Woolf resorted to the weather as an alternative solution to what she perceived as the novel's main problem: extremely abrupt and incoherent transition between scenes. Woolf perceived the book as a “complete failure”. Her sense of failure might be an inevitable result of the weather's “uncertainty” or, in other words, its Janus-faced ambivalence.

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