NIght and Day

MP3 Audio CD. Night and Day is a weird and beautiful novel by Virginia Woolf, a book that explores Woolf?s favorite themes: the relationship between marriage and love, between success and happiness as well as the right of a woman to become independent and women?s suffrage.

The story of the novel revolves around four people, Mary Datchet, an emancipated woman and suffragist who is secretly in love with Ralph Denham; Katharine Hilbery, a beautiful lady from a wealthy literary family who has no interest in anything related to arts and secretly studies mathematics, wishing to become an astronomer; William Rodney, a poet Katherine is engaged to, but who discovers he does not love her when he meets Katherine?s cousin; Ralph Denham, a poor lawyer who shares Katherine?s interest in sciences and is also secretly in love with the girl.

With so many feelings kept secret and so many social engagements, the plot becomes as complex and multi-faceted as only Virginia Woolf can manage. However, what makes this novel truly great is not the complexity of the relationships that link and separate the characters, not even the intricate plot ? it is the honesty bordering on brutal frankness that characterizes both Katharine and Ralph while they are examining their own feelings. They both reject the idea of love as being only an illusion, make-believe that is likely to turn into bitter disappointment, but at a certain point they must both reconcile the two sides of their characters, their dark side and their troubled soul perceived as their night-time identity and their self as it is perceived by those around them, perceived as their daytime persona.

Night and Day is a beautifully written and composed novel that features complex and sensitive characters who refuse to lie to themselves ? a book recommended to anyone looking for some poetic and thought-provoking prose.