VIRGINIA WOOLF A Portrait in Sound

Beginning with "A Sketch of the Past," written only five months before her death, this well-selected sampler is an interesting introduction to the literary voice of Virginia Woolf as she reflects on the people and events that shaped her early life and the connections between that world and her later work. Irene Worth's hypnotic diction--polished, British, and carefully inflected--is especially suited to the first selection: a web of thoughts, emotions and sensual recollections spun effortlessly in the still rooms of memory. Other choices are less successful, mostly because they are less amenable to being heard. Things pick up with Woolf's lively argumentative essay "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" but oh . . . frustration--re-listening is not as easy as re-reading, especially in traffic. A mixed success--one that makes listeners long for the leisure to sit by a sunny window and . . . read. K.T.B. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: NOV 92]