The Well of Loneliness

Title: The Well of Loneliness
Author: Radclyffe Hall
Published: Originally 1928, this edition in 2005 by Virago Modern Classics
Genre: Lesbian fiction
Pages: 447


Oh. There is so much material here, from how much the world and its views have and have not changed in less than a century to the effect the book has had and all that jazz, that I wouldn't know what to write. So I'll just stick to my own opinion, since, after all, this is just a little book blog and not a literary essay. Although I'd love to dig in deeper with this one, and probably will do so.

Anyhoo, the book and what I thought about it. I was a bit suspicious about it, what with not having enough patience most of the time to read 'classics'. Since the book was written in the 1920's, I was expecting a long-winded serious book (I know that my prejudice on classics is silly; I'm working on it). To my pleasant surprise that was not what I found. Hell, this book made me stay up long into the night, reading just one more passage before turning off the light.

The story of the book's heroine, Stephen Gordon, is written beautifully and thought-provokingly, which, if I recall, was Hall's intention: to draw attention to how lesbians and gay men were treated in those days, how they lived their lives. There's drama, there's pain, misery, grief, but also joy and love and the overall implication that, to borrow Erasure:

Old is love, any love is fine. Let it shine, let it flow, let it flow through me.

Hall, a lesbian herself, did not (rightly) believe that her feelings, or those of Stephen and her like, could be wrong or against their god's will. Most of the world just wasn't ready to admit that as well. Thankfully, times and attitudes have changed, partly because of this book. But Stephen, her thoughts and feelings are still valid these days. And even if there was the occasional urge to slap her for doing -or not doing- something that today feels utterly silly, this book went up to my Top 10 favourite books since page 30 or so, and Stephen (even though women with men's names are probably my pet peeve) became one of my favourite characters. It's probably because I recognized my own thought and emotions in her; it's been a while since I've so identified with a character from a book. I just wish I had a crumb of her courage.


"'God,' she gasped, 'we believe; we have told You we believe... We have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence!'"