For those who are just getting underway with this... the chapter when the book soars up, from a  slightly leaden first half, is CHAPTER FIFTEEN. Something happens to VW`s writing in this chapter. I think she fell in love with her characters from inside, and was no longer just describing them rather flatly as an outside observer. She also found a scene and a setting which she could 'paint' rather than just describe. She has a very visual sensibility - doubtless she learned much froher painter sister Vanessa, as well as from her own observations and converstions of, and about, paintings and painters.

If you feel you are plodding a little, plod on until Chapter 15...