"The Years", sorti en 1937, est le dernier livre que Virgina Woolf publia de son vivant. Le roman retrace l'histoire de la famille Pargiter, sur trois générations, depuis les années 1880 aux « temps présents » des années 1930.

Il s'agit d'un beau livre écrit dans le style pluriel propre à l'auteure mais parfaitement compréhensible et lisible.Une fois de plus, Virginia Woolf fait magnifiquement créer des atmosphères, rendre compte de la complexité subtile des pensées et émotions humaines.

Quelques extraits :
“What awful lives children live!” he said, waving his hand at her as he crossed the room. “Don’t they, Rose?” “Yes,” said Rose. “And they can’t tell anybody,” she added."
"Never have I felt so lonely, he thought. The old platitude about solitude in a crowd was true; for hills and trees accept one; human beings reject one."
"Why do we hide all the things that matter? he asked himself."
"There must be another life, here and now, she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves. We’re only just beginning, she thought, to understand, here and there. She hollowed her hands in her lap, just as Rose had hollowed hers round her ears. She held her hands hollowed; she felt that she wanted to enclose the present moment; to make it stay; to fill it fuller and fuller, with the past, the present and the future, until it shone, whole, bright, deep with understanding."

Le génie du portrait :
"Her husband looked past her with the sad innocent eyes of an old sporting dog whose hunting days are over."
"It was his Uncle Edward. He had the look of an insect whose body has been eaten out, leaving only the wings, the shell."
"He looked as if his face had been carved and graved by a multitude of fine instruments; as if it had been left out on a frosty night and frozen over. He threw his head back like a horse champing a bit; but he was an old horse, a blue-eyed horse whose bit no longer irked him. His movements were from habit, not from feeling." ( )