SOURCE: “New Novels,” in Times Literary Supplement, March 20, 1919, p. 150.

In the following negative assessment of Sylvia and Michael, Woolf deems the novel boring.

The feat that no reviewer of Mr. Mackenzie's books can possibly attempt is to explain even in the most compressed form what happens. In Sylvia and Michael the reader must be content with the assurance that Sylvia Scarlett is, in the familiar phrase, “still running.” We leave her, indeed, seated upon the shore of a Greek island with her hand in the hand of Michael Fane: but figuratively speaking she is still running as hard as she can; and when the book is shut the eye of imagination sees her whisking over the skyline attended by the usual troupe of chorus girls and nondescript young men doing their best to keep up with her, but more and more hopelessly outdistanced by the speed of her...