Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
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Book Reviews of Mrs. Dalloway
Book Review: Just a story about a dinner party...or is it?
Summary: 5 Stars
Mrs. Dalloway, one of Virginia Woolf's most famous novels, takes place over the course of a single day in London in 1923 as Clarissa Dalloway prepares and then carries out an elaborate dinner party. Meanwhile, she and other characters, like her rejected suitor, Peter Walsh, her well-meaning husband, Richard, her emotionally-distant daughter, Elizabeth, a mentally ill war veteran, Septimus Warren Smith, and many others go about their life while reflecting on the past, the present, the future, and how they all perpetually connect.
Mrs. Dalloway is a wonderfully intricate book, full of so many symbols and underlying meanings that it becomes obvious from the very beginning that this is more than a story about a dinner party. Of course, in a sense, it really is just a story about a dinner party, and such in-depth feelings and events that are unfolding around and within the characters are to be expected whenever so many different people are brought together, both physically and, in some cases, emotionally. Woolf just draws specific attention to these universal and timeless events and relationships, and then leaves it up to the reader to further dwell on their significance. These characters may be living in a different time than us, as is evident to some degree by their strict formality and unique social customs, but beneath the surface, the sensations they feel, like loneliness, jealousy, and passion, show that they are really no different than us.
However, as with any book by Virginia Woolf, I would not recommend it to someone looking for an easy read who isn't willing to spend time reflecting on its themes and complexities. Her stream-of-consciousness writing, which I loved because of how it immersed me in the immediate personal thoughts of the characters, could also be confusing to follow at times as Woolf weaves her way back and forth across her detailed timeline. But for anyone willing to put the time into truly appreciating it, Mrs. Dalloway is certainly a book I can recommend.
Book Review: A book to slowly savour
Summary: 5 Stars
Hard to believe I've never read Virginia Woolf before this, and now I know I've been missing true greateness, indeed! Mrs. Dalloway is a book to savour, every sentence, every phrase. A quick read it is not, even if quite a short novel! A few pages at a time is best, I found, to let it drift slowly into my soul. It's like a long narrative poem, with exquistely perfect descriptions (what verbs!), dreamy stream-of-consciousness meanderings, and sudden cut-to-the-quick action. I found the sudden shifts into various character's points of view a little disconcerting at first -- whose head am I in now? -- but soon came to realize the distinctive voices.
Unfolding over one hot summer day in London, we gradually ease closer and closer to Clarissa Dalloway's grand party. Flashing back to holiday scenes at Bourton, we learn about the tangled relationships between the young Clarissa, her n'er-do-well fiancé Peter Walsh, her wild and sensual girlfriend Sally Seton, and her eventual Member of Parliament husband Richard Dalloway. Peter Walsh, who has been away in India some 25-30 years, turns up on Clarissa's doorstep the morning of the party. Sally Seton, now Lady Rosseter, unexpectedly waltzes onto the scene that evening. How do those sensual relationships of youth translate into a sophisticated party scene decades later, with the Prime Minister and much of upper crust London in attendance? (I won't give that away!)
As counterpoint to London high society, we have two other important characters, Septimus Warren Smith and his Italian milliner wife Rezia. Septimus suffers post-World War I shellshock, and we follow his descent into suicidal madness. The paths of Septimus and Rezia touch those of the other characters' ever so tangentially, little more than a quick brush in the street. Yet Woolf has seamlessly woven them together.
Altogether this is a hauntingly beautiful novel, one that will continue to reverberate through you.
Book Review: A modernist masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
On a single day in June, Clarissa Dalloway is preparing for the party she is giving that evening. Septimus Warren Smith struggles with mental illness as a result of his experiences in WWI. Using stream-of-consciousness technique Virginia Woolf explores the thoughts, emotions and sensations of these two characters and others connected with them. Past and present commingle in her characters' minds and this merging of past history and present moment allows for much richer presentation of the characters and their universe than the plot would suggest.The chief pleasures of the book are the vivid, evocative, poetic language, and Woolf's gift for inner dialogue - the stories characters tell themselves - which in turn reveals them to us.
How good is the book? I "Mrs. Dalloway" can be found on many lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century, one of Virginia Woolf's major achievements. More often than not, it's considered her best work after "To the Lighthouse." Personally, I loved the book, and it led me to start reading her other books and to the biographies. The practical question is not whether this is a good book - it is arguably a great book. The question is whether it is for you.
The book is unapologetically literary, which means that if you don't find language a genuine pleasure, you probably won't enjoy it. For those who do, the rich, imaginative language is the reason for reading. There is little in the way of conventional suspense to keep one turning the pages. The stream-of-consciousness style is demanding, and it requires an attentive reader. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to overemphasize the difficulties. The action of the book is relatively easy to follow, and one does not need a concordance to appreciate it. In fact a good sense of the language can be had simply by reading the first few pages provided in Amazon's section, "Look Inside the Book."
Book Review: Woolf's Prufrock
Summary: 5 Stars
I re-read this novel that I remembered enjoying when I read it in high school because a quote from it ("roses were the only flower she could bear to see cut") was pivotal in Gregoire Bouillier's fascinating short memoir THE MYSTERY GUEST. Bouillier's debt to Woolf is broader and deeper than just a stolen phrase. Both books center around the anticipation of a party in contrast with the reality of its experience as it unfolds; and both share themes of the cruelty and triviality of human nature. Compared to other stream of conscious masterpieces (Joyce's ULYSSES or Faulkner's THE SOUND AND THE FURY), Dalloway is relatively easy to follow. I found it's structure and execution to be rather cinematice. The story is bookended with sections focusing on the title character. In the large middle section the narrative passes seamlessly from one secondary character to another like a baton in a (leisurely) relay race. The trick is to anticipate that the baton will be passed and that the point of view and pronominal references are going to shift. I put an "x" in the margin each time I observed the baton being passed (these would probably be chapter breaks in more conventional novels). I found this to be helpful when I needed to reread a section to refresh my memory on a detail. What is amazing is that Woolfe employs an objective third person narration throughout, and yet each section strongly projects the obsessions and interests of the character that has been brought into the foreground. The prose is fluid, beautiful, and free of gimmickry. The author, like Clarissa Dalloway, is in complete control of all she surveys, a master manipulator. In the end, this seems to me to be a novel about accepting (or resisting) at middle age the compromises one has made in life. And "the ladies," indeed, "come and go, speaking of Michelangelo."Book Review: Difficult, but Wonderful Novel!
Summary: 5 Stars
Admittedly, many will find Woolf's dense prose difficult to comprehend, and honestly, I was initially no exception. I had attempted Woolf's greatest work twice before I picked it up yet again just two days ago. On previous attempts I became lost in the language, and entirely lost as to any discernable plot. Perhaps I'm just bull headed, but if so many people considered this work a classic, I must simply be missing something, so on this attempt, I came in prepared. Some may consider it cheating, but on this reading, I prepared by perusing a summery of the work before beginning to gain a basic knowledge of the work's plot, and I have to say, it did the trick for me.
Being well aware of the bare structure of the novel, I was left to concentrate on the sheer poetry that is Woolf's language. I found once I got my foot in the door (that is once I read the first 15 pages or so and adjusted to Woolf's prose and use of long running sentences) I simply loved it, and could not get enough of Clarissa and the rest of her world!
I suppose another road block for many readers may be the clear depth of Woolf's observations within the novel. One must realize, Woolf is less concerned with the present action of the novel than what that action causes in the mind of her characters, and this is simply an arrangement I believe many readers have not previously encountered, and therefore condemn the novel, not seeing the genius of the tome, and Virginia Woolf herself.
Despite the confusion some readers may find in Woolf and Mrs. Dalloway subsequently, the novel given its due is worth every moment of effort, and the reader I find will be well rewarded, I know I was!