Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Mrs. Dalloway
Book Review: 'fear no more the heat of the sun'
Summary: 5 Stars
I just finished the Hours after reading Ms. Dalloway, and while both are excellent books, I can't help but feel that there is something seriously wrong with the conclusions of the books.
The protagonist females in both books focus on singular events as the locus for happiness in life, a secret kiss and a moment by the sea, and the unimpeachable quality of those moment in youth, leads to self doubt and pining for what might have been; As the hours drip by, one at a time.
There is a quite obvious tint of mental illness to most of the main characters in both books, a sense of dread and foreboding of the horrors each passing hour might bring, of the steadying drum of moment upon moment upon moment eating away at some fundamental sense of self, to the extent that death, the cessation of the present, begins to sound like sweet relief. This is an intriguing but terrible perspective. Life often offers up obstacles that appear insurmountable, yet these obstacles are only ever truly insurmountable if we choose not to climb them, if we turn away from the promise of the future, our prior experiences or neuroses filling us with bilious dread of what could pass, allowing the siren song of death's quiet to lull into the dreariest of complicacy.
Life is a vivid array of opportunities, each hour of each day could offer a wonderful moment, or it could just be enjoyed for what it is. 5pm on a Tuesday in October may not offer a moment in which everything will make sense and be good, but it may offer a phone call from a friend you haven't seen in a while, or a red tailed hawk swooping down in the brush by the road as you drive home to grab a vole, or anything small but meaningful that tells you, that your life, all life, has purpose.
The quality of the book is unimpeachable, but the quality of the message can be called into question.
"...fear no more the heat of the sun. She must go back to them. But what an extrodinary night! She felt somehow very like him-- the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away while they went on living. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in the air"
Book Review: A Brilliant Stream Of Consciousness Narrative Of A Single Day & A Lifetime
Summary: 5 Stars
Virginia Woolf's brilliant novel, "Mrs. Dalloway," originally entitled "The Hours," is a vivid account of one woman's thoughts and actions during the course of a single day, June 23, 1923. That woman, Clarissa Dalloway, is the upper-middle class wife of Richard Dalloway, an affluent Member of Parliament. As the day begins, Clarissa, buys flowers for a dinner party she plans to give that evening, where prominent society guests and political figures will mingle, engaging in same banal conversation and banter as always. Clarissa is renowned as a hostess in London society, an asset to her husband.
When Peter Walsh, a man she hasn't seen for thirty years, pays her a surprise visit, her thoughts take her back to the summer of 1890. She reflects on the choices she made as a young woman and how they shaped her life and effected her as a person.
Juxtaposed upon Clarissa's story, her character and elite social position, is that of Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked veteran of the First World War. While the prosperous Mrs. Dalloway purchases her flowers, Septimus sits in Regent's Park listening to the sparrows sing to him, in what he believes is Greek. He is still young, though shattered in spirit. Septimus is poor with few resources to improve his health or position in life. Yet the two individuals share common fears. Toward the end of the book, their lives intersect, for just a moment in time.
Ms. Woolf uses flashbacks as a method to broaden the novel's timeframe from a day to a lifetime. She employs stream-of-consciousness, a relatively new literary device back then, to allow her characters' thoughts to travel back and forth in time, reflecting their emotions, and enriching them tremendously as complex personages. In literature, there are relatively few characters who approach the memorable Mrs. Dalloway in depth. The author believed that the remarkable, the momentous, could be found amongst the mundane details and occurrences of everyday life. Characters are tied together by time's thread, weaving a tapestry through the years. In the novel, Big Ben marks the passage of time, booming out the hour, a reminder that precious moments of life are passing as it tolls.
Virginia Woolf is one of the most talented and noteworthy literary figures of the twentieth century. She is renowned as an innovative novelist, especially for her contribution to the development of the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique. Her prose is some of the most poetic I have ever read and her character development, especially in "Mrs. Dalloway," is superb. She clearly demonstrates in her fiction and essays her concerns about many of the social and political issues of the early twentieth century.
This is an outstanding novel. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Please take the time to savor its richness.
JANA
Book Review: A Great and Masterful Modern Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" and James Joyce's "Ulysses" stand, to this day, as the two great classics of modern literature. In Proust, the stunning use of memory and sense perception, as well as the stream of consciousness narrative of the great "roman fleuve", marked the auspicious beginnings of a modern sensibility and technique in fiction. Similarly, Joyce's difficult, blasphemous and similarly streaming novel, set in the course of a single day and emanating from the perceiving mind of its narrator, carried forward this sensibility and technique. It is not surprising, then, that Virginia Woolf, while writing her brilliant and innovative "Mrs. Dalloway", was reading these two authors at the time, for Woolf's novel stands as yet another masterful work of modern sensibility and technique, a classic in its own right."Mrs. Dalloway" is set entirely during a single bright beautiful day in June, when Clarissa Dalloway is occupied by last minute preparations for a party she is having that evening. The wife of Richard Dalloway, a member of Parliament, Mrs. Dalloway is someone who is skilled, like an artist, at creating the perfect party. But the resemblances to a character and a narrative from Jane Austen or Anthony Trollope end there, for Woolf's fictional agenda is consciously modern and her technique is entirely that of interior monologue, omniscient description and, most markedly, a stream of consciousness narrative. Thus, Woolf's text gracefully and imaginatively moves from the interiority of Clarissa Dalloway's thoughts, perceptions and memories to those of the her former lover, Peter Walsh, who has just returned from India, to those of Septimus Warren Smith, a kind of literary doppelganger to Clarissa, a broken young man who served in World War I and suffers the horrible psychological effects of that conflict. It is, in particular, Septimus who darkly hovers over the gaiety of Mrs. Dalloway's day and, ultimately, brings that psychological darkness to Mrs. Dalloway's party.
Continually challenging the reader, Woolf's difficult, stream of consiousness narrative technique brings the reader into the minds of the characters, the language on the page telling a coherent and deeply sensitive story by describing sensations, memories, feelings. But it is worth the effort, for "Mrs. Dalloway" is truly one of the great works of Twentieth century English literature, a modern novel that can stand comfortably, albeit diminuitively, next to The Great Marcel and the creator of Bloom's Day.
Book Review: A Literary Masterpiece
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this book several years ago on a whim. Now, a junior in college, I've just finished reading it for a Virginia Woolf seminar course. It's much better the second time around; the deft characterization and swiftly moving prose transport one into the different mindsets presented throughout. This is almost "Ulysses" light; Woolf's stream-of-consciousness in a day is much more palatable than Joyce's monstrosity. Which is not to say that "Mrs. Dalloway" is simplistic; it is one of the more challenging--and worthwhile--novels I've read in some time.Woolf's use of Septimus as her alter ego is a very bold literary move; most would assume that Clarissa is, in fact, a representation of Woolf. Instead, it is the shellshocked, suicidal, conflicted Septimus, a victim of World War I, who spends a good portion of his page time seeing his dead friend Evans. Septimus shoulders the blame for Evans' death, and Septimus imagines that he is on trial, oftentimes muttering about his "crime" and "guilt." His only escape is suicide. He is the only character whom Clarissa does not meet; this furthers the story and will perhaps muddle the novel for some.
Clarissa herself goes through her day in the life preparing for a party, running into old friends and remembering old ghosts. The fact that she is an unhappy housewife questioning her choices makes the novel and the ultimate resolution all that more emotional and impactful.
This is one of the most overlooked books in America today; it is a work of genius from an author whose talent is terribly underrated. This is the American, feminine, and more realistic "Ulysses;" a treasure that has gone unnoticed for too long. This is literature, but it is enjoyable literature, not merely for high school seniors forced to endure another "dusty classic," but for anyone who wishes to read a true classic worthy of that honorific.
Book Review: A Masterful Modern Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" and James Joyce's "Ulysses" stand, to this day, as the two great classics of modern literature. In Proust, the stunning use of memory and sense perception, as well as the stream of consciousness narrative of the great "roman fleuve", marked the auspicious beginnings of a modern sensibility and technique in fiction. Similarly, Joyce's difficult, blasphemous and similarly streaming novel, set in the course of a single day and emanating from the perceiving mind of its narrator, carried forward this sensibility and technique. It is not surprising, then, that Virginia Woolf, while writing her brilliant and innovative "Mrs. Dalloway", was reading these two authors at the time, for Woolf's novel stands as yet another masterful work of modern sensibility and technique, a classic in its own right."Mrs. Dalloway" is set entirely during a single bright beautiful day in June, when Clarissa Dalloway is occupied by last minute preparations for a party she is having that evening. The wife of Richard Dalloway, a member of Parliament, Mrs. Dalloway is someone who is skilled, like an artist, at creating the perfect party. But the resemblances to a character and a narrative from Jane Austen or Anthony Trollope end there, for Woolf's fictional agenda is consciously modern and her technique is entirely that of interior monologue, omniscient description and, most markedly, a stream of consciousness narrative. Thus, Woolf's text gracefully and imaginatively moves from the interiority of Clarissa Dalloway's thoughts, perceptions and memories to those of the her former lover, Peter Walsh, who has just returned from India, to those of Septimus Warren Smith, a kind of literary doppelganger to Clarissa, a broken young man who served in World War I and suffers the horrible psychological effects of that conflict. It is, in particular, Septimus who darkly hovers over the gaiety of Mrs. Dalloway's day and, ultimately, brings that psychological darkness to Mrs. Dalloway's party.
Continually challenging the reader, Woolf's difficult, stream of consiousness narrative technique brings the reader into the minds of the characters, the language on the page telling a coherent and deeply sensitive story by describing sensations, memories, feelings. But it is worth the effort, for "Mrs. Dalloway" is truly one of the great works of Twentieth century English literature, a modern novel that can stand comfortably, albeit diminuitively, next to The Great Marcel and the creator of Bloom's Day.