Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Mrs. Dalloway
Book Review: A Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
I just finished reading Mrs. Dalloway for the second time. The first time I read it years ago (as so many seem to have done) when The Hours came out. At that time, I found it interesting, though not easy-going reading. Now I read it for a class and enjoyed it even more having learned a bit more about Woolf and her life and her theories of literature.
Mrs. Dalloway is Woolf's attempt to get beneath the surfaces of human beings, to show all the emotions and thoughts that go one in peoples' minds even on the most ordinary of days and while they are involved in the most mundane of tasks. Each life becomes a complex, beautiful thing when examined in this life.
Woolf also said she was trying to show the sane and the insane side by side in this novel which, comparing the characters of Mrs. Dalloway and the shell-shocked Septimus Smith--the two have much in common despite the great differences in their lives and ways.
The book is worth reading for the insight Woolf provides into the human condition and for the poetry of language with which she expresses it. Having read Jacob's Room just prior to this book (and which she wrote just prior to this one) it's possible to see how Woolf progressed as a writer and as a stylist. Next on the list is "To the Lighthouse," which, I'm told, shows Woolf even more at the top of her form. Can't wait.
Book Review: A Simple Truth
Summary: 5 Stars
Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" is perhaps my favorite novel. As simple as it is intricate, she provides a seemingly endless number of new insights and observations that I discover with each reading. Her ability to create the voice inside of a situation is clean, being touching and moving without being sentimental.Book Review: A bit of a wade....
Summary: 2 Stars
Like many others i am sure, the reason for reading this was the Hours - i haven't seen the movie, don't plan to, but at the time i wanted to know what the fuss was about. And the fuss is about a arather boring stream of consiciousness style ramble about a pretenious, boring upper-class woman living in London and a (mentally) battle scarred man also living in London, with brief crossings of their tangents here and there. There are a few sentences of particularly lyrical writing, but the main impression is "And the point is?" The narrative is practically non-existent (not always a hindrance, but it is in this book). The characters are boring, except for the wife of Septimus, the man mentioned above - she is not given the room she is due. If this is classic Woolf, i will have to avoid her work in future - Orlando was bearable, but i could not see the point of this.Stick to The Hours - it is a much better book!
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 classic book that is still a joy
Summary: 5 Stars
I believe it was Lionel Trilling who said that if it's true that a book reads you as much as you read a book, certain books had found him at first difficult and boring, but had eventually grown friendly. "Mrs. Dalloway" found me to be -- when I first attempted to read it in high school -- a dull, even fragile creature; but with time the book made way for me in its life, and now we are rather fond acquaintances. Virginia Woolf is, of course, one of The Greats, but despite this debilitating label she is a writer whose books are addictive to any energetic and patient reader who is in love with the English language. Language is certainly not the only beauty in Woolf's work, but it is the aspect of her writing that first drew my amazed attention. She is in many ways an impressionist, a literary Monet, while we Americans are more comfortable with naturalists and expressionists, so perhaps a reader new to Woolf would need to exercise a few mind muscles which haven't had much attention paid to them, but this isnot a bad thing. And there's a good chance I'm wrong, a good chance that I'm taking my own particular weaknesses and ascribing them to the readership at large. (Oh well.) The point is this: give "Mrs. Dalloway" a chance. Go to it blind, without assumptions, with an open mind and curious heart. I think the book will find you to be a very engaging person, full of wonders and mystery.