Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Mrs. Dalloway
Book Review: As bad as Faulkner
Summary: 1 Stars
I had been warned about Woolf, but I just can't accept the fact that I don't appreciate her writing and keep coming back for more. I may not be giving it a fair review since I only made it to page 65 before throwing in the towel, but after pages and pages of surreal metaphors that go on for 10 paragraphs and nonsensical semi-flashbacks, I just couldn't follow it any more. I kept losing track of which character was musing about nothing. The book just does not make any sense. After 65 pages I still could not discern the point of anything I'd read. I suppose Woolf is considered a genius since she was apparently a cavalier writer of her generation, but I'm grateful that contemporary writers can at least string together 2 sentences that follow one another in a logical sequence.
I tried, I really did; My suggestion: just watch The Hours - you'll get all the beauty and none of the confusion.
Book Review: Ask not what the book can give to you. . .
Summary: 5 Stars
Perhaps the helpful remarks I can add to those above is that this dense little book does demand a lot of its readers. It is not a book for that airplane trip, nor is it a book for the beach. It is a book to be read amid quiet with no distractions, and only a few of us have managed to fashion such a place in our lives. If one has not, perhaps a different choice would be better.Having said that, the stream-of-consciousness narrative is very accessible. Ms. Woolf has a knack for capturing the essence of many minor characters in very quick, brief sketches, giving the book a great deapth.
Clarissa is a more complex person than her passion for parties would indicate, complex in her sensibility and love of the beautiful, complex in those aspects of life that she has rejected. Septimus is a vivid study in madness, something which Ms. Woolf knew a great deal about. Then there is third principle character, Peter Walsh, about whom little has been said here. He is in his early fifties, was radical in his youth, a "failure" in middle life according to the estimate of the "successful," and plagued with women problems for a lifetime probably attributable to his constant love for the frigid Clarissa. Peter Walsh is a brilliant character study from the point of view of one similarly situated. Sally Seton, the only person whom Clarissa ever truly loved, is a vividly portrayed secondary character whom one runs into every day today--the aging hippie. All of these people move through a finely recreated London of that time.
I have to rate this novel a nearly perfect little gem.
Book Review: Avant-garde yet timeless
Summary: 5 Stars
Like many recent reviewers, I came to "Mrs Dalloway" via the movie adaptation of "The Hours". When I visited my local book exchange in search of a second-hand copy, I was chided by the proprietor for succumbing to popular culture. The book was no longer in stock, but I was assured that prior to the release of "The Hours", Mrs Dalloway had long sat unloved and forgotten on the shelf. Now, having read it, I know why Mrs Dalloway is so unpopular most of the time. This book is a challenging, and at times confusing read!
But is "Mrs Dalloway" an historical curiosity, or a timeless masterpiece? My vote goes with "timeless masterpiece" (and that's having perservered with the book through several episodes of wanting to put it down and forget about it).
I believe that Woolf exhibited ground-breaking style in "Mrs Dalloway". But I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling relief that her style isn't widely emulated today. I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I opened "Mrs Dalloway", so the style (multiple streams of consciousness) came as something of a shock to me. Creating social commentary out of streams of consciousness must be the *ultimate* form of "showing, not telling". Woolf doesn't tell us how it is ... she lets us take a peek and see for ourselves. This book is dense with insight.
Indeed, I found Woolf's social commentary, expressed by a somewhat bewildering array of characters, to be painfully accurate and timeless, but certainly not heart-warming.
The story itself is dated as a direct result of rich detail (we encounter glove shops, parisols, painful formality, and colonialism - the Indians, for example, are "coolies").
I can't resist adding that, in light of all that painful formality, I was more than a little bit surprised to find a homosexual encounter described as "the most exquisite moment of [Clarissa's] whole life" (p.34).
Woolf beat Madonna onto the lesbian pop-culture bandwagon by several decades! (Although I suspect Woolf's motives were somewhat more sincere than Madonna's).
Nevertheless, it took me a long time to warm to "Mrs Dalloway". It wasn't until I got to the description of the "ugly, clumsy, odious" Doris Kilman ("whom Heaven knows Clarissa would have liked to help") on p.127 that Woolf totally won me over. Woolf depicts the life of an unloved woman with devastating acidity. In my opinion, it is verbal illustrations like these that make "Mrs Dalloway" a timeless masterpiece.
Now I feel inspired to have another crack at "Orlando" ...
Book Review: Beautiful example of modernism
Summary: 4 Stars
Touching characters and a beautiful narrative.Book Review: Beautiful prose
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first work I've read by Virginia Woolf. It will not be the last. It's a "small" work by today's standards, a bit under 200 pages. Don't be deceived. Every page, every phrase evokes shimmering mental images of post-war England, and the people who live there. The use of language and of stream-of-consciousness narration is splendid.For readers new to stream-of-consciousness narration, a word of advice. Don't try to fit each sentence into a regular subject-verb-object mold. Just relax and drift along with the words. You're following a person's thoughts. It all makes sense in the end.
A truly rewarding experience.