Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Mrs. Dalloway
Book Review: Great!
Summary: 5 Stars
Such a beautiful book. Really. A woman walks through London and her friends breeze through her mind as she's crossing the street or buying flowers....And she's happy, wistful, and then maybe not so happy.... I would definitely recommend it.Book Review: Great Book
Summary: 5 Stars
What inspired me to read this book was the movie "The Hours," which is a story of three women in three different eras, whose lives are connected by Virginia Woolf's book, Mrs. Dalloway. The movie portrays Virginia Woolf as she is writing this book. She did seem to have a perfect life. She had connections; a loving husband, that entire one could wish for, but she was not happy, and her quite depressed way of life was reflected in this book.
It all begins with that one sentence: "Mrs. Dalloway decided that she would buy the flowers herself." And that is the first sentence in a capturing series of sentences that make you want to read the book all in one go. Follow the life of Clarissa Dalloway and surrounding persons as they go through one day of their lives, in utmost emotion and thoughts. Experience madness, arrogance, jealousy, and doubts, and how a gauzy veil of poise and grace covers up these feelings. The story is of Mrs. Dalloway, who is holding a party. As she is mending her dress, preparing the silver, and making sure that all the guests know about the party, she thinks about life. She thinks about Peter Walsh, her teenage lover and about her husband, Richard. She thinks that she was right not to marry Peter, who is back from India for the divorce of the woman whom he loves. She thinks of Lady Bruton, who has invited Richard to lunch, but not her. While she is thinking this, Mr. Septimus Warren Smith, a war veteran, is avoiding the great brute with the red nostrils, or in other words, the doctor who is putting him in a mental institution. An institution where his madness could be cured. Watching this scene is Septimus' wife, Lucrezia, who worries about her husband, and is scared of his insane words. In the end, he ultimately kills himself. All of these lives, entwined together into one whole web of insecurity and uncertainty.
This book definitely isn't very easy to read, as it is written in "stream of thought," but once you, the reader, is wrapped up in its pages, it's quite hard to put the book down, because it reflects the deepest and darkest emotions that we feel, and it proves that we are not alone in those feelings. And thus, the book ends with the reader still entranced by its ironic truth.
Book Review: there it is
Summary: 5 Stars
Not for the weak of language, or the weak of heart. Her complex form is just another way to test the reader and their ability to piece things together, consider subjectivities, and not simply wait for the end to "close everything up" all nice and dandy. The Modernists, as herself, could not speak on any subject as if "they knew", and so prompted readers to question what they had once thought "they knew". If you can get your mind around the bends of her language, and see that it's really only a story about the life of a woman in one day, the beauty will become apparent to you. For the others, who are too quick to judge (and probably don't read much, anyway), it is their ultimate loss. Wonderful book and one can reread it (she wants you to) again and again, and there is always, as Ezra Pound would have desire, something new.Book Review: Another snorer, courtesy of V. Woolf
Summary: 2 Stars
Ahh... Mrs. Dalloway. Such a compelling title for what must certainly be a compelling book. I mean, how can a book averaging four stars, and written by the incomparable Virginia Woolf, be anything but spectacular? I'll tell you how. Because it's a mind-numbingly depressing piece that feels like it was written by a schizophrenic monkey on valium.
Yes, that's right folks - a Virginia Woolf novel filled with boringly depressing characters who do little but sit around and think about death and lost moments of life (*audience gasps in disbelief*). I know. Shocking. Praise the book all you want, but it's a typical Woolf novel that feels like the angst-filled poetry of today's emo teenagers.
So what happens in the book? Well, the "action" (heavy on the sarcasm) focuses on Clarissa Dalloway, who spends most of her time sitting on benches, looking at planes, and trying to commit suicide by sawing through her wrists with a comb... No wait, that last one was me, after reading about half of this novel. Sadly, I failed, but I did succeed in giving myself a mild concussion after banging my head against the back of my chair for half an hour. Anyways, Clarissa decides to throw a party, and that's when the action really takes off! Either that, or all the characters stand in corners staring at a wall and thinking about how they should've loved their puppy more when they were 6... I really don't remember (see above mentioned concussion).
In general, Virigina Woolf is a ridiculously over-rated author. It drives me nuts to hear elitist snobs approach literary orgasm whenever she is brought up in conversation. And anyone who does not like Woolf's writing is immediately decried as either too stupid to understand it, too lazy to spend the time deciphering her inane babble, or a punk college kid who just didn't want to read his assignment. A rather narrow view, indeed. There is room for disagreement here, folks.
So why the two stars? Well, I rated "To the Lighthouse" 1 star, and it just didn't seem fair to place this one on the same level as that disaster.
In closing, Virginia Woolf sucks. No, seriously. She's awful. Don't feel bad if you didn't like her books. It doesn't mean you're stupid. Many readers just ascribe to the Woolf camp to make themselves sound more intelligent. Even Woolf lovers don't understand what she was talking about, because really, it makes no sense. Take a look at the 5 star reviews here. Try to find one that doesn't use one of the following overly-used, meaningless cliches: "beautiful; timeless classic; stood the test of time; tortured artist; masterpiece of modernists prose; intimate look at life; you're shallow if you didn't like it". Now, if you look at the 1-stars, you'll see phrases like: "insane; meaningless; like eating gravel; overly-preachy; makes me want to bash myself in the head with a rock; glad she's dead". Which group do I find myself akin to? I think my review speaks for itself.
Book Review: Like Eating Bran Cereal...
Summary: 1 Stars
If you have already purchased this book, use it as a means to prop up your lopsided sofa table, or maybe use a hardcover edition to hold open a window... whichever you decide, I would not waste my time reading something which was written, I believe, to impress rather than to relate. Kind of like F. Scott Fitzgerald's works... I just don't get it. DO read "The Hours", you will be impressed.