Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Mrs. Dalloway
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: I finally get it. Mrs. Dalloway revisited.
Summary: 5 Stars
I first read Mrs. Dalloway in high school. It was the first Woolf that I ever attempted to read. I have a very clear memory of literally wrestling with the text one night while I was babysitting. I made notes in the margins and kept lists and tried all kinds of ways to figure out what Woolf was doing and what she was saying. It was frustrating, because she is such a beautiful writer that I really wanted to understand it more than I did.
Over the years since that time, I have read a number of other Woolf novels, and loved them. I have always been a little bit nervous about going back to Mrs. Dalloway. I had some time recently, so I finally decided to give it a go.
I am not sure if the difference is age, or familiarity with her prose, but I had no trace of the same difficulty that I had experienced 20 years ago. If you let go and simply enjoy the writing, then the book is just lovely and stunningly clear.
Some people kill themselves. Other people survive and give parties. Both choices carry with them their own moral consequences. The world is beautiful, and full of flowers, but also and impossibly full of separation and isolation. I think that part of the difference in understanding is truly age. At 16 I could (dimly) understand Septimus and the young Sally. But I had no perspective to understand Clarissa Dalloway herself. It had not occurred to me yet that living to give parties is also a choice, and one as awful in its own way as the option Septimus takes.
It has been suggested that this book makes a good companion to reading or screening The Hours. I second that notion. I actually think that it particularly illuminates the film, but it goes well with both if you have not read it. I suppose that it goes without saying that this is not the place that I would recommend beginning with Virginia Woolf. But then again, you never know. It is such a lovely work and there are bound to be people who are more successful than I was reading it the first time around.
Book Review: Universal Love
Summary: 5 Stars
"To the Lighthouse" was my first experience in reading Virginia Woolf, and from that dense text I (like many other readers) developed a view of her as an eccentric and unnecessarily difficult writer of the modernist avant-garde. However, this book changed my mind.
Quite simply, "Mrs. Dalloway" is one of the most complex, intricate, revelatory, intelligent, and beautiful books ever written. The story unfolds on a hot day in June, 1923, as the wealthy Clarissa Dalloway prepares to throw a party for her friends in the elite social world of aristocratic London. Meanwhile, a parallel series of events unfolds in which the shell-shocked World War I hero Septimus Smith teeters on the edge of sanity, and society itself. Throughout the day, other intriguing characters also enter the narrative through Woolf's characteristic stream-of-consciousness style. While that basic summary may sound rather unremarkable, there is so much more to "Mrs. Dalloway" than I could possibly discuss here. Woolf turns the everyday observances and events of urban life into a complex imagistic web of social critiques, intense memories, historical traumas, and subtle discussions of the arbitrary nature of language, nationality, class, sanity, and identity.
Now, I won't deny that this book is on the difficult side. Because of this, I would advise anyone embarking on their first journey into Woolf's world to purchase the Oxford World's Classics edition of "Mrs. Dalloway". Read the introduction carefully, and check the explanatory notes as you read through the text. While you won't catch everything on the first read, the introduction will help you understand some of the major images and themes of the text, and make your reading experience far more enjoyable. Don't worry if you sometimes forget who is talking, or encounter a strange digression. Those are the things that make books like this so rewarding to return to again and again.
So, to summarize, if you want to have your eyes opened to some of the major issues of literary modernism, and experience a beautiful and entertaining book, I highly recommend you give "Mrs. Dalloway" a chance.
Book Review: One of the greatest books ever written
Summary: 5 Stars
Virginia Woolf is a literary master and this is one of her greatest works. It is the story of a day in the life of one woman, Clarissa Dalloway. We are allowed to see various aspects of her life as she plans for a party. Woolf makes wonderful social comments about society in a subtle and moving way. The side story in the novel of Septimus Warren and his death is very touching and moving. It is a sad reminder of war and the people involved in the war and its effect on them and their society as they attempt to return to a "normal" life. Woolf allows us to see how people we don't actually know touch our lives in unexpected ways. I believe this novel still applies to today's society. This is a wonderful read which will stay with you for a long time to come. If you take your time and read deeply, Woolf will touch you in a way that you won't soon be able to forget. She is truly unique and wonderful! Book Review: not and easy book but worth it
Summary: 4 Stars
this is not an easy read. for that you can get danielle steele etc. the issues at play here will reasonate with the crowd who is 40 and older. if you expect easy, or are not interested in the issues Woolf is tackling, then I advise you to look elsewhere. if you read Woolf, James Joyce or Faulkner and yearn for something else meaty I would point you to A.S. Byatt. The prose in Byatt, like Woolf, is a deep going but if you wanted that experience then you will be well pleased. In short, expecting an easy read, or even an intermediate one here will disappoint you - somewhat like using a hammer to drive a screw.