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A review by selenajournal
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
5.0
I used to be very intimidated by Virginia Woolf. I worried that if I read the famous Mrs. Dalloway that I wouldn’t like it or worse, I wouldn’t get it.
I finally read Mrs. Dalloway in my second year of university. I began reading it in the morning – entranced by the stream-of-consciousness writing – only pausing when I absolutely had to. I finished the novel by the end of the day, then re-read the last twenty or twenty-five pages.
I truly enjoyed her seeing the stream-of-consciousness format. I had encountered it with the Beats but the writing felt more sophisticated in Woolf’s Dalloway. The sentences weren’t just thoughts within the mind of one person, they were thoughts and actions pieced together in such a way that they washed over you naturally. In that way, her sentences are as fluid as those of Proust.
Reading it the second time around, I noticed how careful she was with her punctuation. Using double punctuation and carefully placed commas, dashes and semicolons, Woolf controlled the pace at which you read and received information. Reading it aloud, it almost felt as if you could use the punctuation to break her novel up into the most controlled and powerful poetry.
Plot-wise, this is a simple novel; few things happen that move the plot forward. Reading Mrs. Dalloway allows the reader to move freely thought the minds and hearts of the characters within Woolf’s world. This is what made the novel for me. And this is why I loved reading it in one day.
Experiencing the story in the same time-span as the characters really illustrated how much information and how many thoughts go through our mind a day, and how seamlessly they transfer from one topic to the next.
This won’t be my last time with Mrs. Dalloway. A fellow reader, Frances, took the time to mark any mentions of water that she saw in the novel. Seeing her list, I realized that I hadn’t identified it as a pattern (and one of the most important perhaps, as she drowned herself). Even reading it a second time, I was wrapped up in the narrative, in the long-sentences that are so hard to pull yourself away from.
The second time around was more beautiful than the first. The third will be even better.
I finally read Mrs. Dalloway in my second year of university. I began reading it in the morning – entranced by the stream-of-consciousness writing – only pausing when I absolutely had to. I finished the novel by the end of the day, then re-read the last twenty or twenty-five pages.
I truly enjoyed her seeing the stream-of-consciousness format. I had encountered it with the Beats but the writing felt more sophisticated in Woolf’s Dalloway. The sentences weren’t just thoughts within the mind of one person, they were thoughts and actions pieced together in such a way that they washed over you naturally. In that way, her sentences are as fluid as those of Proust.
Reading it the second time around, I noticed how careful she was with her punctuation. Using double punctuation and carefully placed commas, dashes and semicolons, Woolf controlled the pace at which you read and received information. Reading it aloud, it almost felt as if you could use the punctuation to break her novel up into the most controlled and powerful poetry.
Plot-wise, this is a simple novel; few things happen that move the plot forward. Reading Mrs. Dalloway allows the reader to move freely thought the minds and hearts of the characters within Woolf’s world. This is what made the novel for me. And this is why I loved reading it in one day.
Experiencing the story in the same time-span as the characters really illustrated how much information and how many thoughts go through our mind a day, and how seamlessly they transfer from one topic to the next.
This won’t be my last time with Mrs. Dalloway. A fellow reader, Frances, took the time to mark any mentions of water that she saw in the novel. Seeing her list, I realized that I hadn’t identified it as a pattern (and one of the most important perhaps, as she drowned herself). Even reading it a second time, I was wrapped up in the narrative, in the long-sentences that are so hard to pull yourself away from.
The second time around was more beautiful than the first. The third will be even better.