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A review by bhnmt61
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
5.0
I've wanted to read this novel, felt like I should read this novel, for a long time. So I used a book challenge to motivate myself to take it on. The plot is fairly famous: Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party. The entire book takes place in one day, starting in the morning as Clarissa goes out to buy flowers ("Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself") and ending in the early hours of the next morning as the party ends.
Woolf describes the interior lives of half a dozen people who are crossing paths in London, connected to the party or not: Peter Walsh, an ex-flame whom Clarissa hasn't seen in decades; Richard, her husband; Elizabeth, the Dalloways' daughter; Clarissa herself; and perhaps most importantly, Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of WWI who is suffering from severe PTSD, and his young Italian wife Lucrezia. The characters think about their youth, the fleeting moments that mean so much in memories, economics, class, friendship, loyalty, infatuation, marriage, and just about everything else. But you could argue that the entire novel is really about England's fall from colonial empire-- what does it mean to participate in London society when England is no longer what it once was?
Maybe that is a stretch. But although Mrs. Dalloway has its difficult moments, I found it easier to read than To the Lighthouse. It is occasionally tedious, but Woolf pulls everything together at the end. For every time I was lost, there were three times I was awed by her brilliance.
Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know. All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was! -- that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all....
I listened to about half of it on audio, read by Juliet Stevenson, who is marvelous. For the first time ever, I sat and listened to the audio with the book open in front of me so I could read along. Highly recommend that method to get your bearings in the story.
All in all, it was not by any means a fun summer read, but it was worth reading, especially if you are an Anglophile completist. I'm not exactly sure if I am, but it does make me happy to check off this classic.
Woolf describes the interior lives of half a dozen people who are crossing paths in London, connected to the party or not: Peter Walsh, an ex-flame whom Clarissa hasn't seen in decades; Richard, her husband; Elizabeth, the Dalloways' daughter; Clarissa herself; and perhaps most importantly, Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of WWI who is suffering from severe PTSD, and his young Italian wife Lucrezia. The characters think about their youth, the fleeting moments that mean so much in memories, economics, class, friendship, loyalty, infatuation, marriage, and just about everything else. But you could argue that the entire novel is really about England's fall from colonial empire-- what does it mean to participate in London society when England is no longer what it once was?
Maybe that is a stretch. But although Mrs. Dalloway has its difficult moments, I found it easier to read than To the Lighthouse. It is occasionally tedious, but Woolf pulls everything together at the end. For every time I was lost, there were three times I was awed by her brilliance.
Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know. All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was! -- that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all....
I listened to about half of it on audio, read by Juliet Stevenson, who is marvelous. For the first time ever, I sat and listened to the audio with the book open in front of me so I could read along. Highly recommend that method to get your bearings in the story.
All in all, it was not by any means a fun summer read, but it was worth reading, especially if you are an Anglophile completist. I'm not exactly sure if I am, but it does make me happy to check off this classic.