A review by bryanzhang
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

4.0

Mrs Dalloway feels like it is Virginia Woolf warming up for To The Lighthouse, but, I think, with less to say - perhaps a symptom of the fact that it was born out of a short story. And the prose is there, a bit more pristine and refined, less abstract and figurative and less of a sensory experience than her later works, and so a bit drier, which I think works against characters who are, in my opinion, less interesting than those in To The Lighthouse. The exception, of course, is Septimus, but I think Dalloway suffers from its attempt to portray the experience and interior thoughts of a war veteran, when I suspect that Woolf was herself a degree or two away from anyone truly involved in the war. Still, for its shortcomings, Mrs Dalloway is still Virginia Woolf.