( 15 reviews )
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Posted: May 25 2009
Oh Virginia, Virginia how I admire your skill and abhor your method. Convention is at times an awful thing and capturing the spirit and soul in a novel is a lofty ambition. You are well equipped for the task. Writing about life as it is, and therefore writing about life as it happens in the mind, and employing the plot as a stimulant for your characters and not vica versa, is a clever move. Your stream of consciousness style does what you wanted it to: it maps out the characters' minds and takes us on a trip where we stop at each association and then are swept away by the next one. However, this makes the novel hard to follow and the pattern you use is not strong enough to make up for the messiness of life as it appears on paper. Sure life is disjointed but writing should be clear and focused. Having to flip back and forth between pages to wonder how I got from here to there made me frustrated and losing my place because of this made the reading exponentially more disjointed. The writing does not need to mirror the internal state of the characters to such a dizzying extent in order to convey their inherent thoughts and feelings. If I were trying to show that the character was bored, I wouldn't make the reader bored, which is why you shouldn't heap all this rhythmic chaos on me because that's what's going on in Clarissa's head. I can understand the ping-pong game going on inside of my head because it's mine, I understand it, and I've known it forever. That said, Clarissa's mind is foreign to me and I don't know where these associations came from , why they are there, and why I should be interested in them at all. I did not enjoy reading this and I don't just read novels so I can dissect them. There has to be an element of entertainment and some kind of significance to the plot. It should not just serve as a backdrop to showcase a group of rich old men and women and a party they are all going to attend. But, this work was still amazing and the technical skill involved in assembling it a ginormous feat. Virginia Woolf is an excellent writer, but I think think stream of consciousness style can be improved to be more palatable. I give her four stars for her genius and magic with words alone. Some authors overshadow their characters with the plot, others shine the spotlight on the characters and leave the plot hanging in the dark. She is a member of this give and take club- a slave to the other side of universal convention. But she is undeniably a master of the English written language. Nobody could put something so impossible together.
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Posted: Feb 24 2009
I didn't really enjoy this book, mostly I think due to the writing style. I found it to be a really slow read and hard to follow.
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( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Feb 13 2009
"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." These nine words open one of the most extraordinary, and extraordinarily perfect, novels ever written in the English language. Virginia Woolf's MRS. DALLOWAY, with its pinpoint focus, crystal clarity, and vividness of characterization, chronicles one sunny June day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in 1923, a day on which she is giving a party. Giving a party is nothing out of the ordinary for Clarissa Dalloway; giving parties is the thing she does best and perhaps, loves most. MRS. DALLOWAY is a Modernist novel, and like most Modernist novels, its plot is a simple, almost skeletal, one. Although certainly not a character study, MRS. DALLOWAY is "about" Clarissa Dalloway from its first page to its last. Written without chapter breaks, in Woolf's pure stream-of-consciousness style, we learn, not only Clarissa Dalloway's thoughts about herself, but also how the other characters, e.g., her ex-lover Peter Walsh, her daughter, Elizabeth, her long time friend, Sally Seton, and her husband, Richard, perceive her. Clarissa Dalloway, Westminster resident, member of Britain's upper crust, wife of an MP, is vain, shallow, superficial, and self-centered, though, surprisingly, not wholly unlikable. Not in the least introspective, Clarissa Dalloway lives in and for "the moment," "the plunge," something Woolf lets us know on the very first page. She has a need to plunge into life, head first, despite the consequences to herself or to those around her. Rich in both symbolic and thematic content, MRS. DALLOWAY is, above all else, a study of life in Britain after the Great War. The war is over, yes, but its far-reaching effects cannot be shaken. The war had necessitated "living in the moment," but even though the war has come to an end, some people, and Clarissa Dalloway is one, still can't seem to see anything beyond the present. The theme of the inexorable passage of time, as well as the theme of timelessness, is woven through the tapestry of this incomparable novel like threads of shimmering silver woven through gold. Woolf's incandescent prose constantly blurs past and present, fantasy and reality, memories and hopes, as it transports the reader into the world of 1923 London. In this uncertain time of fragile peace, however, hope for the future is difficult to find. It is especially difficult for Clarissa Dalloway's former lover, Peter Walsh, newly arrived in London from India on the day of Clarissa's party. Upon seeing Clarissa, Peter thinks how she's grown older, and at one point in the narrative, reflecting on Clarissa's recent health problems as he dozes on a park bench, Peter even imagines that she's died, a brilliant use of foreshadowing of a death to come. Peter has returned to London to arrange the divorce of his lover, Daisy, who has remained in India with her husband. However, rather than look forward to his future with Daisy, Peter chooses, instead, to dwell on his past with Clarissa. And because of his lingering bitterness over the fact that she chose Richard Dalloway rather than him, he can't help but criticize her, a criticism that Clarissa, herself, seems to accept, at least in part. Peter isn't the only old friend Clarissa thinks of that day. She remembers her childhood at Bourton and her longtime friend, Sally Seton. It was Sally who, at Bourton, introduced Clarissa to spontaneity, to the joy of the moment, creating in Clarissa an epiphany of sorts. Richard Dalloway, when seen through the eyes of Peter Walsh, appears to be every bit as shallow and superficial as is his wife. However, after a luncheon, during which Richard feels jealous of Peter's long-ago romance with Clarissa, he, too, rushes out to buy flowers, red and white roses, intending to present them to Clarissa with words he hasn't uttered in years: "I love you." Things, however, don't go exactly as planned. Richard's connections to the world around him are, like Clarissa's, limited, for when he has to leave Clarissa for a meeting, he doesn't know if the subject of that meeting will be Armenians or Albanians, and he doesn't seem to care. One person who doesn't have to try to "blunt the edge of his mind," at least as far as the present is concerned, is a young war veteran named Septimus Warren Smith. Just as Clarissa must live in the moment, the fragile and damaged Septimus is trapped in the past. Although Septimus and Clarissa never meet, their lives become forever entwined, emphasizing once again, Woolf's juxtaposition of timelessness against the passing of time. If Clarissa Dalloway is wrapped so blissfully and needfully in the moment, it is the moment that Septimus Warren Smith has so irretrievably lost. If Clarissa has lost the ability to empathize with others and feel their pain, if she externalizes everything, young Septimus has empathized too much, internalized too much. The ravages of war, and most especially, the death of his close friend and comrade, Evans, a death Septimus witnessed, have caused Septimus' emotional life to shut down. He's felt such a surfeit of pain that he can feel no more. Septimus enlisted in the army to protect his countrymen, his way of life, even his excessive love for Shakespeare. He enlisted because of his connections with others, but sadly, the war killed those cherished connections just as surely as it killed Evans. But it isn't only pain that Septimus has lost the ability to feel; he can no longer feel love for his young, caring wife, Rezia, or even the simple joy one feels at the dawn of a new day. Ironically, it's life that's killed Septimus' ability to live. Although it may be gradual, the astute reader of MRS. DALLOWAY eventually comes to realize that Septimus and Clarissa, though seemingly polar opposites, at least at first glance, are really quite similar in their approach to life. Through her parties, shallow though they may be, Clarissa Dalloway gives of herself to the world and partakes of life. Septimus, though he longs to, cannot share in the lives of others nor can he give of himself, for he has nothing left to give. For me, the juxtaposition of the sane, as symbolized by Clarissa, with the damaged, as symbolized by Septimus, is one of the most sophisticated aspects of this novel. Clarissa is most certainly sane, but lacks the humanity and depth of feeling to empathize with the pain of others; Septimus is perhaps sane, perhaps not quite, but he empathizes far too deeply. He empathizes more than his spirit can bear. Neither Clarissa nor Septimus can fully engage in life, but ultimately, it is, perhaps, Septimus who engages the more. Woolf's extremely sophisticated prose is pure stream-of-consciousness, purposely lacking transitions from the thoughts of one character to the next, something many readers may find difficult, while others, though not finding it difficult, may simply not like. There are no chapter breaks and memories of the past suffuse and overlap the tragedy and exuberance of the present. I love this style of writing; for me, it glitters like the diamond of Clarissa Dalloway's polished and perfect life. I loved this book. I think it is, by far, the best book about life in post-war Britain ever written. This is a book that's filled with many unforgettable images: images of anger, of pain, of beauty and humanity so heartbreakingly realized they bring tears to the eyes. MRS. DALLOWAY is a structurally perfect book and quite formal in its symmetry. Its recurring themes of life and death, old and new, time and timelessness; its symbols of bells, clocks chiming, and flowers, and perhaps, most of all, the sea, are perfectly developed. It's a sad, tragic book, yet ironically, in Woolf's entire oeuvre, MRS. DALLOWAY is the book offering the most hope. Clarissa Dalloway's party is this novel's concluding set piece, and once again, Woolf touches on the intertwining themes of time and timelessness. Clarissa and Richard's daughter, Elizabeth, makes her appearance at the party and Richard, though not even recognizing her at first, comes to the realization that she is not only grown, but that she is grown genuinely lovely as well. Septimus' life is a tragedy; Peter, Sally, Richard, and Clarissa are past full bloom, but Elizabeth, Elizabeth is just beginning to blossom. The "old customs" are, perhaps, passing away, but in the lovely character of Elizabeth Dalloway one can at least glean a bit of hope. 5/5 Recommended: Definitely, with the caveat that this is pure stream-of-consciousness writing.
