Mrs Dalloway: Roman (original 1925; edition 2010)

This book is the story of a single day in Clarissa Dalloway's life as she prepares for a party. Famous for its stream of consciousness narrative, I found my stream of consciousness straying away from what Clarissa was planning to do for the party, to what I was planning for dinner that night. This book is so highly regarded that I really wanted to like it. I wouldn't say the book was a bust, but you have to be in the right frame of mind for this one. I think I'll try some other Virginia Woolf titles and maybe pick this up again. ( )

Woolf has a great sense of humor and I love how dialogue and thoughts are intertwined. Overall, though, not a memorable story in my opinion. ( )

Just a few thoughts on one of my all-time favourite novels that I re-read for my book club meeting today. Ever since I saw the film "The Hours" I just can't get Meryl Streep out of my head as the perfect Mrs Dalloway, even though in the film she was Clarissa Vaughn a well to-do American Woman based in modern New York. It is because Streep has that amazing facility to suggest that an awful lot more is going on in her head than would appear to be from the actions she is performing, like when she is on her way to buy some flowers.

One of the stars of Woolf's Mrs Dalloway is London itself, especially for me because I used to work in the Westminster district where Clarissa Dalloway set out to buy those flowers and I could so easily imagine the sights and sounds as she walked through St James' Park. The passage in the novel where Woolf flits inside the heads of her characters as they pass unknowingly by in the Park is a superb example of the stream of conscious technique. This is one of my all-time favourite sequences and it was a joy to read it again.

I have been reading H G Wells early novels and stories recently, written at the turn of the century and the difference in writing styles between them and Woolf's novel written in the 1920's is immense. Books that seem worlds apart.

Mrs Dalloway is a short novel it could almost be a novella and yet it can be a tricky read, because it is not always clear where or in whose head the story is taking place, however I think there is enough here to delight even the first time reader, not familiar with the modernist style (of which Woolf was one of the leading exponents). If ever a novel deserved five stars it is this one, I'm already looking forward to my next re-read. ( )

This book can be hard going. It's like a really rich piece of food - you have to take it in small chunks. However, it's a really rewarding reading experience. The language is beautiful and Woolf captures the characters in such minute detail that you have a complete picture of who they actually are.

Some might find the stream-of-consciousness style a bit grating - I did in parts - but otherwise an utterly fascinating vignette. ( )

A fantastic novel, but to say I enjoyed it might not be exactly the right word as it's not an easy read. It still feels experimental, even nearly 100 years after it was first published, with its stream-of-consciousness style deftly flitting from the mind of one person to the next. All of the characters, however brief a glimpse you get into their heads, feel like complete, real people. ( )