Mrs. Dalloway (1925)

La señora Dalloway relata un día en la vida de una mujer de la clase alta londinense desde el punto de vista de una conciencia que experimenta con plena intensidad cada instante vivido, en el que se mezclan sentimientos, pensamientos y emociones y se condensan el pasado, el entorno y el presente.

La novela es hermosamente impecable, proclamando a Virginia Wolf como una de las escritoras más renombradas en el ámbito de la escritura personal, de los sentimientos, las situaciones, las descripciones privadas y la vida en sociedad. Envuelto con un halo de elegacia, sin perder la compostura, el día de Clarissa Dalloway transcurre con normalidad, ilusionada (o no) por una fiesta que ha organizado para esa misma noche. Los fantasmas aparecen y desaparecen de su vida a lo largo de las horas, trascurre la mañana, la tarde y la noche. Varios personajes cobran peso, en especial Septimus Warren Smith, que al igual que Clarissa, representa la locura más intensa del ser humano. Otros personajes como un sus dos ex amores, Peter Walsh y Sally Seton, tienen una gran importancia en la historia.

Cabe destacar el concepto experimental de novela de aquella época, la importancia del personaje femenino y la poesía poética que es el recurso literario por excelencia. Sin duda, son unas letras hermosas dignas de leer, amenamente.

La señora Dalloway es posiblemente la novela más conocida de Woolf, debiéndose en parte de su reciente popularización por la novela de Michael Cunningham, Las horas. ( )

Virginia Woolf, like lobster - understandably praised, but not to my taste. I understand it was a fundamental rethinking of the novel, and her writing can be lovely, but it is a bunch of characters in whom I am just not interested. On the plus side, it's easily readable. ( )

The reader begins to swim the river of words that flow and touch the time, the place, evoke the feelings and envelop slowly, surely. She struggles, gets stuck, swims upstream, tires, 'thinks, I am swept away! I dont't know where I am!' The river of words becomes a breeze, takes over a mind then flutters to the next, looking through their hearts and eyes and touching the world from within their skins. People meet by chance, they filter the same scene through their own mind, world, insecurities, hopes, memories of past loves and lost chances. The reader is swept up and she doesn't mind anymore, she doesn't seek to understand, just to feel and be immersed, and write poetry with prose like Virginia. ( )

It was a little hard to get used to the writing style at first (an endless flow of consciousness that goes from one character to the next, without warning), but once I got used to it I really started to enjoy the book. I think what I liked most about it was that it made me more aware that every person has a story within them that most people never get to see. All the characters were frustrating, complex, and both likable and unlikable in their own way, which made them more real and memorable. Also, I feel like this book should have made me depressed and sad, but it actually made me feel that life shouldn't be taken for granted, and that every moment is valuable. I don't know if this book is for everyone, but it really stuck with me. ( )

University assignment. One of the few fiction works I've read more than once. ( )