I liked it; it was good
A bit of a shorter read from Virginia Woolf that gave me a nice relaxing afternoon. Quite a bold cover I got!
Read: Jan. 28 2024
Genre: Classic, Literary Fiction
Audience: General
Book contains: period typical sexism, main character death, mental illness, suicide
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While Septimus Smith struggles with PTSD after the War, Mrs Dalloway across town is organizing an evening party. Such is the dichotomy of these two and many other characters’ lives and struggles, be it from class, sex, or beliefs.
Only after finishing the whole book do I realize that the point of it must be to emphasize the differences between the characters’ personal and social lives. In the thick of it, I was curious as to why we were following these specific characters and how they were possibly connected. It was supremely interesting and thought-provoking.
There is an omniscient view in this book, as it flits from head to head, following the thoughts of so many different characters all in the same ongoing scene. This book is told all in one go, 200 pages with nothing but a few scene breaks to divide it.
I took an afternoon to read this book, listening at slightly below 2x speed on Spotify while I followed along in my copy of the book from Arcturus. It was read all by the same reader and was very enjoyable. Check it out here if you’re interested in listening.
Though the narrative flits between several characters including Peter Walsh, Elizabeth Dalloway, and Ms Kilman, the focal characters seem to be Clarrissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith and his wife. Clarrissa is described by other characters as being cold, and yes, it seems like her first and foremost concern is to plan and host this party. Meanwhile, Septimus is dealing with PTSD “shellshock” from after the war, experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations and bouts of madness, which greatly alarm and worry his wife. While it seems that these two characters will never overlap, there is something very compelling about their vast differences in social standing.
The characters, as usual, are greatly concerned with their social presentation and how they appear to others. Forced politeness and cordiality stick out like sore thumbs to the modern reader, and it’s all very enjoyable to see what each character is thinking in such situations.
Woolf’s writing style is very much “stream of consciousness” in which she writes as one thinks, directly from the mind onto paper. She flits from character to character—what they’re thinking, feeling, observing—sometimes in ways that confuse me, as I’m used to very clear, somewhat concrete writing. Woolf’s way of speaking is much more abstract.
The entire book takes place over the course of a very short time, perhaps a few days, and the lack of chapter separations makes it go by very swiftly. The way Woolf switches from character to character makes it seem like more time has passed than it actually has whenever you return to one such person’s story.
For readers who enjoy “taking a good hard look” at society, this is an excellent choice. Recommended for readers who can grasp a more abstract way of thinking.
The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
Mrs Dallowayby Virginia Woolf
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
Villette by Charlotte Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
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