Review: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

One July day in London, Clarissa Dalloway is preparing to give a party. As she goes about her business, her mind floats back to the past, and to the people and places that have mattered to her.

Elsewhere in the same city, others also go about their lives; Peter Walsh, who once proposed to Mrs. Dalloway and was turned down; Septimus Smith and his wife Lucrezia, who are struggling with the impact of Septimus’ spiralling mental state; and several others, whose lives, inner and outer, are touched on throughout the course of this one day.

Mrs. Dalloway is beautifully written, in a lyrical style that draws you in, despite the fact that the actual happenings in the book are very slow, wandering, even mundane. The writing style lends a sense of romance to the everyday, to the drudgery of life and quotidian happenings. It is the sort of book that one reads for the beauty of the way the words are put together, more than for the story itself.

The multiple characters are fleshed out wonderfully, even if we only brush up against them for a few moments, allowing the reader to catch a glimpse of their rich inner dialogue and the wanderings of their minds.

This is the kind of work that one has to read more slowly, digesting the lines bit by bit and appreciating them, rather than rushing through. Even though it is a rather short book (only 180 pages in my version), it can take a little while to get through if you really want to read it as it deserves.

Though I have only read the book once, I think it is the kind of piece that you can get something new out of in each re-read, digging deeper into the words and their meanings, the parallels and crossing paths of the characters.

That said, the style of writing can also be a little confusing at times; due to the punctuation (or lack of it) and formatting as well as the way it is written, in some places it is not entirely clear who is speaking or thinking what; due to the same reasons, I often had to read a sentence over two or three times before it made sense to me.

In addition, due to the lack of plot, it did get a little tiring to read after a while. The writing style was lovely, as I have mentioned, but without any kind of direction, I could have done with the book being a little shorter — may 100 pages or so in length.

That said, I do love Virginia Woolf’s writing and her way of expressing herself, and out of the three of her works that I’ve read so far, this was my favourite.

As far as content warnings, the book does at times take us into the viewpoint of a mentally ill man suffering from PTSD (who has hallucinations and hears voices) and his wife, and the impact it has on their lives. In addition, it includes suicide as a theme, and describes a person committing suicide. If such things are triggering and upsetting to you, I would recommend against reading this book.

In short, I would recommend this to readers who like a character-focused book (one that skips between multiple viewpoints without any definite main character), don’t mind the lack of a solid plot, and enjoy lyrical, stream-of-consciousness style writing. If not, this book may not be for you; many people have found it boring or even pretentious, but others have found a new favourite, so it really depends on the reader.