Review:
My philosophy has always been to try to find the good in a book, even when you feel that there is none or that the book is an utter piece of garbage. Usually when I think of an utter piece of garbage I think of the trash that I enjoy reading that most other people would not have any inkling of loving in any respect, such as many of my murder mysteries. I recognize my love for a trash novel or not a well-written novel, so I try to be less harsh when I finally get around to reading a classic work because I am aware that I am probably not the intended audience. That was hard to do with Mrs. Dalloway for me though as it was a book that I was looking forward to finally reading after all these years (The Hours by Michael Cunningham had lead me to believe I would devour this book in one sitting and feel the heavens open to me). Unfortunately the heavens did not open to me while I nearly pulled out my hair as I read this novel.
The reasons that I did not enjoy this book probably are some of the very reasons that others have fallen in love with this book over the years. There, in my opinion, is little to no ongoing plot besides that there is going to be a party and that lives of several people have intersected together over the years. It showcases wonderfully that people often are not true to their own inner selves instead fabricating parts of themselves for general societal consumption. In other stories I have enjoyed this basic telling of the human condition, but this was when it was underscored with an overall plot that felt was driving at some larger point. "Mrs. Dalloway" does not have a plot that drives it forward instead it feels like several vignettes of characters lives forced together to try to create a full-length work. It was not enjoyable for me to read as a result.
The other issue that I had was that there were no characters that one could root for in the entire series of presented personalities because each of them were so flawed. As I previously stated each seemed to be unable to stay true to their own real feelings of who they were. This made it hard to latch onto a character that one could feel for. The nearest that one could feel attached to is the war veteran and even that character you feel like he is forcing himself to be at a loss for enjoyment in life. It feels like each character "dug their own grave" to be a bit cliched. The characters though have a strong sense of the time that the novel was written, which was apparent in the main character being highly concerned with her societal party that was being thrown at her manor and also in the context of the christian female character being overly pious. Knowing that the characters served a point in the original context helps to make the book move along, but it is a small favor in a book where a bigger favor was needed from the writer to enjoy her work.
I would recommend this book to those individuals that are English majors at a university because they would be examining it from a standpoint of the time period. Also individuals that enjoy slow stories involving tidbits of people's lives would find this one to be right up their alley. They can see how each character's world has come to pass because Woolfe describes it eloquently. Woolfe is a great writer, but this particular work was lacking for me in the grand scheme of what I wanted in a novel. I will have to give her other works a chance to see how I interact with them. I will give her another chance because there is no way that I am afraid of Virginia Woolfe. ;-)
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