Mrs. Dalloway (edit title)

• Rated 3 stars

“Mrs. Dalloway tells the story of different people of London society. It jumps from the perspectives of many characters ranging from an upper-calls woman, to that of a World War I veteran facing mental stress, and then to a corrupt doctor. Mrs. Dalloway’s free flowing structure is a reflection upon one of the novel’s main messages which is that life is a journey and that death is something that we all experience. The characters of Mrs. Dalloway contemplate what death will be like for they realize it is an inevitability and that the time is growing near for some of them. You can not stop the journey of life at any point for your mind is constantly at work. This is represented by the books lack of divides or chapters. The book allows us to experience many different characters and takes us on a journey to the past and the present. This represents our own lives. Each of us interacts with other people and we each think about the past. This shows another one of the books messages which is the similarity between the experiences that people go through in life so we have a greater connection to those around us than we actually know. I would recommend this book because the alternating perspectives keeps things interesting.”

• Rated 4 stars

“This book was very interesting because it really explored what it meant to be an individual and have a unique-self. Virginia Woolf follows the life of Mrs. Dalloway throughout the course of one day and she really connects how we all appear to be the same on the outside, physical world, but we are all different inside. We all can make choices because we are born with that right too. I really enjoyed how she wrote the book and how she structured it. Even though some parts might be challenging to read, it is worth understanding.”

• Rated 5 stars

“classic”

• Rated 3 stars

“A pretty creepy book. I've heard a lot of people say that reading this book was like watching paint dry (Carolyn Fagan quote right there), but I think I enjoyed this book so much because the professor who assigned it made reading it so interesting.”

• Rated 3 stars

“stream of consciousness....uuuhhgggg”

• Rated 5 stars

“If I could pick one book out of all the books I own to keep for the rest of my life, it would be Mrs. Dalloway. This book is the first of it's kind and it was written by a woman, which is totally inspiring for someone like me. Clarissa's character is so honest she beaks your heart, and there is a little bit of Septimus in all of us. If I could, I would read this book a million times before I died. Woolf describes the ordinary happenings of one day in such a complex manner that there is no way you'll "get" everything the first time. She captivates you the first time around, and keeps you coming back for more.”

• Rated 4 stars

“I enjoyed this one, and didn't want the story to end. Sometimes I wish I could have lived during this time period, only provided that I could have been born into the privledged class. Exquisite.”

• Rated 0 stars

“This book was very difficult to read, but once i understood the main idea it turned out to be very interesting. My favorite character was the main character who was Clarissa Dalloway. She was a very unique and complicated person in the book. e”

• Rated 1 stars

“I thought this was a horrible novel. I don't like Virginia Woolf's style of writing. She tries to encompass the idea of the human stream of consciousness, which is interesting to try, but a lot of the time this made the plot very unclear because the narrator's thoughts changed frequently, with no logical sequence. After reading the summaries on sparknotes I liked the story more, but I was never able to actually get into the book enough to be able to read it, understand it, and like it all at once. I do not recommend it to anyone.”

• Rated 3 stars

“The way this book was written made it kind of confusing to understand. Like The Catcher in the Rye, this book was written in stream of consciousness. However, Virginia Woolf made this style of writing even more confusing by switching perspectives within the stream of consciousness. The book was written almost completely in the thoughts inside the characters heads. However, Virginia Woolf would switch character's perspectives without letting the reader know quite often. At the same time, this had a really cool effect once i understood who was talking at the different points throughout the book. It really allowed you to dive into each character's persona and truly understand their motives and their relations to the other characters within the novel, which was really essential to understanding the novel. Most importantly, this style of writing is evidence of how revolutionary Virginia Woolf was at the the time she wrote this book. It shows that even through her struggles, she had a deeper insight into the mind of the human person and was able to articulate this in this amazing novel.”