Mrs. Dalloway

Le livre se déroule le long d’une journée du mois de juin 1923, à Londres. Il est centré sur le personnage de Mrs Dalloway, une bourgeoise londonienne qui organise une soirée chez elle, avec toute une galerie de personnages qui gravitent autour d’elle.

Ce qui retient surtout l’attention, c’est le style : l’essentiel du livre se passe dans la tête des personnages. Le récit suit le fil de leurs pensées, et nous révèle leur vie intérieure et leur vision des choses. L’écriture laisse une impression de fluidité : le texte coule sans discontinuer d’une idée à une autre au gré des pensées des personnages, (d’ailleurs il n’y a pas de chapitres : les 300 pages s’enchaînent quasiment en continu), et parfois il saute d’un personnage à un autre, lesquels se jugent les uns les autres, ou bien partagent une même expérience mais l’appréhendent différemment. C’est vraiment une écriture de l’intériorité. Virginia Woolf arrive très bien à retranscrire la vie intérieure de ses personnages.

Parmi les thèmes abordés, outre la description de la bourgeoisie londonienne des années 1920, de ses mondanités, et du Londres de l’époque (le plan de la ville en annexe n’est pas de trop), on trouve des questions existentielles assez universelles : les personnages sont confrontés à leur passé, au sens de leur vie, à leurs rapports aux autres, mais aussi à des sujets inattendus : les inégalités sociales, l’homosexualité féminine, la folie, le suicide...

Parfois, le texte a provoqué chez moi une sensation de vertige étrange. Il se déroule en 1923, il y a presque exactement un siècle, et la moyenne d’âge des personnages doit tourner autour de 50 ans. Lorsque l’un d’eux évoque son adolescence dans les années 90, ça me renvoie à ma propre adolescence dans les années 90… avant de réaliser qu’il parle bien sûr des années 1890. Ou à un autre moment, ils mentionnent un peuple massacré au moyen-orient, on pense instantanément aux palestiniens, sauf qu’ils parlent... des arméniens. Comme si 1923 et 2023 s’interpénétraient le temps d’un instant...

Definitivamente, puedo decir ya lo que intuía desde hace bastante tiempo: el modernismo literario de principios del siglo XX que incorporó la técnica del monólogo interior no es lo mío. Soy consciente de su inmensa calidad y de su influencia decisiva en escritores que admiro, pero no consigo disfrutarlo de manera completa a pesar de que creo que la lectura, en ocasiones, no debe ser sólo puro entretenimiento, sino un reto intelectual.

Es imposible poner una nota negativa a un libro con tanta calidad. Sus párrafos resuenan, se sienten profundos y aquí y allá descubres revelaciones bellas y hondas sobre la experiencia humana (me quedo con los pasajes de la señora Kilman y de Septimus). Además, la mirada femenina en un ambiente cultural dominado por los hombres hace que tenga un interés extra.

Sin embargo, a pesar de todo lo anterior, la lectura se convierte en un reto extenuante. La deliberada dificultad del texto tiene el objetivo de que la narración tome el aspecto de un ir y venir de ideas propio de los pensamientos íntimos de varios personajes. Esto se me hace muy cuesta arriba a pesar de que hay narradora omnisciente y no llega a los extremos insufribles de Faulkner o Joyce.

Tampoco ha ayudado mi nula identificación con unos personajes de la alta sociedad londinense del periodo de entreguerras que son bastante frívolos en ocasiones, con una mirada crítica a su mundo demasiado soterrada en mi opinión.

Definitivamente, puedo decir ya lo que intuía desde hace bastante tiempo: el modernismo literario de principios del siglo XX que incorporó la técnica del monólogo interior no es lo mío. Soy consciente de su inmensa calidad y de su influencia decisiva en escritores que admiro, pero no consigo disfrutarlo de manera completa a pesar de que creo que la lectura, en ocasiones, no debe ser sólo puro entretenimiento, sino un reto intelectual.

Es imposible poner una nota negativa a un libro con tanta calidad. Sus párrafos resuenan, se sienten profundos y aquí y allá descubres revelaciones bellas y hondas sobre la experiencia humana (me quedo con los pasajes de la señora Kilman y de Septimus). Además, la mirada femenina en un ambiente cultural dominado por los hombres hace que tenga un interés extra.

Sin embargo, a pesar de todo lo anterior, la lectura se convierte en un reto extenuante. La deliberada dificultad del texto tiene el objetivo de que la narración tome el aspecto de un ir y venir de ideas propio de los pensamientos íntimos de varios personajes. Esto se me hace muy cuesta arriba a pesar de que hay narradora omnisciente y no llega a los extremos insufribles de Faulkner o Joyce.

Tampoco ha ayudado mi nula identificación con unos personajes de la alta sociedad londinense del periodo de entreguerras que son bastante frívolos en ocasiones, con una mirada crítica a su mundo demasiado soterrada en mi opinión.

 Well, let's just say it's not for me. Which makes me disappointed in myself because the reason it's not for me is that I'm too stupid to understand much of it.
 I should have majored in English in college. If I had, I'd have learned to read more deeply than I do now and gotten more out of the books I've read since. Good literature reflects life, so I'd have gotten more out of life, too. As it is, I'm a shallow moron who skims only the surface of things.
 If you agree with Kurt Vonnegut on the following, avoid this book: “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”
 By the way, you can access Cliff notes on it online for free and reading them has helped me understand [b:Mrs. Dalloway|14942|Mrs. Dalloway|Virginia Woolf|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1646148221l/14942.SY75.jpg|841320] a little.
Excerpt:

 Such are the visions. The solitary traveller is soon beyond the wood; and there, coming to the door with shaded eyes, possibly to look for his return, with hands raised, with white apron blowing, is an elderly woman who seems (so powerful is this infirmity) to seek, over a desert, a lost son; to search for a rider destroyed; to be the figure of the mother whose sons have been killed in the battles of the world. So, as the solitary traveller advances down the village street where the women stand knitting and the men dig in the garden, the evening seems ominous; the figures still; as if some august fate, known to them, awaited without fear, were about to sweep them into complete annihilation.

“A whole lifetime was too short to bring out, now that one had acquired the power, the full flavor; to extract every ounce of pleasure, every shade of pleasure.” - Peter Walsh

So Virginia Woolf has a principle character in Mrs. Dalloway remark midway through this novel. Mrs. Dalloway is considered the crowning achievement of Virginia Woolf’s fictional oeuvre. Written in the stream-of-consciousness style, Woolf tries to help us focus in on the self-absorption of Mrs. Dalloway and other characters. Throughout the novel there are abrupt transitions between past, present, and future as Woolf gracefully switches between the introspective musings of her characters and the omniscience of the narrator.

Mrs. Dalloway’s constant reflections about her past and the unknowns of her future are representative of how we, as ordinary people, go about our days using much of our mental bandwidth to reflect on the contingencies of the past or our hopes for what the future will look like. If the present seems blurry in this novel, it is because sometimes we are all somnambulant in our day-to-day lives.

Much of the novel hinges on a choice Clarissa (Mrs. Dalloway) made as a young woman. She was in love with Peter Walsh, but for practical purposes married Mr. Richard Dalloway. The latter came of more noble stock and had political prospects. The former of a more humble birth and whose fortunes lay in the broader British empire (namely India). Clarissa’s decision to end her engagement with Peter in favor of a marriage to Richard comes into the foreground as she plans for an evening social party at her luxurious home near Westminster; Peter, it so happens, just returned from a five-year sojourn in India and rumor has preceded his appearance about his sordid romance with a young woman in India.

Woolf’s entire narrative takes place during a single day. Big Ben, or other clocks, chime out the hours as they pass gradually from morning to evening. Woolf introduces a number of other minor characters during this intervening period of time. One character whom readers will find an interesting contrast to Clarissa’s general optimism is Mr. Septimus Warren Smith. Smith is far younger than Clarissa (approximately twenty years), a veteran of the First World War, and a true nihilist. Whereas Clarissa finds meaning in the trappings of British high society what with its various symbols, traditions, social rules, and crass materialism, Septimus finds that “it might be possible that the world itself is without meaning” (88). Where Clarissa found continuity and structure in the traditions handed down from one generation to the next, Septimus observes that “the secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, tot he next is loathing, hatred, despair” (88).

There is a growing tension in the book between an older generation of 50-somethings (Clarissa & Richard) who still believe in the fundamental structure of the British Empire, God, and tradition, and a younger, more radical generation represented by Septimus (war veteran), Ms. Kilman (feminist), Elizabeth (Clarissa’s impressionable daughter who represents new directions), and Sally (part of the nouveau riche class of industrialists). Clarissa benefits from the pomp and circumstance of British high society and yet contributes nothing meaningful; Ms. Kilman, on the other hand, has neither time nor patience for these frivolities and instead contributes meaning and value to British society through her work and labor. The future, Peter acknowledges, will depend on the work and ideas of this young, dynamic generation:

“Still the future of civilization lies, he thought, in the hands of young men like that; of young men such as he was, thirty years ago; with their love of abstract principles; getting books sent out to them all the way from London to a peak in the Himalayas; reading science; reading philosophy. The future lies in the hands of young men like that he thought.”

This is a great work that explores human consciousness, the irrevocable nature of past decisions, the illusion of free will, and how people come to terms with the inevitability of death and the legacies they will leave behind.

I have had this book sitting on my bookshelf since December 2004. I read The Voyage Out in July 2004, according to my old "books I've read" spreadsheet. Please go read that review. It was an awful experience to read/listen to that book. I couldn't finish the print edition and probably got through the audiobook because I had an hour commute each way. The best thing I could say was having gotten through it, I felt like a more literate person for having done so.

Clearly, it took 15 years and the promise of my copy of Mrs. Dalloway to another Bookcrosser via the USA & Canada Wishlist Tag Game 2019 for me to pick it up and read it.

I have really only two poor things to say of it: 1. It took 20% of the book before it caught a stride and was truly readable and engaging. That's a bit too long. 2. (And more importantly.) The racism. I suppose you can shrug off the racism because it was written in 1925 by a white British woman, but I just cannot.

Otherwise, the characters are fully fleshed out and believable. I enjoyed the transitions from one character to the next, often happening as an encounter occurs to switch POV. Knowing what I know about Woolf and with my prior reading experience of her, I was waiting from the outset for the character who commits suicide. I thought it was going to be the titular character, but {spoilers} it was not. I thought that the use of PTSD from war, called shell shock, was not quite well represented, but at least made sense.

The prose of Mrs. Dalloway is different than most books, even ones written in that time. I was reading a recent article on the infatuation today's entertainment has with the well-off, as though it were a new thing. I'd like to introduce that author to this book, written in 1925 that also focuses on the well-off for entertainment. This is not a new infatuation, but one that has been a part of entertainment for a very long time.

Overall, this is a book that should be included in a diverse selection of reading. Too often "literature" is restricted to white men of Western heritage. This book would at least break one of those problems.

Clarissa Dalloway goes around London preparing to host a party that evening. It’s a nice day and she finds herself being reminded of her youth in the Bourton and wondering about her life and her choice of husband; marrying the reliable Richard Dalloway instead of the mysterious and challenging Peter Walsh, as she never had the option to be with Sally Seton. These conflicts have been reintroduced when Peter pays her a visit.

The novel begins with Clarissa’s point of view and follows her perspective closely, travelling forwards and back in time and in and out of her mind to construct an image of her life. Clarissa is bubbly and lively, caring a great deal about what people think of her, but she is also self-reflective. She is often questioning life and constantly wondering whether happiness is truly possible. Though she is happy with her marriage to Richard she feels both great joy and dread towards her life and struggles to strike a balance between her desire for privacy and her need to connect with others.

Her husband Richard Dalloway is a member of the conservative government and plans to write a history of The Brutons, a great military family. He is a loving husband and father and devoted to social reform while appreciating English tradition. Peter Walsh is a close friend of Clarissa, once desperately in love with her. When she rejected his proposal, he moved to India; though frequently having romantic problems with women throughout the novel he is currently in love with a married woman in India. A socialist and highly critical of people, he is conflicted about everything in his life. Then there is Sally Sutton, a close friend of Clarissa in their youth, she was a wild handsome woman who would say anything. They were sexually attracted to each other as teenagers. Sally now lives in Manchester where she is married and is known as Lady Rosseter.

This is primarily a novel about life and relationships, with Clarissa reflecting on her life and wondering if she has made the right choices when it comes to marriage. There are so other themes that play a big part within this novel as well; some of these include disillusionment towards the British Empire, fear of death, oppression and balancing life between the need to keep up appearances and having some privacy. I won’t go into these themes in any detail, for the simple reason that I feel that Virginia Woolf leaves it very open to interpretation and it is up to the individual reader to make of it what they will.

For me, the major theme that came out was the struggle Clarissa had with trying to play the good hostess by drawing people together through her parties and her introverted nature. I saw Clarissa as an introvert, though she has a bubbly personality, she is often feels shrouded within her own reflective soul and thinks the ultimate human mystery is how she can exist in one room. She likes the idea of being independent and able to spend time to reflect but she is also aware of the inevitable loneliness that comes with a life of self reflection. If you understood something completely different from this novel, please let me know how you read this book in the comments below.

Now that I’ve looked at the themes of this novel, I want to have a quick look at some of the motifs and symbols used in Mrs Dalloway. The most important of them is time, which is so important to the structure, themes and characters of this novel that Virginia Woolf almost called it The Hours. Time keeps order to this novel; with all the thoughts, memories, and encounters within Mrs Dalloway, it becomes a vital element to the book. Also the old woman in the window across from house symbolises the life Clarissa desires; a private life with time to reflect. You also have things like the flowers with all their colour, varieties and beauty being a motif for emotions, Shakespeare and poetry representing these emotions as well and water suggesting the possibility of death.

Virginia Woolf can be a difficult author to read and requires a lot of thought but as I’ve now discovered with Mrs Dalloway, it is worth the effort. I remember reading To the Lighthouse and really struggling, but when I was told it was about sex, I thought I really missed the point. It’s a novel I plan to revisit again but as I mentioned in this review, I think Woolf writes her novels in such a way that you can interpret it anyway you want.

I don’t know if I would call myself a Virginia Woolf fan now, but I was really impressed reading and studying Mrs Dalloway. I will admit that that I’m planning to read A Room of One’s Own and reread To the Lighthouse. Maybe after that I might call myself a fan but I would recommend reading Virginia Woolf for all serious literature readers and studiers and anyone that needs to increase their pretentious levels. For me, Mrs Dalloway was both an interesting book and an interesting endeavour into improving my critical reading skills.

This review originally appeared on my blog; literary-exploration.com/2013/05/21/book-review-mrs-dalloway/