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Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway (2002, Harcourt) 4 stars

Virginia Woolf’s novel chronicles a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a politician’s wife …

Review of 'Mrs. Dalloway' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

 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.