Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

I must have read this book at least four times, and every time I do I find something new, or I remember some feeling or thought that came to me the previous time. When I first read it I thought it would simply be the story of a high society woman going about her day, but nothing is further from the truth in this beautiful representation of an ordinary day in London.

On the warm June day in which the novel is set, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party, and everything needs to be perfect. She decides to buy the flowers herself; she leaves her house and walks around London, a city that is recovering from a war while still maint
aining an empire that controls half the world. She meets people, she sees things, she remembers other parties and other days; and meanwhile, in the street, Septimus Smith battles with shell-shock, and his wife wonders what she's done wrong, why she's not happy, why she doesn't have what she dreamt of back in Italy. Later we will see Richard, who is in love but hasn't completely forgotten how much he loved her, and we will read about Sally Seaton and the kiss she shared with Clarissa. We will meet Mr. Dalloway, and the Dalloways' daughter, who is not quite what her mother dreamed her to be. And with every page we will go deeper and deeper into the minds of Septimus, of Clarissa, of Richard, and we will find out things that have been hiding in them for years, stories that they only dare remember, situations that have shaped who they are today. Everything in the course of one single day, until Clarissa gives her party and all is alright with the world. Or not.

This novel is such a complex composition of different characters and their thoughts that it would be very difficult to summarize, apart from ruining the pleasure one can get from reading the novel themselves. This is one of Woolf most accessible works, in the sense that, even though her style would have been considered experimental at the time it was published, it's perfectly easy to read for the modern reader. The characters are well formed, the actions are explained, and the only thing left to do is to figure out if we like Clarissa or not, which will vary enormously from one reader to the other.

Anyone familiar with Virginia Woolf's life will have no trouble making connections between the characters in the book and her real life. She was the seventh child of high middle class family where education was the most important thing. Even though she was a woman, she had access to her father's library and her brothers' conversations with the brighter minds of the city, which helped her become the writer we all know. She suffered from mental illness and she committed suicide because of this when she was 59. Her writings, of course, survived her, and so did her husband, who dedicated his life to publish and cherish his wife's work. For me, humble reader that I am, Mrs Dalloway is her best work, and I'm sure I'm not the only one stating this. Anyone who has read it feels that it is a masterpiece.