Mrs Dalloway Book Review: Moodboard of Regrets

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

What in the pass-the-protagonists-like-parcels was this? In some measure, ‘Mrs Dalloway‘ is brilliant, Virginia Woolf manages to wrap up a lifetime of stories, memories, and inner thoughts in just one pleasant London day. But it’s also annoying, because just as you get familiar with one character, the narrative jumps to someone else.

Most literary critics seem to be in awe of the “stream of consciousness” technique used in ‘Mrs Dalloway‘, a novel literary device for 1925, the book’s year of publication. However, Fyodor Dostoevsky did it better in ‘Crime & Punishment‘, which came out in 1866. And yes, some readers might find both books absolutely tedious, but I definitely found ‘Crime & Punishment‘ far more engrossing than ‘Mrs Dalloway‘; though I can’t say the same for Dostoevsky’s other works. ‘The Idiot‘ and ‘Notes from the Underground’ didn’t have the same impact, were dreary as hell, and now I’m too scared to try The Brothers Karamazov.

What even is this ‘Stream of Consciousness’ technique?

Well, if I had to explain it in simple terms, it’s a narrative style where the author gives readers uninterrupted, unfiltered glimpses into the mind of the principal protagonist, or in Mrs Dalloway’s case, through multiple characters.

Imagine Person A sitting in a café, waiting for friends to arrive, and thinking about multiple things at once. So the sentence might look like this (completely made up by me, sorry):

I wonder if I should get the hot Americano or the iced Americano. A hot coffee would be better for today’s weather, but this place is supposedly famous for their cold brews. Shit! I hope I locked the door right. I remember slamming it hard, but it’s not like there’s anything valuable at home—the laptop is with me. I should’ve bought that cute blue bag I saw online. Who knows if that brand will have a 60% sale again? But no, no, no, good thing I didn’t, the month is ending, and this time they better credit our salaries on time. Oh no, it looks like it might rain… the clouds are getting darker, why is the damn weather so unpredictable. I should’ve carried an umbrella. OMG, OMG, that little dog crossing the street is adorable, I wish I could get a dog….

Let’s Look At The Plot of ‘Mrs Dalloway’

The novel unfolds in a single day in London, starting off by introducing the wealthy Mrs Dalloway, who is throwing a party in the evening and wants it to be perfect. With an ex-lover unexpectedly showing up, and a few other surprising events occurring through the day, the principal point of the novel seems to be the outcome of the day. But unlike the title, the plot doesn’t follow its titular protagonist the whole day, instead, the author keeps jumping the POVs (points of view) in the novel, juggling between multiple characters.

If I had to pick three primary characters, it would be the superficially lively Mrs Clarissa Dalloway, a typical upper-class British woman in her 50s whose biggest anxiety for the day is ensuring her party is a success; but an old flame called Peter Walsh comes to visit her the same morning, so her thoughts often go back to the summer she rejected him and chose to marry her current husband, wondering if she made the right choice; Virginia Woolf also dives into the mind of Peter Walsh, returned from British Colony India, hoping to marry a much younger woman, although meeting Clarissa throws him into the throes of agony once again, making him once again the young, passionate man in love with her; and then there is Septimus Warren Smith, a British veteran of the Great War (it wasn’t called World War I yet), married to an Italian woman, a decision he makes only to keep his mind off the horrors of war, but unfortunately, he keeps wanting to die and hallucinates eerie events.

Back to my take of Mrs Dalloway

Listen, if you thought that sentence was long, Virginia Woolf writes almost one-page-long sentences in ‘Mrs Dalloway‘, which, quite frankly, made me lose the stream of narrative more often than not. The first half of the novel is certainly impressive, as the author describes a bustling London day. It starts off with Mrs Dalloway heading out to do a little shopping before her big party, and then the author jumps to different characters to show what’s going on in their minds. The inner worlds of Clarissa and Warren Smith offer a striking contrast to the reader, one obsesses over parties and past loves, while the other is caught in the psychological turmoil of warfare and its lasting effects.

But as the novel progresses, the thoughts of these characters become annoyingly repetitive, with only Virginia Woolf’s descriptions of London streets, scenes, and smells offering some refuge from their suffocatingly boring thoughts. Then the author jumps between various uninteresting characters, which include Mrs Dalloway’s beautiful young daughter Elizabeth, her history tutor Doris Kilman who despises the shallow Clarissa, Warren’s worried wife Lucrezia, and a few others. The problem is, by the time 60% of the novel was done, I was simply not interested in knowing what happened to any of them. It was absolutely difficult to read through the next, even when the end was very close by, it made me want to abandon the novel.

London in 1927 (Source: Wikimedia)

With Warren Smith, the most complex and intriguing character in the novel, you sense from the very beginning that there are only two possible outcomes: either the poor, tormented man will end his life, or he’ll be sent off to some kind of mental institution. Of course, I won’t spoil what actually happens in case you decide to read ‘Mrs Dalloway‘, but the point is, as the characters drift through the pages, readers like me become increasingly indifferent to their fate. In a story teeming with varied characters, not getting the reader to care for anybody? Not a good sign.

It’s hard to believe that “To The Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf came out after ‘Mrs Dalloway‘, because I found the lighthouse novel mind-numbingly boring, at least the literary prose in Clarissa’s tale often shines, laden with vivid imagery, and rich metaphors. Here’s an example of a sentence that really caught my eye in the book – Such are the visions which proffer great cornucopias full of fruit to the solitary traveller, or murmur in his ear like sirens lolloping away on the green sea waves, or are dashed in his face like bunches of roses, or rise to the surface like pale faces which fishermen flounder through floods to embrace. (This isn’t necessarily the best sentence in the book, just one I happened to highlight early on, while I was still enjoying the story and the regret hadn’t kicked in).

What, of course, also sets ‘Mrs Dalloway‘ apart from other literary heroines of the time is Virginia Woolf’s bold declaration of Clarissa’s love for her friend Sally Seton, even if it’s something she only expresses in her mind. Clarissa is fluid in her affections, reminiscing fondly about her crush on the vivacious Sally, even though her romantic feelings are more fiercely torn between Mr Dalloway and the emotional Peter Walsh. Despite being in their 50s, there’s a youthful romantic charm in these long-lost lovers, creating a certain suspense over whether there’s a chance they might rekindle their affair. Although again, knowing Mrs Dalloway and the importance she attaches to public appearances and social status, you know nothing is going to change.

Wars might rage across the world, people might die miserably, but life is always a party for somebody, somewhere. We must live on. That’s essentially the essence of this book. My principal takeaway from reading ‘Mrs Dalloway‘ was that Virginia Woolf can definitely write to the envy of many authors, her prose has aged well, with many lines spun like gold, but does that make her a good storyteller? I really don’t know. If someone wrote this exact same novel today under the ‘historical fiction’ genre, I’d rate it even lower.

Rating: 2 on 5.

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