And that’s exactly what Virginia Woolf does. Instilling a passion for the muse, she ushers us into comfortable seats yet the comfort is but only for a moment. As she beckons for your rapt attention, and elaborates each expression, like the demented Septimus she goes on an interminable rambling of eloquence. Her stress on every impression of shade and shadow isn’t effortless but fastidious. You realize that her honesty in revealing the inherent lives behind these faces and bodies is so urgent that it leaves you breathless just like she is, from the unabating flow of words.
The story, set in London, is a day’s affair. It starts and ends with Clarissa’s party - an ostentatious affair, rightly so as she’s always been ever so boringly practical, with her head in the right place and not to mention, her heart too. In the arrangement of this gathering, others tread in and out like thoughts and the past mingles with the justifications for the present. Interceding for the characters, Virginia Woolf presents the generally happy and impervious Clarissa, a flower in a vase, wilting by the day but strongly safeguarding the exterior.
The flutters in the disconcerted mind are what Ms. Woolf plays with. Must the show go on, one wonders, as Clarissa’s party blots out the pain of Septimus’s suicidal death; an innocent life to be mourned or frivolous ones to be celebrated?
Ms. Woolf’s work hasn’t been an easy read; not for the story or depth but for the manner. It’s been hard to stay with her and not digress in the long decorated sentences. Often I had to read them twice, at times more to recollect what it started with in the first place. This is the first of Ms. Woolf’s work I’ve read and I’d like to read more of her.
My rating - 6/10
Image copyrights:
Book cover - http://kafkatokindergarten.blogspot.com/2012/08/mrs-dalloway-by-virginia-woolf.html
Virginia Woolf - https://www.thoughtco.com/the-modern-essay-by-virginia-woolf-1690207
Well explained article. Thanks a lot dear a very helpful .
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