MRS. DALLOWAY by VIRGINIA WOOLF

"She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day."

PR: 9/10

MRS. DALLOWAY said she would buy the flowers herself.

And thus begins the wonderful, thought-processing journey of Clarissa. Written in the Stream of Consciousness technique, Mrs. Dalloway is Woolf's best novel. If one had to describe the theme of this novel, the review would end perhaps in a sentence.

Clarissa decides, as usual, to throw a party and invites guests for the night.

Yep thats the whole plot BUT how can some so normal, common as this be so interesting?

I'd love to answer my question with another question: How can such mundane lives of normal, boring people be so effing interesting?

Perhaps it was a case study? Nope nit at all. The whole story, i.e. 208 pages is set on a single day! Yes exactly like Ulysses? Yep.

At times some themes were very very much relatable with James Joyce's masterpiece which also wrapped itself in a day. Then I got to know that while working on Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf was also reading James Joyce's Ulysses. Yeah that explains everything.

The story is roughly set in the post World War II Britain and it vaguely follows the life of one of the retired soldier of WWII, Septimus Warren Smith and his Italian wife Lucrezia. Warren Smith, under the influence and trauma of a dreadful loss of perhaps his best friend, comrade, Evans, in the war, starts hallucinating, so much so that it leads to something terrible.

The plot also follows the wretched life of Peter Walsh who, once in love with his childhood friend Clarissa, has, after coming back from India, reignites his affections for her.

One can vaguely say that Mrs. Dalloway, the novel, is about people thinking about their decisions, re-thinking and considering, looking back at their lives, and what could have been otherwise.

Its strange, how the first novel I read by Woolf, To The Lighthouse, where she manipulates time and and skips forward in such beautiful manner, authentic, yet in Mrs. Dalloway, she takes one fleeting moment, one thought, one scene, one place, and stretches it all over. Marvelously written! No doubt it was worth the time. Absolutely worth it. Like her previous novel, this one as well contains less dialogues and more thought processing.

Also often did I notice how she uses "waves" to metaphorise certain thoughts and stuff.

This book no doubt is a must read and I would recommend it to you whether you love Stream of Consciousness or not.

Thank you for reading!