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Summary: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I Am!
Review: I read this novel as a prelude to Michael Cunningham's "The Hours" knowing it was homage to Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway." Reading Woolf took me back to my high school days when reading classic literature was a requirement. I am certainly glad I did not have to take an exam on this book. Call me a contemporary book snob, but I found Woolf's stream of consciousness writing style (some sentences often take up nearly a page) unbearable at times. Perhaps I am just a victim of a poor attention span as well. I think I would be "getting it" as I began reading a passage from "Mrs. Dalloway" only to scratch my head wondering what was going on and even who was narrating as I put down the book for the evening. Nevertheless, I do realize and respect this novel's place in literature. It certainly has literary merit as Woolf's use of language is quite beautiful and stunning at times. Likewise, it must have been groundbreaking back in the 1920s in regards to its concept (a single day in the life of a London wife) and themes (the mental anguish of the title character, particularly her lingering love for a girl she shared a single kiss with in her youth). Am I sorry I read "Mrs. Dalloway"? No, it certainly made "The Hours" a much richer reading experience. For those who plan on reading Cunningham's contemporty spin, I would cautiously recommend a stab at "Mrs. Dalloway." Overall, though, I have to say Woolf was just simply not my cup of tea.
Rating: 
Summary: brilliant answer to Ulysses
Review: I must admit, I shied away from Virginial Woolf for some time, mostly due to having read "A Room of One's Own" in college. While mildly interesting, it certainly does not tap into the genius that is Virginia Woolf. So I didn't expect much when I picked up "Mrs. Dalloway." But wow, what a book. It is a direct response to James Joyce's "Ulysses" (though a bit more accessible) and runs with the same stream of consciousness style and also takes place in the space of one day. Virginia Woolf illustrates her greatness in this book and I highly recommend it. People looking to read more of her should also try "To the Lighthouse." She was a very talented and creative woman who more than held her own against the great male minds of the time and continues to impress even years after her death.
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Summary: Clarissa is you
Review: I first read Mrs. Dalloway in 1961. Over the years I have re-read this classic novel more than a dozen times, always with intense pleasure. After her first two less successful attempts at fiction writing, Virginia Woolf surpises us here with a masterful display of her genius. There is barely a story, or a plot here. Even characterization is minimal. Yet the powerful description of the tumult in a human soul during the course of a single day leaves the reader begging for more. Woolf unlike Marcel Proust did not attempt to resurrect the past. Unlike Joyce, she did not try to push tbe use of the stream of consciousnes technique to its limits. Her technique is her own. It allows her to give her readers insightful glimpses into Clarisa's joys and fears, her constant expectation of ecstasy and awareness of the abysses that surround her. It is a masterpiece that should be enjoyed at the right time and when you are in the right mood.
Rating: 
Summary: oscillate wildly
Review: Here is a novel of Dostoevskyian ideals, wherein Woolf purposefully positions her characters in a perpetual state of wild oscillation. Septimus Smith moves from feelings of a post-drowned death, pessimism, and a realization of a failed marriage to feelings of elation as he constructs his ideal happiness via construction of Rezia's hat, back to morose-filled panic that causes his sudden suicidal leap of faith out of the window. Out of a similar window on the same day, Clarissa Dalloway has her periods of elated feelings as witnessed by Woolf's clever hyperbolic ocean wave references. At other times this representative sea turns into a dark storm. And during the conclusive party scene, Clarissa goes from an energetic, welcoming spirit (mixed with mania) to a gloomy, hermitic role after the news of her doppelganger's death. Furthermore, Peter Walsh embarks towards Clarissa's party with feelings of disgust at the London he has returned to, and unsettling emotions about the prigs at the pary, to "extraordinary excitement" at the final sight of Clarissa. And even in Peter's final thoughts we see oscillation--"What is this terror? what is this ecstasy?" (194). Can Peter even sufficiently answer this query that he shares with the reader; what is his final fixed emotion, or is there one? Can he, and Clarissa, escape the "terror" of life that Septimus could not avoid? Clarissa's often repeated line from Cymbeline is "Fear no more the heat o' the sun," but does she, or Peter, ever really adhere to such an insightful witticism? I feel that the answer to their fears rings loud and clear via Sally Rosseter's final adage--"What does the brain matter . . . compared to the heart?" Indeed, what does the maniacal depression, the life of terror, the perpetual straining of thought processes matter--compared to the expression(s) of love, joy, and peace? Though this novel is Proust-like, mixed with a dash of Joyce's Ulysses, and Woolf's desire to portray an altogether new experiment, it remains mostly as a warm comparison of a Dostoevsky novel. Like the great Russian, Woolf shows a deep concern for the plight of man's (and woman's, of course) soul, the inevitable suffering of a mortal, and overwhelming need for oscillation that ends with the sincerest of Christ-like love as the definite destination. Woolf ponders in her June 19, 1923, diary entry, "One must write from deep feeling, said Dostoevsky. And do I?" Yes Mrs. Woolf, you certainly do.
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Summary: Definitely Stream of Conciseness Writing
Review: This book gives a good look at post-WWI life in British society; however, this book is not for those who do not like stream of conciseness writing.
Rating:
Summary: An example of literary excellence
Review: This is by far Woolf's best novel, her most touching, her most brilliant... Mrs. Dalloway is an absolute classic
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Summary: Enchanting Imagery
Review: Woolf creates richly colored world with her characters, her style of writing, and her astounding use of imagery and symbolism. A simple hand movement, the clock striking the hour, and the imense significance of roses; all of these make this book complex, and not everything can be caught the first time Through.
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Summary: Beautiful prose
Review: This is the first work I've read by Virginia Woolf. It will not be the last. It's a "small" work by today's standards, a bit under 200 pages. Don't be deceived. Every page, every phrase evokes shimmering mental images of post-war England, and the people who live there. The use of language and of stream-of-consciousness narration is splendid. For readers new to stream-of-consciousness narration, a word of advice. Don't try to fit each sentence into a regular subject-verb-object mold. Just relax and drift along with the words. You're following a person's thoughts. It all makes sense in the end. A truly rewarding experience.
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Summary: A Masterful Modern Novel
Review: Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" and James Joyce's "Ulysses" stand, to this day, as the two great classics of modern literature. In Proust, the stunning use of memory and sense perception, as well as the stream of consciousness narrative of the great "roman fleuve", marked the auspicious beginnings of a modern sensibility and technique in fiction. Similarly, Joyce's difficult, blasphemous and similarly streaming novel, set in the course of a single day and emanating from the perceiving mind of its narrator, carried forward this sensibility and technique. It is not surprising, then, that Virginia Woolf, while writing her brilliant and innovative "Mrs. Dalloway", was reading these two authors at the time, for Woolf's novel stands as yet another masterful work of modern sensibility and technique, a classic in its own right. "Mrs. Dalloway" is set entirely during a single bright beautiful day in June, when Clarissa Dalloway is occupied by last minute preparations for a party she is having that evening. The wife of Richard Dalloway, a member of Parliament, Mrs. Dalloway is someone who is skilled, like an artist, at creating the perfect party. But the resemblances to a character and a narrative from Jane Austen or Anthony Trollope end there, for Woolf's fictional agenda is consciously modern and her technique is entirely that of interior monologue, omniscient description and, most markedly, a stream of consciousness narrative. Thus, Woolf's text gracefully and imaginatively moves from the interiority of Clarissa Dalloway's thoughts, perceptions and memories to those of the her former lover, Peter Walsh, who has just returned from India, to those of Septimus Warren Smith, a kind of literary doppelganger to Clarissa, a broken young man who served in World War I and suffers the horrible psychological effects of that conflict. It is, in particular, Septimus who darkly hovers over the gaiety of Mrs. Dalloway's day and, ultimately, brings that psychological darkness to Mrs. Dalloway's party. Continually challenging the reader, Woolf's difficult, stream of consiousness narrative technique brings the reader into the minds of the characters, the language on the page telling a coherent and deeply sensitive story by describing sensations, memories, feelings. But it is worth the effort, for "Mrs. Dalloway" is truly one of the great works of Twentieth century English literature, a modern novel that can stand comfortably, albeit diminuitively, next to The Great Marcel and the creator of Bloom's Day.
Rating:
Summary: Challenging and infuriating, but worth it.
Review: If you read "Mrs.Dalloway" with an eye to plot it will be slow and its greatness will remain obscure. However, if a reader relaxes and lets herself enjoy the tender prose, and the emotional storm suffered by many characters(especially Septimus and his wife), Mrs. Dalloway will haunt the mind with its insights. Furthermore, reading "Mrs.Dalloway" is great preparation for its inspired (and there I say superior) contemporary sequel,"The Hours."
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