I'll come straight to the point. Mrs Dalloway was exactly the Postmodernist twaddle I expected it to be. I had the measure of Virginia Woolf from reading Orlando, so I knew what I was in for, and why I had avoided reading it for so long. Its exalted place in the academic literary canon was also an obvious indication that I wouldn't enjoy it, knowing how such impenetrable texts are well prized. Much like Orlando, Mrs Dalloway is a plotless, meandering, psychologically driven stream of consciousness. Taking place over the course of a single day, we flit between the viewpoints of several insipid, high society characters who are not nearly as interesting as Woolf imagines. There is the titular 'heroine' Clara, a prudish, repressed lesbian who is organising a party whilst lamenting growing old. There is Septimus Smith, a young war veteran suffering from shell-shock and turning mad, and Peter Walsh, an old flame of Clara's who has recently returned from India and passes the time stalking women on the streets of London.
Perhaps what I disliked most about the book was the fact that it seems to showcase the advent of modernity in a post-First World War society where technology becomes more freely available and mainstream. All of the things I feel an aversion to are paraded out for the characters to form opinions on, such as motor cars, buses, planes, cinemas, aggressive advertising, but also noxious social changes like the blurring of class boundaries, and public displays of affection. The stuffiness and decorum of the Edwardian Era has been replaced by hedonism and moral laxity. Whilst some remnants of the Empire attempt to cling to the old ways, others tentatively adapt, whilst still more plunge headlong into the consumerism of the roaring twenties. It took me a long time to finish this book, as the inclination to read was absent, and more often than not a session would send me to sleep. I recognise that these opinions are blasphemous in literary circles.
Rating: 1/5
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