A review by readingoverbreathing
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

4.0

"The word 'time' split its husk; poured its riches over him; and from his lips fell like shells, like shavings from a plane, without his making them, hard, white, imperishable, words, and flew to attach themselves to their places in an ode to Time; an immortal ode to Time."

I read most of Mrs Dalloway, wrote an essay on it even, for one of my first year English courses but never devoted myself to consuming its entirety, to my own chagrin, even at the time. With it looming on my bookshelf, and being such a quick read, I decided to pick it back up on a long travel day headed home for Christmas.

I do wish I had been able to read this without a mindset of academic analysis, which slowly came back to me with certain passages familiar from my essay research and other little annotations I had left in my copy. This is some of Woolf's strongest writing; the narrative flows impeccably, ingeniously, the imagery is vividly evocative, and the perceptibility of human nature uncanny. Left to my own devices, though, I feel like my enjoyability of these elements would have been stronger, less bogged down by the pressures of literary analysis.

Regardless, I am glad I made the time to sit through this one and properly appreciate it. Woolf has never yet disappointed me.