Excellent novel, also my first Woolf. I used to say a thing about how all the feminist literature I've ever read was really short (proof that not even women can ever have much to say about women) and Mrs. Dalloway is itself not to long a work, however, two things resuscitate its dignity: First, reading it as a pure feminist work is only one way of approaching it, and also one that almost certainly produces an inadequate appreciation of the novel as a whole. Two, despite its relatively short length (145 pages in my copy) it was easily one of the slowest novels I've ever had to read. This is not because it is boring or tedious, but because while in the case of most novels, 8/10 sentences are devoted to the advancement of motion, and perhaps 2 linger in contemplation or though, the reverse is the case with Dalloway: very few sentences actually contribute to the motion of the plot. In fact the book can be described more as a series of interior monologues flowing together.
If I had to describe the entire novel in one word it would be this: thoughtful.
I am certain I shall have to read it again.
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