Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (the height of modernism)
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- Опубликовано: 29 мар 2021
- A discussion with two readings from Virginia Woolf’s 1925 masterpiece.
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I encouraged my daughter to read the book, she just started college, and i re-read it so we could talk about it. i really like the way you talk about being tethered to memories and also comparing Woolf to a good pilot..love that! thanks for this!
Thanks for the kind words. I hope that has continued to be a nice discussion for you. Looking forward myself to talking about this one with my daughters when they are older. I hope you have a great week.
Cheers, Jack
Lovely commentary and so helpful!
Loved the review. This is one of my favorite books. The first time I read it, the parallel between Clarissa and Septimus was what struck me most on my first read. On a second read, I paid more attention to the glorious prose. I often think that Woolf could easily have been a poet if she'd wanted to be. Jason will likely bring this up if he talks to you about this later in the week, but he and I noticed a Whitmanian quality to the prose in this novel. I'm not sure if Woolf would've been familiar with Whitman. Interesting that you mentioned D.H. Lawrence, because I believe he wrote a fair amount about Whitman and helped build his reputation (along with Moby-Dick's reputation). I could be wrong about that. Wouldn't have thought to compare this to Hedda Gabler, but now I feel like I need to reread that too! (Maybe I'll just find a production or film of it on RUclips...)
Thanks, Lukas, I always find a deep sense of validation from Virginia Woolf in her works, particularly her essays, and I wonder if she would have found that as a poet.
I hadn’t thought much about Whitman. One of my favorite aspects of Woolf is how her work is almost never solipsistic autobiography. Whitman can be deeply autobiographical, though he constructs a very different self-mythology than someone like James Joyce and seems to perceive more of the world around him, like Woolf.
I was thinking of Nora in Doll’s House, but having read Hedda Gabler four weeks ago, I’m trying to run through parallels there!
Hope you’re well!
Best, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 Whoops, I mis-remembered what you said about Ibsen! A Doll's House definitely has a much clearer comparison to Mrs. Dalloway.
Hi Jack ! She is on my TBR, never read her before, so thanks for this excellent intro 🙏🏻
Thanks, Tom! Both this and To the Lighthouse are excellent and surprisingly accessible. I hope you enjoy reading one of her books when you have a chance.
I sent some others to your amazing Inferno videos this afternoon. Hope your week is going well!
Best, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 Thank you ! I was wondering why I had seen a group of new subscribers. All good here, I hope you too.
I'm studying this book at university and I loved your take on it and bringing in other books was also amazing, thank you!
Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad the connections were helpful. Best of luck in your studies this term.
Cheers, Jack
I'm from Brazil and reading the book for the first time. This was a great video, thank you!
Really enjoyed this ... I'm currently exploring a local history discussion about how PTSD affected WW1 soldiers in the long term and how they were viewed so glad to be reminded of this masterpiece . And always happy to be reminded of The Sound and the Fury. There's a stunted and twisted hawthorn on my daily walk and it embodies the anguish of mental illness for me .
Thanks, Hester. Each time Big Ben tolled, I thought of Quentin asking about the time.
That’s sounds like a fascinating, though tragic, discussion. I hope you’re having a great week!
Best, Jack
amazing review! thank you for helping me understand the book better and see a new perspective
Happy to share! Have you read any other works from Woolf? Hope you have a great week.
Cheers, Jack
I couldn't agree with your more here Jack. This really does feel like a perfect novel. It's one of the few books I've read that I can legitimately say changed the way I think- after I read it I found myself narrating my own thought processes throughout the day. I also found it a wonderfully life-affirming book, which I didn't expect.
I had never considered the similarities between Septimus and Quentin Compson, but that's a very good observation- although Quentin's suicidal melancholy strikes me as largely an affectation, making his story feel a little less tragic for me.
Thanks for another great video.
Thanks, Jordan! I agree on the affirmation, almost an exhilarating existentialism . . .
I usually think of Quentin Compson as a dark take, possibly a parody, of the questing knight errant. Septimus Smith might more of a prophet archetype in the vein of Tiresias or Cassandra, though I wasn’t paying enough attention to him on this reading.
I hope your week has gone well!
Best, Jack
I’m so happy I found your channel- you have great taste and such a pleasure to listen to. I’ve learned a lot.
Please consider doing a shelf tour someday soon?
Thanks for the kind words! I am hoping to do some shelf tours as a summer project once my school year ends in 8 weeks.
I hope this week is going well for you!
Best, Jack
Thanks Jack! And, timely... I am about to embark on my first Woolf- The Waves 🌊🌊
Thanks, Noah! Don’t get caught in the undertow now . . .
Hope you’re well!
Best, Jack
It's great to listen to your thoughts on this and the characters' freedom in this novel.
Wow, thanks for the kind words, Eric. I really appreciate that and am glad it made sense. I hope you’re having a nice week.
Best, Jack
I think I need to read this one in print! I tried to listen to the audiobook once, and I wouldn’t recommend that format. You highlighted the few things I remember liking about it! Nicely done examination of this one!👍🏻
Thanks, Kari! I can’t imagine trying to follow this as an audiobook. The transitions are so seamless that I was backtracking when I realized it was a new character’s consciousness to figure out where it started. That wouldn’t really happen on an audiobook.
Hope your week is going well!
Best, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 Yes! That definitely threw me off in the audio version. Hope you have a great week, too Jack! 🙂
Added to my TBR!! I love great prose!!
I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for stopping by.
Best, Jack
I have got to read this book. Can’t believe I haven’t yet.
Have you read any of Virginia Woolf’s other works, Brian?
I talked about this at length in January on my channel. I’ll be sure to give your video the attention it deserves this week.
Thanks, Jason! I’ve heard to expect thoughts on Walt Whitman . . . Hope the movie discussion was enjoyable tonight!
Best, Jack
I always did want to do plan a spectacular party. 💝
This was truly brilliant transmission. Thanks so much. I love Virginia Woolf. 💞😁
Now I do listening to Robert Anton Wilson to do relaxing as I like his chit chats on Ulysses very much 💞
'Bout time to re-read this. I liked your example of it being like watching an "aquarium." 😎😉🤓
Thanks, Allen! Is this your favorite work by Virginia Woolf? I hope your week has been going well.
Best, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 Need to reread _To the Lighthouse,_ too 😉🤘🤓
Very interesting book and thanks for your analysis !
Thanks for the kind words. Hope you have a great weekend.
Cheers, Jack
Excellent review, Jack. I am also a big fan of Mrs D. I like your aquarium metaphor. You can really feel that particular day being just a segment in time where we were allowed to follow a group of people with all their relationships entangled both in the happenings of the day and in the past events that have been formative for both themselves as individuals and their opinions about each other.
Thanks, Dario! I am glad the aquarium metaphor made sense. I agree with how you describe the one day as a segment in time. It feels constricted, yet we see that as a segment it is part of an infinite sequence of such segments. Such a wonderful book.
I hope your week has gone well. On to Njal!!
Best, Jack
A great review thank you. I appreciate the reflections on other books at the end of your review because I have been reading Proust and thought that the sections describing nature and specifically flowers reminded me of his work. I think symbolically she is using flowers in the same way as Proust too. Not surprising as she loved In Search of Lost Time.
Thanks for the kind words. Flowers seem so overtly sexual in Proust, and that side of Woolf’s writing can be interesting because she is often more subtle than he is as a writer. Great connection!
I hope that you have a great weekend.
Cheers, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 Great point about the flowers, maybe she was using flowers as flowers because she was a little prudish in relation to that side of things and rightly so considering her experiences. Thank you again for your thoughts.
This was great! Mrs Dalloway is the first book I read by Woolf and it is one of my favorite novels. Like you said, there are some sentences that are so carefully constructed that it’s impossible not to admire how perfectly chosen every single word is. I plan to read The Sound and the Fury soon, so it was nice to hear that a character in that reminded you of one in Mrs Dalloway.
Thanks, Yasmin! When you read The Waves, will it be your first encounter with that book?
I hope you enjoy Sound and the Fury. My wife and I had long discussions about that book when we were friends in college, and it’s a perennial reread for both of us.
Hope you’re well!
Best, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 yes, it’ll be my first time reading The Waves. I’ve heard that it’s a lot of people’s favorite Woolf (mine is Mrs Dalloway so far), so I’m really excited. Do you have a favorite novel by her?
@@tothelithouse6562 I think Mrs. Dalloway is my favorite, though some of that may be decency bias. It reads so fluidly and feels unified.
There was a time where I was really into Between the Acts, but that feels more artificial now.
@@ramblingraconteur1616 I agree with that. I can’t believe this was her debut! It’s masterful
I just finished the book. Yes, indeed it reminded me a lot of the Sound and Fury in the manner of writing. But yet very different in content. People were painted in small brush strokes making up London. All together plus Bond street and couple other ones named in the book. London after the war, thank goodness war is over but so and so lost their son and have never been the same. And poor Septimus, with sever PTSD. The doctors who drive him to suicide, was that a suicide? To me that was more like homicide. Clarissa through the eyes of different people looked so different as if she was all these different people. Who was Clarissa? Why was she so important? Was she the spirit of London? The book leaves you with more questions than the answers but that’s what art’s all about. All these bits and pieces made a transitory effect in the memory.
loved this review
Thanks for the kind words!
Try the 1997 film with Vanessa Redgrave, which is very faithful to the book. No one else could have played her.
I quit this book after 30 pages. I just wasn't ready for the style. I am not used to stream of consciousness style. I do plan on retrying it in the summer though. Wish me luck!
Good luck! I think I set it aside twice before I finally found a way in. I can be a serious mood reader. I hope you have a great weekend, Isaiah.
Best, Jack
Oh gosh, I love Woolf. I think her best work is The Waves, however. Everything you say about Mrs Dalloway is multiplied by ten in that text.
That’s what I keep hearing about The Waves. I’ve yet to read it, but Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are astonishing, so I have high hopes.
I hope you’re having a great week!
Best, Jack
Virginia Woolf is one of my favorites. And Mrs. Dalloway is fantastic. Have you read Orlando?
I read it many years ago while also reading a novel by Vita Sackville-West. I think that jumping between the two was the wrong approach. I remember it feeling much less dense than the other works I had read by Woolf. Is Orlando your favorite of her works? Now I’m off to find my copy somewhere in the shelves . . .
Hope your week is going well, Stephanie.
Best, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 Mrs. Dalloway is my favorite of her fiction. Though I love almost everything she’s written. I really liked Orlando. I would encourage you to give it another go at some point as I found it very intellectual and a lot there to think about, including the female experience, etc . I even adored Flush, which is the book told from the point of view of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel. There was such a warmth and tenderness to that book (which is short so a quick read). The only book I couldn’t get into was The Waves, which iI know is considered a masterpiece. Did you like it? I should try again at some point. I quit pretty early on.
@@StephanieJCohen I have not read The Waves, though I plan to. I also enjoy her essays and letters. She had such a deep, reflective mind, and her humor shines through so well!