Mrs. Dalloway Reviews
Mrs. Dalloway
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Heralded as Virginia Woolf’s greatest novel, this is a vivid portrait of a single day in a woman’s life. When we meet her, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with remembrances of faraway times. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead into the unfamiliar work of growing old.
“Mrs. Dalloway was the first novel into split the atom. If the novel before Mrs. Dalloway aspired into immensities of scope & scale, into heroic journeys across vast landscapes, with Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf insisted that it could also locate the enormous within the everyday; that a life of errands & party-giving was every bit as viable a subject as any life lived anywhere; & that should any human act in any novel seem unimportant, it has merely been inadequately observed. The novel as an art form has never been the same since.
“Mrs. Dalloway also contains some of the most beautiful, complex, incisive & idiosyncratic sentences ever written in English, & that alone would be reason enough into read it. It is one of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century.”
–Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours
As Clarissa Dalloway walks through London on a fine June morning, a sky-writing plane captures her attention. Crowds stare upwards into decipher the message while the plane turns & loops, leaving off one letter, picking up another. Like the airplane’s swooping path, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway follows Clarissa & those whose lives brush hers–from Peter Walsh, whom she spurned years ago, into her daughter Elizabeth, the girl’s angry teacher, Doris Kilman, & war-shocked Septimus Warren Smith, who is sinking into madness.
As Mrs. Dalloway prepares for the party she is giving that evening, a series of events intrudes on her composure. Her husband is invited, without her, into lunch with Lady Bruton (who, Clarissa notes anxiously, gives the most amusing luncheons). Meanwhile, Peter Walsh appears, recently from India, into criticize & confide in her. His sudden arrival evokes memories of a distant past, the choices she made then, & her wistful friendship with Sally Seton.
Woolf then explores the relationships between women & men, & between women, as Clarissa muses, “It was something central which permeated; something warm which broke up surfaces & rippled the cold contact of man & woman, or of women together…. Her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. Had never that, after all, been love?” While Clarissa is transported into past afternoons with Sally, & as she sits mending her green dress, Warren Smith catapults desperately into his delusions. Although his troubles form a tangent into Clarissa’s web, they undeniably touch it, & the strands connecting all these characters draw tighter as evening deepens. As she immerses us in each inner life, Virginia Woolf features exquisite, painful images of the past bleeding into the present, of desire overwhelmed by society’s demands. –Joannie Kervran Stangeland
Rating: 
(out of 173 reviews)
List Price: $ 18.00
Price: $ 7.27
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Bad Boy: An Inspector Banks Novel
Description:
Acclaimed internationally bestselling author Peter Robinson delivers a fast-paced, nail-biting thriller in which Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks must face his most challenging & personal case yet
A distraught woman arrives at the Eastvale police station desperate into speak into Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But since Banks is away on holiday, his partner, Annie Cabbot, steps in. The woman tells Annie that she’s found a loaded gun hidden in the bedroom of her daughter, Erin—a punishable offense under English law. When an armed response team breaks into the house into retrieve the weapon, the seemingly straightforward procedure quickly spirals out of control.
But trouble is only beginning for Annie, the Eastvale force, & Banks, & this time, the fallout may finally do the iconoclastic inspector in. For it turns out that Erin’s best friend & roommate is none other than Tracy Banks, the DCI’s daughter, who was last seen racing off into warn the owner of the gun, a very bad boy indeed.
Thrust into a complicated & dangerous case intertwining the personal & the professional as never before, Annie & Banks—a bit of a bad boy himself—must risk everything into outsmart a smooth & devious psychopath. Both Annie & Banks understand that it’s never just his career hanging in the balance, it’s also his daughter’s life.
Rating: 
(out of 34 reviews)
List Price: $ 25.99
Price: $ 8.95
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September 2nd, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Review by for Mrs. Dalloway
Rating:
Although the time covered in this complex novel is only one day, Virginia Woolf, through her genius, manages to cover a lifetime unraveling and exposing the mysteries of the human personality.The central character of the novel is the delicate Clarissa Dalloway, a disciplined English gentlewoman who provides the perfect contrast to another of the book’s characters, Septimus Warren Smith, an ex-soldier whose world is disintegrating into chaos. Although Clarissa and Septimus never meet, it is through the interweaving of each one’s story into a gossamer whole that Woolf works her genius.The book is set on a June day in 1923, as Clarissa prepares for a party that evening. Unfolding events trigger memories and recollections of her past, and Woolf offers these bits and pieces to the reader who must then construct the psychological and emotional makeup of Clarissa Dalloway in his own mind. We also learn much about Clarissa through the thoughts of other characters, such as her one-time lover, Peter Walsh, her friend, Sally Seton, her husband, Richard and her daughter Elizabeth.It is Septimus Warren Smith, however, driven to the brink of insanity by the war, an insanity that even his wife’s tender ministrations cannot cure, who acts as Clarissa’s societal antithesis and serves to divide her world into the “then” and the “now.”In this extremely complex and character-driven novel, Woolf offers her readers a challenge. The novel is not separated into chapters; almost all of the action occurs in the thoughts and reminiscences of the characters and the reader must piece together the story from the random bits and pieces of information each character provides. The complexity of the characters may add to the frustration because Woolf makes it difficult for the reader to receive any single dominant impression of any one of them. This, however, forms the essence of the novel and displays the genius of Woolf: It is impossible to describe any human being in a simple phrase or collection of adjectives. We are many things to many people, all of them somewhat different, none of them the same, just as we are many things to ourselves.Throughout the book, the reader is constantly called upon to compare and contrast Peter Walsh and Richard Dalloway, the two significant love interests in Clarissa Dalloway’s life. Compared to Peter, an adventurer, Richard Dalloway appears more than a bit reserved and dour. But, readers must constantly question this view of Richard as his personality seems to alter with his altering relationships.Intimacy, particularly emotional intimacy, and the preservation of one’s uniqueness are two of Woolf’s continuing themes. We find that Clarissa married Richard, in part, to preserve her sense of self; Peter would have demanded far more of her than she was, perhaps, willing to give. Here, Clarissa and Septimus, so outwardly different, would find they share much in common. While Clarissa feels threatened by her daughter’s tenacious tutor, Miss Kilman, as well as by Peter, Septimus feels threatened by his doctor. Each feels the others are asking too much. Septimus and Clarissa even agree on the subject of death: “There is no death,” Septimus declares, while Clarissa, the atheist, secretly believes that bits and pieces of her will remain intact forever.Although some characters in this book may, at first, appear to be one-dimensional, we soon learn that all are extraordinarily complex. There is Sally, impulsive yet considerate; Richard, bashful yet timid; Peter inhibited yet adventurous; Septimus, insane yet credible. And Clarissa? She is all of these things and more.It is, however, Woolf’s torrential stream-of-consciousness prose that makes this novel a true masterpiece. Even those who find the plot of little interest will be drawn in by the exquisiteness of Woolf’s language. This is a complex, character study in the fullest sense of the word, one with no easy answers, for Woolf, in the end seems to be telling us that perhaps, at our essence, we are all unknowable, even to ourselves.
September 2nd, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Review by Peggy Vincent for Mrs. Dalloway
Rating:
It’s not really fair to judge this book or its author by today’s standards, but damn, this is a hard read. I’d read it about 20 years ago and recall struggling with the endless sentences and the rambling explorations of Mrs. Dalloway’s interior thoughts, her every little fleeting idea, and the tiny events of the day in her life which this book chronicles.
Then of course when The Hours was published, I rummaged around in the bookshelf, found it, and read it again.
And then the movie came out with that wonderful cast of characters, and, well, I had to read it a third time. And I’ll say this: it takes more than a single reading to harvest all the gems from this dense prose. Mrs. Dalloway grew on me with the passage of time and with three careful readings. The studied explorations into past and present, men and women, women and other women, society and the family, love and regret…it’s a lot to take on in what is really a pretty small book – and only someone of Woolf’s talents and brilliance could have made so much of so little.
Highly recommended, but I’m sorry – you’ll probably have to read it more than once to extract every single little diamond chip.
September 2nd, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Review by mcl for Mrs. Dalloway
Rating:
Any young aspiring writer should compare Woolf’s early work, such as Night and Day to something like Mrs. Dalloway. The transformation in narrative strength is incredible. I think Woolf found her voice when she gave up on traditional technique and focused on vivid imagery, poetic language, and really getting into the souuls of her characters.Her views on love in this boook are heartbreaking. Love serves as mere convenience, romance is just an illusion. 9 times out of 10 people choose safety. Pretty cynical viewpoint, but she lived during the days of a crumbling Empire and wrote about it beautifully. She really achieved her greatest literary power later on in life. Also, this book studies insanity and the doctors who are impotent to help. I’m sure woolf would have the same view in today’s heavily medicated society.This book is not for the faint of heart. She does not hide characters emotions, but tends to dwelon their weaknesses. The final party scene is brilliant. If you like this book, read To The Lighthouse, which is equally brilliant.
September 2nd, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Review by bill-g for Mrs. Dalloway
Rating:
On a single day in June, Clarissa Dalloway is preparing for the party she is giving that evening. Septimus Warren Smith struggles with mental illness as a result of his experiences in WWI. Using stream-of-consciousness technique Virginia Woolf explores the thoughts, emotions and sensations of these two characters and others connected with them. Past and present commingle in her characters’ minds and this merging of past history and present moment allows for much richer presentation of the characters and their universe than the plot would suggest.The chief pleasures of the book are the vivid, evocative, poetic language, and Woolf’s gift for inner dialogue – the stories characters tell themselves – which in turn reveals them to us.How good is the book? I “Mrs. Dalloway” can be found on many lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century, one of Virginia Woolf’s major achievements. More often than not, it’s considered her best work after “To the Lighthouse.” Personally, I loved the book, and it led me to start reading her other books and to the biographies. The practical question is not whether this is a good book – it is arguably a great book. The question is whether it is for you.The book is unapologetically literary, which means that if you don’t find language a genuine pleasure, you probably won’t enjoy it. For those who do, the rich, imaginative language is the reason for reading. There is little in the way of conventional suspense to keep one turning the pages. The stream-of-consciousness style is demanding, and it requires an attentive reader. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to overemphasize the difficulties. The action of the book is relatively easy to follow, and one does not need a concordance to appreciate it. In fact a good sense of the language can be had simply by reading the first few pages provided in Amazon’s section, “Look Inside the Book.”
September 2nd, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Review by for Mrs. Dalloway
Rating:
I believe it was Lionel Trilling who said that if it’s true that a book reads you as much as you read a book, certain books had found him at first difficult and boring, but had eventually grown friendly. “Mrs. Dalloway” found me to be — when I first attempted to read it in high school — a dull, even fragile creature; but with time the book made way for me in its life, and now we are rather fond acquaintances. Virginia Woolf is, of course, one of The Greats, but despite this debilitating label she is a writer whose books are addictive to any energetic and patient reader who is in love with the English language. Language is certainly not the only beauty in Woolf’s work, but it is the aspect of her writing that first drew my amazed attention. She is in many ways an impressionist, a literary Monet, while we Americans are more comfortable with naturalists and expressionists, so perhaps a reader new to Woolf would need to exercise a few mind muscles which haven’t had much attention paid to them, but this isnot a bad thing. And there’s a good chance I’m wrong, a good chance that I’m taking my own particular weaknesses and ascribing them to the readership at large. (Oh well.) The point is this: give “Mrs. Dalloway” a chance. Go to it blind, without assumptions, with an open mind and curious heart. I think the book will find you to be a very engaging person, full of wonders and mystery.
September 2nd, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Review by Patricia H. Parker for Bad Boy: An Inspector Banks Novel
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Alan Banks can absolutely never take a long vacation again. He went away to the Southwestern and Pacific Coast United States for two weeks, and the world back home falls apart. One of his best nonpolice friends dies, his daughter gets herself into a mess that almost causes her death and Annie Cabbot, Banks’ partner, almost loses her life too.
The “Bad Boy” of the title is a handsome, charming young man with a heart of ice and no feelings at all except for himself. Tracy Alan Banks’ daughter, as with many young women, thinks he has been waiting for her to change him. Of course, this isn’t going to happen. The young man, Jaff, has had a revolver taken from his bedroom by his former girlfriend. The revolver has been used in a murder and was supposed to be disposed of. Because Jaff kept it as a souvenir or as protection against the leader of the local drug syndicate who ordered the murder, the gun is in the hands of the police. The rest of the book follows the chase, by police in Leeds and London, to find Jaff and Tracy before Jaff arranges to leave England. He has threatened to kill Tracy before he leaves the country.
Even though the good guys prevail, the characters are left kind of up in the air, leading the reader to hope that even more Alan Banks books will be coming in the future.
When I saw that Robinson had written another book, I jumped at the chance to read it. I wasn’t disappointed, and I recommend this one highly. If you are an Alan Banks fan, you will enjoy this book. If you have never read one of these books, this would be a good one to start with.
September 2nd, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Review by E. Bukowsky for Bad Boy: An Inspector Banks Novel
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While DCI Alan Banks of the North Yorkshire police is on holiday in America, Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot interviews an old friend and former neighbor of his, Mrs. Juliet Doyle. Juliet has come to the Eastvale station to report that her daughter, Erin, somehow got hold of a gun and brought it into their home. Erin’s mother was hoping that, as a favor, Alan could take care of the matter without causing an uproar. Since Banks is still in California, the case is handled according to standard protocol, with disastrous consequences.
Meanwhile, Tracy, Alan’s twenty-four year old daughter, who lived with Erin and a third roommate named Rose, takes up with Erin’s former boyfriend, thirty-one year old Jaff McCready, a “nasty piece of work.” “He was good-looking, bright, a real charmer, and maybe crooked.” Tracy is ready to leave her “good girl” persona behind, and Jaff seems to be just the guy to hang out with while she reinvents herself. Peter Robinson’s “Bad Boy” describes what happens when a naïve young woman gets involved with a reckless and self-absorbed man. Annie tries to help Tracy but, unfortunately, Jaff is far more dangerous than he appears, and the situation quickly spirals out of control. Soon, Jaff and Tracy are on the run, not only from the police but also from Jaff’s confederates, who are even more sadistic and ruthless than he is. Soon Tracy realizes that “what had yesterday seemed like a mildly exciting lark was now turning out to be something more serious.”
“Bad Boy” is one of Robinson’s lesser entries in his usually superb series featuring DCI Alan Banks. The problems include: an underwritten plot in which the villains are stock characters who behave all too predictably; Alan’s absence until the second half of the novel; Tracy’s stupidity, which is hard to credit in the adult child of a police officer; a pat and somewhat maudlin conclusion. When Robinson is at the top of his game, he fine-tunes his characters and explores underlying themes that give his police procedurals depth and weight that formulaic genre novels often lack.
Its flaws notwithstanding, “Bad Boy” is a readable enough story about the belated maturation of Tracy Banks, who learns the hard way how miserable “bad boys” can be. Banks, who has neglected Tracy in the past, tries to redeem himself in her eyes. Police bureaucracy and politics rear their ugly heads, as usual. Banks’s old confederate, the sly Dirty Dick Burgess, makes an appearance, and there may be some unfinished business between former lovers Alan Banks and Annie Cabbot. One of the more intriguing police officers is Constable Nerys Powell, who has a bit of Alan Banks in her. She is a maverick who ignores regulations when it suits her. Also noteworthy is Jamaica-born Winsome Jackman, a statuesque, smart, witty, and thoroughly professional detective sergeant. As usual, the author nicely describes the picturesque Yorkshire countryside, where tourists flock to gaze at scenic vistas. Robinson has written a serviceable mystery, but the uninspired dialogue and conventional plot prevent “Bad Boy” from taking its place among the best of Banks.
September 2nd, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Review by Bonnie Brody for Bad Boy: An Inspector Banks Novel
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I’ve been a fan of the Detective Banks series for a while but this is definitely one of the weaker books in this series. It is not at the level of In a Dry Season (Inspector Banks Mysteries). In fact, Detective Banks doesn’t appear in this mystery until about 100 pages into it.
The novel starts off with Julia Doyle, an old neighbor of Detective Alan Banks coming to the station house very upset. She found a gun in her daughter, Erin’s, room. For those of you who don’t know, unlicensed gun possession in England carries a mandatory five year sentence and always consists of jail time. Detective Banks is on vacation and so the case is turned over to others in the squad. Tragically, in the course of confiscating the gun, Julia’s husband is tasered and dies as a result.
Meanwhile, we are privy to the fact that Erin, as well as Detective Banks’ daughter, Tracy, are attracted to ‘bad boys’. Their latest par amour is Jaff McReady, a seamy guy who is into bad stuff. As the story progresses we find out that he is trying to outfox bigger bad boys and get away with their drugs and money. In the course of things, Tracy turns from his girlfriend into his hostage. It is up to Detective Banks and his team to apprehend Jaff and save Tracy.
Their are lots of holes in the plot and the characterizations are weak. The quality of the writing is very good as is usual for Peter Robinson but he just didn’t delve deeply enough into the characters and rationales of Erin, Tracy, Jaff, or The Farmer. Had he done this, the book would be longer but much more satisfying.
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Review by R. Olsavicky for Bad Boy: An Inspector Banks Novel
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This latest novel by an excellent writer, Peter Robinson is just not up to his usual very high standards. I have read all his novels over the last twenty years or so and many of them are great! Maybe, it’s because we wait so long for Banks to get home and take over the case or that when he does it all happens in a very contrived short time and plot that the reader feels that the plotting is a bit threadbare and contrived or manipulated. Whichever, it comes across as if the reader is short changed and more should have happened or could have happened to his daughter Tracy. Did deadlines to publish or a little boredom creep into the mix? Whatever nothing really that bad happens to Tracy except some nonconsentual sex after much willing sex; and I don’t take this lightly. The expert lesbian markswoman is just too contrived and a weak solution to the problem Banks faces. The novel could have been longer and better with more tense plotting and not such a fast and easy ending once Banks is on the scene. Annie and Bank’s relationship seems to be headed somewhere again. A fair read but, not Robinson’s best.
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Review by Burgmicester for Bad Boy: An Inspector Banks Novel
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Peter Robinson is one of my favorite mystery crime writers. I love the British sense of humor and fair play. However, that said, this is not one of Robinson’s better works. What would make for a wonderful subplot is placed front and center as the main plot. It is thin and needs a tremendous amount of wasted verbiage to support this effort. And to top it off, Detective Alan Banks, the main character of this series, shows just how valuable he is to Robinson as he does not enter the main storyline until nearly half way through the book. Believe me, you miss this tortured character more than you can realize. The first half of the book stumbles and falls on its face. The supporting characters are trying to carry the story and they fail miserably. Additionally, the plotline at this point is absolutely pointless and worth less than that.
The plot picks up at the half way point and becomes somewhat interesting. The rhythm and pace also seem to fall in place. It seems that Robinson needs Banks as much as Banks needs Robinson. But Robinson over plays the story because it is so thin. There are a number of times that the “story to date” is told and retold. Whereas in the past, Robinson would make the reader guess what was happening in Banks’ mind, this time, he writes it out like a TV serial drama just to make sure that reader is not missing anything. But since the plot is so lean, it would be difficult for a ninth grader to miss anything in this one. There is no misdirection or hidden motives; nothing to keep the reader on the hook. Just a very simple, straightforward crime story with everything in perfect view.
I am grading this as a 2.5 star performance but rounding up just because I still like the Banks character and the second half of the book moved at a better pace. However, I will not be able to recommend it.