I finished Mrs. Dalloway.
It was my third attempt, the first two not getting too far into the book, due to Virginia Woolf's writing style.
My thought was: it's less than 200 pages. I should be able to do this. And I did.
A little background: I knew of the book. I knew of Woolf, but nothing of hers had ever hit my radar. But in 2002-2003 we saw the Hours. I was so taken with that movie that I knew I eventually wanted to read Dalloway. It just took me a while to get the book - and years to finally tackle it.
The Hours - while not even remotely a strict adaptation - is probably the closest anyone will get to transforming the book into any other medium. Michael Cunningham was successful in his book and whomever wrote screenplay.
I will say after (or if) you get used to Woolf's very stream of consciousness the book is more tolerable, but that takes a while. Certainly more than just a few pages. If ADHD were a thing back then, Woolf seemed to have it how she jumps here and there with stories within the story. There are zero clean transitions, which made things - at least for me - challenging.
While not a long book, had Woolf not used paragraphs to describe something she does usually in one sentence and then just keeps expounding.
I know Raybeard loves this book, but curious what others think as well.
Now I want to see the Hours again.
Song by: Philip Glass
1 comment:
(Thanks for the 'shout', B.)
I was also near-knocked out by the film of 'The Hours' - in fact it probably could be included in my personal 'Top 20 Films of All Time' - though just 'probably'. Kidman, Streep, J.Moore and Ed Harris are all quite exceptional as were the rest of the cast. I never really 'connected the dots' of the stories until right near the end of the film, and it took my breath away.
And then I read Michael Cunningham's book - and was also transfixed. Magnificent, like the film too, in its own way.
So glad you got through 'Mrs Dalloway', managing to come through Woolf's 'special' writing style. BUT I've also read FOUR times her 'To The Lighthouse' which some consider her best work of all and, quite honestly, I can still not comes to terms with it, my mind continually going in and out of focus with my having to re-read paragraphs, even pages, every so often and still making little sense of any consistency. So there it is - you win some, you lose some.
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