Book Review #1: Mrs. Dalloway

I purchased this book four years ago and only finished reading it three months ago. Why? Why the heaven is this 197-pages book took me so long to complete? Mystery unravel...

Hint: This book is written and published circa 1920’s by prolific and enigmatic author named Virginia Woolf. Recognized as a major twentieth-century author, she was born in 1882 in London, she died in March 28, 1941. How? She commited suicide. How? According to the movie rendition titled THE HOUR starred by Nicole Kidman, Meryll Streep and Julianne Moore; she put on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, then walked into the River Ouse near her home and drowned herself. Genius! The stones are heavy enough they keep her from floating. Even if she change her mind or having a second thought, she already sank and helpless to struggle. Why did she commit suicide? She has mental illness she suffered from losing of her love ones. The day she died, she has a nervous breakdown out of her depression.

In her last note to her husband she wrote:

“ I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.”

But enough about her already, let me discuss about the book. Where do I start? The whole book is a story of what happened to Mrs. Dalloway on a day she preparing for a grand party. Seriously, 197-pages are about what happened in one day. It didn’t revolve solely on her, the story also narrated about everyone around her. Whether she knew them, or just random strangers she saw around places. In this book there are foreshadow of her mental illness when one of the character committed suicide.

Still the big question has not answered yet. Why did it took me 4 years to finish this book that usually took one day to read?

Answers:

• This book made me depressed upon reading the author background at the first page of the paperback. It somehow foretold me that the content is not going to be something sweet and happy. In addition, the 1920’s writing style make me dizzy like hell. This book just depleted your mind of everything sweet and happy in this little world of ours.

• I have attempted to read it about 9 times and as far as I go only for the first 8 pages than I have to put it down. I loathed at it that I started to curse the writer. I once tried to read it on my flight home but I hate it enough then I chose to sleep instead along the 2-hours flight. It’s amazing how I am so determined on one blessed day to finally finish the book. It feels like a weight has been lifted from my head. Now I don’t have to think about that book anymore. I just hide it somewhere unseen.

• She wrote the story in the supreme detail that when she describe about certain thing, she can go on insignificantly up to 5 pages. She can go up to nowhere before she comes to one point. By the way she wrote you know what is going on in her head, she just plain lunatic and one hell of a crazy writer. She made the beauty of story-detailing by J.R.R. Tolkien’s seems like an exquisite. She fails to deliver her story contrary to her ultimate detailing.

• But somehow in a weird way she made me feel how hurt is the unspoken love between Mrs. Dalloway and Peter Walsh. Mrs. Dalloway and Peter Walsh have an ego as big as the mountain that it killed you to learn the fact they didn’t confess their love to each other. After all, during the reunion, they are already old and wrinkly, but still they refuse to profess.

• In simple words, you may experience these emotional rollercoaster once you read the book. Not because of the story but how she wrote it: confusion, delirious, hatred, depress, stress, distress up to the point you wish you can just burn the book.

R.I.P V [intial of Virginia Woolf]! I can’t blame you for being crazy. But I blame you for writing this book while you mind was fluctuating crazy. Don’t worry I wouldn’t dare to buy any other book authored by you. Even maybe somehow I did, it's just my act of suicidal. I promise!

NEXT REVIEW: La Prisonaire