While Virginia Woolf's novel is considered a classic and groundbreaking work of literature, I personally didn't enjoy it that much. I found the writing style to be similar to Faulkner's stream of conciousness style, which I also disliked. Woolf's writing style can be pleasant and its magnificence was only bearable to me in the reading of a short passage. I found it very difficult to sit down and read forty or more pages as the writing was so dense with imagery and descriptions of everything that crossed each characters mind. I can certainly appreciate why Virginia Woolf is considered to have an incredible mastery of writing, but for a novel, the density of the writing made it simply unenjoyable and distracted me from the messages she was trying to convey. At points, I found it to be even more difficult to read than Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. In Faulkner's work, some of the character's education levels and other differences made their sentences less wordy and easier to get through. Faulkner was better able to distinguish through his writing style his different characters while Woolf's characters would occasionally blur in my mind. I think this is in part due to Woolf's writing style and in part due to Woolf's characters not being as distinct as Faulkner's. The one character that was immediately recognizable to me was Septimus and not so coincidentally, Septimus was my favorite character in the novel.
Another unenjoyable aspect of Dalloway was all the extra sentences and thoughts that didn't contribute at all. These sentences were simply there and that's it. They didn't exhibit any of Woolf's ideas or advance the plot. They simply took up space on the page and it was quite annoying. I didn't find the plot of Mrs. Dalloway to be all that exciting or entertaining, so when the extra sentences rolled around, I became even more disengaged with the novel. If the plot was at least entertaining the extra sentences would be bearable, but having both a disinteresting plot and the additions made the novel unreadable at times.
Another thing that struck me about Mrs. Dalloway was the lack of Woolf getting her point across and stating her ideas. I anticipated the book to be an in your face feminist novel, expecting Woolf to constantly display her discontent. Upon reading the novel, this couldn't be further from the case. The novel certainly had feminist undertones and through much discussion, close reading and analysis, Woolf's message is relatively clear. However, it wasn't what as expected in terms of Woolf driving her point home. I think modern perceptions on what feminism and feminist ideas are, have significantly shifted over the years. In today's world, most people with a cause come out and directly state their ideas, principles and agendas. In Woolf's time, I'm guessing that would be considered rude or at least not well accepted by society. I don't think Virginia Woolf wanted the novel to be up in your face with her message, choosing instead to let the more meticulous readers dig out her ideas. Woolf obviously knew she was exploring a topic that would anger many people, regardless of sex, and she chose to tread carefully. I think she knew that if she directly and aggressively stated her radical new ideas, the book would have been shunned by the masses and wouldn't have had the same effect it ended up having. I can appreciate Woolf's work, but my opinion on Mrs. Dalloway will have to remain a respectful appreciation and not a predilection.
