Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Mrs Dalloway seems like a book I should have read in one of my high school English classes. Since my teacher didn't get the memo, I read it now (some 15 years after high school). I thought I would like Mrs Dalloway since it's very stream of consciousness (no, it is stream of consciousness). And I tend to think and tell stories in the same manner. Sadly, another classic I didn't fall in love with. I did enjoy the writing. It was very beautiful but I couldn't always understand what was going on. I'm glad to have read it so I can read The Hours, also on my Fill In The Gaps list.

Virginia Woolf's Night and Day (1919)

I just finished Virginia Woolf's Night and Day (1919) when I went out for a walk and relaxing afternoon in the park yesterday. It was a good read. I always like Woolf, though I sometimes take a while to make myself get started on one of her novels. I don't know exactly why this is the case, because I always like her work, but it somehow just works on me that way.

Night and Day is not as widely read as a lot of Woolf's other works (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, etc.). I don't think that is likely to change, but I can say that Night and Day is a book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. It is, in many ways, more accessible than some of Woolf's other work, but has a lot of the same poetic beauty one can always expect in one of her novels.

The characters in Night and Day are quite engaging. They will infuriate you sometimes, and make you laugh at others, but they will never bore you. Catherine is a lovely protagonist to follow, and watching her mature through the course of the book is fun. William is pompous and fun to laugh at. Ralph is a bit of a mess, always stumbling here and there, seeming to get lost even inside his own thoughts. Mary is a tough, competent woman. And Cassandra is a stereotypical airhead (who turns out to have a little more to her than that, of course).

I had a great time reading Night and Day, and am glad I put it on my Fill in the Gaps list. It motivated me to pick the book up and get started on it. But it didn't take much pushing to get me to finish it. It was too enjoyable a read to need any external pushing.