Welcome to Litsy!

Discussion thread for April's #VirginiaBloomsberries #buddyread

💐 Did you enjoy the book?
🍾 What makes it a modernist novel?
💐 What was the connection between Clarissa and Septimus?
🍾 What was the significance of Clarissa's parties?
💐 Do you think Woolf successfully captures the minutiae of everyday life in a 24-hour period?

Next up - https://litsy.com/p/YjRwQ0hiNHBR

Via @Alldebooks
#VirginiaBloomsberries

Our April #buddyread is Mrs Dalloway. The story follows Clarissa Dalloway for a day as she prepares to host an evening party.

All welcome to join us. Please let me know if you wish to be added/removed from the taglist.

#VirginiaBloomsberries

Our April #buddyread is Mrs Dalloway. The story follows Clarissa Dalloway for a day as she prepares to host an evening party.

All welcome to join us. Please let me know if you wish to be added/removed from the taglist.

@Litsyevents

This book was good enough to read twice. It‘s safe and mostly fun to read, aside from one well respected man that had a tragic demise. This book was feminist in ways we under appreciate now due to the passage of time and change. Who gets the beloved Clarissa?

A soft pick. I found sections of it to be brilliant, but got bogged down in others. I‘m sure the style was deemed quite daring for 1925.
#1001books

This one is too much work for me. Bailed at page 50. It isn‘t that it is poorly written of course, or that there aren‘t moments that I thoroughly enjoyed. I can see how it pushed various boundaries at the time and explores concepts of love, sexuality, partnership and imperial England. However I don‘t particularly care about the people nor how the rest of the day turns out. Clarissa‘s exclamation of “utterly base” was a favoured moment.

I‘m in this quote and I don‘t like it. 🤣

#storysettings #party

This book was good enough to read twice. It‘s safe and mostly fun to read, aside from one well respected man that had a tragic demise. This book was feminist in ways we under appreciate now due to the passage of time and change. Who gets the beloved Clarissa?

I saw the contemporary ballet triptych Woolf Works last night, adapting three of her novels. What an incredible show. The sections based on Mrs. Dalloway and The Waves were very emotionally intense. The section based on Orlando was perfectly bizarre. At different points they voiced over excerpts from her letters. It was so good. ♥️

This newest addition of Mrs Dalloway that I have gotten might just be my favorite one yet! 🥰📚💕

I read this book twice. It is safe and well written. It was mostly fun to read, aside from a man that I felt bad for that was close friends with Clarissa. There are a few men trying to compete for her early on. It is trying to be feminist in the early twentieth century when women had less rights than men. I intend on reading the sequel!

28 Feb-1 Mar 24 (audiobook)
Another book I was supposed to read at uni that was surprisingly enjoyable when I got to it 25 years late.
Woolf introduces us to a cast of characters, all of whom revolve around Clarissa Dalloway.
Woolf‘s writing is wonderful, although I expect it is a little lost in audiobook form. I loved the way she let us in to the inner monologue of many characters, with their repetition and leaps of topic. And I loved Clarissa.

This book was okay. It is something that I probably wouldn't read again. This is the third book I completed for #JoyousJanuary readathon hosted by @Andrew65 I rated this book a 3 out of 5 stars. I listened to the audiobook.

I‘m just not a fan of Virginia Woolf‘s style. This is beautifully written with detailed descriptions from the perspective of various characters, but I was again disappointed by the lack of plot. I didn‘t especially care about any of the characters except for the story of Septimus and Rezia, and theirs is just sad.

I read most of this on #SerialReader but also listened to an #audiobook version. It was easier to follow the characters in print.

I am absolutely OVERJOYED to have received this AMAZING puzzle from my sweet friend, @RaeLovesToRead ! 🥰 I am obsessed with Virginia Woolf and I can't imagine a more perfect puzzle for me! 💕 Once you put it together, you can find a bunch of characters from Woolf's books and people in her life! It also comes with a poster, that I've already hung up in my book room! 🤭 Thank you so much, Rae! ❤️❤️❤️ I absolutely love it so much!

When will I learn to read the classics rather than listen?! This was a lot more than I thought it was going to be, so maybe I‘ll pick a physical copy up at some point but I did enjoy it. It‘s more of a slow read though to take it all in. #Pop23 ~a book that takes place entirely in one day

Fell down a "Penguin Essentials" rabbit hole. I want all the books...

#MyPrecious

Well it must be at least a couple of years since I last read Mrs Dalloway! I hadn't tried it on audio before, though. Now I just need "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham to be read by Meryl Streep and I will be in my own little heaven. ?

2½✨

This is the second book by Virginia Woolf that I've tried. And I'm sorry to say I just don't like her writing energy. At points it felt frantic and chaotic and I had to put all my mind-power to work to stay with the story.
I just feel that I've worked way too hard for this little book.

#NonFiction
@Clwojick #Pantone2023 #BlazingYellow #Macchiato #LeekGreen #Titanite

I‘m going to give Virginia Woolf another shot. I have bailed in the past, but hoping in my dotage to have the time and attention needed.

Book #15 of 2023: “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf

Picked this up at @tridentbooks when we were in Boston this spring. It‘s a complicated book, not necessarily an easy one.

I was dreading reading this for Brit lit because Virginia Woolf is lowkey too stream of consciousness for my liking/understanding. It was genuinely one of the most confusing things I‘ve ever read. But when I did understand it it was actually really lovely and it had some amazing quotes

I erroneously expected a quick read, but this was dense! I struggled to get in, so did a little bit of research & then found it somewhat easier going. I think studying it, doing a buddy read or for Bookclub would‘ve helped. Interesting for me to be reading this (for the first time) when I am around the age of the main characters. Somewhat glad to see they were all still leading rich & complicated lives even in 1925. A sad, complicated little book!

I‘ve been a bit MIA lately. My goal this weekend is to finish Mrs Dalloway and get started on my next book. Modest, but at least achievable goals, especially since I am in the process of creating this little reading room, just for me 📖🤓🙏

🎧 2-25-23 || Juliet Stevenson knocks it out of the park again with her narration. This is a re-read for me and it‘s been close to 30 years since I last read it so everything was new again. I‘d forgotten how poetic Woolf‘s writing is. It truly is a masterpiece.

I am in NYC for a couple of days, so of course I have been to a couple of bookstores. At McNally Jackson I found this gorgeous dual book of Mrs Dalloway and The Hours. I could not resist!!

Thought I'd be safe with a short classic but this was DENSE. It's a little blurred by the stream of consciousness narrative, but there is an endless array of sharp observations about humanity in the individual and as a group, about society itself and how it grinds people down. What struck me most was the heartbreaking reality of a writer with first hand experience of how poorly mental health conditions were treated at this period in history. 1/?

Congratulations, @wanderinglynn, and Happy Birthday.

I'd love to receive Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

#300KBirthdayGiveaway

Intimate in that the reader is able to view a first person perspective in a thought by thought analysis of the main characters and their psychological response to their environment , thoughts, and people around them. By getting into the everyday minutiae and the innate response of the mind depending on one‘s psychological makeup displaying differing emotions, perspectives, and mindset or diagnosis for that matter. That being said,

Whilst I liked much of the prose, I just couldn't read it simply and that negated my pleasure. I'm probably not high brow enough 😕 or tried too hard to remember bits. But I'm very glad I persevered and can say I read it!

Having avoided Woolfe all my life, I'm having to read this for my library book club...
Daunted, yes. Determined, yes! ☺☺😃

The last 129 pages were during yesterday during #20in4 #Readathon Last book for September 2022. I don‘t know how to describe this book. I liked chunk, parts of it. The story involve many characters and events but sometimes I was confused who what saying what. But there were parts so interesting about the era and this woman surroundings. I like this edition. 3⭐️
#BookSpinNingi @TheAromaOfBooks

My ambitious goal for #JubilantJuly is to finish four books. At least the tagged book is short!

When you are re-reading Mrs dalloway and this time you wonder who was the queen (and the prince of Wales) at that time, and you have to go to Wikipedia because that was before The crown times (the Queen was Queen Mary, Great mother of queen Elizabeth, and the prince of Wales was Edward, future king that married for love...) maybe I need a notebook of all I learned because of books ;)

(Yesterday's entry) #OnThisDay in 1925 Mrs Dalloway was first published. Woolf wrote the novel in hand bound journals in her garden shed, dating each day's work like a diary as she went. She modeled Clarissa Dalloway on her childhood friend Kitty Manxe, a socialite who died after falling over her staircase banister. The novel sold so well, it paid for a bathroom to be installed in the Woolf house, nicknamed "Mrs Dalloway's closet." #HistoryGetsLIT

I wanted to like this more than I did. I've read excerpts of it before that I really liked. It was somewhat stream of consciousness writing about several different characters through the course of a day. I think my timing of reading this is just off.

@TheSpineView #two4tuesday

1. Bluebells for sure! Bluebell woods are probably my favourite time to see nature and I associate them with walks with my grandparents. I wish I got to see them more now

2. I couldn‘t think of anything then mrs dalloway popped into my head, for reasons I‘m not totally sure of. Maybe because I associate her with my grandparents too - they took me on day trips to the bloomsbury group‘s farmhouse near where they lived

I'm going to cheat with this one and do categories because it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to just choose one! 💕📚💕

Favorite classic authors:
🔹️ Virginia Woolf
🔹️ Ernest Hemingway
🔹️ Katherine Mansfield
🔹️ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Favorite contemporary authors:
🔹️ Neil Gaiman
🔹️ V.E. Schwab
🔹️ Brandon Sanderson
🔹️ Stephen King
🔹️ Laini Taylor

Who are some of your favorite authors? 💕📚💕

I am finished with the main text. Now, on to, reading the critical analysis, and literary and historical background to understand it better.

The supreme secret must be told to the Cabinet; first, that trees are alive; next, there is no crime; next, love, universal love, he muttered, gasping, trembling, painfully drawing out these profound truths which needed, so deep were they, so difficult, an immense effort to speak out, but the world was entirely changed by them for ever.

Early mornings with Mrs. Dalloway continue as I read for #SharReadathon. I came across Sharon's comment on one of my posts welcoming me to litsy and I have been feeling emotional since at having lost out on the opportunity to get to know her better. I am shy so I find it difficult to be talkative. But, if you are reading this, please come say hi, or tell me a bookish or non- bookish fact about yourself. 💗
I'll go first in the comment section.

I was thoroughly confused by the cover at first. But, ever since Clarissa has mentioned Sally, it just makes more sense. I am 30 pages in and so far Clarissa remembering Sally is the most readable part of the book, that is to say, I didn't have to go back and reread the same lines twice for it to make sense. It reads like revelation of one's mind to the reader. I look forward to the few minutes I get to spend in Mrs. Woolf's company each morning.

I spotted this Penguin Vitae edition of Mrs. Dalloway while browsing B&N... Astonishing.

Book 27

I really want to love this novel. Virgina Woolf is such a well regarded author that I feel stupid by not really jiving with what is supposed to be her most accessible novel. But I started this book on the first and I have only read 50 pages in almost two weeks, most of which I have skimmed half heartedly. Is it time to give up and move on? Does it get better? Maybe if I tried audio??

Finally finished, it was a bit of a marathon but so glad that I did. Beautiful, lyrical and such insight. It spans a single day, interspersed with her memories.