"Mrs Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf

I am proud of myself for having read something by Virginia Woolf. (Now you know that I am not afraid.) However, I do not think I am interested in reading anything else of hers. Except that I do feel somewhat obliged, as a woman, to read A Room of One's Own. 

Mrs Dalloway takes place all in one day. The narrative follows a meandering path, always returning to Clarissa Dalloway and her preparations for the party she is throwing that evening, but diverging regularly into the minds of side characters. The stream- of-consciousness style of writing reminded me of Ulysses, but thankfully I did not find Mrs Dalloway quite so baffling. (Side note: I did wonder whether the difference was heightened by the fact that I read Ulysses on a Kindle? To me, it's just so much easier to find your bearings, or flip back and refresh your memory on what you've previously read, in a real book made of paper.) 

As I mentioned here nearly a year ago, Rachel Cusk's Arlington Park was inspired by this book. And as you can see from the book cover pictured here, it also inspired The Hours (though I have neither read that book nor seen that movie, and now I feel driven to do at least one of those two things). I definitely enjoyed my reading experience more with Cusk, but I am also glad to have read Woolf.