Recommendations from our site
“It is one of the books that comes to mind when people talk about the stream of consciousness novel. I wanted to put it up against Ulysses because it is such an interesting comparison and contrast. You’ve got a similar sort of structure: this high society woman Clarissa Dalloway preparing for a party. All this book really does is follow her and some other characters wandering through London over the course of one day. It is clearly responding to Ulysses with that structure, but the book reads very very differently..” Read more...
The best books on Streams of Consciousness
Charles Fernyhough, Novelist
“It’s one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. I could really identify with Clarissa, this empty, poor person who is going out to find some flowers for a party. At the same moment, we are following her out into the beautiful morning as the story starts. It’s clear very soon that Clarissa is a woman who has lost her soul among all the duties and conventions of a boring marriage. That loss is so overwhelming and confusing that she loses contact even with her own body. She describes feeling young, but at the same time really old…At the time I read it I was married, and maybe I knew what was coming. I read it again recently and it felt so accurate, even though things have of course changed. We have legislation against gender discrimination, the right to vote, free abortion, daycare – at least in Sweden we do. But even so, it felt modern because family conservatism as the norm is stronger than it’s ever been.” Read more...
Maria Sveland, Journalist
