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La fiesta de la señora Dalloway
Escritora de culto, Virginia Woolf, populiarizada en las últimas décadas tanto por sus escritos sobre la condición de las mujeres (Un cuarto propio, Tres guineas)m como por el creciente interés sobre su vida, fue antes que nada una renovadora de la narrativa moderna, dotada de una brillante imaginación y una sensibilidad afinada para indagar la subjetividad de sus personajes.
Este volumen reúne una serie de relatos cortos escritos en distintos momentos, desde los cuentos de su última etapa donde resplandece su ironía y su ojo crítico para observar la realidad social, a los más experimentales, pasando por los relatos del ciclo de la señora Dalloway, donde trabaja las relaciones entre el individuo y el mundo social en el ámbito de la fiesta, con una sutiliza de percepción y una agudeza que la vuelven una lectura imprescindible.
Este volumen reúne una serie de relatos cortos escritos en distintos momentos, desde los cuentos de su última etapa donde resplandece su ironía y su ojo crítico para observar la realidad social, a los más experimentales, pasando por los relatos del ciclo de la señora Dalloway, donde trabaja las relaciones entre el individuo y el mundo social en el ámbito de la fiesta, con una sutiliza de percepción y una agudeza que la vuelven una lectura imprescindible.
140 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 2006
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About the author
Virginia Woolf
1,828 books28.7k followers(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
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May 12, 2025
"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the gloves herself. Big Ben was striking as she stepped out into the street. It was eleven o'clock and the unused hour was fresh as if issued to children on a beach."
Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street
Mrs. Dalloway's Party: A Short Story Sequence ~~~ Virginia Woolf
These seven short stories continue or extend Virginia Woolf's ideas about Mrs. Dalloway's party in Woolf's landmark 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway. The stories in Mrs. Dalloway’s Party create a dynamic and delightful portrait of what Woolf called “party consciousness.”
Woolf has such tremendous insight into human nature and her character's inner psyches. These stories amaze me in their depth and the complexity of her characters' emotions. This is a wonderful companion piece to Mrs. Dalloway, and should be read after Mrs. Dalloway to provide an even fuller portrait of the Dalloways' party.
Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street
Mrs. Dalloway's Party: A Short Story Sequence ~~~ Virginia Woolf
These seven short stories continue or extend Virginia Woolf's ideas about Mrs. Dalloway's party in Woolf's landmark 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway. The stories in Mrs. Dalloway’s Party create a dynamic and delightful portrait of what Woolf called “party consciousness.”
Woolf has such tremendous insight into human nature and her character's inner psyches. These stories amaze me in their depth and the complexity of her characters' emotions. This is a wonderful companion piece to Mrs. Dalloway, and should be read after Mrs. Dalloway to provide an even fuller portrait of the Dalloways' party.
May 6, 2015
Shallow.
I've never been able to see what was so great about Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, the premiere female authors of the Bloomsbury Set. Two women from the upper class who wrote books about upper class women who did nothing at all except have minor angsts or affairs which they wrote about with excellent powers of description but no introspection at all. The men were different, there were some very great writers amongst them - Lytton Strachey and the wonderful E.M. Forster, for example.
Really, the Bloomsbury set were famous for their casual sexual mores, their artistic inclination, their atheism and general opposition to the traditions of the times, all attitudes afforded to them by their aristocratic status and great wealth. Their time came and went, and I can't think of a good reason to revisit it.
I've never been able to see what was so great about Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, the premiere female authors of the Bloomsbury Set. Two women from the upper class who wrote books about upper class women who did nothing at all except have minor angsts or affairs which they wrote about with excellent powers of description but no introspection at all. The men were different, there were some very great writers amongst them - Lytton Strachey and the wonderful E.M. Forster, for example.
Really, the Bloomsbury set were famous for their casual sexual mores, their artistic inclination, their atheism and general opposition to the traditions of the times, all attitudes afforded to them by their aristocratic status and great wealth. Their time came and went, and I can't think of a good reason to revisit it.
May 21, 2025
'But my present reflection is that people have any number of different states of consciousness: and I should like to investigate the party consciousness, the frock consciousness etc. The fashion world'
27 April 1925, Virginia Woolf's diary
This collection of seven short stories illuminate what Woolf called 'the party consciousness' triggered by her writing of Mrs. Dalloway - that novel that tells of Clarissa's preparations for the party with which the book ends. Written between 1922 and 1927, they bracket Woolf's work on Dalloway and show how this idea of the party - a concentrated and fraught social occasion - lingered in her mind. Indeed, the first tale, 'Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street', was originally intended as the opening chapter of the novel and we can still find traces of the final book there, albeit in embryo of where that book eventually started.
The other stories coalesce around the party with intimations that they all take place at the Dalloway party though Clarissa herself is not always mentioned. They read like a shifting through the minds of guests with an especial emphasis on the disjunction between a social surface and what is happening emotionally and psychologically in the characters' interiority. In that sense, while these are distinctively Woolfian, they also reminded me of Katherine Mansfield's stories.
Here we find a young woman crushed by a man's ego that carelessly trundles over her; a man's self-congratulatory love for humanity while denying the solace of art and literature; a woman agonising about her unfashionable dress and a man who maliciously exacerbates her discomfort to demean her; a woman who realises how solitary her soul is especially when surrounded by a crowd.
The subject matter may not be revelatory but Woolf's delicate, sensitive, piercing way of allowing us to overhear these inner reverberations is, as always, immaculate. Imagery of insects - butterflies, flies -and tags of poetry float through these stories giving them a coherence that only putting them into a collection here makes clear. I think I've read five of these before but co-locating them gives the individual pieces a resonance that they don't have alone and also fills out a picture of a party comprising an assembly of isolated souls.
May 26, 2021
This collection of stories was first assembled by Hogarth Press in 1973, and so can not be consider as a collection that Virginia Woolf had intended as such, neither one (unlike A Haunted House and Other Short Stories) assembled by Leonard based on her wishes. That said it works extremely well as a companion to the novel (book:Mrs. Dalloway|14942].
The publisher's description though explains the logic of the choice:
The reader first met Mrs Dalloway in Woolf's first novel The Voyage Out (1915). "Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street" (written 1922) was published in The Dial in 1923, and originally intended as the opening chapter of the later novel (1925).
It opens, as does the novel Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself but otherwise departs from the text of the novel (no "What a lark! What a plunge!" here), although much of the same ground, literally, is covered as Mrs Dalloway walks around the West End.
[Not included here is the unfinished story "The Prime Minister" which was, like "Mrs Dalloway on Bond Street", to be incorporated, in an adapted form, into the novel.]
Four of the stories in this Short Story Sequence, "The New Dress", "Together and Apart", "A Man Who Loved His Kind" and "A Summing Up" were previously included in the collection A Haunted House and Other Short Stories, assembled by Leonard Woolf shortly after his wife's death.
"The New Dress" was published in Virginia's lifetime, so can be considered to be finalised, but he noted that, in respect of the last three stories, none of them... are finally revised by her, and she would certainly have done a great deal of work on them before she published them ... [they] are only just in the stage beyond that of her first sketch.
The final two stories, "The Introduction" and "Ancestors", were also not published in Woolf's lifetime, so presumably should be considered in the same way, as non-final sketches.
"The New Dress", written in 1924 but not published until 1927, after the novel, is thereby the closest to a final work and is a wonderfully drawn piece of a guest at Mrs Dalloway's party (Mabel Waring, mentioned in passing in the novel), very anxious and self-conscious of how she, and the new, but very old-fashioned, dress she had made for occasion, are perceived by others.
She strained and strained (standing in front of the looking-glass, listening to Rose Shaw) to make herself see Rose Shaw and all the other people there as flies, trying to hoist themselves out of something, or into something, meagre, insignificant, toiling flies. But she could not see them like that, not other people. She saw herself like that—she was a fly, but the others were dragonflies, butterflies, beautiful insects, dancing, fluttering, skimming, while she alone dragged herself up out of the saucer. (Envy and spite, the most detestable of the vices, were her chief faults.)
"The Introduction" (c. Spring 1925) focuses on one of the guests at the part, Lily Everit, at her first party as an adult, as Mrs Dalloway seeks to introduce her to the gathering.
‘Come and let me introduce you,’ and there Mrs Dalloway hesitated, and then remembering that Lily was the clever one who read poetry, looked about for some young man, some young man just down from Oxford, who would have read everything and would talk about himself. And holding Lily Everit’s hand she led her towards a group where there were young people talking.
Lily Everit hung back a little, might have been in the wake of a steamer; felt as Mrs Dalloway led her on, that it was now going to happen; that nothing could prevent it, or save her (and she only wanted it to be over now) from being flung into a whirlpool where either she would perish or be saved.
She introduces her to a young man, a fellow fan of Shelley, but Lily's view of him, and society in general, is jolted as she catches him casually killing a fly by ripping off its wings, a wonderful defining moment making this a powerful story.
"Ancestors" (May 1925) centres on Mrs Valliance who while talking to another guest, compares him, and the party and indeed London generally, unfavourably to her Scottish upbringing:
Mrs Vallance, as she replied to Jack Renshaw who had made that rather silly remark of his about not liking to watch cricket matches, wished that she could make him understand somehow what became every moment more obvious at a party like this, that if her father had been alive people would have realised how foolish, how wicked—no, not so much wicked as silly and ugly—how, compared to really dignified simple men and women like her father, like her dear mother, all this seemed to her so trivial. How very different his mind was, and his life; and her mother, and how differently, entirely differently she herself had been brought up.
"The Man Who Loved His Kind" has Richard Dalloway bump into an old school friend, Pricket Ellis, he has not seen for 20 years and invite him to the party (Wouldn't he drop in that evening ... one or two people were coming.). But Prickett Ellis doesn't find the party to his taste - It was the sort of thing that made his gorge rise. Think of grown up, responsible men and women doing this every night of their lives! ... he glared ever more severely at these people, overdressed, cynical and pompous, whereas his one and only extravagance was his little yacht on the Norfolk Broads. He sees himself as a man of the people, who loves his own kind, but when he tries to explain this to one of the guests she finds him equally self-obsessed.
"Together and Apart" (early 1925) has Mrs Dalloway introduce two guests, Miss Anning and Roderick Serle, who discover a shared link in Canterbury, where each spent some of their most intense moments, but one that illuminates their very different personalities:
‘Yes, I know Canterbury,’ he said reminiscently, sentimentally, inviting, Miss Anning felt, discreet questions, and that was what made him interesting to so many people, and it was this extraordinary facility and responsiveness to talk on his part that had been his undoing, so he thought, often, taking his studs out and putting his keys and small change on the dressing-table after one of these parties (and he went out sometimes almost every night in the season), and, going down to breakfast, becoming quite different, grumpy, unpleasant at breakfast to his wife, who was an invalid, and never went out, but had old friends to see her sometimes, women friends for the most part, interested in Indian philosophy and different cures and different doctors, which Roderick Serle snubbed off by some caustic remark too clever for her to meet, except by gentle expostulations and a tear or two — he had failed, he often thought, because he could not cut himself off utterly from the society of and the company of women, which was so necessary to him, and write.
"A Summing Up" has Mr Bertram Pritchard and Mrs Latham, leaving the party for the peace of the garden. And while he chunters on, superficially, she retreats into her inner, rather more philsophical, musings:
Written down what he said would be incredible—not only was each thing he said in itself insignificant, but there was no connection between the different remarks.
Sasha Latham would be thinking while he chattered on about his tour in Devonshire, about inns and landladies, about Eddie and Freddie, about cows and night travelling, about cream and stars, about continental railways and Bradshaw, catching cod, catching cold, influenza, rheumatism and Keats—she was thinking of him in the abstract as a person whose existence was good, creating him as he spoke in the guise that was different from what he said, and was certainly the true Bertram Pritchard, even though one could not prove it.
Overall, a great companion volume to the brilliant novel, perhaps not so convincing stand alone but 4 stars as a companion piece.
The publisher's description though explains the logic of the choice:
The landmark modern novel Mrs Dalloway creates a portrait of a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway as she orchestrates the last-minute details of a grand party. But before Virginia Woolf wrote this masterwork, she explored in a series of fascinating stories a similar revelry in the mental and physical excitement of a party.
Wonderfully captivating, the seven stories in Mrs. Dalloway's Party create a dynamic and delightful portrait of what Woolf called "party consciousness." As parallel expressions of the themes of Mrs. Dalloway, these stories provide a valuable window into Woolf's writing mind and a further testament to her extraordinary genius.
The reader first met Mrs Dalloway in Woolf's first novel The Voyage Out (1915). "Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street" (written 1922) was published in The Dial in 1923, and originally intended as the opening chapter of the later novel (1925).
It opens, as does the novel Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself but otherwise departs from the text of the novel (no "What a lark! What a plunge!" here), although much of the same ground, literally, is covered as Mrs Dalloway walks around the West End.
[Not included here is the unfinished story "The Prime Minister" which was, like "Mrs Dalloway on Bond Street", to be incorporated, in an adapted form, into the novel.]
Four of the stories in this Short Story Sequence, "The New Dress", "Together and Apart", "A Man Who Loved His Kind" and "A Summing Up" were previously included in the collection A Haunted House and Other Short Stories, assembled by Leonard Woolf shortly after his wife's death.
"The New Dress" was published in Virginia's lifetime, so can be considered to be finalised, but he noted that, in respect of the last three stories, none of them... are finally revised by her, and she would certainly have done a great deal of work on them before she published them ... [they] are only just in the stage beyond that of her first sketch.
The final two stories, "The Introduction" and "Ancestors", were also not published in Woolf's lifetime, so presumably should be considered in the same way, as non-final sketches.
"The New Dress", written in 1924 but not published until 1927, after the novel, is thereby the closest to a final work and is a wonderfully drawn piece of a guest at Mrs Dalloway's party (Mabel Waring, mentioned in passing in the novel), very anxious and self-conscious of how she, and the new, but very old-fashioned, dress she had made for occasion, are perceived by others.
She strained and strained (standing in front of the looking-glass, listening to Rose Shaw) to make herself see Rose Shaw and all the other people there as flies, trying to hoist themselves out of something, or into something, meagre, insignificant, toiling flies. But she could not see them like that, not other people. She saw herself like that—she was a fly, but the others were dragonflies, butterflies, beautiful insects, dancing, fluttering, skimming, while she alone dragged herself up out of the saucer. (Envy and spite, the most detestable of the vices, were her chief faults.)
"The Introduction" (c. Spring 1925) focuses on one of the guests at the part, Lily Everit, at her first party as an adult, as Mrs Dalloway seeks to introduce her to the gathering.
‘Come and let me introduce you,’ and there Mrs Dalloway hesitated, and then remembering that Lily was the clever one who read poetry, looked about for some young man, some young man just down from Oxford, who would have read everything and would talk about himself. And holding Lily Everit’s hand she led her towards a group where there were young people talking.
Lily Everit hung back a little, might have been in the wake of a steamer; felt as Mrs Dalloway led her on, that it was now going to happen; that nothing could prevent it, or save her (and she only wanted it to be over now) from being flung into a whirlpool where either she would perish or be saved.
She introduces her to a young man, a fellow fan of Shelley, but Lily's view of him, and society in general, is jolted as she catches him casually killing a fly by ripping off its wings, a wonderful defining moment making this a powerful story.
"Ancestors" (May 1925) centres on Mrs Valliance who while talking to another guest, compares him, and the party and indeed London generally, unfavourably to her Scottish upbringing:
Mrs Vallance, as she replied to Jack Renshaw who had made that rather silly remark of his about not liking to watch cricket matches, wished that she could make him understand somehow what became every moment more obvious at a party like this, that if her father had been alive people would have realised how foolish, how wicked—no, not so much wicked as silly and ugly—how, compared to really dignified simple men and women like her father, like her dear mother, all this seemed to her so trivial. How very different his mind was, and his life; and her mother, and how differently, entirely differently she herself had been brought up.
"The Man Who Loved His Kind" has Richard Dalloway bump into an old school friend, Pricket Ellis, he has not seen for 20 years and invite him to the party (Wouldn't he drop in that evening ... one or two people were coming.). But Prickett Ellis doesn't find the party to his taste - It was the sort of thing that made his gorge rise. Think of grown up, responsible men and women doing this every night of their lives! ... he glared ever more severely at these people, overdressed, cynical and pompous, whereas his one and only extravagance was his little yacht on the Norfolk Broads. He sees himself as a man of the people, who loves his own kind, but when he tries to explain this to one of the guests she finds him equally self-obsessed.
"Together and Apart" (early 1925) has Mrs Dalloway introduce two guests, Miss Anning and Roderick Serle, who discover a shared link in Canterbury, where each spent some of their most intense moments, but one that illuminates their very different personalities:
‘Yes, I know Canterbury,’ he said reminiscently, sentimentally, inviting, Miss Anning felt, discreet questions, and that was what made him interesting to so many people, and it was this extraordinary facility and responsiveness to talk on his part that had been his undoing, so he thought, often, taking his studs out and putting his keys and small change on the dressing-table after one of these parties (and he went out sometimes almost every night in the season), and, going down to breakfast, becoming quite different, grumpy, unpleasant at breakfast to his wife, who was an invalid, and never went out, but had old friends to see her sometimes, women friends for the most part, interested in Indian philosophy and different cures and different doctors, which Roderick Serle snubbed off by some caustic remark too clever for her to meet, except by gentle expostulations and a tear or two — he had failed, he often thought, because he could not cut himself off utterly from the society of and the company of women, which was so necessary to him, and write.
"A Summing Up" has Mr Bertram Pritchard and Mrs Latham, leaving the party for the peace of the garden. And while he chunters on, superficially, she retreats into her inner, rather more philsophical, musings:
Written down what he said would be incredible—not only was each thing he said in itself insignificant, but there was no connection between the different remarks.
Sasha Latham would be thinking while he chattered on about his tour in Devonshire, about inns and landladies, about Eddie and Freddie, about cows and night travelling, about cream and stars, about continental railways and Bradshaw, catching cod, catching cold, influenza, rheumatism and Keats—she was thinking of him in the abstract as a person whose existence was good, creating him as he spoke in the guise that was different from what he said, and was certainly the true Bertram Pritchard, even though one could not prove it.
Overall, a great companion volume to the brilliant novel, perhaps not so convincing stand alone but 4 stars as a companion piece.
February 21, 2015
I absolutely adored these short stories. I enjoyed delving into these people's minds while they are supposedly enjoying Mrs. Dalloway's party. Their thoughts say so much about the human condition and existence. How we are our own worst enemies. And her writing... I am so in love with Virginia Woolf.
Let me be, let me be...
P.S. We all have been to this party. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Let me be, let me be...
P.S. We all have been to this party. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.
May 20, 2023
Fue apenas unos días antes de empezar mi lectura de ‘La señora Dalloway’ cuando descubrí la existencia de estos dos cuentos que orbitan a la novela y que recoge este tomo ilustrado y bellísimamente editado por @nordicalibros
Así, los utilicé a modo de calentamiento, para ir entrando en contacto con la prosa de Virginia Woolf y fue todo un acierto porque así, supe lo que me esperaba, me quitó el “miedo” que llevaba a no entender nada y me hizo llegar aún con más ganas a conocer a la señora Dalloway.
Ambos cuentos (‘La señora Dalloway en Bond Street’ y ‘El vestido nuevo’) pueden leerse perfectamente antes, pero diré, que yo volví a ellos tras acabar la novela y me gustaron aún más porque ya estaba metida de lleno en su universo. Son dos historias pequeñas que podrían perfectamente formar parte de la novela y, de hecho, parte del primero, coincide con las primeras páginas de la misma, aunque luego nos enseña una escena “inédita”. ‘La señora Dalloway en Bond Street’ puede considerarse unos de los gérmenes de la novela puesto que lo escribió un año antes y donde la vemos ya ensayar esa forma de narrar tan suya que disfrutamos en la novela, donde un breve paseo por Londres para ir a comprar unos guantes, se convierte en un retrato tanto de la ciudad como de su protagonista, gracias a ese flujo de conciencia con el que narra todo lo que pasa por la cabeza de su protagonista, haciendo así, que la narración de la acción que la ocupa sufra constantes (¡y benditas!) interrupciones de todo lo que la rodea (tráfico, accidentes, encuentros, el tañido del Big Ben…) y también de sus recuerdos y pensamientos intrusivos.
El segundo cuento, ‘El vestido nuevo’ nos lleva directos a la fiesta de Clarissa Dalloway con la que cierra la novela, pero nos ofrece un nuevo punto de vista, el de Mabel, que nos presenta una nueva realidad, amplia las que presenta Woolf en la novela. Mabel es una mujer que se hace pequeña a causa de la inseguridad que le causa ese encuentro, esa gente, esa sociedad que la hace compararse y siempre, sentirse menos y fuera de lugar. ¡Qué sentimiento tan atemporal! Al mismo tiempo, vemos su anhelo de pertenecer, pero también de no renunciar a si misma. Su deseo de ser independiente pero también ser amada. Mabel es contradicciones, como todas las personas somos.
En los dos cuentos dialogan y coexisten diferentes realidades y personalidades, personas, mujeres en este caso, que conviven, pero no se llegan a entenderse debido a las diferencias irreconciliables que aporta su posición social, su bagaje y las oportunidades que han tenido. También veremos presentes algunos de los temas en los que Woolf ahondará en ‘La señora Dalloway’: el paso del tiempo, el temor a la vejez o las heridas de la I Guerra Mundial.
¡No os perdáis estos cuentos si ya sois fans de La señora Dalloway!
Así, los utilicé a modo de calentamiento, para ir entrando en contacto con la prosa de Virginia Woolf y fue todo un acierto porque así, supe lo que me esperaba, me quitó el “miedo” que llevaba a no entender nada y me hizo llegar aún con más ganas a conocer a la señora Dalloway.
Ambos cuentos (‘La señora Dalloway en Bond Street’ y ‘El vestido nuevo’) pueden leerse perfectamente antes, pero diré, que yo volví a ellos tras acabar la novela y me gustaron aún más porque ya estaba metida de lleno en su universo. Son dos historias pequeñas que podrían perfectamente formar parte de la novela y, de hecho, parte del primero, coincide con las primeras páginas de la misma, aunque luego nos enseña una escena “inédita”. ‘La señora Dalloway en Bond Street’ puede considerarse unos de los gérmenes de la novela puesto que lo escribió un año antes y donde la vemos ya ensayar esa forma de narrar tan suya que disfrutamos en la novela, donde un breve paseo por Londres para ir a comprar unos guantes, se convierte en un retrato tanto de la ciudad como de su protagonista, gracias a ese flujo de conciencia con el que narra todo lo que pasa por la cabeza de su protagonista, haciendo así, que la narración de la acción que la ocupa sufra constantes (¡y benditas!) interrupciones de todo lo que la rodea (tráfico, accidentes, encuentros, el tañido del Big Ben…) y también de sus recuerdos y pensamientos intrusivos.
El segundo cuento, ‘El vestido nuevo’ nos lleva directos a la fiesta de Clarissa Dalloway con la que cierra la novela, pero nos ofrece un nuevo punto de vista, el de Mabel, que nos presenta una nueva realidad, amplia las que presenta Woolf en la novela. Mabel es una mujer que se hace pequeña a causa de la inseguridad que le causa ese encuentro, esa gente, esa sociedad que la hace compararse y siempre, sentirse menos y fuera de lugar. ¡Qué sentimiento tan atemporal! Al mismo tiempo, vemos su anhelo de pertenecer, pero también de no renunciar a si misma. Su deseo de ser independiente pero también ser amada. Mabel es contradicciones, como todas las personas somos.
En los dos cuentos dialogan y coexisten diferentes realidades y personalidades, personas, mujeres en este caso, que conviven, pero no se llegan a entenderse debido a las diferencias irreconciliables que aporta su posición social, su bagaje y las oportunidades que han tenido. También veremos presentes algunos de los temas en los que Woolf ahondará en ‘La señora Dalloway’: el paso del tiempo, el temor a la vejez o las heridas de la I Guerra Mundial.
¡No os perdáis estos cuentos si ya sois fans de La señora Dalloway!
July 22, 2025
El presente ejemplar contiene trece cuentos escritos en distintas etapas de la trayectoria literaria de Virginia Woolf, por lo que vamos a encontrar relatos de tipo clásico, como los que componen la serie relacionada con la fiesta de Dalloway y otros más experimentales, que subvierten las formas convencionales.
Los relatos de la fiesta fueron escritos antes, durante y después de la novela “La señora Dalloway” entre 1922 y 1925. El más antiguo de esto es el de Bond Street que fue pensado como primer capítulo de la novela. Marca un mojón significativo de Virginia como escritora ya que utiliza el punto de vista llamado indirecto libre, donde el narrador se coloca en la mente del personajes sin usar por ello la primera persona, lo que permite alternar interioridad y exterioridad. Es el flujo de conciencia que la autora toma de la obra proustiana.
En esta serie se analiza maravillosamente el vínculo entre lo individual y lo social, entre la soledad del sujeto y la necesidad de lo gregario, generando alto niveles de expectativas y ansiedad.
La pluma de Woolf es profunda, describe el party inglés, el choque entre el impulso íntimo de ser uno mismo y el peso que la sociedad otorga, sobre todo, a las mujeres. Muchos de estos relatos son autobiográficos y muestran las dificultades que tuvo la autora desde su primera juventud, a causa de su timidez, de no encajar y sentirse burlada. Cien años después, podemos decir que nos pasa lo mismo.
Acabo de empezar la novela “la señora Dalloway”, por lo que mi experiencia, va a ser completa.
Los relatos de la fiesta fueron escritos antes, durante y después de la novela “La señora Dalloway” entre 1922 y 1925. El más antiguo de esto es el de Bond Street que fue pensado como primer capítulo de la novela. Marca un mojón significativo de Virginia como escritora ya que utiliza el punto de vista llamado indirecto libre, donde el narrador se coloca en la mente del personajes sin usar por ello la primera persona, lo que permite alternar interioridad y exterioridad. Es el flujo de conciencia que la autora toma de la obra proustiana.
En esta serie se analiza maravillosamente el vínculo entre lo individual y lo social, entre la soledad del sujeto y la necesidad de lo gregario, generando alto niveles de expectativas y ansiedad.
La pluma de Woolf es profunda, describe el party inglés, el choque entre el impulso íntimo de ser uno mismo y el peso que la sociedad otorga, sobre todo, a las mujeres. Muchos de estos relatos son autobiográficos y muestran las dificultades que tuvo la autora desde su primera juventud, a causa de su timidez, de no encajar y sentirse burlada. Cien años después, podemos decir que nos pasa lo mismo.
Acabo de empezar la novela “la señora Dalloway”, por lo que mi experiencia, va a ser completa.
March 23, 2012
I found two positive things to say about this book. First, as a self-confessed lover of 'all things gramatical', Virginia Woolf's long complex sentences are beautifully constructed. These can run for half a page, with side-tracks and twists, yet when you look back at them, they are absoltely correct. This, for me, is the joy of Woolf.
But, this series of short stories is utterley devoid of joy. Don't be fooled by the publisher's assessment that the book has the whole range of emotions associated with a party.
My second positive to take away from this book is the incredibly insight Woolf offers into the mind of a woman who suffered from artistic repression, and depression. Her characters have generally negative experiences, as the result of the way they (mistakenly?) view the intentions of others around them. It is so true, we create our won misery through misunderstanding and assuming the worst.
However, the stories - particularly the second to last (The New Dress) - were such a faithful picture of how a paranoid person can create their own miserable experience, whether or not their assumptions are correct. For me, this was just too sad a reminder of behaviour in people I know.
But, this series of short stories is utterley devoid of joy. Don't be fooled by the publisher's assessment that the book has the whole range of emotions associated with a party.
My second positive to take away from this book is the incredibly insight Woolf offers into the mind of a woman who suffered from artistic repression, and depression. Her characters have generally negative experiences, as the result of the way they (mistakenly?) view the intentions of others around them. It is so true, we create our won misery through misunderstanding and assuming the worst.
However, the stories - particularly the second to last (The New Dress) - were such a faithful picture of how a paranoid person can create their own miserable experience, whether or not their assumptions are correct. For me, this was just too sad a reminder of behaviour in people I know.
August 28, 2019
I’m getting ready to read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway bought me to this collection of 7 short after I discovered these would lead Woolf to write this novel. The first short Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street starts with:
In this story Clarissa Dalloway visits a store to buy a pair of gloves for her party. The remaining six stories are all told from a different guest’s point of view at the party, where briefly there are glimpses of the Dalloways, their home and lifestyle. I also liked how the first two stories give a contrast of Clarissa and Richard, in the second story, The Man Who loved His kind, though Richard has only a bit part his stuffiness becomes evident to Clarissa’s, who is less sure of herself. That unsureness and awkwardness runs through all the different stories as social prejudices and differences are touched upon.
It’s funny how reading books can become an unintended treasure hunt. In learning Woolf wrote a short story I would discover these seven, how close they resemble the novel I will soon find out.
Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the gloves herself.When I read this – delicious!!!
In this story Clarissa Dalloway visits a store to buy a pair of gloves for her party. The remaining six stories are all told from a different guest’s point of view at the party, where briefly there are glimpses of the Dalloways, their home and lifestyle. I also liked how the first two stories give a contrast of Clarissa and Richard, in the second story, The Man Who loved His kind, though Richard has only a bit part his stuffiness becomes evident to Clarissa’s, who is less sure of herself. That unsureness and awkwardness runs through all the different stories as social prejudices and differences are touched upon.
It’s funny how reading books can become an unintended treasure hunt. In learning Woolf wrote a short story I would discover these seven, how close they resemble the novel I will soon find out.
January 4, 2015
Mrs. Dalloway’s Party is a series of thematically linked stories, that can be read as vignettes or as one long party. It the first, “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street,” Mrs. Dalloway sallies forth to buy the gloves herself. At age 52, she runs smack into her own mortality on the way to the glove shop. Alarmed, she realizes for the first time that the shop girl is a good twenty years older than the last time Mrs. Dalloway bothered to really look at her, to consider her as a fellow human rather than as a mere servant worthy of no special consideration. Immediately, Mrs. Dalloway turns away from such dreary considerations to more important concerns: Will the wrong people come to her party while the right people stay away? Will dowdy women with no fashion sense attend? The answer is a resounding yes, yes, yes.
The following stories revolve around the “wrong” people, who accept Mrs. Dalloway’s invitation as almost an afterthought , and the dowdy women, who do not conform to fashion’s dictates. Unabashed, the formidable Mrs. Dalloway plays matchmaker for these individuals. Even though she senses the true nature of each and makes what should be brilliant pairings, her efforts backfire.
Each party attendee secretly feels inferior to the others. Their irrational sense of inferiority stems from such mundane things as their clothing, their small houses, their lack of servants, or their unconventional parents. In reality, each is a fascinating individual of integrity and depth. However, their fear of rejection, of being snubbed in public, is so great that they resort to a defensiveness that renders them insufferable bores. After comparing their secret selves to the false impressions that they have of each other, they each commit the sin of feeling superior. In consequence, they refrain from genuine, revealing discourse. They form quick, superficial opinions of each other and are reduced to insincerity.
In exposing the true nature of each character, Woolf explores estheticism in conflict with humanitarianism, the working poor in conflict with the “well fed, overdressed,” and the corruption of the city in conflict with the purity of Nature. We also witness an “educated” man trivializing the literary aspirations of a woman in the eternal conflict of male and female.
At Mrs. Dalloway’s party, we witness the irrationality of human exchange “filled with pain and pleasure.” Each person in attendance is an island, “excluded from humanity.” As clichéd as it is, each individual is utterly alone in the crowd. Each is “the secluded being, who sits in darkness,” aching to be known, but so afraid of being rebuffed that they offer nothing of their true selves to each other.
The following stories revolve around the “wrong” people, who accept Mrs. Dalloway’s invitation as almost an afterthought , and the dowdy women, who do not conform to fashion’s dictates. Unabashed, the formidable Mrs. Dalloway plays matchmaker for these individuals. Even though she senses the true nature of each and makes what should be brilliant pairings, her efforts backfire.
Each party attendee secretly feels inferior to the others. Their irrational sense of inferiority stems from such mundane things as their clothing, their small houses, their lack of servants, or their unconventional parents. In reality, each is a fascinating individual of integrity and depth. However, their fear of rejection, of being snubbed in public, is so great that they resort to a defensiveness that renders them insufferable bores. After comparing their secret selves to the false impressions that they have of each other, they each commit the sin of feeling superior. In consequence, they refrain from genuine, revealing discourse. They form quick, superficial opinions of each other and are reduced to insincerity.
In exposing the true nature of each character, Woolf explores estheticism in conflict with humanitarianism, the working poor in conflict with the “well fed, overdressed,” and the corruption of the city in conflict with the purity of Nature. We also witness an “educated” man trivializing the literary aspirations of a woman in the eternal conflict of male and female.
At Mrs. Dalloway’s party, we witness the irrationality of human exchange “filled with pain and pleasure.” Each person in attendance is an island, “excluded from humanity.” As clichéd as it is, each individual is utterly alone in the crowd. Each is “the secluded being, who sits in darkness,” aching to be known, but so afraid of being rebuffed that they offer nothing of their true selves to each other.
June 16, 2017
Difficult to rate this collection seeing as how it was something intentionally omitted from the original novel. Not one I’d recommend to someone new to Woolf, that’s for sure.
July 3, 2022
Este libro recoge dos cuentos que guardan relación con la conocida novela de Virginia Woolf «La señora Dalloway». Los dos se centran en un momento concreto: una de las invitadas comprando guantes y otra con su vestido nuevo.
El primero de ellos se titula «La señora Dalloway en Bond Street», es previo a la novela «La señora Dalloway». En él acompañaremos a Clarissa a comprar unos guantes, desde su casa a la tienda conoceremos todos sus cavilaciones internos: cómo es junio en Londres, todos los puntos más conocidos de la ciudad por los que pasa en su trayecto, los ruidos y conversaciones, algún que otro pensamiento hacia algún conocido y la prueba de guantes. Todo ello acompañado con unas espectaculares ilustraciones de Fernando Vicente.
En el segundo, titulado «Vestido nuevo» es más íntimo, ahonda más en los sentimientos de la protagonista. Mientras que el anterior habla del entorno y de vivencias o experiencias pasadas, este tiene un aura más profunda y cercana. Mabel no está en un buen momento, la tristeza se apodera de ella debido a su inseguridad. La presión a la que se somete a la mujer por parte de las altas esferas, acaba por asfixiarla. No se siente elegante ni cree que su estilo pueda estar a la altura de las exigencias sociales.
Era difícil ser original y acudir a lo típico podía ser sinónimo de estar desfasada. En un momento dado afirma que: "Allí, quieta, se sentía como un maniquí de costura que los jóvenes usarían para clavar sus alfileres". Este último cuento es una llamada de auxilio en busca de apoyo y comprensión. Y es el que más me ha gustado sin lugar a dudas. Lo he releído tres veces.
Las ilustraciones en este segundo cuento, corren a cargo de Teresa Novoa. Son estilos súper distintos de ilustración, con el añadido de que los cuentos son muy opuestos también. En este último, la ilustradora se centra en esos pensamientos tormentosos que tiene Mabel, está en una espiral de negatividad y así lo refleja Teresa, con ilustraciones oscuras y pesarosas.
No puedo terminar sin destacar la nota de los traductores, me ha servido de mucha ayuda. Tras la primera lectura, al dedicar un tiempo a entender la explicación de los traductores mi mente hizo "clic" y volví a releer los cuentos, así pude apreciarlos aún más y entender todos los entresijos de los relatos. Un punto importante de los dos cuentos es que el estilo de escritura de Virginia Woolf cambia de forma drástica, así con ayuda de sus diarios podremos entender qué buscaba la autora con su insaciable búsqueda hacia la evolución en su escritura.
Por último, solo os puedo decir que si sois seguidores de Virginia Woolf esta edición tiene que ser vuestra. Se nota el cariño y la dedicación que han puesto la editorial, los traductores e ilustradores.
El primero de ellos se titula «La señora Dalloway en Bond Street», es previo a la novela «La señora Dalloway». En él acompañaremos a Clarissa a comprar unos guantes, desde su casa a la tienda conoceremos todos sus cavilaciones internos: cómo es junio en Londres, todos los puntos más conocidos de la ciudad por los que pasa en su trayecto, los ruidos y conversaciones, algún que otro pensamiento hacia algún conocido y la prueba de guantes. Todo ello acompañado con unas espectaculares ilustraciones de Fernando Vicente.
En el segundo, titulado «Vestido nuevo» es más íntimo, ahonda más en los sentimientos de la protagonista. Mientras que el anterior habla del entorno y de vivencias o experiencias pasadas, este tiene un aura más profunda y cercana. Mabel no está en un buen momento, la tristeza se apodera de ella debido a su inseguridad. La presión a la que se somete a la mujer por parte de las altas esferas, acaba por asfixiarla. No se siente elegante ni cree que su estilo pueda estar a la altura de las exigencias sociales.
Era difícil ser original y acudir a lo típico podía ser sinónimo de estar desfasada. En un momento dado afirma que: "Allí, quieta, se sentía como un maniquí de costura que los jóvenes usarían para clavar sus alfileres". Este último cuento es una llamada de auxilio en busca de apoyo y comprensión. Y es el que más me ha gustado sin lugar a dudas. Lo he releído tres veces.
Las ilustraciones en este segundo cuento, corren a cargo de Teresa Novoa. Son estilos súper distintos de ilustración, con el añadido de que los cuentos son muy opuestos también. En este último, la ilustradora se centra en esos pensamientos tormentosos que tiene Mabel, está en una espiral de negatividad y así lo refleja Teresa, con ilustraciones oscuras y pesarosas.
No puedo terminar sin destacar la nota de los traductores, me ha servido de mucha ayuda. Tras la primera lectura, al dedicar un tiempo a entender la explicación de los traductores mi mente hizo "clic" y volví a releer los cuentos, así pude apreciarlos aún más y entender todos los entresijos de los relatos. Un punto importante de los dos cuentos es que el estilo de escritura de Virginia Woolf cambia de forma drástica, así con ayuda de sus diarios podremos entender qué buscaba la autora con su insaciable búsqueda hacia la evolución en su escritura.
Por último, solo os puedo decir que si sois seguidores de Virginia Woolf esta edición tiene que ser vuestra. Se nota el cariño y la dedicación que han puesto la editorial, los traductores e ilustradores.
August 21, 2025
Mrs Dalloway’in altyapısını oluşturan öyküleri okuyoruz bu minicik kitapta. Bazıları romana girmiş, bazıları girememiş, bazıları bir miktar değişmiş. Parti öncesinde, parti sırasında, içeride, dışarıda, kadınlar ve erkekler, “ay ışığında hayatları bir böceğin ömrü kadar kısa, bir böceğin ömrü kadar önemsiz.” Mrs Dalloway’in konukları. Sanki herbirinin içinde parça parça Woolf var, herbirinin içinde ben varım, biz varız. O kadar sahi, o kadar gerçek ki.
“Kendi türünü seven adam” Prickett Ellis, “buharlı bir geminin arkasından salınan kontrol edilemez bir yelkenli gibi” Lily Everit, “kendini hayata fazla kaptırmış” Mr. Serle ve ondan hoşlanmayan ama onun “bir kadını kiraz ağacına benzetmesinden” epey hoşlanam Miss Anning, “yeni elbise”siyle Mabel Waring ve “kendi olmaya mahkum biri” Mrs Sasha Latham. Sizi unutmak istemiyorum, unutabileceğimi de pek sanmıyorum aslında.
“Kendi türünü seven adam” Prickett Ellis, “buharlı bir geminin arkasından salınan kontrol edilemez bir yelkenli gibi” Lily Everit, “kendini hayata fazla kaptırmış” Mr. Serle ve ondan hoşlanmayan ama onun “bir kadını kiraz ağacına benzetmesinden” epey hoşlanam Miss Anning, “yeni elbise”siyle Mabel Waring ve “kendi olmaya mahkum biri” Mrs Sasha Latham. Sizi unutmak istemiyorum, unutabileceğimi de pek sanmıyorum aslında.
May 6, 2024
liked 'the introduction' and 'together and apart' the best; very excited to see extra content for mrs dalloway it's kind of like when your favorite anime releases an OVA
November 23, 2025
Estos cuentos no representan lo mejor de Virginia Woolf pero tampoco están mal.
Una fiesta repleta de gente insegura luchando contra sí misma, angustiada, esperando ser percibida como le gustaría sin avergonzarse o humillarse. Inadvertidos de que nadie los está observando tan de cerca como ellos piensan.
Una fiesta repleta de gente insegura luchando contra sí misma, angustiada, esperando ser percibida como le gustaría sin avergonzarse o humillarse. Inadvertidos de que nadie los está observando tan de cerca como ellos piensan.
October 3, 2024
Mrs. Dalloway’in Partisi,Virginia Woolf’un en bilinen romanını oluşturan kısa öykülerden bir koleksiyon,taslak.Woolf’un
parti bilinci’ olarak adlandırdığı partinin psikolojisi üzerine bir tür araştırma.Clarissa Dalloway’in partisine katılan yedi kişinin,yedi kısa hikayesi.Bilinç akışı tekniğiyle yazılmış,her birinin düşüncelerine ve kişisel sosyal yaşamlarına odaklanıyor.Yedi farklı bakış açısı ve yedi farklı deneyimden oluşuyor.
parti bilinci’ olarak adlandırdığı partinin psikolojisi üzerine bir tür araştırma.Clarissa Dalloway’in partisine katılan yedi kişinin,yedi kısa hikayesi.Bilinç akışı tekniğiyle yazılmış,her birinin düşüncelerine ve kişisel sosyal yaşamlarına odaklanıyor.Yedi farklı bakış açısı ve yedi farklı deneyimden oluşuyor.
July 12, 2022
For quite some time I have been stuck about a third of the way through Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Defeated at the moment anyway by the stream of consciousness. I do want to persist though to find out how she brings the storylines together. In the meantime I thought I’d have a look at an ingenious collection of seven “party” stories edited by Stella McNichol with a very interesting introduction. It begins:
“While working on the Mrs Dalloway MSS, in order primarily to establish a first draft version of that novel, I became aware of Virginia Woolf’s preoccupation with a particular social occasion, the party. It seemed that a party was somehow able to bring into sharp focus something which in the blur of everyday life might easily escape. Under its glare and because of its stresses people become vulnerable. The novel Mrs Dalloway, published in 1925, focuses on such an occasion.”
“Of the stories in the present volume “Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street”, the opening story, is the one most closely connected with the genesis of the novel Mrs Dalloway. It was intended originally to be Chapter One of that novel.” And I was aware of echoes and similarities and in a strange way preferred the story to the opening chapter when reading it.
The next story is “The Man Who Loved His Kind” and in this Woolf writes from the consciousness of a very pompous and awkward man at a party given by the Dalloways. In the third story, “The Introduction”, we spend time with a nervous young woman named Lily Everit. This is my second favourite story and Woolf gets right down to conveying the tension of someone who feels inadequate and not up to social occasions, preferring the countryside:
“Hers it was, rather, to run and hurry and ponder on long solitary walks, climbing gates, stepping through the mud, and through the blur, the dream, the ecstasy of loneliness, to see in the plover’s wheel and surprise the rabbits, and come in the hearts of woods or wide lonely moors upon little ceremonies which had no audience....”
In the next story “Ancestors”, a short piece, Mrs Vallance is at a party but spends more time thinking about her past and Scotland. “What was there beautiful in this stuffy London room?”
In “Together and Apart” Mrs Dalloway introduces Mr Serle and Miss Anning at her party. In this story Miss Anning for the most part ponders on the man she has just met and tries to decide, through conversation and questions, how she feels about him.
The New Dress is a simple but clever story where Mabel realises that her dress is not quite right for the party and the reader begins to understand more about this unfortunate character.
The last story, “A Summing Up”, my favourite, takes place mostly in Mrs Dalloway’s back garden where Sasha and Bertram wander around.
“Suddenly Bertram, who was restless physically, wanted to explore the grounds, and, jumping on to a heap of bricks, he peered over the garden wall. Sasha peered over too. She saw a bucket or perhaps a boot. In a second the illusion vanished. There was London again; the vast inattentive impersonal world; motor omnibuses, affairs; lights before public-houses; and yawning policeman.” Really enjoyed Sasha’s thoughts in this story. And it has a marvellous ending. Highly recommended for Woolf fans.
“While working on the Mrs Dalloway MSS, in order primarily to establish a first draft version of that novel, I became aware of Virginia Woolf’s preoccupation with a particular social occasion, the party. It seemed that a party was somehow able to bring into sharp focus something which in the blur of everyday life might easily escape. Under its glare and because of its stresses people become vulnerable. The novel Mrs Dalloway, published in 1925, focuses on such an occasion.”
“Of the stories in the present volume “Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street”, the opening story, is the one most closely connected with the genesis of the novel Mrs Dalloway. It was intended originally to be Chapter One of that novel.” And I was aware of echoes and similarities and in a strange way preferred the story to the opening chapter when reading it.
The next story is “The Man Who Loved His Kind” and in this Woolf writes from the consciousness of a very pompous and awkward man at a party given by the Dalloways. In the third story, “The Introduction”, we spend time with a nervous young woman named Lily Everit. This is my second favourite story and Woolf gets right down to conveying the tension of someone who feels inadequate and not up to social occasions, preferring the countryside:
“Hers it was, rather, to run and hurry and ponder on long solitary walks, climbing gates, stepping through the mud, and through the blur, the dream, the ecstasy of loneliness, to see in the plover’s wheel and surprise the rabbits, and come in the hearts of woods or wide lonely moors upon little ceremonies which had no audience....”
In the next story “Ancestors”, a short piece, Mrs Vallance is at a party but spends more time thinking about her past and Scotland. “What was there beautiful in this stuffy London room?”
In “Together and Apart” Mrs Dalloway introduces Mr Serle and Miss Anning at her party. In this story Miss Anning for the most part ponders on the man she has just met and tries to decide, through conversation and questions, how she feels about him.
The New Dress is a simple but clever story where Mabel realises that her dress is not quite right for the party and the reader begins to understand more about this unfortunate character.
The last story, “A Summing Up”, my favourite, takes place mostly in Mrs Dalloway’s back garden where Sasha and Bertram wander around.
“Suddenly Bertram, who was restless physically, wanted to explore the grounds, and, jumping on to a heap of bricks, he peered over the garden wall. Sasha peered over too. She saw a bucket or perhaps a boot. In a second the illusion vanished. There was London again; the vast inattentive impersonal world; motor omnibuses, affairs; lights before public-houses; and yawning policeman.” Really enjoyed Sasha’s thoughts in this story. And it has a marvellous ending. Highly recommended for Woolf fans.
November 10, 2015
Extended bonus tracks -- a remix / alt version of the opening, plus six party-sequence expansions, broadening the internal landscapes of social obligation and uncertainty in exquisitely rendered single-viewpoints. I actually thought more could have been done with the party itself in Mrs. Dalloway, seeing as such a gathering is a fantastic venue for Woolf's wandering subjective camera techniques, and she evidently agreed.
March 15, 2011
Seven stories, a further look into the high society life that makes Mrs. Dalloway's party. Ms Woolf had a fascination with parties and I have a fascination with her fascination. "For a party makes things either much more real or much less real." My favorite story being the longest- written, entirely about one outdated dress.
June 2, 2022
A short collection of stories around Mrs Dalloway's party, this book contains the essence of what makes Virginia Woolf great: her writing-style, the way she expresses her ideas, the way she delivers her reflexions about human interactions/life. It's not a necessary book to read in her bibliography, but I still loved it. Can't wait to read others!
November 25, 2024
"one divided life (she felt sure of it) into fact and into fiction, into rock and into wave, she thought, driving along and seeing things with such intensity..."
August 15, 2010
It's been so long since I've "read," officially, for GoodReads that I had to do another! "Mrs. Dalloway's Party" is a collection of short stories (and what was a draft of Chapter One of "Mrs. Dalloway") which Virginia Woolf wrote during and after her most well-known novel. It was bound up and published posthumously, featuring an intro by Woolf historian Stella McNichol.
In the intro, McNichol touched upon Woolf's fascination with parties, perhaps akin to today's "5 minute dating" events. It was a chance to get people out of their usual doldrums and to have them interact in unusual ways (it seems in fact that this might be the only way for most men and women to talk socially.) Woolf's fascination with parties reminds me of my writerly fascination with the airport. :P It's a way to see people out of their usual milieu, and that's often when peoples' emotions- their fears and excitements- are closest to the surface.
People at parties often seem uncomfortable. :P Their self-absorption keeps them from accepting other people- for example with Prickett Ellis in "The Man Who Loved His Kind" and Mrs. Vallance in "Ancestors." Unfortunately doubt also keeps people apart- like in "Together and Apart" where, despite discovering a similar profound love for Canterbury, both Mr. Serle and Miss Anning are afraid to take the relationship further.
Woolf's biggest fault, to my mind, is that although she gives amazing detail to the inner thoughts of these different personalities, she has no sense of distinct voice. They all sound rambly and well-schooled in the same vocabulary. Though to be fair, the rambly part is a testament to the "stream-of-consciousness," that each of these stories is supposed to convey the realistic ramblings of the human thought process second by second (juxtaposed by occasional interruptions from the physical world.) I will always admire and respect Virginia Woolf for her truthfulness in how people think.
In the intro, McNichol touched upon Woolf's fascination with parties, perhaps akin to today's "5 minute dating" events. It was a chance to get people out of their usual doldrums and to have them interact in unusual ways (it seems in fact that this might be the only way for most men and women to talk socially.) Woolf's fascination with parties reminds me of my writerly fascination with the airport. :P It's a way to see people out of their usual milieu, and that's often when peoples' emotions- their fears and excitements- are closest to the surface.
People at parties often seem uncomfortable. :P Their self-absorption keeps them from accepting other people- for example with Prickett Ellis in "The Man Who Loved His Kind" and Mrs. Vallance in "Ancestors." Unfortunately doubt also keeps people apart- like in "Together and Apart" where, despite discovering a similar profound love for Canterbury, both Mr. Serle and Miss Anning are afraid to take the relationship further.
Woolf's biggest fault, to my mind, is that although she gives amazing detail to the inner thoughts of these different personalities, she has no sense of distinct voice. They all sound rambly and well-schooled in the same vocabulary. Though to be fair, the rambly part is a testament to the "stream-of-consciousness," that each of these stories is supposed to convey the realistic ramblings of the human thought process second by second (juxtaposed by occasional interruptions from the physical world.) I will always admire and respect Virginia Woolf for her truthfulness in how people think.
March 19, 2016
Mrs. Dalloway’s Party by Virginia Woolf is a collection of stories that serve as a good companion to her classic novel Mrs. Dalloway. From the introduction to the book we learn that the stories were written at the same time as or just after the writing of the novel, the latter of which was especially unusual for Woolf. She usually moved on to something different when she completed a novel. But she was interested in what she called in her writing diary “party consciousness,” that something about the gathering together of so many people under one roof that was both more artificial and more real than everyday life. In the course of seven stories we encounter a guest whose speech would fill a book and others who stand on the fringes hardly able to utter a syllable. There are misunderstandings and miscommunications as social opposites are introduced to one another. One woman worries the entire night about having worn the wrong dress that is not the current fashion. She had thought to wear something unique, but instead ruminated on the decision the entire party. Another man thought that he was so above the other party goers and their frivolity that he could barely deign to converse with anyone, and when he did it was with only the utmost condescension. I thoroughly enjoyed this slim book, but I have to say that it works best as a companion to the novel.
May 10, 2016
Mrs Dalloway’s Party is a short story sequence which was written in the same period as Virginia Woolf’s classic novel Mrs Dalloway. The opening story Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street was originally intended as the first chapter of that novel. Each of these stories illustrates beautifully Virginia Woolf’s fascination with parties and the raft of emotions and difficulties such occasions may bring. In these stories Woolf shines a light on the society in which she had grown up – in her portrayal of the guests that attend Mrs Dalloway’s party Woolf presents us with the stories and voices of that society. In these stories Mrs Dalloway’s guests often appear isolated from the rest of the guests, middle aged, and upper middle class women anxious about their appearance, the antecedents of other guests, or their own reception by others at the party. Clarissa Dalloway, the indomitable hostess does her best to draw them out, introducing them to each other. Yet each of them has their own worries and concerns, so those who Clarissa tries to pair off – seem incapable of taking advantage of the chance she gives them.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
October 23, 2022
«…no hay nada que pueda reemplazar a la infancia».
Dos breves relatos que se resumen en dos grandes ideas que rodean la obra de Virginia Woolf, el deseo de libertad y resiliencia.
«Cuánto sufrían las personas, cuánto sufrían, pensó al recordar a la señora Foxcroft la noche anterior en la embajada, engalanada con joyas y el alma rota…».
Curiosa la elección del verbo, engalanar. El testimonio de la mujer insatisfecha con su vida, cumpliendo con lo que se espera de ella dentro de la sociedad. Virginia Woolf es sensible a lo que la rodea, pero quiere mantener cierta distancia con sus personajes, desde la posición de la señora Dalloway profundiza en el dolor, que lo conoce, le es familiar y la debilita. Intenta que Clarissa se aísle de él, que parezca inmune, superficial y frívola comprando guantes hasta los codos, pero…, ¿lo logra?
«Para encontrar algo que merezca la pena uno debe volver al pasado».
Con los años la visión del mundo cambia, nuestras experiencias modifican nuestra personalidad, nuestro pensamiento, sentimientos y decisiones cambian.
Dos breves relatos que se resumen en dos grandes ideas que rodean la obra de Virginia Woolf, el deseo de libertad y resiliencia.
«Cuánto sufrían las personas, cuánto sufrían, pensó al recordar a la señora Foxcroft la noche anterior en la embajada, engalanada con joyas y el alma rota…».
Curiosa la elección del verbo, engalanar. El testimonio de la mujer insatisfecha con su vida, cumpliendo con lo que se espera de ella dentro de la sociedad. Virginia Woolf es sensible a lo que la rodea, pero quiere mantener cierta distancia con sus personajes, desde la posición de la señora Dalloway profundiza en el dolor, que lo conoce, le es familiar y la debilita. Intenta que Clarissa se aísle de él, que parezca inmune, superficial y frívola comprando guantes hasta los codos, pero…, ¿lo logra?
«Para encontrar algo que merezca la pena uno debe volver al pasado».
Con los años la visión del mundo cambia, nuestras experiencias modifican nuestra personalidad, nuestro pensamiento, sentimientos y decisiones cambian.
February 4, 2024
La edición que leí de este libro, una recopilación muy bien lograda de Banda Oriental, reúne trece cuentos de diferentes etapas de la trayectoria literaria de Virginia Woolf, a saber: El legado, Lappin y Lapinova, La Duquesa y el joyero, Los alfileres de Slater’s no tienen punta, La señora Dalloway en Bond Street, El hombre que amaba al prójimo, Juntos y separados, La presentación, Antepasados, El vestido nuevo, Un resumen, Una novela no escrita, y por último, Kew Gardens. De todos ellos, los únicos con los que pude conectar y que realmente me gustaron fueron Juntos y separados, La presentación, y Antepasados. De los demás, la mayoría me parecieron bastante vacíos y pretenciosos, muy al estilo Barton Fink: escribo sobre el hombre común pensando que soy empático con él pero la realidad es que lo hago siempre sentado en una nube, mientras miro para abajo.
Entiendo el valor de la autora, sin dudas pienso leer más de lo que escribió, pero al menos con este libro, no terminé de conectar con ella.
Entiendo el valor de la autora, sin dudas pienso leer más de lo que escribió, pero al menos con este libro, no terminé de conectar con ella.
May 3, 2010
Some of the stories offer a perspective on the different paths the novel could have taken. The novel is probably sleeker without Mrs. Dalloway wondering whether to buy Cranford for Milly, but I love how she reflects on the episode of the cow in flannel and laments the humor and self-respect(!) that kind of writing embodied.
It's fascinating to follow the alternate routes novel might have taken. But the value of the stories go beyond that. Like her essays and novels, these stories capture "moments of being," vividly experienced slices of time, flashes of light that illuminate a personality. The stories, mostly about conversations between people at party often wonderfully juxtapose the sharply observed surface of a conversation with depths of their interior life, as if Woolf is unraveling infinite riches compacted into a moment.
It's fascinating to follow the alternate routes novel might have taken. But the value of the stories go beyond that. Like her essays and novels, these stories capture "moments of being," vividly experienced slices of time, flashes of light that illuminate a personality. The stories, mostly about conversations between people at party often wonderfully juxtapose the sharply observed surface of a conversation with depths of their interior life, as if Woolf is unraveling infinite riches compacted into a moment.
August 5, 2023
My God, was this boring. Imagine reading about someone's very normal life for the course of what seems to be 24 hours. It was very bland, and while there were some parts that would spark (Peter Walsh & Mrs. Dalloway seeing each other years later after Mrs. Dalloway chose Richard over him) my interest didn't continue beyond that.
Of course, this was an assigned reading for my junior year college English class. Otherwise I don't think I would have ever read it. I like to give certain books a second chance, but everything I've read by Virginia Woolf has been rather bland. As a reader I feel like my mind needs to wonder with excitement - if not excitement than at least wonderment because of a certain sort of eloquence that the writer displays.
Of course, this was an assigned reading for my junior year college English class. Otherwise I don't think I would have ever read it. I like to give certain books a second chance, but everything I've read by Virginia Woolf has been rather bland. As a reader I feel like my mind needs to wonder with excitement - if not excitement than at least wonderment because of a certain sort of eloquence that the writer displays.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 19, 2014
This is our July Library Reading Group read and I can't wait to see what the rest of the group think. A very short book of 57 pages, comprising of 7 short stories or as it calls them in the introduction chapters. The only way that you could call them chapters is that they are all set in the lead up to the Party but aren't related to one another in any other way. Why? I have to ask myself are we in anyway interested in them as I found them rather dull and of very little substance. I found my mind wandering and they didn't keep me engaged at all. I gave the book a 4/10 and that was for the writing style rather than the content.
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