Mrs. Dalloway

Phyllida Law's beautiful reading may be the perfect way to experience Woolf's modernist masterpiece. As Clarissa Dalloway goes through a day in June in London just after WWI, a day on which she is giving a party, the narrative takes her to her youth in memory, to her first loves, then forward and back again in time to the people she has admired, to the woman she has become, the marriage she has made, and her anxieties for her daughter, so different from herself. Woolf weaves in threads of people whose lives intersect Clarissa's, from the servants to the royal family, until we see a perfect portrait of a moment in place and time. Throughout, Law's ability to render distinctions of class, of age, of sex and of temperment is glorious, and makes for a gem of a literary experience. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

August 30, 2010
As Clarissa Dalloway prepares to host a party in 1920s London, she is unexpectedly reunited with her old friend Peter Walsh in a novel that shifts among the inner monologues of its many characters and is darkened by the terrors and hallucinations of parallel protagonist Septimus Smith. Juliet Stevenson’s performance—with its lyricism and lilt—is perfectly matched to Woolf’s text and transports the listener. Stevenson produces a delightful range of distinct voices—her introspective, fragile Clarissa and stormy Peter are particularly strong.

Virginia Leishman gives a fine performance of this audiobook. Virginia Woolf's novel captures a day in the title character's life and intersperses throughout that day Clarissa Dalloway's stream-of-consciousness reminiscences. The novel can be difficult to follow at times, but hearing it performed aids in comprehension. Leishman's crisp voice goes far in lending direction to challenging prose and adding interest to moments that at first seem insignificant. Mrs. Dalloway is a woman on the verge of the next stage of her life, and hearing the novel performed offers the reader a glimpse into the fears, hopes, and inevitable changes that next stage will certainly bring. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine