Mr. Dalloway: A Novella

By Robin Lippincott

Book Overview

A virtuoso performance of postmodern daring, Mr. Dalloway offers a rich augmentation of Virginia Woolf's classic novel.

It is June 29, 1927 Richard and Clarissa Dalloway's thirtieth anniversary and also a day of historical significance. Richard has arranged a surprise party for his wife. As he leaves their house in Westminster to buy flowers for the party, his thoughts turn to Robert Davies (Robbie), a young editor at Faber with whom he has been having an affair off and on for many years. Because of Richard's efforts to contain their relationship, Robbie has exposed their affair in a letter to Clarissa, who tells her husband that she "understands" And today Richard, despite his misgivings, finds himself on his way to Robbie's house-only to be shaken by the discovery that Robbie is not there.

As does the Woolf novel, Mr. Dalloway takes place within a single day, unfolding prismatically with a simultaneity of events: Clarissa walks in London and remembers her courtship with Richard; their daughter Elizabeth searches for answers about her eccentric history tutor's somewhat mysterious and premature death; and a determined and drunken Robert Davies has decided to crash Richard's party, dressed all in white satin, no less As the novella moves toward its surprising climax, it revisits several of Woolf's celebrated characters-Sally Seton (now Lady Rosseter), Hugh Whitbread, Lady Bruton-while introducing new ones, such as the Sapphist couple Katherine Truelock and Eleanor Gibson, and the strange and beautiful Sasha Richardson.

Imaginative and formally bold as it refracts Woolf's fiction to invent a story completely Lippincott's own, Mr. Dalloway rides forward on waves of a masterfully complex and musical prose, full of wit, linguistic verve, and startling imagery.

Robin Lippincott is the author of The Real, True Angel, a collection of short stories published in 1996 by Fleur-de-Lis Press. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The American Voice, The Literary Review, Provincetown Arts, and many other magazines; he was awarded fellowships to Yaddo in 1997 and 1998. Born and raised in the South, he has lived in Boston for twenty years. He is curren

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1889330299
• ISBN13: 9781889330297
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Sarabande Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

A beautifully written book

Mr. Dalloway deserves all the attention it is getting. Focusing on the husband of the protagonist of Virgina Wolff's Mrs. Dalloway, it fills in the gaps and makes for a wonderful story. Again, it covers only one day in the life but, oh, what a day. Mr. Lippincott writes with elegance (as always). His wonderful collection of short stories, The Real, True Angel, showed us what he could do -- and this novel doesn't let the reader down. It is a short, spare book which lingers in the mind for a long, intense time.

An asset to your bookshelf

MR. DALLOWAY is a triumphant exploration of time, love, omens, and selfhood--an elegant union of language and ideas. Throughout, the prose simply billows. Like most of D.H. Lawrence's work, the novella is savage but wondrous, exposing human nature and society with a seamless blend of evaluation and forgiveness. A lush, satisfying read!

Sensuous prose.

This book was a nostalgic visit with an old friend who surprises one with a new twist. Wonderfully crafted and a pleasure to read. Mr. Lippincott has captured Virginia Woolf and made her his own.

Highly recommended!

MR. DALLOWAY was truly a pleasure to read. The language is elegant and lucid, the characters engaging, and the story expertly, suspensefully, and wittily told. I savored every page!

A daring literary event.

There are few writers who can successfully pull into a compelling narrative a literary tradition, an historical personage, real-time events and circumstance. Mr. Lippincott in his audacious and lyrical show has masterfully brought to surface and to light the subtle and vascular connections between an intimate group of people. (An intimacy physical, emotional, mental, spiritual.) Like Frost's Silken Tent or Heloise's letters, an incomparable expression of the body of love. Read and enjoy.