Maya's 20th Century Novels Blog

From the very first sentence of Mrs. Dalloway, both the reader and the characters anticipate Clarissa’s party. Much of the book builds up to it, so I was really excited to read the party scene. When I did, however, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Although the party did feature many of the main characters finally getting to interact, we did not really see Clarissa interact with them (in particular Peter and Sally) for long. I thought this was a really interesting choice since it meant that Clarissa’s relationship with her past and her old friends didn’t feel fully resolved at the end. On the surface, it seems like the way Clarissa almost ignored her friends during the party supports Peter’s point that Clarissa is superficial. I could sympathize with Peter in this scene. I really wanted Clarissa to stop for a minute and take the time to talk to her friends. I could feel Peter’s disappointment when she just kept moving on and talking to other people. I could understand the way he wo...

There aren’t a lot of characters in The Mezzanine , but the ones that do exist are described in very different ways, right down to the way they are referred to. I thought that the way Baker chooses to write each character’s name was really interesting and it influenced my view of the character and their personality. The best example of this is the narrator’s name. For over half the book, we have no idea what it is and this made me see the narrator less as a single individual and more as a type of person. The narrator’s lack of a name made it almost as though the narrator could be any person working in a similar setting, which made me see his experiences as universal rather than as the unique experiences of one particular person. However, as the book goes on, we get more personal and unique stories from the narrator. Although the overall kinds of experiences he has are still very universal, we also get glimpses into more unique aspects of his life, such as his father’s love for ties. Fi...