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Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
5.0
"The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?"

This is a book of rhythm. Its ~200 pages encapsulate a single day in the life of several characters in 1920s England, primary among them Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway, an upperclass woman planning a party. The narrative switches between the characters almost confusingly, leaving the reader trailing behind, entranced by the rhythm of the phrases and the elegance of Woolf's metaphors. Every single moment, even the seemingly innocent or simple, is infused with utmost, sometimes life-or-death importance.

"For they might be parted for hundreds of years, . . . but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say? . . . which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people . . ."

 
There is love on every page. I would call this a love story, although not in the traditional sense. It's not specifically romantic, and doesn't end with two characters getting together. The characters are either already married and/or heartbroken. But the love or lack of love they each have for each other is the most important theme of the narrative.

 
". . . like a faint scent, or a violin next door . . . she did undoubtedly then feel what men felt."

 
I wasn't expecting Clarissa to be queer, although perhaps I should have, seeing as Ms. Virginia wrote it. Mrs. Dalloway is happily married to a man in the present, but she happily reminisces about days when she was in love with Sally Seton, and there is no guilt or shame or confusion in this admission - it simply is.

"She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense . . . of being out, out, far out to sea. and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day."

 
Somehow the climax of the book is not the death, or the failed marriage, but the party, which Clarissa has spent the day getting ready for and which the other characters attend. The story has to end here, not because it's an ending, but because all days end.