In times of bitter rejection or ultimate betrayal, nothing is more satisfying than imagining the punishment you dream to deal your cold-blooded nemesis.
It’s my belief that nothing would be more painful or uncomfortable, than forcing your victim to read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, famous for its ‘stream of consciousness’ narrative mode ostensibly used to build an intricate picture of character development, and inter-war social structure.
Sentences that take up a whole page, extreme abuse of the semi-colon and a supreme lack of action combine to create a laugh-a-minute novel that’s about as exciting as a Susan Boyle album, and far more time-consuming. Such extended sentences demand full concentration; which would be fine, if the reward at the end was in any way desirable. Instead, Mrs Woolf takes three paragraphs to describe a man sitting on a bench, or multiple pages to wonder whether a car driving past a flower shop has the Queen in it.
No matter how determined your mindset when you start this book, sooner or later the age-old question inevitably sinks in: who cares? Maybe I’m too simple, or maybe I’m too old-fashioned, but when I read a book, I expect a plot and a light at the end of a 200-page-long novel.
