'Mrs Dalloway', by Virginia Woolf (Book Club, April '22)

Literature & Writing L&L Book Club
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A masterpiece of modernism, and probably Virginia Woolf’s most celebrated work, Mrs Dalloway is Woolf’s fourth novel. It was published in 1925 by Hogarth Press, the publishing house created by Woolf and her husband.

The novel is set over the course of a single June day in 1923, and deals with themes such as the individual’s oppression by social structures, the fear of death, the passage of time, the balance between inner landscape and external connection, and more. In it, Clarissa Dalloway (an upper-class Englishwoman) prepares a party for her politician husband. A second main character, Septimus Smith, struggles with shell shock induced by his experiences in the Great War. Throughout, a stream-of-consciousness narrative shifts between the numerous characters encountered over the course of the day, in microcosmic representations of human life as a whole.

If you are looking for an online download, you can find Mrs Dalloway at Standard Ebooks. But any unabridged edition (paper, digital or audiobook) is fine.

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Welcome to our discussion of Mrs Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf. I look forward to hearing what you all think of it.

This is another book that features in lists a-plenty. In Robert McCrums’ 2014-15 list of the “100 best novels written in English” in The Guardian, it appears at number 50. It ranks third in the list of the 100 best British novels resulting from a 2015 BBC poll of non-British literary critics (The 100 greatest British novels - BBC Culture). It’s included in the Norwegian Verdensbiblioteket (Bokklubben World Library - Wikipedia), and in TIME Magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels since TIME began (https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/all/).

Despite such wide acclaim, and Mrs Dalloway’s status as a colossus of modernist literature, this was the first time I have read the book. I was interested in the set-in-a-single-day premise, a bit like James Joyce’s Ulysses but without the impenetrable classical allusion (and, to my mind, without Joyce’s outrageously, gluttonously poetic turn of phrase — Woolf’s layering of words isn’t un-poetic, by any means, but her turn of phrase seems more everyday). However, I was a little prejudiced against Mrs Dalloway, not being a fan of other Woolf works that I have tried.

Entirely predictably, therefore, I didn’t much like the initial pages of the book — if Mrs Dalloway hadn’t been the Book Club choice for this month, I suspect I would have stopped reading fairly early on. It all seemed so inconsequential, airy-fairy and irritating. Then, somehow, I gradually sank into its world and became carried along by the random, flitting thoughts streaming across my Kindle screen. The more I let myself go with the flow of the text, the more I became absorbed. By the end, I couldn’t wait to find out the ending, and simultaneously didn’t want the book to finish.

Something that Woolf does very well, to my mind, is to bring in tiny details that make things ring true. The passing observation about “Mrs. Foxcroft at the Embassy last night eating her heart out because that nice boy was killed“… the shoppers’ fascination with a plane sky-writing advertising slogans (surely a brand new phenomenon at that date)… Mr Dalloway’s inability to tell his wife he loves her, although he desperately wants to… Miss Kilman’s reasons for wearing a mackintosh… all these snatches of thought seem so very realistic. What annoyed me at the outset as the minutiae of mundanity progressively became more like reflections of the human condition. I started to feel quite involved with the inner lives of all of these people, recognising elements of their thoughts and experiences in my own.

Plus, I’m a huge fan of Woolf’s excessive use of parentheses and rambling sub-clauses, having lamentable leanings in this direction myself!

My daughter was quite excited to hear that this book was the winner in our poll for this month’s choice. She says that you either love Mrs Dalloway or you hate it, and she loves it. I ended up loving it, too. What is your verdict?

All the best,
Astrid

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Is anyone else reading Mrs Dalloway? What do you think of it?

When Virginia Woolf slips into the minds of one character after another, portraying their passing thoughts both large and small, do you find this representation of people’s inner landscapes to be convincing, or does it seem artificial? Do you enjoy the conversational, digressive narration and rambling sentence structure, or do you find it irritating – self-indulgent, even? What are your impressions of the novel?

If Mrs Dalloway isn’t to your taste, don’t forget to vote in the poll for our June book selection!

All the best,
Astrid

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It appears that Mrs Dalloway is a singularly unpopular book, despite having topped our poll for this month’s reading choice. :smile:

I have received a few comments from people who couldn’t bear the writing style and didn’t make it past the first few pages. This is a perfectly valid reaction!

If you hated the novel, or abandoned it early, do feel free to vent and tell us why.

Being lauded as a cornerstone of modernist literature doesn’t necessarily make a book enjoyable to read. Do you think Mrs Dalloway deserves its place in the literary canon, or is it a case of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”?

On a positive note, though, I would like to recommend Kristin Scott Thomas’s audiobook reading of Mrs Dalloway in Audible’s The Virginia Woolf Collection. I enjoyed her languid, restrained rendition very much. The meandering text seems to make more sense when read aloud, as though someone is just speaking the things that come into their head. But I can’t say that I will be rushing to listen to other books in that collection in the near future. Somehow, I feel as though I have had enough Virginia Woolf for the time being. :wink:

All the best,
Astrid

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I confess I didn’t pick it up. I planned to start reading it late and catch up, but never quite got round to it.

I’m quite a lazy reader and attach a high premium to “easy to read” prose. The obscurer ends of the public domain library are less likely to pull me out of my existing tsundoku than the “bigger hitters” of the public domain world: A Christmas Carol; Dracula; Pride and Prejudice.

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I tried reading it but found it vacuous and was reminded why I didn’t trust the opinions of “critics.”

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I managed to go through about 20 pages. I found the prose to be quite irritating. I couldn’t help but to drop it.

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For anyone who couldn’t face reading Mrs Dalloway, or who gave up early on, perhaps John Crace’s “digested read” gives all the flavour that is needed! It certainly rings a few bells of recognition for me. :grinning:

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He does a good job. He concisely portrays her inane, pompous style.

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FWIW I think the film with Vanessa Redgrave was one of those occasions where the film was better than the book.

It was one of the books on the Eng Lit course at University. A girl friend at the time kept on about it so I gave it a try. Way too wordy and rambling for me, which is probably why I found the film much more interesting.

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It has found a well deserved place in the literary dustbin.

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Always alert for great gifts to buy the writer in my life(*) I stumbled across this delightful clock that, instead of telling the time in the normal way, displays a different literary quote every minute that reveals the right time. 11 o’clock’s entry is thread appropriate!

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It’s in the “fundraising” development phase, but made me chuckle. Link below for anyone interested (I’m not affiliated with these humans in any way).

(* - noting that I am the writer in my life so I really mean things I want on my desk)

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That’s a fun idea! I feel a bit sorry for the designers, though – can you imagine trying to find a specific literary quotation for each and every minute of the day?!