Re-reading “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf
As I’ve mentioned before, way back in the early 1980s, in my early days of exploratory reading, I stumbled across the book “Literary Women” by Ellen Moers. It became a book that shaped my life in many ways, because it sent me off in pursuit of a number of women writers including Colette, Simone de Beauvoir (and then Sartre) and of course Virginia Woolf. The first book of Woolf’s that I read was “Mrs. Dalloway”, simply I think because it was the only one in the bookshop. It was pivotal to my reading, however, as it set me off down a road of reading and loving Woolf, including all her published diaries and letters; a love which has remained with me to this day.
So approaching “Mrs. Dalloway” for a re-read was always going to be a tense business, particularly bearing how many books I’d read in the interim years. I’m not the same reader I was then, so I did wonder what my reaction would be. But I needn’t have worried….
On the surface, the plot of the book is quite simple – a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, as she prepares for an evening party at her home. She buys flowers, mends a dress, meets an old flame and gets ready for the evening. Around her is the ebb and flow of her life, but also of London. But it’s soon clear to the reader that this book will focus on much more than just the narrow confines of Clarissa’s existence, as the story starts to range over all those people she meets, the individuals whose lives are touched by hers. Running parallel to her story is that of Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked war veteran whose life is unravelling around him. Watched over and cared for by his wife Lucrezia, Septimus is losing his grip on reality by the minute, and as the couple visit a Harley Street specialist, it seems as if this will be their last hope of finding help for him.
The two strands of the story run together and then apart as the book goes on, ending up with both reaching a climax. Although the connections are not obvious they become clearer as the end approaches and the fates of the two protagonists meet finally and impact.
Published in 1924 at height of modernism, comparisons are often made between “Mrs. Dalloway” and Joyce’s “Ulysses”, particularly as both books concern a day in the life of a person in a great city – Leopold Bloom in Dublin and Clarissa Dalloway in London. Having not (yet) read “Ulysses”, I would still argue that Woolf’s achievement is greater in that she compresses so much of her protagonist’s lives so brilliantly into a short book, which nevertheless covers all the people and places Clarissa’s life touches during that day. Comparisons are odious, however, as they say – and “Ulysses” can also be read as something of a quest I believe, so it’s probably best to move away from such resemblances.
I’ve heard it said that Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith represent the two flipsides of Woolf’s personality; the social animal, enjoying mixing with the friends and family members that made up her circle and with an intense relationship with London around which she constantly walked; and the struggling human being, touched by madness and failed by the medical profession. Their lives touch, as the two parts of her personality met, but one side is lost in the book and the other reborn. The detached Clarissa, with a strange coldness about her, is shown gathering the threads of her past around her, as one part of her dies and the shell continues to take part in the social whirl. During the book her past is gradually revealed, particularly moments of her youth when she was fascinated by the unconventional Sally Seton, and refused Peter Walsh’s proposal, instead marrying the duller, steadier Richard Dalloway. It’s clear that her nature could not handle the reality of life which would have existed if she’d married Walsh, and he’s never really recovered from loving her.
“As a cloud crosses the sun, silence falls on London; and falls on the mind. Effort ceases. Time flaps on the mast. There we stop; there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame. Where there is nothing, Peter Walsh said to himself; feeling hollowed out, utterly empty within. Clarissa refused me, he thought. He stood there thinking, Clarissa refused me.”
The party brings a kind of resolution for Clarissa, meeting figures from her past and trying to come to terms with it. She’s a strange, somewhat remote figure, alienated in many ways from her husband and daughter (who are portrayed as having a close relationship which almost doesn’t involve her); but the thing that matters most to her, the bringing off of a successful party, is not denied to her.
The portrait of the suffering Septimus Smith is moving and heartfelt, leading to quite an attack on the medical profession – portrayed here as bumbling GPs who don’t understand that Septimus is ill, or detached uncaring specialists who have no real understanding of his needs. As poor Septimus worsens and looses his grip on reality, it is clear that there is no-one in that particular world who can save him.
“Mrs. Dalloway” is in my mind a work of genius. On my first read I was simply dazzled, but second time around the book is just as stunning but I can appreciate her artistry more. She captures brilliantly that heightened state of reality when you have a sudden surge of wonder at the world, that feeling of the intensity of living, the very dance of live. Woolf brilliantly intertwines her protagonists’ lives and actions, showing just how many other people’s lives we touch during one day without even knowing it, and all in the most intoxicating prose.
“In people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.”
Re-reading “Mrs.Dalloway” reconfirms for me what a magnificent and important writer Virginia Woolf. Knowing of her struggles with her health (physical and mental) we can only wonder that she managed to wrest so many amazing pieces of work out of her psyche during her too-short life. This book is where Woolf’s writing really took flight and it has just the same spine-tingling effect on me as it did all those years ago!
Oct 01, 2014 @ 08:44:07
Great review, especially your comments about Clarissa and Septimus and how they might reflect different sides of Woolf’s personality. I read Mrs Dalloway many years ago, and ought to revisit it at some point. I’m glad to hear you found it just as stunning second time around!
Oct 01, 2014 @ 09:35:42
Thank you! I was so pleased that I still loved this book – it’s just wonderful!
Oct 01, 2014 @ 11:29:36
This is the Woolf novel that calls to me to read it (I have read Orlando many yrs ago), but would very much like to read Mrs Dalloway. It sounds irrestistible.
Oct 01, 2014 @ 14:35:30
It’s just a wonderful novel – her prose is just unique! Do read it!
Oct 01, 2014 @ 12:02:13
By coincidence I just re-read Mrs Dalloway too! It really rewards re-reading – so full of poetry and nuance. I taught a class on it this week and I tried to encourage the students to read it slowly. Her experiments in portraying consciousness mean that you can’t skim read in the way you might a more conventionally written book. I’m not sure they were convinced!
Oct 01, 2014 @ 14:36:13
It definitely needs to be read slowly – and it does take a bit of reminding to make sure you don’t skim this as you’d miss so much. I loved my re-read!
Oct 01, 2014 @ 12:03:48
Your suggestion that the two characters are two sides of Woolf’s personality makes perfect sense to me. I also reread the book a few years ago and admired it even more the second time around. I have also read Ulysses, and the two books very different. Ulysses is much more concerned with literary experiments and has a certain show-off tone.
Oct 01, 2014 @ 14:38:46
I think I definitely got more out of this read – and I’m interested in what you say about Ulysses. I will read it one day!
Oct 01, 2014 @ 17:40:11
I’ve always been grateful that I re-read ‘Mrs Dalloway’ because I was too young when I first read it (both in years and as a reader) and I didn’t appreciate it for the wonderful book it is. The second time a round was a completely different experience.
As far as Woolf’s journals and letters go, there is always a volume of one or the other on my nightstand. Have you ever tried reading a month in the letters and then the same month in the journals? It can be really funny getting her censored comments in her letters and then her real views in her private notes.
Oct 01, 2014 @ 19:18:56
I think you’re right about youth – and also there have been so many other books in between that your perspective changes a lot. I saw Mrs. Dalloway differently I think, but found it just as wonderful.
I read all her letters and diaries when they came out in the 1980s but never months alongside – must try this (probably when I finally retire!!) 🙂
Oct 01, 2014 @ 19:15:33
I do think that there is a lot to be said for reading the same books at different stages in life. I’ve never been a lover of Woolf, but I a tempted to try again.
Oct 01, 2014 @ 19:19:39
Mrs. Dalloway is a good place to start because it’s where she starts to become really experimental but I found it easy to read – plus it’s short!
Oct 01, 2014 @ 20:43:08
I have a strange relationship with Virginia Woolf. I really want to love her, feel I should worship the very ground she walked on, but just don’t quite get on with her. Read To the Lighthouse long long ago and just hated it, read Mrs Dalloway a few years ago and quite liked it. I must try again one day. I really want to love her.
Oct 01, 2014 @ 21:14:39
That’s tricky! Woolf’s language is of course very important but I think the way she uses it in Mrs. Dalloway is some of her best work – plus the cleverness of the way she pulls her strands together. But I am a bit of a fan of clever writing!
Oct 01, 2014 @ 20:53:36
I read ‘Mrs Dalloway’ earlier this year and was very impressed. My favourite scene is near the end where the party is winding down and Clarissa is in a separate room but can hear noises from the party – she watches the old woman in the house opposite go to bed and she muses on Septimus’s death, even though she’s only just heard about him. His death ‘made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun.’ It’s almost as if she steps outside of life for a while and is looking down on herself and everyone else. Then she rejoins the party/life.
My first Woolf was ‘The Voyage Out’ and I’m a bit scared of re-reading it as I really enjoyed it. I’m sure I’d enjoy it as much as I did first time though.
Oct 01, 2014 @ 21:15:57
I haven’t read “The Voyage Out” for decades – I read it after “Mrs. Dalloway” and recall being underimpressed because it wasn’t so brilliant as my first read of Woolf. But I think I would get a lot more out of it now.
Dec 24, 2014 @ 08:07:25
Jan 07, 2016 @ 15:29:00
Excellent review Kaggsy, and thank you for linking me to it. Your points on the characters representing elements of Woolf are fascinating, and I absolutely agree on the artistry and the capturing of that heightened state of reality.
Woolf really is a marvel isn’t she? Oddly somehow at the same time one highly praised and yet underappreciated.
Jan 07, 2016 @ 16:19:48
Thanks Max! Yes, she’s wonderful, and another one off – I don’t think anybody writes like Woolf and captures the feelings she does. My children studied her in school and one loved her, one did not – I’m not sure actually *teaching* great literature always engenders a love of it….
Jan 07, 2016 @ 16:23:52
Sadly there are often few surer ways to put someone off an author for life than to be taught them in school. I still can’t read Steinbeck.
Jan 23, 2016 @ 06:03:12
Feb 26, 2016 @ 20:07:19