Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

English classic

Source – Personal copy

I had seen earlier this year that it was the centenary of Mrs Dalloway’s publication. I had toyed with reading it, and when I saw the vintage classic edition, which features the original cover art and is styled after the original Hogarth edition of the book, it appealed to me. So the other evening I decided to order it as I knew it was set in this month, and having tried to find the exact day in mid-June, the book is set, it has various dates come up on Google, and this is sort of in the middle of them. I had read this in my late teens, but that is over thirty years ago, and I wondered how it would resonate with me as a reader now. The book, like Joyce’s Ulysses, follows a single day in the life of the main character, such as Clarissa Dalloway.

Edgar J. Watkiss, with his roll of lead piping round his arm, said audibly, humorously of course: ‘The Proime Minister’s kyar?’

Septimus Warren Smith, who found himself unable to pass, heard him.

Septimus Warren Smith, aged about thirty, pale-faced, beak-nosed, wearing brown shoes and a shabby overcoat, with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too. The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?

Septimus as man scared by the war

I THINK SINCE I read this book for the first time, I have spent time around the part of London where we meet Clarissa. She is a woman in her fifties, and she is wandering around London at the start of the book as she is gathering flowers for her party. Alongside this sis a side tale of Septimus, a man injured in the First World War, who spends his day in the park with his wife. There is a juxtaposition between the two and about how the war affected them both a broken man with his Italian wife, he spends the day as we see them both spending time. Also, Clarissa remembers back to her youth and times spent in Bourton on the Water, the picturesque Cotswold village that is nowadays packed with folks, but I would have loved to have been there back in the day when it was a tranquil village like Clarissa describes and remembers her youth and her meeting her husband and their friends. The day moves on, and it is the evening, and the party is taking place, when the two stories sort of meet as Clarissa finds out something about Septimus that makes her think about herself and her life.

Then, while a seedy-looking nondescript man carrying a leather bag stood on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral, and hesitated, for within was what balm, how great a welcome, how many tombs with banners waving over them, tokens of victories not over armies, but over, he thought, that plaguy spirit of truth seeking which leaves me at present without a situation, and more than that, the cathedral offers company, he thought, invites you to membership of a society; great men belong to it; martyrs have died for it; why not enter in, he thought, put this leather bag stuffed with pamphlets before an altar, a cross, the symbol of something which has soared beyond seeking and questing and knocking of words together and has become all spirit, disembodied, ghostly-why not enter in? he thought and while he hesitated out flew the aeroplane over Ludgate Circus.

I loved that there iwas seedy characters around back then in the background of her walk as she is near St Pauls

This book is a book I loved more this time, the flow of her prose I connect with, I think vaguely, knowing London a little better than I did many years ago although I am due a trip to London soon. Also, the scenes in the Cotswolds as this is very near where my dad lives, and we often go when visiting him, around the Cotswold villages near him. At the heart of the book is the ghost of the First World War, but how people dealt with it the two main characters on the surface seem poles apart but actually, is Clarrissa just daage in a way but not showing it it captures class and not showing emotions as well The book unfolds over the day it is like Joyce in fact in last weeks Guardian there was a call for there maybe to start being a Dalloway day like Blooms day in Dublin for London. I love to walk around London I knew a few of the places well, others I wasn’t too familiar with. I’m pleased I revisited it after all this time; it shows how life can change a writer I had always found hard to connect with as a teenager. When I read a few of her novels. Have you read this recently, or are you planning to, given the centenary?