Burrowing into Books - "Mrs. Dalloway," Virginia Woolf

                                                                 Sydney M. Williams 

Burrowing into Books

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

February 12, 2022

 

“She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged.

She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on.”

                                                                                                                                Mrs. Dalloway, 1925

                                                                                                                                Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

 

In this short novel – 166 pages in my edition – Virginia Woolf provided vignettes and flashbacks, in kaleidoscopic fashion, to tell the story of one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway: “She was not old yet. She had just broken into her fifty-second year.” We learn that she is preparing for a party that evening. The novel’s opening sentence – “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself” – is almost as well-known as that of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – “It is a truth universally acknowledged…”

 

The story takes place on a June day in London, in 1923. The Great War has been over for five years, except for those who suffered. A reminder of its devastation is Septimus Warren Smith and his Italian wife Rezia: “he had gone to France to save England.” Now home, his mood – a consequence of “shell shock” – swings from mourning his friend Evans, who was killed in Italy a few days before the Armistice, to febrile joy. His suicide serves as contrast to the gala of Mrs. Dalloway’s party. 

 

Mrs. Dalloway’s home was near Westminster Bridge where she lived with her MP husband Richard and seventeen-year-old daughter. Richard: “…he liked continuity, and the sense of handing on the traditions of the past.” Elizabeth: “…charming to look at,” but “she never seemed excited.” We hear Clarissa reminisce, as she crosses Green Park to Piccadilly, walks past Hatchards to Mulberry’s florist on Bond Street. It is the passage of time – punctuated by Big Ben’s chimes – that dominate the story. Earlier, Clarissa received Peter Walsh, a beau from her youth who had spent the intervening years in India. She invites him to her party. Separately, an old friend Sally Seaton, now Lady Rosseter comes by and is also invited to the party. These visits and the memories they evoke provide flashbacks to the turn of the Century when as young people they gathered at Clarissa’s family’s country home, Bourton, for parties and games.

 

The party includes old friends and Parliamentary acquaintances of Richard, including the Prime Minister: “He looked so ordinary. You might have stood behind him and bought biscuits…” Peter Walsh observes that no one looked at him, yet they “felt to the marrow…this symbol of what they all stood for, English society.” Others at the party are described, in Virginia Woolf’s inimical voice: Sir Harry, “…who had produced more bad pictures than any other two Academicians in the whole of St. John’s Wood.” Professor Brierly, “…his innocence blent with snobbery.” Lord Gayton, “Ponies mouths quivered at the end of his reins.” Clarissa, according to Richard, was criticized unfairly for her parties, though he thought they were foolish, as excitement was bad for her heart. Her childhood friends thought she enjoyed having famous people about. But they were wrong; her parties were celebrations of life: “What she liked was simply life. ‘That’s what I do it for,’ she said, speaking aloud, to life.”

 

This is a short novel, providing the reader vivid images and witty commentary on an age and time gone by.