Open Book

How to Read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway


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Like a cubist painting, Virginia Woolf’s narrative style offers multiple simultaneous perspectives on simple objects: dogs, trees, a day in June 1923. Were Woolf a realist writer, Mrs Dalloway would be far more straightforward: a middle-aged woman reflects on her life and reunites with friends as she prepares to host a party; a war veteran, meanwhile, dies by suicide after unsympathetic medical treatment of his PTSD. By using stream-of-consciousness methods for multiple characters in this novel, Woolf grants us access to their minds — excavating insight and beauty from the very ordinariness of life.

If you like this episode, you’ll also enjoy S02E07, “How to Read Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.”

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Open BookBy Michael Ullyot


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