Happy Birthday, Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf’s novel is set in London and the main plot takes place during one day in June 1923. Its main character, Clarissa Dalloway, prepares for her evening party and takes a walk in Westminster to buy the flowers for this occasion. And the readers follow her through the entire day.
When Virginia Woolf published her novel in 1925, it was an immediate success and it was regarded as a significant piece of modernist novel writing, just like her novel To the Lighthouse or James Joyce’s novel Ulysses.
As a modernist fiction writer, Virginia Woolf made excessive use of the so-called stream of concsiousness technique. The reader can follow the thoughts and associations of the novel’s characters, not only of Clarissa Dalloway and her friends, but also of Septimus Warren Smith, a young man traumatized by the First World War.
The novel is very different from traditional novels or novels with a lot of action. The atmosphere is very calm and especially because of Virginia Woolf’s beautiful writing style it can be a very enriching experience to explore the novel’s characters. For anybody who is open for something new when choosing the next book to read, we can recommend Mrs Dalloway, not just because of its recent „birthday“.
Englisch LK Q2BEN04 (Wen)