I am Mrs P, English teacher and I have

read Mrs Dalloway many times!

I read it for the first time around age 16 and I didnt think much of it. Reading it

was a real struggle too!

Some years later I saw Isabelle Huppert playing Orlando on stage and it swept me

off my feet. I went back the following night and I knew Virginia Woolf was

going to be an important writer in my life. After the play, after having Isabelle

Hupperts autograph in my notebook and after pinning the poster in my bedroom, I approached Woolfs work

with something akin to bulimia. This is how one of her books, Mrs Dalloway, became my lifelong companion.

I have been reading it over and over again and I marvel every time oddly enough, always for different reasons.

I guess thats to do with maturity, experience and the sheer magic of this book. It is usually on my desk

somewhere, never on a shelf, I have several copies of it and its in my Kindle too.

In her diary, Virginia Woolf gave some indications about her ambitions for the book. First she called it The

Hours. The passing of time is very important in this story where clocks keep chiming. In fact, its like diving in

time pools! She said that she wanted to write about life and death, sanity and insanity. She also said she wanted

to criticise the social system. She does all of this very effectively and with much precision. I think she kicked

the walls of convention here! It is painful at times, to read how poor mortals struggle with love, death and

dignity.

The book was published in 1922 Virginia Woolf was then 40 and it was named after its central character,

Mrs Dalloway, a wealthy woman at the heart of 1920s London society. It charts a single day in her life as she

prepares to host a party. It starts when she sets off to buy the flowers. It is richly inventive and deals sensitively

with mental illness, the scars of the First World War and deep (if stifled) emotional states. It is hard to

determine what exactly I so love about Mrs Dalloway, apart from its ever-changing perspectives. Ill try to

define it with a list of words: the characters are rounded, sensitive but satisfyingly disoriented; their feelings are

deep, dignified and definitely desperate; the story is mundane but accomplished and totally absorbing; above all,

the prose is complex, clever and clipped.

I think Mrs Dalloway is one of the most original and innovative literary works ever and I was happy to take this

opportunity to share it with you. Now youve read a bit of English, move up to higher spheres and try a short

novel!

I hope the magic of Mrs Dalloway works on you too. This is how it starts...