Reading Mrs. Dalloway

By Mary F. Burns

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." You read the first sentence, and you're in. In the midst of things; in medias res, a classic, and classical, element of literature. Reading Mrs. Dalloway is a deep and broad look into Virginia Woolf's classic novel of poetic consciousness, revealing allusions, prompting musings, deepening thought, and exploring hidden treasures as we accompany Clarissa Dalloway during her famous Hours. This book is a non-academic, non-critical essay, and is intended to help illuminate and enliven the text for readers who love Virginia Woolf and Clarissa Dalloway, and want to spend some time in that fanciful, brilliant, intense world of post-Great War London.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Word by Word Press
• Release date: Sep 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201438609

Mary F. Burns

Mary F. Burns writes historical fiction, including an historical mystery series featuring the artist John Singer Sargent and the writer Violet Paget (aka Vernon Lee). She is a member of and frequent speaker for the Historical Novel Society, as well as the Henry James Society and the International Vernon Lee Society.  Ms. Burns was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb (BA/MA English Lit); J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law. She lives in San Francisco with her husband. Before she wrote novels, her career focused on media relations, corporate communications, crisis communication consulting, and event organization. As an independent scholar, Mary has focused her studies and writing on Vernon Lee, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf. Her novels frequently include noted authors as characters, such as Jack London, George Sand, John Singer Sargent, Vernon Lee, and Henry James. Her literary essay “Reading Mrs. Dalloway” was published in 2020, and the Henry James Review published her paper on Vernon Lee and Henry James in the Winter 2023 issue. She has presented papers at various academic conferences: The Sargentology Conference, York University, 2016; Henry James Society Annual Conference, Trieste University, 2019; Vernon Lee: Aesthetics & Empathy at Churchill College, Cambridge, 2022; Keynote Speaker, Teesside University Postgraduate Conference 2023: Ethics, Literature, Culture. Her website is www.maryfburns.com Mary F. Burns writes historical fiction, including an historical mystery series featuring the artist John Singer Sargent and the writer Violet Paget (aka Vernon Lee). She is a member of and frequent speaker for the Historical Novel Society, as well as the Henry James Society and the International Vernon Lee Society.  Ms. Burns was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb (BA/MA English Lit); J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law. She lives in San Francisco with her husband.

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Reading

Mrs. Dalloway

Mary F. Burns

Reading Mrs. Dalloway by Mary F. Burns

All Rights Reserved.  © 2020 Mary F. Burns

ISBN: 9798642289112 

Word by Word Publishing

San Francisco, CA

Cover photo: Portrait of Hazel, Lady Lavery

by John Singer Sargent, 1923 - Charcoal

National Gallery of Ireland

A Brief Note

I have always tried to take to heart the advice Henry James wrote to a young friend who wanted to be a writer: Be the sort of person on whom nothing is lost. Upon reading Mrs. Dalloway for the first time, some five years ago, I was struck, enthralled, enraptured by the deep power of observation that is the heart of this narrative—of the world, sensually and rationally; of other people, loving and hating, judging and forgiving; of one’s own heart and mind and self, in all our own stumblings and changes, faults and fancies.

This book, Reading Mrs. Dalloway, is a literary and personal commentary; it is not meant to be scholarly criticism; it is intended to illuminate and enlarge, if possible, any interested reader’s experience with Virginia Woolf’s novel, perhaps for the first time, or the tenth. The text I used, for the page number references, is a paperback published by Harcourt, Inc. (A Harvest Book imprint), originally in 1925; but even with a different text, one can find one’s starting point with each chapter herein by checking the italicized quote at the head of the chapter. My hope is to kindle light and joy, and I wish you well.

Mary F. Burns – San Francisco, May 2020

Table of Contents

A Brief Note

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Other Books by Mary F. Burns

1

(pp. 1-8)

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy

the flowers herself."

You read the first sentence, and you’re in. In the midst of things; in medias res. A classic, and classical, element of literature. Recall The Iliad, which begins so famously in medias res: Sing, O Muse, the wrath of Achilles. You are thrown onto the battlefield, the Greeks and Trojans weary, heartbroken, nearing the fate that will send Odysseus on his arduous journey and Agamemnon home to horror and doom. How different from the opening lines of that other ancient book, At the beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth, when the earth was wild and waste... which declares forthrightly that it will start you here and take you on a journey to there. The origin and the endpoint, causality and teleology are paramount for religion and science; the messiness and unpredictability of daily living, the middle part between beginning and end—and what we humans do with it—belong to philosophy and literature. Medieval classical literature’s meta-example of in medias res, the opening lines that will bring us back to modern Mrs. Dalloway, are from Dante’s Inferno: Midway in the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost.

Clarissa Dalloway has just begun her fifty-first year of life, although we don’t learn this until some time later in the day, that slow-motion day that begins, for her and for us, with her rapture as she sets forth into the town. Her story has a beginning, at the start of her day, but the first line tells us we are in the middle of something. A decision has been made—to buy the flowers herself—which decision has a precedent—she had previously, perhaps, told someone else to go buy them? And now she has changed her mind. There is a future intimated in that first line as well—why are the flowers being bought? One generally buys flowers for a person or an occasion, certainly in this case for something specific that has required this determining to do it one’s self. Finally, the sentence states, she says this—presumably aloud, possibly to someone, there are more people than just Mrs. Dalloway involved—and the matter is settled.

But, as always in this remarkable woman’s mind, she must account for herself, for her decision, for her change of mind. The first reason that springs forth is to save Lucy the trouble; Lucy has much to do today—doors are to be taken down, some workmen (Rumplemeyer’s men) are coming, we don’t yet know why. And then, the second reason, the morning itself! So fresh, so new, so delightful to the senses! This is Clarissa in the first moments we meet her—decisive, perhaps after thinking things over; helpful to others, thinking of others, sorting through all the details; then, personally, intimately, taking delight in the sensual moment.

Clarissa plunges into the morning as if freed from a cage, and instantly we go back with her to an earlier time—Clarissa at eighteen, at Bourton, describing the mornings then in lieu of describing this morning now. Remember what it was like to be young enough to think, to hope, to imagine that something was going to happen? Something awful Clarissa remembers, although her meaning is probably closer to awe-ful than horrible. Think of when you were younger, and would go out on a Friday night with friends, or meet people after work for a drink, and maybe it was during the Christmas holidays so it was dark and cold, with party lights and decorations everywhere, and you knew, you just knew, that something interesting was going to happen...or could happen. And sometimes, maybe, it did, but most of the time it didn’t. Then years go by, and you’re married, or not, and it’s Friday night and you think, why go out? Nothing’s going to happen. But there used to be that hope, that interest, that excitement—and for Clarissa at eighteen, her yearning to plunge into the waves of a new morning, her remembering this youthful hope, is interrupted by recalling Peter Walsh’s having uttered a casual put-down. Musing among the vegetables? She is abruptly back in the present. Peter will be returning from India, we learn—sometime soon. His letters were awfully dull.... 

It is at this moment that we get the first flashing facet of Clarissa’s journey (la journée—the day), a hint of what is to come, more and more, fiercely, bewilderingly: a different point of view in the narrative. Clarissa is poised on the edge of the curb, waiting for a van to pass, and we are introduced, fleetingly, to the thoughts of one Scrope Purvis (such a name!), who sees her from across the street, who thinks her a charming woman. Like a light and lovely bird, she is, he thinks, despite being over fifty, and we learn she has had an illness.

Just as abruptly (and we never hear from Mr. Purvis again), we’re back in Clarissa’s mind, feeling the solemn hush, the indescribable pause in the air, before the Westminster clock, Big Ben, strikes the hour. Here is the first description that will echo, word for word, several times throughout the day: First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Time is itself a character in this novel; it is a palpable presence to which other characters listen and respond. We are not sure at this point exactly what time it is; we know it’s morning, perhaps nine? Probably ten, given what happens later. Surely she wouldn’t be leaving the house as early as eight o’clock. So let’s say ten, for now.

First a warning, musical—the sound of the Westminster chimes music, but why a warning? Time is fleeting, another hour is gone—we are reminded of Andrew Marvell’s lament about Time’s winged chariot, hurrying near—followed by the tolling of the hour, irrevocable. One cannot call back the voice of the hour, it cannot unsay its pronouncement. Although we cannot turn back time, we can remember time past, as Clarissa does, as she shows us, again and again, turning memory into golden present moments, into understanding. We will see more of this as the day goes on, and more from Peter Walsh as well on this topic: memory and age bring understanding.

So is Clarissa brought right up to this moment in June, surrounded by all she loves in London, and about London, and the city itself. We are vindicated for feeling in the midst of things as Clarissa does, for the very next line is For it was the middle of June. The middle of the middle of the year. The sun almost at its height, the Summer Solstice. The travelling year thrusting upward to its peak, after which we know it will slide down again to the Winter Solstice, its lowest point; the bottom; the end. But we are near the height, climbing Parnassus, about to see the gods seated on their thrones. What’s more, The War is over. The Great War, the War to End All Wars. This is not The Iliad. This is about domestic, not foreign, affairs; life in peacetime. But, perhaps, it is The Odyssey: Tell me, o Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide.... 

For Clarissa’s travels are, will be, far and wide, past and present—but there she’ll stop. Not interested in the future, we will discover; not very interested in whether there’s an after-life or any of that sort of thing. No. Today is enough. This moment is more than enough for her. Today, in the middle of the morning in the middle of June, she rejoices that the War is over; catches herself for a moment thinking of the sad mothers, the brave mothers; but it’s over! Thank Heaven—over. Everything is getting back to the way it was: cricket, ponies, whirling young men and laughing girls; shopkeepers fussing and dowagers shopping—and Clarissa, herself, will kindle and illuminate tonight, for she is giving a party. Ah, here it is: the reason for the flowers; why Rumplemeyers’ men will be removing the doors; why Lucy is so busy! This is as far into the future as Clarissa is interested in seeing: this evening and her party.

Clarissa’s outpouring of love for London has brought two things to her mind that we learn about her: there is someone named Elizabeth, for whom she must not rashly buy things; and she, Clarissa Dalloway, is part of the pedigreed upper class: her people were courtiers once in the time of the Georges.

The thought of her party and her hopeful anticipation of it, is, like her memory of Peter Walsh’s sarcasm on that long ago morning at Bourton, interrupted by her entering the Park—But how strange, on entering the Park, the silence; the mist; the hum and the ducks and birds, and then, strangest of all, apparently, the admirable Hugh Whitbread, from whom we receive the first actually spoken words so far, Good-morning to you, Clarissa! He says it rather extravagantly; they have known each other since they were children, so he needn’t be merely polite, he can be jolly; hearty; arch. Where are you off to? says the