Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

 Mrs Dalloway (1925)

By Virginia Woolf 

216 pages (Kindle Digital Edition)

Rating 4/5 

This is my second reading of this book. Like all Woolf's works I have read so far, the message in this story is subtly and intricately placed. It is not immediately identified. The characters are richly developed - more psychological than a physical or intellectual picturing. 

Mrs Dalloway is Clarissa, a woman of 50ish years,married to a senator. She is giving a party on that particular evening. She is getting things ready and preparing herself for the event. Septimus, an older man who worked in the army and turned schizophrenic possibly after his friend died in the army and he stops feeling anything psychologically. He throws himself out of the window and kills himself that very day to escape the onslaught of a psychiatrist. How are these two events connected? How does Clarissa react to hearing it? Is his act an act of defiance and freedom really? 

Then there are Peter Walsh who had loved Clarissa in their youth. He is a troubled man in love with an Indian who is married and mother of two. He still harbors feelings for Clarissa and it is very openly evident. There is Sally who was once very attached to Clarissa and they don't see much of each other once she gets married. Beneath all this, their lives simply feel superfluous and empty.  People who wanted something but had settled for something else .. more or less than what they desired. Does Clarissa feel death is an apt solution to her mundane existence? Or is it reading too much ?