Mrs Dalloway

‘Mrs Dalloway has a simple enough plot: one day in June in the mid-twenties a rich society woman gives an elaborate party and a sad shell-shocked man commits suicide. It’s the innovative telling of the story that makes it so startling. It’s as if Virginia Woolf is using a kaleidoscope, rotating our view repeatedly, so that we see London and all its inhabitants in a new way. We know each character’s thoughts and dreams, sympathise with their struggles and meditate on the meaning of life, while Big Ben chimes relentlessly throughout the day and an aeroplane writes mysterious messages in the clouds.’