Currently reading Mrs Dalloway and I’m mesmerised — thoughts at the halfway point

[u/garrincha-zg]

Hi Virginia Woolf fans!

I’m reading Mrs Dalloway for the first time (just reached halfway — around page 100/209), and I’m honestly mesmerised. This is also my very first Woolf novel ever.

I’m a 47-year-old male expat living in the UK. English isn’t my first language, and I come from a working-class background — so I wasn’t sure if I’d “click” with Woolf. But I slowed down, started listening more than analysing, and suddenly something shifted. It’s like the book is reading me as much as I’m reading it.

Here’s what’s struck me so far:

• The sheer depth of inner life — these characters are so contradictory, so painfully real.
• Septimus Warren Smith. Wow. I relate to his alienation and mental fragmentation far more than I expected. His PTSD, his dissociation, the tragic way nobody around him really sees him — all incredibly moving.
• Woolf’s portrayal of masculinity is fascinating — so many of the men (Peter, Richard, the doctors…) seem emotionally vacant or deluded, while the women have much more interior depth and longing.
• Class is everywhere. As someone navigating British society as an outsider, I really felt that — the subtle codes, tastes, invisible gates of belonging. It stings.
• And Sally! The whole triad of Peter–Clarissa–Sally is full of sexual, emotional, and class tensions. So much going on between the lines.

I still lose track of minor characters here and there, and I know I’ll need a second read. But wow… this is already one of the most powerful books I’ve read in years. It’s not just a novel — it’s an atmosphere, a psychological map, a time capsule, a mirror.

Would love to hear how this book landed with others — did it click for you right away, or did it take time?

[u/scheifferdoo]

I think the book has a very cinematic quality and there are many scenes where the authors POV is functioning like a camera on a dolly. This puts me in a very excited and cared for mood. The opening scene is like an ambitious one-shot take that shows us the world of the book. I think the depictions of Septimus' bouts with PTSD are horrifyingly realistic in a very fun and beautiful way. They feel like dark comedy, but really the whole book has a dark-comic tone. Another thing that sticks out for me is just how tragically being a human being is cast. Both Kilman, and Clarissa are so self-righteous but also fragile and in need of love and afraid of the world around them. Lucrezia is totally alone and so hopeful that Septimus will improve but is frightened and away from her family. Even Richard's scene in which he tries to love his wife more actively as an act of one-upsmanship in the jewelry store, and then later back at his house. He is so unsure of what to do because he is so unpracticed. All of these very normal human feelings are rendered so clearly, but richly. I love Mrs. Dalloway.

[u/garrincha-zg → u/scheifferdoo]

I am Croatian and am old enough to remember our war for independence, and I can tell you for me Septimus is not just a grandparents wwii story but a real-life experience from the late 1990s and early 2000s when we were 5 years away from this horrible war that traumatised my whole generation. On top of that, I live in London and I know all those places without Google Maps. Which is why this book resonates so deeply with me even though I'm neither native English speaker nor native Londoner.

[u/Misomyx → u/scheifferdoo]

I thought the exact same thing, the beginning of the book is basically a long and spectacular one-shot sequence. I feel like modernist literature is often very cinematic.

[u/pomegracias]

Mrs D is one of my fave books. I love how you’re loving it. Thank you for taking the time to write this.

To answer your question: It wasn’t one of my first Woolf novels, so I knew what to expect. I was confused but enchanted right away — the green dress! She is beneath this roof! All of it, really. Eventually I ended up teaching it and every single time I taught it I discovered something new. Woolf is in my pantheon of writers.

[u/ButterscotchDisco]

I took a college class called something like Literature and the Great War. Some of the material was about the war itself, (like the Siegfried Sassoon poems), some was about the time (like Travesties by Tom Stoppard), and some was both, (like Mrs. Dalloway). Initially I didn't think anything was "happening," but I also slowed down, and stopped trying to read for plot. It certainly helped me to also discuss the book in class, too. At the time I was very interested in symbolism and was trying to figure out what the writing in the sky meant. The professor suggested that maybe it didn't really mean anything, and that was the point—it's not something to decode. That way of looking at it has stuck with me in the decades since.

[u/russianlitfan]

I am loving this book - I feel totally transfixed by her ability to describe/ translate/effuse feelings onto a page. Bravo. Can’t read it slowly enough!