UoB Alumni Book Club: Mrs Dalloway

Join us in reading our first selection from Professor Alexandra Harris, who chooses Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

Mrs Dalloway is the second of the modernist masterpieces that Virginia Woolf published one after the next through the 1920s and it is still unfurling its riches today. Whether you’re a regular Woolf reader or coming to her for the first time, this is a novel that will prompt new thinking about our history, our present, and how we understand each other. It’s set on a single summer day, but reaches back into memory, and into deep time. It’s a party novel that carries within it much suffering and loss. It’s a war novel set in peace time. It’s a haunting book, and a joyous one: a great celebration of London, of friends, of love, and contemporary life. Join us to ask how Woolf brings all these parts together, and how they tell upon each other.

We ask you to consider:

1. How does Woolf achieve the effect of different lives going on simultaneously?
2. What interests you about the connection between Septimus and Clarissa? Are they – though they never meet – a pair or ‘double’?
3. How does she write about the roads not taken, the lives we might have led?
4. All her life Woolf was interested in the process of reading – what it feels like, what we remember (and forget) when the book is closed, how we might describe it to someone else. When you finish the novel, take a moment to examine the shape it makes in your mind -  does it seem to have a certain colour or texture; are there certain images that come to stand for the whole book?

For further material relating to Woolf and Mrs Dalloway, check out the resources below from Professor Harris.

Podcast Out of Silence: Virginia Woolf

Professors Alexandra Harris and Kate McLoughlin discuss Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts, how the lockdown makes us feel self-conscious and what it feels like to live in momentous historical times.

BBC Sounds (short podcasts) A Walk of One’s Own: Virginia Woolf on Foot  

Further reading Professor Harris has written a short introduction to the life and work of Virginia Woolf. More information can be found on Alex’s website.

New for lockdown, the University of Birmingham is pleased to invite you to join our virtual Alumni Book Club. Alumni will engage with the book club through a private meeting, so registration is essential. Joining is completely free! All you need is a copy of the book to enjoy.  A confirmation email with a Zoom link will be sent on the morning of the event.