I have been listening to an audio book version of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway while working on a sewing project. I have read the book several times over the years, and have seen the film featuring Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Dalloway several times as well. I never tire of this novel, and it always surpises me how I respond to it everytime I read it – it seems that I relate to something different each time, and I always find something that I didn’t catch on the previous readings. VW covers several stages of life in this novel, and interspersed in between these life occurrences is the second by minute by hourly moments that may pass us by and appear mundane and too ordinary for us to really take notice of…

I’ve always been drawn to Virginia Woolf’s work not because of what she is saying in her novels, but because of how she writes her narratives, and how she tackles her subjects in her unique voice and narrative style. This time I am actually responding to the story at a parallel level with the way it is being told (perhaps one of the benefits of listening to the audio version, where I can concentrate on hearing instead of reading text). It’s a great experience, to be sure!

And while working on my sewing my mind certainly does wander, like the wandering thoughts VW displays in the novel…yes, that interior monologue that goes on and on in the novel…it is similar to the one in my own head as I bend in to do a project that requires physical dexterity…

Phyllida Law reads this audio version… I love her voice, and it even reminds me a bit of VW’s voice, from this recording:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8czs8v6PuI …I love VW’s voice too.

Mrs. Dalloway

A masterpiece of interior monologue…a perfect execution of mental dexterity!