![]() ![]() Will this confluence of faces from her past be enough to shake Clarissa out of her despondency?Ī major sub-plot revolves around a young WWI veteran named Septimus who is also obsessed by the past. Clarissa's husband Richard is something of disappointment, neither as successful as his contemporaries or as passionate as the now-unattached Peter. ![]() ![]() Sally, the brazen, independent woman who Clarissa so much admired, also puts in an unexpected appearance, and some may wonder if a romantic attachment might have also played a role in their relationship. Peter, just back from India, still has strong feelings about her, despite the many years since she broke off their love affair. The focus is on Clarissa and the grand party she is throwing that particular evening, but as her thoughts frequently hearken back to the past, we gradually learn her life's story, even as participants in that story make appearances in "real time". ![]() Using a stream-of-consciousness technique that was pretty radical for its time, Woolf bounces us from the mind of one character to another in sometimes erratic fashion, presenting a multi-faceted view of a single day in post-WWI London. One of Woolf's masterpieces (although To the Lighthouse is far more accessible) this book introduces us to Clarissa Dalloway: dutiful wife, proud mother, hostess extraordinaire, cream of London society, and perhaps ultimately, failure. ![]()
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