Should have read classics discussion

This is the group read for October. I'm not sure if I can join this one so if someone would be interested in leading the discussion that would be great!

Hi. I'm about half way through this wonderful book.

The sentences wrap around themselves, taking you into other people's lives and consciousness.

Have you read this before?

Lisa wrote: "Have you read this before?"

This was my first time through. I think I started it before but didn't get very far.

I finished last night. Amazing.

What made it amazing. Having never even heard of the book before, I'm curious about it.

Lisa wrote: "What made it amazing. Having never even heard of the book before, I'm curious about it."

How to describe Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway? Here’s the Wikipedia quick summary:

xxxx

“Mrs Dalloway (published on 14 May 1925[1]) is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional high-society woman in post–First World War England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels.
Created from two short stories, "Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street" and the unfinished "The Prime Minister", the novel addresses Clarissa's preparations for a party she will host that evening. With an interior perspective, the story travels forwards and back in time and in and out of the characters' minds to construct an image of Clarissa's life and of the inter-war social structure. In October 2005, Mrs Dalloway was included on TIME magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923”.

xxx

I love how the novel travels in and out of people’s minds, spinning through thoughts and time effortlessly.

Here is a passage from the first page, after Clarissa hears the bells of Big Ben: “…they love life. In people’s eyes, in the sing, tramp, and trudge; in the below and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging, brass bands, barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June."

The book hints at some themes that were controversial at the time, including feminism and homosexuality, but moves flawlessly through minds, tackling deeper issues of relationship and meaning. When one character sees or meets another, or just thinks of someone, you move into the other character’s thoughts. Who they are, what they are thinking, or more importantly, remembering. And all are woven back together.

I loved it.

Hope you'll find time to check it out.

Hi, Katy and Lisa-
I did get to Mrs. Dalloway, though not in October. I finished it a couple weeks ago. Liked it a lot. And I find it stays with me as a sort of radiant crystal gem in my heart to carry with me. I think Woolf accomplished exactly what she meant with that book, giving us a very complete understanding of the people whose lives and minds she shared with us.
Something about the way she wrote it leaves me feeling that my own personal experience has been widened.