BRLSI Big Read: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Mrs Dalloway Day is becoming an annual celebration, held in mid-June.  This year we will be celebrating it by having a discussion on Mrs Dalloway entitled Time and Authority in Mrs Dalloway, to be led by Betty Suchar.

We all try to cope with time, organising our lives so we are on time, don’t run out of time, finish in time. Henri Bergson, who wrote about time in the early twentieth century, made a distinction between clock time and psychological time.  

While the body must comply with real world time, the mind can be more flexible, pausing to reflect, to remember, to daydream. These concepts and more are to be found in Mrs Dalloway, a modernist novel written by Virginia Woolf and published in 1925.

This event will be at Queen Square only (not online) and is FREE to members (you still need to book a place, click on Book Tickets to do this).

While you’re reading the book, have a think about the following discussion points:

1. What are the symbols of real time heard in London in the 1920’s?

2. What purpose is serviced by having the time marked out repeatedly?

3. Do you feel the doctors acted compassionately toward Septimus?

4. What is Virginia Woolf’s view about the Empire and imperialism?

5 . Is it helpful to distinguish between clock time and psychological time?