Mrs. Dalloway
The 2020s are so weird and there is absolutely no denying that. But when Matt and I watched Ken Burns’ documentary on prohibition a few years ago, all I kept thinking was that the 1920s seemed pretty weird too. That was, to my memory, the first that I learned of Carrie Nation, aka the Hatchet Granny, who took her devotion to temperance to the extreme and ambushed saloons and taverns with a hatchet (these episodes were referred to as “hatchetations”) while allegedly yelling, “Good morning, destroyer of souls!” (I wish TikTok existed then.) The 1920s — with its flappers and jazz — was sort of a freewheeling hootenanny butting up against austerity and rigidity. Sound familiar?
Mrs. Dalloway was published in 1925 and on its 100th anniversary, publications celebrated this in all sorts of ways. After the discomfiting (and prescient?) Atlantic headline “Mrs. Dalloway’s Midlife Crisis” taunted me via email, I texted some friends and asked, “so who’s in?” (Btw, you don’t need to be in any sort of official book club to read with others. Three times this past year, a group of us — so far, ranging from 3 to 5 people — met on an ad hoc basis. If you want in, lmk…) And not to be all academic-y, but Mrs. Dalloway is a RICH TEXT. Save for some anachronistic details, Virginia Woolf could have written it today.
You likely know that this novel takes place over one day as Clarissa Dalloway prepares for a party. Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness provides a panoramic look at everyone in Clarissa’s orbit. While there is pensiveness in the book (“…what did it mean to her, this thing she called life?”), frivolity abounds as well. (But is throwing a party frivolous? This quandary looms over Clarissa because “it was her gift.”) Woolf explores Clarissa’s relationship with Sally Seton, why she may have chosen Richard over Peter (i.e. stability and propriety), and the confusing nature of midlife. (“She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged.” 🎯)
Yet: These aren’t predicaments to solve; they are markers to experience. Looking back 100 years should prove that to us. (Also, I’m gonna be Hatchet Granny for Halloween.)
originally published on instagram