Journalist Reporting On "Mrs Dalloway" Hasn't Read the Novel

I find it incredible that a) a journalist writing about Virginia Woolf's most famous novel, Mrs Dalloway, has not read it; and, b) then admits that she has not read it. At least the journalist is honest. And a product of American public education in the 20th century. It is hard for me to believe that the author got through high school, college, and, possibly, graduate school, without having read it. I suppose she was admitting this to gain acceptance by the other 99% of her readers who have not read Mrs Dalloway.

According to the LA Times, Mrs Dalloway was published 85 years ago this week. It is one of my favorites. And, yes, I have read it. In fact, about two years ago, I typed the entire novel on an Apple word document. And my background is in science, not literature or journalism.

The writer reporting this story, or "non-story" as it may be, says that Mrs Dalloway is an anti-war novel. I disagree. Just because the story dramatizes a "bad aspect of war" does not make it an anti-war novel. In fact, having said that, I really don't know any thinking American in 2010, or any Englishman or American in 1925 who would be "for" war. But back to the original point. Virginia Woolf was greatly affected by World War I. I think she committed suicide because she could not imagine living through another war. But military medical journals are full of reports of injuries (physical and mental) suffered on the battlefield or as a result of being on the battlefield, but I would not go so far as to say the medics or the editors of the journals were "anti-war."

In fact, a close reading of Mrs Dalloway suggests that Virginia Woolf was greatly conflicted about "just" wars. Would she have wanted a German occupation of her beloved England to be followed by England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland becoming German states or colonies? I doubt it. Would she have gone to war over it? I don't know. But my hunch is that she recognized that World War I was pointless, but the possibility of Germany taking control of the British Isles was not pointless. And that's where the conflict in her mind began. And ended. With suicide.