新潮世界名著 47 《戴洛維夫人》/《達洛維夫人》Mrs. Dalloway 伍爾夫並未告訴我們該作何感受;她讓我們進入人物的內心世界,感受他們的猶豫、悔恨和轉瞬即逝的喜悅。一個聲音、一種氣味、一張掠過的臉龐,都能觸發一陣情感的波瀾,提醒我們人類意識的交織是多麼精妙。伍爾夫認為,人生並非一條直線,而是一張由瞬間、情感和印象交織而成的網,它們同時存在於人的心中。 。新潮世 界名著 47 Mrs Dalloway By Virginia Woolf 航向燈塔
Mrs Dalloway By Virginia Woolf 此書中文本多種。;THE NARROW CORNER by W. Somerset Maugham
Mrs Dalloway By Virginia Woolf 此書中文本多種
新潮世 界名著 47 戴洛維夫人 航向燈塔
。;THE NARROW CORNER by W. Somerset Maugham
Mrs Dalloway By Virginia Woolf
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200991.txt孤獨意味精神輕盈。人一旦控制欲、嫉妒、幻想,佈滿心房,人際關係自然錯亂,甚至情場落空。英國小說家吳爾芙《戴洛維夫人》(Mrs Dalloway),是一部深入刻畫愛情的小說。女主克拉麗薩婚前,結識彼得,兩人陷入熱戀之際,男友卻時時掌控,事事干涉,讓她喘不過去。後來,選擇嫁給李查 · 戴洛維,因為先生能夠讓她在婚姻中保留一點自由。戴洛維夫人甘於孤獨,也是樂於享受自由。換言之,孤獨是使人保有更大的自由。

Jacket design by
Vanessa BellAuthor
Virginia WoolfCountry United Kingdom
Language English
Publisher
Hogarth PressPublication date
《達洛維夫人》這部小說並沒有以宏大的事件或戲劇性的轉折來宣告自己的存在,卻悄然潛入讀者的腦海,久久縈繞,如同夏日午後縈繞的思緒。維吉尼亞·伍爾夫將倫敦一個平凡的日子,昇華為對生命、記憶、時間以及人們內心深處隱密情感世界的深刻探索。乍看之下,故事似乎很簡單:克拉麗莎·達洛維出門去買花,準備晚上舉辦的宴會。但在這份看似簡單的表象之下,卻隱藏著一個豐富而複雜的內心世界,過去與現在如同呼吸般自然地交融。
這部小說最引人注目之處在於伍爾夫對時間的處理。時鐘上的時間穩定向前,由大笨鐘的鐘聲標示;而心理時間自由流動,在回憶中回溯,在反思中前進。克拉麗莎漫步在街頭,喚醒了她對青春、愛情以及那些已做和未做的選擇的回憶。這些記憶並非只是背景,它們鮮活地存在著,塑造著她當下的自我。伍爾夫認為,人生並非一條直線,而是一張由瞬間、情感和印象交織而成的網,它們同時存在於人的心中。
克拉麗莎本身就是一個令人動容的人物,並非因為她經歷了什麼驚天動地的苦難,而是因為她對生命脆弱的敏銳感知。她外表自信優雅,舉止得體,但內心常常感到一種難以言喻的空虛。她對老化、對錯失良機以及對幸福本質的思考,都帶著一絲淡淡的憂傷。伍爾夫的過人之處在於,她將這種內心的躁動賦予了普遍性。克拉麗莎的思緒,正是許多人隱藏在禮貌微笑和日常瑣事背後的那些私密疑慮和渴望的迴響。
與克拉麗莎的故事並行展開的是塞普蒂默斯·沃倫·史密斯的故事,他是一位飽受戰爭創傷的老兵。他的出現賦予了這部小說最強烈的感染力。塞普提默斯被第一次世界大戰的恐怖所困擾,無法重新融入正常生活。克拉麗莎在社交圈中游刃有餘,而塞普蒂默斯卻被邊緣化,被那些重視循規蹈矩而非同情心的醫生們誤解和忽視。伍爾夫藉著塞普提默斯之口,對這個未能傾聽痛苦心靈的社會進行了強而有力的批判。他內心世界強烈而破碎,與戰後英國平靜的表面形成鮮明對比,揭示了情感壓抑的代價。
克拉麗莎和塞普蒂默斯之間的聯繫微妙而深刻。他們素未謀面,卻在精神上彼此相連。兩人都對生命極為敏感,都飽受孤獨的折磨,也都感到不堪重負,難以承受循規蹈矩的壓力。克拉麗莎選擇了生命,她透過參加聚會和與他人的交往擁抱生命;而塞普蒂默斯卻無法找到理解,最終選擇了死亡。當克拉麗莎得知他的自殺時,她感到一種奇特的親近感,彷彿他的行為表達了她自己內心深處某種感受卻從未言明的東西。在這一刻,伍爾夫暗示,喜悅與絕望、生與死,比我們通常認為的更為接近。
《達洛維夫人》中的情感靜謐而濃烈。伍爾夫並未告訴我們該作何感受;她讓我們進入人物的內心世界,感受他們的猶豫、悔恨和轉瞬即逝的喜悅。一個聲音、一種氣味、一張掠過的臉龐,都能觸發一陣情感的波瀾,提醒我們人類意識的交織是多麼精妙。小說捕捉了平凡瞬間的美麗——城市漫步、一個難忘的吻、一次眼神的交匯——並展現了這些瞬間如何賦予生命意義。
最終,《達洛維夫人》講述的並非僅僅是一個女人、一場聚會,甚至並非只是某一天的故事。它講述的是在這樣一個常常鼓勵情感麻木的世界裡,勇敢地活在覺知之中,去感受深刻的情感。伍爾夫邀請讀者駐足,探尋日常生活表象之下的深層意義,去體悟那些定義人性的無聲掙扎和靜謐的勝利。小說的結尾並非一個結局,而是一種感受——一種生命仍在延續的感覺,脆弱而珍貴,在合上最後一頁之後,依然久久迴盪。
Mrs. Dalloway is a novel that does not announce itself with grand events or dramatic turns, yet it quietly enters the reader’s mind and stays there, like a lingering
thought on a summer afternoon. Virginia Woolf takes a single ordinary day in London and transforms it into a profound exploration of life, memory, time, and the hidden emotional worlds people carry within them. At first glance, the story seems simple: Clarissa Dalloway steps out to buy flowers for a party she is hosting that evening. But beneath this simplicity lies a rich and complex inner universe, where past and present flow into each other as naturally as breath.
What makes the novel remarkable is Woolf’s treatment of time. Clock time moves steadily forward, marked by the tolling of Big Ben, yet psychological time moves freely, slipping backward into memory and forward into reflection. Clarissa’s walk through the streets awakens recollections of her youth, of love, of choices made and unmade. These memories are not mere background; they are alive, shaping her present self. Woolf suggests that a human life is not a straight line but a web of moments, emotions, and impressions, all existing at once in the mind.
Clarissa herself is a deeply moving figure, not because of any dramatic suffering, but because of her quiet awareness of life’s fragility. She appears confident and socially graceful, yet she often feels an emptiness she cannot easily name. Her reflections on aging, on missed possibilities, and on the nature of happiness carry a gentle sadness. Woolf’s genius lies in making this inner restlessness feel universal. Clarissa’s thoughts echo the private doubts and longings that many people hide behind polite smiles and everyday routines.
Running parallel to Clarissa’s story is that of Septimus Warren Smith, a traumatized war veteran. His presence gives the novel its sharpest emotional edge. Septimus is haunted by the horrors of the First World War, unable to reintegrate into ordinary life. While Clarissa moves through society, Septimus is pushed to its margins, misunderstood and dismissed by doctors who value conformity over compassion. Through him, Woolf offers a powerful critique of a society that fails to listen to suffering minds. His inner world, intense and fractured, stands in stark contrast to the calm surface of postwar England, revealing the cost of emotional repression.
The connection between Clarissa and Septimus is subtle yet profound. They never meet, yet they are spiritually linked. Both are deeply sensitive to life, both struggle with isolation, and both feel overwhelmed by the pressure to conform. Clarissa chooses life, embracing it through her party and her connections with others, while Septimus, unable to find understanding, chooses death. When Clarissa learns of his suicide, she feels a strange sense of kinship, as if his act has expressed something she herself has felt but never articulated. In this moment, Woolf suggests that joy and despair, life and death, are closer than we often admit.
Emotion in Mrs. Dalloway is quiet but intense. Woolf does not tell us what to feel; she allows us to inhabit her characters’ minds, to feel their hesitations, regrets, and fleeting joys. A sound, a scent, or a passing face can trigger a wave of feeling, reminding us how delicately human consciousness is woven. The novel captures the beauty of ordinary moments—a walk in the city, a remembered kiss, a shared glance—and shows how these moments give life its meaning.
In the end, Mrs. Dalloway is not simply about a woman or a party or even a single day. It is about the courage to live with awareness, to feel deeply in a world that often encourages emotional numbness. Woolf invites the reader to pause, to look beneath the surface of everyday life, and to recognize the silent struggles and quiet triumphs that define being human. The novel closes not with resolution, but with a feeling—a sense of life continuing, fragile yet precious, echoing long after the final page is turned.
----
William Somerset Maugham was born in the UK Embassy, Paris, France on this day in 1874.
“Life is short, nature is hostile, and man is ridiculous; but oddly enough most misfortunes have their compensations, and with a certain humour and a good deal of horse-sense one can make a fairly good job of what is after all a matter of very small consequence.”
―from THE NARROW CORNER by
W. Somerset MaughamFilled with adventure, passion, and intrigue, THE NARROW CORNER is a classic tale of the sea by one of the twentieth-century’s finest writers. Island hoping across the South Pacific, the esteemed Dr. Saunders is offered passage by Captain Nichols and his companion Fred Blake, two men who appear unsavory, yet any means of transportation is hard to resist. The trip turns turbulent, however, when a vicious storm forces them to seek shelter on the remote island of Kanda. There these three men fall under the spell of the sultry and stunningly beautiful Louise, and their story spirals into a wicked tale of love, murder, jealousy, and suicide.
~~~~
此書中文本多種。
"Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame."
―from MRS. DALLOWAY (1925)
MRS. DALLOWAY chronicles a June day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway–a day that is taken up with running minor errands in preparation for a party and that is punctuated, toward the end, by the suicide of a young man she has never met. In giving an apparently ordinary day such immense resonance and significance–infusing it with the elemental conflict between death and life–Virginia Woolf triumphantly discovers her distinctive style as a novelist. Originally published in 1925, MRS. DALLOWAY is Woolf’s first complete rendering of what she described as the “luminous envelope” of consciousness: a dazzling display of the mind’s inside as it plays over the brilliant surface and darker depths of reality. This edition uses the text of the original British publication of MRS. DALLOWAY, which includes changes Woolf made that never appeared in the first or subsequent American editions. READ an excerpt here:
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/mrs-dalloway-by-virgin…/Virginia WoolfIn Mrs Dalloway, Woolf writes a novel in which the upper-middle class 'is living on borrowed time. Its values … are under attack … the empire was crumbling fast’.
The British LibraryExploring consciousness and the modern: an introduction to Mrs Dalloway
"Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf.
1) Introduction:-
"Mrs. Dalloway" is a novel written by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1925. Set in post-World War I London, the story unfolds over a single day as Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-class woman, prepares for a party she will host in the evening. The novel explores themes of time, memory, societal expectations, and the inner lives of its characters through a stream-of-consciousness narrative style. Woolf's innovative approach to storytelling and her insightful exploration of the human psyche make "Mrs. Dalloway" a significant work in modernist literature.
2) Summary:-
"Mrs. Dalloway" takes place in London during a single day in June 1923. The central character, Clarissa Dalloway, is a high-society woman who is preparing for a party she will host in the evening. The narrative unfolds through the perspectives of various characters, employing a stream-of-consciousness style that delves into their inner thoughts and memories.
As Clarissa goes about her day, we learn about her past, including a significant love affair with Peter Walsh. Meanwhile, Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked veteran of World War I, grapples with mental health issues and becomes a parallel character to Clarissa. The novel weaves through different characters and their connections, revealing the complexities of their lives and relationships.
Woolf's narrative technique allows readers to explore the characters' internal monologues, emphasizing the passage of time and the interconnectedness of lives. The novel captures the social and cultural atmosphere of post-war London while offering profound insights into the characters' emotions and struggles. "Mrs. Dalloway" is a masterful exploration of human consciousness and the impact of societal norms on individual lives.
3) Critical analysis :-
"Mrs. Dalloway" is celebrated for its innovative narrative techniques and profound exploration of the human psyche. Virginia Woolf employs a stream-of-consciousness style, allowing readers access to the inner thoughts and perceptions of her characters. This technique not only captures the immediacy of experience but also blurs the boundaries between past and present, highlighting the fluidity of human consciousness.
One notable aspect is Woolf's depiction of time. The novel unfolds in a single day, yet time is treated as a subjective and malleable element. The characters' memories and reflections shape their present experiences, illustrating the interconnectedness of past and present. This temporal fluidity is a hallmark of modernist literature and mirrors the characters' attempts to reconcile their pasts with their current realities.
Woolf also explores the societal expectations imposed on individuals, particularly women in post-World War I England. Clarissa Dalloway, as a representative of the upper class, grapples with the constraints of social norms and the expectations placed upon her. The novel subtly critiques the rigid gender roles of the time and examines the impact of societal expectations on personal identity.
Septimus Warren Smith's character adds another layer to the novel's critique. As a war veteran suffering from mental trauma, Septimus serves as a symbol of the psychological toll of war. His story intertwines with Clarissa's, offering a contrasting perspective on societal expectations and mental health. Woolf skillfully addresses the consequences of a society that enforces conformity and the toll it takes on individuals who deviate from the norm.
"Mrs. Dalloway" stands as a quintessential work of modernist literature, challenging conventional narrative structures and offering a nuanced exploration of the human experience. Woolf's profound insights into consciousness, time, and societal constraints contribute to the novel's enduring significance in the literary canon.
Virginia Woolf's iconic novel, Mrs. Dalloway, is a masterful exploration of the human experience, delving into the intricacies of time, identity, and the complexities of the human psyche. Published in 1925, this modernist masterpiece continues to captivate readers with its lyrical prose, nuanced characterization, and profound insights into the human condition.
The novel follows Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares to host a party in the evening, while Septimus Warren Smith, a
shell-shocked veteran of World War I, grapples with the traumas of his past. Through these two characters, Woolf skillfully weaves together themes of identity, morality, and the search for meaning in a post-war world.
One of the novel's most striking features is its innovative narrative structure. Woolf employs a fluid, stream-of-consciousness style, seamlessly shifting between the inner lives of her characters. This technique creates a sense of intimacy and immediacy, drawing the reader into the innermost thoughts and feelings of the characters.
Through Clarissa and Septimus, Woolf poses profound questions about the nature of identity, the impact of societal expectations, and the fragility of human life. Clarissa's preparations for her party serve as a metaphor for the construction of identity, while Septimus's struggles with shell shock illuminate the devastating consequences of trauma.
Mrs. Dalloway is a masterpiece of modernist literature, offering a profound and deeply moving exploration of the human experience. Woolf's innovative narrative structure, lyrical prose, and nuanced characterization have created a work of enduring beauty and significance. This novel is a must-read for anyone interested in exploring the complexities of the human condition.
Mrs. Dalloway is a novel that rewards close reading and reflection. It is best suited for readers who appreciate literary fiction, modernist experimentation, and philosophical introspection.
You can get the audio book for FREE using the link. Use the link to register for the audio book on Audible and start enjoying it.
BL.UK