I read this book on a recommendation from my thesis supervisor, as I am writing about mental illness.

I love Virginia Woolf, though it’s hard for me to explain why. I think some of it is to do with the daringness of what she writes. This might seem like a strange thing to say, given that it is largely about a single day in which a member of London society throws a party. The events themselves are very ordinary, yet they are told in such an extraordinary way.

Woolf gives each of the characters a fairly distinct voice, although there is very little direct dialogue in the book. Most of it takes the form of a kind of monologue that is written in the third person, but which is so deeply internal to the characters. This monologue flows seemlessly from person to person (so characteristic of her work). It’s the kind of book you really have to pay attention to reading or you suddenly find yourself reading the story of a new character with absolutely no idea about how you got there. It’s the kind of book I’d love to study with my old Literary Studies lecturer because it has so many levels and I’m sure half of it went over my head.

I only wish I could do it justice.