Virginia Woolf是意识流文风的开山鼻祖,而《Mrs Dalloway》则是她的奠基之作,此书在时代杂志评出的1923~2005年100部最佳英文小说排行榜中赫然在列。Woolf曾自述在此书中她想要表达太多想法,如生与死,如精神健全和错乱,如对社会制度的批评,如女性对独立的追求,不过,对生与死的探寻是此书关注的主要命题,不可否认的,我也试图在Dalloway夫人的情感体验和心理意识中寻找Woolf本人的印迹。
"She and Sally fell a little behind. Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it - a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they walked (up and down, up and down), she uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling!"