Mrs. Dalloway book club questions

The reading plan

Meeting 1: Parts 1 to 4

1. What kind of connection can strangers share when they watch something none of them can identify?
2. How might walking through a city change the way someone weighs personal relationships?
3. Does looking at the same sky offer real connection, or can it leave people just as lonely?
4. How might memories of love deepen marital distress rather than ease it?
5. What might Peter Walsh hope to gain by revealing his love affair during an unexpected visit?

Meeting 2: Parts 5 to 8

6. How much responsibility should Peter Walsh bear for misreading the troubled couple?
7. What might the singer's comfort offer Rezia that efforts to reach her husband cannot?
8. What does the pairing of war memories and emotional numbness suggest about the limits of judging suffering from outside?
9. How should we weigh doctors' authority against Rezia's feeling of abandonment after the consultation?
10. Can Richard's gift of roses say enough when he cannot express himself in words?

Meeting 3: Parts 9 to 12

11. How does the death change your reading of the brief happiness Septimus Warren Smith and Rezia share?
12. How might the servants' preparations change what we notice about Clarissa's fear that her gathering will fail?
13. Does Clarissa's retreat into solitude after news of death suggest withdrawal from others or another way of connecting?
14. What does placing an important visitor's arrival beside news of death invite us to question about social importance?
15. How might the emptying party shape Sally Seton and Peter Walsh's judgments about friendship and marriage?

Themes to talk about

Tips for the host

1. Open each meeting with one question everyone can answer, then go deeper.
2. Anyone who fell behind can catch up with the 15-minute summary.