[fantasyfan]

The book is essentially plotless--in the usual sense of the word. What Woolf seems to substitute is a different sort of character pattern. Thus we get a series of incidents focusing on reactions of characters to the aeroplane spelling out an advertisement for Toffee. We have Mrs Dalloway musing (if that word is appropriate for her cascade of thoughts) on the empty frivolous life she has and The nearly psychotic world-picture of Septimus. The backfire of a car links the two sets of thoughts and additionally allows other reactions Later, when Peter visits Clarissa two more thought patterns are contrasted.

This use of this technique is reminiscent of Joyce who superimposes a day in the life of Leopold Bloom with the events in Homer, thus taking a realistic life pattern and giving it a mythic dimension. As with Joyce, there is the substitution of thought patterns for plot with characters dredging all sorts of resonances from the stream of consciousness.

All this does create an intriguing approach but not one of which I am particularly fond.