It took me a while to read this book, even though it is quite a short one, and all the action takes place in a single day. I suppose ideally one should read it in one day too.

It is a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a London housewife who is preparing for a party. The story switches from one viewpoint to another, not only her own, but those of people around her: servants, an old friend, her daughter, a suicidal shell-shocked soldier and others. It is set in the 1920s, and so scenes from Downton Abbey come to mind.

One of the reasons it took me so long is that I got distracted into reading other books in between, one of which was [b:The Greater Trumps|1232960|The Greater Trumps|Charles Williams|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347478510s/1232960.jpg|1221564] by [a:Charles Williams|36289|Charles Williams|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1217390107p2/36289.jpg]. I began re-reading it as a result of a discussion about the names of books by [a:Benjamin Disraeli|47030|Benjamin Disraeli|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1212684660p2/47030.jpg], the titles of whose books [b:Sybil|67920|Sybil The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities|Flora Rheta Schreiber|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1344268259s/67920.jpg|2912372], [b:Lothair|844190|Lothair|Benjamin Disraeli|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348153076s/844190.jpg|829716] and [b:Coningsby|82310|Coningsby; or, The New Generation|Benjamin Disraeli|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1171015970s/82310.jpg|79482] were used for the names of characters in [b:The Greater Trumps|1232960|The Greater Trumps|Charles Williams|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347478510s/1232960.jpg|1221564].

I could not help but be struck by the contrast between [b:Mrs Dalloway|14942|Mrs. Dalloway|Virginia Woolf|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1319710256s/14942.jpg|841320] and [b:The Greater Trumps|1232960|The Greater Trumps|Charles Williams|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347478510s/1232960.jpg|1221564]. Both are set in a similar period, between the World Wars of the first half of the 20th century. But in [b:Mrs Dalloway|14942|Mrs. Dalloway|Virginia Woolf|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1319710256s/14942.jpg|841320] I was much more conscious of the setting in a specific time and place -- London of the 1920s. I lived in London for a few months in the 1960s, but the London of 40-45 years earlier was very different, just as it is very different today from the 1960s. Some things may have been the same -- the sea of bowler-hatted businessmen crossing London Bridge each morning and afternoon may well have been similar in the 1920s and 1960s, but now they belong to a vanished past. But in Westminster, where [b:Mrs Dalloway|14942|Mrs. Dalloway|Virginia Woolf|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1319710256s/14942.jpg|841320] is set, the fashions were very different in the 1960s, and are probably different from both today.

In [b:The Greater Trumps|1232960|The Greater Trumps|Charles Williams|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347478510s/1232960.jpg|1221564], by contrast, though the action moves from a London suburb to the country, the time and place are less important. One could film it today, in present-day clothes, and it would make little difference to the characters or plot. The setting is important, in the sense that it is an isolated country house, and there is a snow stom, but characters and plot take precedence over time and specific place.

So this is not really a review of [b:Mrs Dalloway|14942|Mrs. Dalloway|Virginia Woolf|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1319710256s/14942.jpg|841320], but the Good Reads review prompt asks "What did you think?" and that's what I thought.