Mrs. Dalloway

I read Mrs. Dalloway some time ago, and didn't take particularly good notes. I need to try here to summarize some very basic ideas I have about the book:

This is a modern novel, one that breaks with tradition in rendering its vision of the life of a small group of people. Like many great modern works, it is stylistically, and perhaps thematically linked to classic of western literature. Again, as with Joyce, Pound, Eliot, the famous dictum "make it new" does not mean a complete destruction of the past, but rather a reworking of classical elements in order that the tradition may continue. The dramatic structure of one 'day in the life' is much in line with Aristotle's pronouncement in his Poetics that drama take place within a 'reasonable time frame'. This is reminiscent of Joyce's one day in the life of Leopold Bloom, in Ulysses. Other things, such as the stream of consciousness style, identify this work as a modernist piece of fiction, as well as the non-linear narrative (with flash-forwards and flash-backs). Thematically many part of the story also seem distinctly modernist: the focus on time's passing, the obsessions of the characters with the past and confusion about their places in the world, or if not confusion, at least thoughtfulness.