In the postscript of her collection The Demon Lover, Elezabeth Bowen says of London during WWII, “We all lived in a state of lucid abnormality” (218). This is a beautifully concise way of describing “The Mysterious Kor” and, based on the postscript and our discussion, the entire collection. Everything about the story feels completely real and surreal at the same time. The characters seem to be walking in a dream, but the truth is everything happening around them is deadly serious. They speak of having “too much moon” in mystic tones, which to a modern reader may evoke ideas of spirituality or mystery, but at the time was also simply a practical danger because of the added light. Bowen also discusses her use of “hallucinations” as being “not a peril” but an “instinctive, saving resort” (219). Her characters seem to be balancing between a the surreal horrors of the war and the escape of dreams. The lines between real and unreal become blurred, and it’s easy to imagine how someone falls too far and ends up like Septimus in Mrs. Dalloway, lost in a dream and unable to cope with the real world.