mrs. dalloway

just ate up virginia woolf's mrs. dalloway.  i tried to read it in college but quit, bored, before luncheon (the novel takes place on one single june day).  i am pleased to reach what i hope will be the first of many levels of enjoyment of virginia woolf as i grow up.

this is the page i dog-eared.

it rasped her, though, to have stirring about in her this brutal monster! to hear twigs cracking and feel hooves planted down in the depths of that leaf-encumbered forest, the soul; never to be content quite, or quite secure, for at any moment the brute would be stirring, this hatred, which had power to make her feel scraped, hurt in her spine; gave her physical pain, and made all pleasure in beauty, in friendship, in being well, in being loved and making her home delightful rock, quiver, and bend as if indeed there were a monster grubbing at the roots, as if the whole panoply of content were nothing but self love! this hatred!


clarissa dalloway's anger problems can't hold a candle to mine.  she only suffers this one bout of rage all day!  ah, "at any moment the brute would be stirring."

but how exquisite is a single exclamation mark at the end of a run-on!  can you imagine diagramming this sentence in 5th grade english class?