"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Tuesday, October 03, 2023

Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf, 1925)

I liked this quite a bit. 

Novel is set on a single day - Clarissa Dalloway is giving a big party, preparations are ongoing, events in the neighborhood are described, flashbacks are given which help flesh out various characters.

Clarissa Dalloway is the main character; she is married to Raymond Dalloway.  But was pretty much in love with Peter Walsh (it was reciprocated), though she turned him away.

Elizabeth (Clarissa's daughter). Miss Killeen (influences Elizabeth).

Septimius Smith - WWI vet, messed up; married to Lucrezia Smith

Clarissa is aware that she's aging, and there is some interesting musing about that.


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