Mrs. Dalloway

So I finished Mrs. Dalloway. It seemed almost too full of themes and allusions and influences; it made it harder to pick individual ones out of the crowd. After a first reading, I was just a bit overwhelmed.

To be general, then, what I found most noticeable about the book was the sheer intensity. The at first confusing focus on each detail of the passing day made the narrative seem hyperreal, as though I were living the day more deeply and vividly than any day I've actually lived. Woolf writes about details I never even notice, and the result felt a lot like insanity; I had to put the book down every now and then just to calm down. Oddly, the section I found the least emotionally charged was the suicide of Septimus. His observations, his conversations all seemed overwhelming, but his dramatic death passed by in my mind like a vague blip. Mrs. Dalloway's most trivial thoughts and decisions - the flowers, her jealousy about her daughter - seemed more real than my own.

I'm going to glance over the book again while reading (Gabriel Garcia Marquez? I'll check later). Let me know how you all are doing. We can't lose touch this early in the summer.