Finished

Well, I did it. I've just finished Mrs. Dalloway. And found it quite extraordinary. Intricate, complex, moving. Above all, moving. Especially at the end, where Peter Walsh is talking with Sally Seton and has not yet had his promised, after-party talk with Clarissa.

Sally, becoming anxious to leave, gets up to talk to Clarissa's husband Richard and Peter says that he will join them.

                                                           "I will come," said Peter, but he sat on for a moment. What is this
                                                            terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that
                                                            fills me with extraordinary excitement?

                                                            It is Clarissa, he said.

                                                            For there she was.

What an ending!

And so I think that now, with a couple of days remaining before the LPL book club meets, I'm going to re-read these last few pages, because so much is shared in them between Peter and Sally.

And because what remains unspoken, as it moves across the page in their respective steams of consciousness, is so heartfelt and moving and because I did rush through it with such uncontrolled fervor, such irresistable momentum.

That first time through, I think, was for a basic understanding of events; the second time will be for a fuller and more complete engagement of the heart. 

For as Sally says to Peter, as she's getting up to say goodnight to Richard, "What does the brain matter... compared with the heart?"

LPK
Dreamwidth
9.25.2017