The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Yes, I realize this is not a "classic". I am in the habit, currently, of reading borrowed books. It makes them a little more sweet. Anyway I don't regret reading it- it was pretty fascinating. I won't dwelve into the summary because I'm sure tons of people have already done this. Since it's contemporary and all.

"It seems possible (it does not seem impossible) that she's slipped accross an invisible line, the line that has always seperated her from what she preferred to feel, who she would prefer to be."

"You try to hold the moment, justs here, in the kitchen with the flowers. You try to inhabit it, to love it because it's yours and because what waits immediately outside these rooms is the hallway, with its brown tiles and its dim brown lamps that are always lit."

What awaits you is TIME. I feel like this as well. It seems like all these women want to be safe behind the doors. They are scared of what awaits them outside (and of time itself). Mrs. Brown wants to read all day and doesn't want to face her life- family. Virginia as well- as soon as she locks the door she feels free. "She feels briefly, wonderfully alone, with everything ahead of her." (Clarissa). There are endless possibilities behind the closed door of reality.

“She thinks of how much more space a being occupies in life than it does in death; how much illusion of size is contained in gestures Dead, we are revealed in our true dimensions, and they are surprisingly modest." 

“I wanted to create something alive and shocking enough that it could stand beside a morning in somebody’s life. The most ordinary morning. Imagine, trying to do that. What foolishness.”

“When she looks in the medicine- cabinet mirror, she briefly imagines that someone is standing behind her. There is on one, of course; it’s just a trick of the light. For an instant, no more than that, she has imagined some sort of ghost self, a second version of her, standing immediately behind, watching. It’s nothing.”

“She might, at this moment, be nothing but a floating intelligence; not even a brain inside a skull, just a presence that perceives, as a ghost might. Yes, she thinks, this is probably how it must feel to be a ghost. It’s a little like reading, isn’t it- that same sensation of knowing people, settings, situations, without playing any particular part beyond that of the willing observer”

“We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep- it’s as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we’re very fortunate, by time itself. There’s just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we’ve ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitable be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.” 

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The hours- basically it refers to time. Richard killed himself because he dreaded all this TIME and he was tired of passing through it. Same as his mother- which is why she walked away from the family, it was unendurable. And yet- I like this- I like that yes we go on living through what is the majority of our life- through dark hours. Ordinary life- where nothing happens. We have parties, we have anxieties, we have sorrows, trifles trifles. They are insignificant. But we get caught up in it all. And we don’t really know ourselves sometimes. But the beauty of life- is that it reminds us WHY we are alive. In just a moment. Because this book focuses on being IN the moment, and being OUT of it. Most of the time we are OUT of the moment, we don’t really know how to cherish it. But when we are in the moment, these hours before us seem to be suspended. And we feel immortal. That is what our life is- a constant strive to feel immortal. To feel as if time itself has stopped. 

Another aspect is that all of these women do not feel themselves. "UNBEING". Which by the way KUNDERA has also used. They seem to be living someone else's life and don't know what to do about it. They feel trapped in their "role". Virginia as well- pretending to be "healthy" and "socially normal". I think Clarissa is the worst one- because she doesn't realize that she's trapped- even though she mentions the apartment and how she doesn't feel at "home" there. And even Sally said that they'll watch each other "fade away", which is super sad. So I tihnk Laura Brown was the smartest one- she just walked away from UNBEING. She didn't want to deal with it and live a lie. While Virginia killed herself. Alternatives. 

One can't RATIONALIZE one's happiness- as much as one tries. It ends up catching up with you in the end. 

 

An Unwritten Novel by Virginia Woolf

----> Link to the story

Since I read this on my Kindle, I had no idea in what context the story took place (because the novel doesn't come with the handy-dandy "teaser" on the back cover). At first, I imagined it to be some sort of ramble about a character in a book, as the narrator was creating stories in her mind. That was rather inspirational I must admit, although it was completely wrong. And so, I googled it and the All Knowing One linked me to Pol Culture:
"The narrator is a passenger on a commuter train. At first, she is absorbed in her newspaper, but she finds herself distracted by the faces of the other passengers."
Well then! And so, I reread the story- and it seemed to make more sense! Even though, honestly, I still don't understand all of it. I got lost in some parts of it.

" [...] so many crimes aren't your crime; your crime was cheap; only the retribution solemn; for now the church door opens, the hard wooden pew receives her; on the brown tiles she kneels; every day, winter, summer, dusk, dawn (here she's at it) prays."

"I was heading her over the waterfall, straight for madness, when, like a flock of dream sheep, she turns t'other way and runs between my fingers."

"Have I read you right? But the human face--the human face at the top of the fullest sheet of print holds more, withholds more."

She expands on the term "to read a person" by actually comparing it to a sheet of print.

"Hang still, then, quiver, life, soul, spirit, whatever you are of Minnie Marsh--I, too, on my flower--the hawk over the down--alone, or what were the worth of life?"

She refers to her concept of Minnie Marsh- she wants to dwell on it, or what is life worth?

"There I've hidden them all this time in the hope that somehow they'd disappear, or better still emerge, as indeed they must, if the story's to go on gathering richness and rotundity, destiny and tragedy, as stories should, rolling along with it two, if not three, commercial travellers and a whole grove of aspidistra."

"How the mud goes round in the mind--what a swirl these monsters leave, the waters rocking, the weeds waving and green here, black there, striking to the sand, till by degrees the atoms reassemble, the deposit sifts itself, and again through the eyes one sees clear and still,"

"But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?--the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world--a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors."

"There's the vista and the vision--there's the distance--the blue blot at the end of the avenue, while, after all, the tea is rich, the muffin hot"

This gave me the impression that whatever we see, we see as a "vista" and a "vision" outside of ourselves. As if we were looking out of a window, detached from ourselves. Of course, this probably isn't what Virginia meant.

Supported by the title, the concept of the book is almost a memorial-a "prayer for the departed, some obsequy for the souls of those one nods to, the people one never meets again"-for the things that never were: hinting at the unlimited world of "what-ifs" and possibilities. I feel like she writes this to literally bring this vague world into reality, just by the simple of act of writing it. Usually such wonderings and questions about strangers on the street are nothing more than fleeting thoughts, that are usually barely noticed. One thinks these thoughts in the moment, and soon are lost to the whirlwind of the continuation of life. You think these thoughts, and oh, there's your stop, leaving the connection you had formed in your mind forever there, and forget about it. As new worries, new thoughts envelop you. But no, Virginia commemorates these fleeting thoughts by recording them and turning it into a real story; engraving it on a sheet of paper, if you will.

I remember thinking about such things while on a train, wondering about other people's lives- but that seems to be so far in the past, so much has happened since. My life has moved on from that single thought (naturally: one doesn't want to be stuck on a train forever, spending one's time wondering about other people) and left it behind in the past. But it seems like Virginia refuses to move on, by writing this story directly confronting this vague sense of wondering.

The narrator immerses herself so much in her speculation that she even forgets whether it was she created this reality, or if it is really real. "There she is, tight to her blossom; opening her hand-bag, from which she takes a hollow shell--an egg--who was saying that eggs were cheaper? You or I? Oh, it was you who said it on the way home, you remember, when the old gentleman, suddenly opening his umbrella--or sneezing was it?" As if she's talking to the woman saying, "Oh no, no remember? This is really what happened." She seems to actually convince the person she is silently communicating with, as well as herself, that what she created is real. Why does she need to do this? Why does she need her imaginings to be real? Maybe she is looking for some connection with these characters, but at the same time wanting to be detached from them- find comfort in these silent communications. She becomes attached to them in some very intimate, and yet impersonal manner. And I think she prefers that. She prefers to muse about them, instead of asking them outright "What is your story?". She loves them in her own way, thinking of their feelings and desperations, and yet, they are still a concept to her. These characters are merely just sources of inspiration. Therefore, they themselves don't matter- only the stories they generate. "I come irresistibly to lodge myself somewhere on the firm flesh, in the robust spine, wherever I can penetrate or find foothold on the person, in the soul, of Moggridge the man." Anywhere, just to get a source of inspiration. It is merely a "foothold" for her imagination. Once James leaves the train, the narrator says, "James Moggridge is dead now, gone for ever." He might as well be dead, as far as she is concerned. Because he was alive to her as long as he stood in the same train as her. So as they left, the narrator felt empty because she lost her only connection to them as concepts, "Well, my world's done for! What do I stand on? What do I know? That's not Minnie. There never was Moggridge. Who am I? Life's bare as bone." She realizes that it really wasn't real, and that she made it all up. And yet, at the end she still loves them for their vaguness, because to her, they exist in her mind as Minnie and Moggridge. "Wherever I go, mysterious figures, I see you, turning the corner, mothers and sons; you, you, you. I hasten, I follow...If I fall on my knees, if I go through the ritual, the ancient antics, it's you, unknown figures, you I adore; if I open my arms, it's you I embrace, you I draw to me--adorable world!" She adores them for what they mean to her. That's something- that's more than most.

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From "The Works of Virginia Woolf: 12 Novels and Short Stories in One Volume"
Published by Halcyon Classics

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

"So on a summer’s day waves collect, overbalance, and fall; collect and fall; and the whole world seems to be saying ‘that is all’ more and more ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the beach says too, That is all. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall. And the body alone listens to the passing bee; the wave breaking; the dog barking, far away barking and barking."

"[...]was overcome with his own grief, which rose like a moon looked at from a terrace, ghastly beautiful with light from the sunken day."

Transferring feelings into the environment.

"I was more unhappy than I’ve ever been since, he thought. And as if in truth he were sitting there on the terrace he edged a little towards Clarissa; put his hand out; raised it; let it fall. There above them it hung, that moon. She too seemed to be sitting with him on the terrace, in the moonlight."

Incorporating her into the scene of his feelings.

"It is half-past eleven, she says, and the sound of St. Margaret’s glides into the recesses of the heart and buries itself in ring after ring of sound, like something alive which wants to confide itself, to disperse itself, to be, with a tremor of delight, at rest."

"And why had he been so profoundly happy when the clock was striking? Then, as the sound of St. Margaret’s languished, he thought, She has been ill, and the sound expressed languor and suffering. It was her heart, he remembered; and the sudden loudness of the final stroke tolled for death that surprised in the midst of life, Clarissa falling where she stood, in her drawing-room. No! No! he cried. She is not dead! I am not old, he cried, and marched up Whitehall, as if there rolled down to him, vigorous, unending, his future."

She's dead inside. humorous.

"And it was smashed to atoms — his fun, for it was half made up, as he knew very well; invented, this escapade with the girl; made up, as one makes up the better part of life, he thought — making oneself up; making her up; creating an exquisite amusement, and something more. But odd it was, and quite true; all this one could never share — it smashed to atoms."

A whole lifetime was too short to bring out, now that one had acquired the power, the full flavour; to extract every ounce of pleasure, every shade of meaning; which both were so much more solid than they used to be, so much less personal.

"[...] and she no longer saw, when she implored him (as she did now quite clearly) ‘look in my eyes with thy sweet eyes intently,’ she no longer saw brown eyes, black whiskers or sunburnt face, but only a looming shape, a shadow shape, to which, with the bird-like freshness of the very aged, she still twittered ‘give me your hand and let me press it gently’ (Peter Walsh couldn’t help giving the poor creature a coin as he stepped into his taxi), ‘and if some one should see, what matter they?’ she demanded; and her fist clutched at her side, and she smiled, pocketing her shilling, and all peering inquisitive eyes seemed blotted out, and the passing generations — the pavement was crowded with bustling middle-class people — vanished, like leaves, to be trodden under, to be soaked and steeped and made mould of by that eternal spring — ee um fah um so foo swee too eem oo."

Everything fades into the earth.

"One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that."

crude

"But even Holmes himself could not touch this last relic straying on the edge of the world, this outcast, who gazed back at the inhabited regions, who lay, like a drowned sailor, on the shore of the world."

What she liked was simply life.
‘That’s what I do it for,’ she said, speaking aloud, to life.

Sense of romantic optimism.

"But to go deeper, beneath what people said (and these judgements, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!) in her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called life? Oh, it was very queer. Here was So-and-so in South Kensington; some one up in Bayswater; and somebody else, say, in Mayfair. And she felt quite continuously a sense of their existence; and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create; but to whom? An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift."

She loved to bring people together.

"You were given a sharp, acute, uncomfortable grain — the actual meeting; horribly painful as often as not; yet in absence, in the most unlikely places, it would flower out, open, shed its scent, let you touch, taste, look about you, get the whole feel of it and understanding, after years of lying lost."

"Absorbing, mysterious, of infinite richness, this life."

"It was extraordinary how Peter put her into these states just by coming and standing in a corner. He made her see herself; exaggerate. It was idiotic."

"Every time she gave a party she had this feeling of being something not herself, and that every one was unreal in one way; much more real in another."

"Somehow it was her disaster — her disgrace. It was her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a woman, in this profound darkness, and she forced to stand here in her evening dress. She had schemed; she had pilfered."

Why does she take it to heart so?

"She was going to bed, in the room opposite. It was fascinating to watch her, moving about, that old lady, crossing the room, coming to the window. Could she see her? It was fascinating, with people still laughing and shouting in the drawing-room, to watch that old woman, quite quietly, going to bed alone."

"She felt somehow very like him — the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away while they went on living."

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I was pretty much forced to read this book due to the film The Hours. I wanted to understand the movie, and I've come to realize that one doesn't really understand the movie until one reads Mrs. Dalloway. Throughout the whole book I was imagining the characters portrayed in the movie, and how each one fits in Virginia Woolf's story.
But really, one needs to read the book. This beautiful charm of Virginia is really not portrayed in the movie. She is so witty and humorous in the writing, even if she writes about very dramatic things like suicide- she adds a certain graceful lightness to it. It's wonderful to read. Actually, this novel of her showed me her true voice the most. Sarcasm coupled with empathy is actually very refreshing. She seems to really understand every single one of her characters. Even Mrs. Dalloway. I mean, she understands that Richard wasn't her love, and that she spent her life regretting her mistake, and yet at the same time to look with hope towards the future. This character is extremely interesting because she is not superficial, although she may seem so. Even Peter thinks that in some ways she is superficial. But no, I think she is much more complex than what people see. I think that she naively, although proven wrong again and again, believes in the goodness of human nature. That is why she gives parties, to enjoy this marvelous interaction between people she knows. She wants everyone else to share in her riches, and thinks that everyone can benefit. She just wants to share her wealth. I love the way she was watching the old woman in the middle of the party. This doesn't show that she's unhappy, not necessarily- but she enjoys the small things in life, the simple things. She doesn't forget about the simple things. And I think that is essential to her character, because it makes her such a deep person. She understands suffering, like the suicide's suffering, but also understands that life is exciting and fresh- and she desperately wants to enjoy that.
Although, why does she take her parties so seriously? That is my question. Why does she focus on them so much? Maybe she is putting such a stress on herself, and the whole superficiallity of the world is trying to take over her. Because even though one has good intentions, that doesn't mean that the superficiallity of others won't affect her. And maybe she sees this. Peter is a marvelous contrast to her. Because he resembles what she really is at heart. She IS this deep thinker that just really wants to enjoy life. Interestingly enough, she wants to use this joy of life in a social setting- which is really hard to do, since society usually standardizes everything, and kills anything that is original and fresh.

I think that Mrs. Dalloway wants to return to the person she really is, the young girl that spent that day with Peter:
"She put on her hat, and ran through cornfields -where could it have been? — on to some hill, somewhere near the sea, for there were ships, gulls, butterflies; they sat on a cliff. In London, too, there they sat, and, half dreaming, came to her through the bedroom door, rain falling, whisperings, stirrings among dry corn, the caress of the sea, as it seemed to her, hollowing them in its arched shell and murmuring to her laid on shore, strewn she felt, like flying flowers over some tomb."
She spent her whole life longing for that moment of freedom, and yet trying to put up with society's constrains. We see this marvelous contrast between what she was, wild and free, and what she is now, trying to make the best of the cage she was trapped in.

Most of all, I loved the way Virginia flowed from one story to another- I thought that was absolutely superb, and so enjoyable to read. She connected every character to each other, which is so true- this human universality. Her exploration of time, and the way it gently rocked back and forth, past and present, is outstanding.

Although, I didn't pick up on the lesbiaonic (apparently not a word) allusion. So sorry to have missed that, but I usually don't pick up on subtle things like that. Maybe because it's more modern than what I'm used to.

Published by Everyman's Library (Knopff Book)

The Mark On the Wall by Virginia Woolf

"[...] one may hope, will be laughed into the dustbin where phantoms go."

"How peaceful it is down here, rooted in the centre of the world gazing up through the grey waters, with their sudden gleams of light, and their reflections (...)"

What a wonderful sense of freedom.

"All the time I'm dressing up the figure of myself in my own mind, lovingly, stealthily, not openly adoring it, for if I did that, I should catch myself out, and stretch my hand at once for a book in self-protection. Indeed, it is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed in any longer."

"As we face each other in omnibuses and underground railways we are looking into the mirror that accounts for the vagueness, the gleam of glassiness, in our eyes. And the novelists in future will realize more and more the importance of these reflections, for of course there is not one reflection but an almost infinite number; those are the depths they will explore, those the phantoms they will pursue, leaving the description of reality more and more out of their stories,"

We are all living in our own made-up realities.

"I understand Nature's game--her prompting to take action as a way of ending any thought that threatens to excite or to pain. Hence, I suppose, comes our slight contempt for men of action--men, we assume, who don't think. Still, there's no harm in putting a full stop to one's disagreeable thoughts by looking at a mark on the wall."


"One by one the fibers snap beneath the immense cold pressure of the earth, then the last storm comes, and, falling, the highest branches drive deep into the ground gain. Even so, life isn't done with; there are a million patient, watchful lives still for a tree, all over the world, in bedrooms, in ships, on the pavement, living rooms, where men and women sit after tea, smoking cigarettes. It is full of peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts, this tree."

I think Woolf is trying to portray the delicious feeling of just soaking up delightful, floating thoughts. This "tree" represents, like she herself said, "happy thoughts" which entertain the mind. "I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle, I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts." These thoughts grow in our idle thinking.

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Before someone put Virginia Woolf in a good light for me- I first heard of her and this story, The Mark on the Wall. Of course, I'm sure, like many others, they first hear that she was this crazy writer. And her writings such as this one would certainly seem to lean towards that. However, I don't think so. She reminds me of many of Dostoevsky's characters; when they ramble on and on incoherently. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that- for who doesn't do that? When one just sits there and thinks, it happens automatically. And actually, I don't think it's as incoherent as one may think. What did she try to say with the tree? Because somehow everything comes together in the end.

Virginia Woolf constructs the bridge between reality and our idle thoughts- and brings it to light. "How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, liftint it a little way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it..." Our thoughts manipulate reality in some way, and so, reality ceases to be cold, hard facts, but a creation of our imagination. And she goes on to say that, in fact, her made up reality is more real than actual "facts"."Indeed, now that I have fixed my eyes upon it, I feel that I have grasped a plank in the sea; I feel a satisfying sense of reality which at once turns the two Archbishops and the Lord High Chancellor to the shadows of shades. Here is something definite, something real." Throughout the story she tries to balance her thoughts and this real, definite mark on the wall. In the end, Woolf brings us back to "reality" and ends by saying that this actual mark was not a mark the whole time, but a snail. All of these thoughts, concentrating on this one thing; were they all worthless? And I think she already answered it through the symbol of the tree, that these happy thoughts keep on growing without being affected by reality. Our mind will constantly produce them, and soon, they will spill over beyond the looking glass into our existence consisting of "hard separate facts."

And so, I want to end with this:

"How shocking, and yet how wonderful it was to discover that these real things, Sunday luncheons, Sunday walks, country houses, and tablecloths were not entirely real, were indeed half phantoms, and the damnation which visited the disbeliever in them was only a sense of illegitimate freedom."

--
Published by Halcyon Classics Series

Night and Day by Virginia Woolf

So I got a Kindle, and therefore I can transfer all of the things I have highlighted right on my computer- without writing them down. This means a lot more quotes! ^_^

"A fine mist, the etherealized essence of the fog, hung visibly in the wide and rather empty space of the drawing-room, all silver where the candles were grouped on the tea-table, and ruddy again in the firelight."

Nature does not stop existing once we enter into a different realm that seeks to exclude it- but becomes a different form. Such as the fog, it transferred forms and colors.

"...fell into a pleasant dreamy state in which she seemed to be the companion of those giant men, of their own lineage, at any rate, and the insignificant present moment was put to shame."

When one dwells on the past, the present seems to ordinary and unexciting. And yet- the future brings so much promise. I loved how Katherine was so young and beautiful and still pondered over these great men. As if she forgot her own youth, to dwell on the past.

"...but Katharine only looked at him to wonder whether his face would not have come nearer the standard of her dead heroes if it had been adorned with side-whiskers."

Absolutely the first incident I have ever seen an author have a young person in bloom compare a living man to a dead ideal. She already had an ideal, and Ralph was expected to fit it. While Ralph on the other hand- created Katherine in his mind, based on her essence. Katherine created an ideal that is irrelevant to what Ralph could ever be.

"The desire to justify himself, which had been so urgent, ceased to torment him, and, as if released from constraint, so that they worked without friction or bidding, his faculties leapt forward and fixed, as a matter of course, upon the form of Katharine Hilbery. It was marvellous how much they found to feed upon, considering the destructive nature of Denham's criticism in her presence."

It is astounding how much abundance of imagination our mind can come up with when we are set upon embellishing someone with romantic thoughts. We create things that aren't really there.

"...she said, rather distantly, as if feeling her way among the phantoms of an unknown world."

"...occupied with her own thoughts. It was a habit that spoke of loneliness and a mind thinking for itself."

That struck me tremendously. For when one is in his own thoughts- he is not only independent in thought, but also lonely. That was the interesting part about Katherine: she was always in her mind, and yet, she suffered from loneliness, because she could not share her world with anyone.

"It passed through his mind that if he missed this chance of talking to Katharine, he would have to face an enraged ghost, when he was alone in his room again, demanding an explanation of his cowardly indecision."

The "demon" waiting at home. Goodness knows, I have had this happen to me so many times- when you know that you have failed in our proposed plan. The "logical" part of you does not care about your insecurities: it wants results.

"To walk with Katharine in the flesh would either feed that phantom with fresh food, which, as all who nourish dreams are aware, is a process that becomes necessary from time to time, or refine it to such a degree of thinness that it was scarcely serviceable any longer; and that, too, is sometimes a welcome change to a dreamer."

At this point- Ralph only views Katherine as a source of inspiration for his fantasies- "fresh food". He uses reality for his unreal version of Katherine, distorting the real to fit his desires.

"Being a frequent visitor to that world, she could find her way there unhesitatingly. If she had tried to analyze her impressions, she would have said that there dwelt the realities of the appearances which figure in our world; so direct, powerful, and unimpeded were her sensations there, compared with those called forth in actual life. There dwelt the things one might have felt, had there been cause; the perfect happiness of which here we taste the fragment; the beauty seen here in flying glimpses only. No doubt much of the furniture of this world was drawn directly from the past, and even from the England of the Elizabethan age. However the embellishment of this imaginary world might change, two qualities were constant in it. It was a place where feelings were liberated from the constraint which the real world puts upon them; and the process of awakenment was always marked by resignation and a kind of stoical acceptance of facts."

"And in five minutes she had filled the shell of the old dream with the flesh of life; looked with fire out of phantom eyes."

"How far she saw Denham, and how far she confused him with some hero of fiction, it would be hard to say. Literature had taken possession even of her memories."

But at the same time- he is doing the exact same thing, only Katherine is more dejected from Ralph. I love the fact that she cannot distinguish between what she read and reality- this shows how much she depends on her thought, and how much they take up her life- even her memories.

"If the best of one's feelings means nothing to the person most concerned in those feelings, what reality is left us?"

Part of our reality is for our feelings to be reciprocated back to us.

"The old romance which had warmed his days for him, the thoughts of Katharine which had painted every hour, were now made to appear foolish and enfeebled."

Were those hours wasted?

"All things had turned to ghosts; the whole mass of the world was insubstantial vapor, surrounding the solitary spark in his mind, whose burning point he could remember, for it burnt no more."

"...he had somehow divested the proceedings of all reality."

"...she found her mind uncomfortably full of different trains of thought. She started one and then another. They seemed even to take their color from the street she happened to be in."

Feelings and environment motif. Which I so enjoyed.

"I've lived almost entirely among delusions, and now I'm at the awkward stage of finding it out. I want another delusion to go on with."

"He lost his sense of all that surrounded him; all substantial things—the hour of the day, what we have done and are about to do, the presence of other people."

Romanticism to realism.

"The people in the street seemed to him only a dissolving and combining pattern of black particles; which, for the moment, represented very well the involuntary procession of feelings and thoughts which formed and dissolved in rapid succession in his own mind."

Nature is independent from everything else.

"Ah, but her romance wasn't THAT romance. It was a desire, an echo, a sound; she could drape it in color, see it in form, hear it in music, but not in words; no, never in words."

"...but how terrible sometimes the pause between the voice of one's dreams and the voice that comes from the object of one's dreams!"

Motif nature affecting feelings.

"The best of life is built on what we say when we're in love."

"The far-away look entirely lacked self-consciousness"

For some reason I thought this was incredibly beautiful- showing how far removed she was from reality.

"He could recall himself, of course, by a word or a movement—but why? She was happier thus. She needed nothing that he could give her. And for him, too, perhaps, it was best to keep aloof, only to know that she existed, to preserve what he already had—perfect, remote, and unbroken."

He encouraged her other world.

"An occasional man with a beard is interesting; he's detached; he lets me go my way, and we know we shall never meet again. Therefore, we are perfectly sincere—a thing not possible with one's friends."

Control what goes on in reality to sustain the unreal.

"He seemed to see that beneath the quiet surface of her manner, which was almost pathetically at hand and within reach for all the trivial demands of daily life, there was a spirit which she reserved or repressed for some reason either of loneliness or—could it be possible—of love."

It was in her loneliness that Katharine was unreserved.

"When you're gone I shall look out of that window and think of you. I shall waste the whole evening thinking of you. I shall waste my whole life, I believe."

"Was he not looking at something she had never shown to anybody? Was it not something so profound that the notion of his seeing it almost shocked her?"

"It was true that he had been happier out in the street, thinking of her, than now that he was in the same room with her."

"Because if you're in love with a vision, I believe that that's what I'm in love with."

He suffered from the same exact thing.

"we see each other only now and then—"

"Like lights in a storm—"

"In the midst of a hurricane,"

They indifferently examine their current situation, as if they weren't living it.

"...his strongest wish in the world was to be with her immediately, since every second he was away from her he imagined her slipping farther and farther from him into one of those states of mind in which he was unrepresented. He wished to dominate her, to possess her."

It was essential for him to dominate her mind, because that is the only way he could make himself known to her mind.

"The sounds were inarticulate; no one could have understood the meaning save themselves. As if the forces of the world were all at work to tear them asunder they sat, clasping hands, near enough to be taken even by the malicious eye of Time himself for a united couple, an indivisible unit."

"The moment of exposure had been exquisitely painful—the light shed startlingly vivid. She had now to get used to the fact that some one shared her loneliness. The bewilderment was half shame and half the prelude to profound rejoicing."

"I was thinking of you—yes, I swear it. Always of you, but you take such strange shapes in my mind. You've destroyed my loneliness.

"But he persuaded her into a broken statement, beautiful to him, charged with extreme excitement as she spoke of the dark red fire, and the smoke twined round it, making him feel that he had stepped over the threshold into the faintly lit vastness of another mind, stirring with shapes, so large, so dim, unveiling themselves only in flashes, and moving away again into the darkness, engulfed by it."

This was their ultimate connection, they could enter each others minds.

They lapsed gently into silence, traveling the dark paths of thought side by side towards something discerned in the distance which gradually possessed them both.

How they came to find themselves walking down a street with many lamps, corners radiant with light, and a steady succession of motor-omnibuses plying both ways along it, they could neither of them tell;

They lost themselves together.

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I really enjoyed reading this story- something I haven't been able to do for awhile. Again, I am usually very judgmental when I attempt to read a female author, which of course is very sexist of me. But just like George Sand, Virginia Woolf pleasantly surprised me. She presents very delicate concepts- with a feminine touch. I guess sometimes, a woman's view can be very different from a man's- creating a very interesting perspective. What I enjoyed most from this story was the progression between Katherine and Ralph's so-called love. At first, they started out as very uncertain of their "attraction". As Ralph developed an idealistic version of Katherine (which had little to do with her in reality), Katherine tried to pull away from him mentally. The more dejected she became, and the more he obsessed over this sacred Katherine, their relations seemed to go downhill. And yet- somehow their minds "reconciled". She unconsciously wanted his presence, as he brought his idealistic image to a more down-to-earth version of Katherine. What struck me the most was that Ralph realized her "hidden self" and brought it out of her, even if she did not want it. Hereby, he crushed her loneliness, and so she was indebted to him emotionally. They each slightly needed the others presence, until they realized that, perhaps, they were in "love".

I also enjoyed the marvelous descriptions between the environment and the character. The most striking scene, as I even see it now, was Ralph's most disappointing moment, by the lake with the fog... Creates such a depressing scene, and yet mysterious at the same time. One can feel his loneliness and despair.

What made Katherine transition from her imagined "hero" to have Ralph incorporated in her daydreams? I think it was because he guessed her inner self, a self that she had refused to share with anyone else. Yes, that may sound extremely cliche but she "had the appearance of some one disarmed of all defenses and Ralph likened her to a wild bird just settling with wings trembling to fold themselves within reach of his hand". He had "caught" her, by her own will. In a sense, she had to be dominated, for she was so dominating in her own world. And so, he broke through her loneliness. That is something that automatically leads to trust and friendship. Then, she pretty much gave herself up to him (mentally), and that was the final step for her to fully trust and love him.

The scene where they walked out onto the street by Mary's house was absolutely stupendous. Woolf portrays such a dejection from reality, such delirium, that they do not even notice anything save their own worlds. I think this is essential for the meaning of the book, because the reader can see how much of each other they needed, to share a realm that in reality does not exist. This realm makes everything pale in comparison.

They both lived on delusions, and so, fused both of their worlds together. They had an extreme understanding between each other, without even using much of their words.

Such mental connections rarely exist.

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The picture reminds me of my favorite scene in this book. I imagined him looking up at the glaring street lamp, and then seeing the rushing, cold water.

Pub by Kindle Version of Night and Day?