Good.

Posted: February 19th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Mrs Dalloway., Virginia Woolf |

A passage from the inimitable Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf:

So she sat.  She got up, blundered off among the little tables, rocking slightly from side to side, and somebody came after her with her petticoat, and she lost her way, and was hemmed in by trunks specially prepared for taking to India; next among the accouchement sets, and baby linen; through all the commodities of the world, perishable and permanent, hams, drugs, flowers, stationery, variously smelling, now sweet, now sour she lurched; saw herself thus lurching with her hat askew, very red in the face, full length in a looking-glass; and at last came out into the street.

I love the alliteration of “perishable and permanent” followed by two single-syllable words, “hams, drugs,” which contrast, in their specificity, so nicely with the broad statement of  “all the commodities in the world.”  I also love the complicated syntax, how we get “she lurched” at the end of the long breathless sentence, rather than at the beginning.  I bet those rule-loving teachers who prohibit their students from writing scenes in which a character eyes himself in the mirror are biting their tongues right about now…

I’m a sucker for a list like this.   And what a way to move a character through space!

Let’s try for this kind of greatness, okay?  Okay.

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