Mrs. Dalloway, Again

The change of seasons has hit hard here at Fernham and the fatigue is intense. Ten hours of sleep sounds just about right. So, after two days home with a slightly peaked, deeply whiny, and yet still much beloved toddler, what passes for getting back to work is not very impressive.

As I procrastinate my way toward approaching this essay on teaching Mrs. Dalloway, I’ve been reading the new edition. I s-l-o-w-l-y read my friend Mark’s general introduction to the new Harcourt edtion and now, with equally painstaking care, am reading Bonnie Kime Scott’s introduction to the novel.

Savoring these familiar details, I see that in reading, I’m not that unlike the beloved toddler herself: “Tell me again about how her mom died when she was thirteen; tell me the one about how Bloomsbury started again; tell me what you think about her marriage to Leonard; tell me again about starting the Hogarth Press.” It’s intoxicating. I read about the deceased Thoby Stephen’s college friends gathering at the Bloomsbury house of his sisters, Vanessa and Virginia, to talk and I hunger to start my own salon. It happens every time.

Finding Woolf again, and again, and again, I feel boring and lucky. Mostly lucky.