Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

What can I say? Perfect, inimitable, completely unique, bold, daring, touching, just everything. It's been about five years since I first read this, so I felt it was time to do so again. I always have to read Virginia Woolf much slower than I read anyone else, her writing is so incredibly dense and poetic. It makes me think of a medieval tapestry, where the closer you look, the more details you discover, until those details expand into their own worlds. I often think of Oscar Wilde's quote about the 'mystery of moods' and I think Woolf is really the mistress of that mystery, if anyone is. She can capture every facet of life in the most ordinary events. I'm glad there's something in the world that never disappoints me, and reading this is always a profoundly thrilling experience. My only complaint, and this was something I didn't pick up on last time I read it (when I was about eighteen), is that Woolf is, like Mrs. Dalloway, 'at heart a snob'. Her portrayal of the lower classes (especially the servants) is not very well-done and strikes an upsetting artificial note. But she also has a healthy distaste for many aristocratic pretensions, which I appreciate.