I just spent

the entire day reading Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," which, I discovered, is a complete abomination of a book. Utterly terrible - not the least bit engaging. A few paragraphs were well-written - I did my share of underlining bits I enjoyed, sketching a star here and there, an exclamation point on occasion. However, it felt as if I had listened (and actually paid attention) to an entire album and only enjoyed a couple verses. No redeeming melodies or choruses, just the occasional turn of phrase that jumped out at me.

The story begins with a whimper, continues like a prolonged, sickly wheeze, and finally fades out into a little more than nothing (for at least "nothing" in and of itself is an end; "Mrs. Dalloway" can barely claim to possess such.)

I know it's highly pretentious of a young writer to criticize one of the most highly regarded authors, but someone's gotta do it - I mean, she did suffer from bouts of mental illness. "Mrs. Dalloway," I suspect, was a manifestation of said illness - a manifestation the world could do without and I sure as Hell could do without writing a paper about.