Save the clock tower!

Current book: Mrs. Dalloway
Pages read: 66 - 130

Not too much to report today. We've discovered that Peter has sort of wasted his life in India and is trying to get a divorce for his married mistress, which is why he's in England. Septimus and Rezia go to see a new doctor, who, instead of ignoring Septimus's clear mental illness, says that he needs to be committed to a rest home in the country. Richard Dalloway has lunch with Lady Bruton, a friend of the Dalloways, but Clarissa is not invited, and so feels rejected. Elizabeth and Ms. Kilman go off on an errand together, and the interaction between Ms. Kilman and Clarissa makes it clear that the two loathe each other: Clarissa because Ms. Kilman is stealing her daughter and is self-righteous about her religion and her causes, and Ms. Kilman because she think Clarissa is useless and represents the decadent and indolent rich, but is still unable to resist being jealous of her.

I'll save more style discussion until the end, but I do want to point out that as the day progresses, Woolf marks the passage of time by noting the chimes of Big Ben sounding across the city, and she consistently describes them as "leaden circles dissolving in the air." That is a perfect, illustrative, succinct description of clock bells ringing, and I love it.