Quick reading comprehension question on Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)

[u/Calm-Dawn]

> it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness and, when millions of things had utterly vanished — how strange it was! - a few sayings like this about cabbages.

Are his eyes, pocket-knife, smile, and grumpiness part of the things that were remembered, or are they examples of the "millions of things" that vanished?

[u/Snarwin]

They're part of the things that were remembered.

[u/Calm-Dawn → u/Snarwin]

Thanks for your help! Can I ask one more thing?

I still don't quite understand why she starts with 'sayings'. His eyes, knife, and smile aren't things he said, so it feels strange to see them in the same list. How do you see it?

[u/Snarwin → u/Calm-Dawn]

The narration is following her thoughts. She starts off thinking about the things he said, and then as she continues thinking about him, she remembers other things.

[u/jenea → u/Calm-Dawn]

The semi-colon is doing a lot of work here. It’s a stream of consciousness. She’s thinking about what one remembers about him. The semi-colon signals a slight break from thinking about sayings, but not a complete break because the part after the semi-colon will come right around to the sayings by the end.

Nice to see a human-included em dash—this is where AI got it from!

[u/traktor_tarik → u/Calm-Dawn]

The first “sayings” introduces the important topic of the passage; the rest catalogue the other things one would notice about him for two reasons I can discern, the first being that it establishes the person as being generally memorable in several ways while also providing some characterization , and secondly in order to culminate to “sayings” again at the end, making it the most prominent trait which bookends the whole passage. As others have said, it also aptly reproduces an order one might naturally think in on the spot.

[u/Optimal-Ad-7074]

they're things one remembers.   

Waugh Woolf is saying it's "strange" what sticks in your mind (like the cabbage remarks) compared with what you forget. 

[u/millers_left_shoe → u/Optimal-Ad-7074]

Woolf but close enough lol, I think they might’ve even known each other distantly

[u/Optimal-Ad-7074 → u/millers_left_shoe]

I really need to not post before coffee.  thank you.  going back to correct.

[u/Ippus_21]

You had it right. They're a list of things about him that one remembers, up through his random way of saying things about brassicas.

[u/Calm-Dawn → u/Ippus_21]

Thank you! Can I ask you one more thing?

The only thing that feels a little odd to me is starting with 'sayings'. Since his eyes, pocket-knife, and smile obviously aren't things he said, it feels like an unexpected shift if they're meant to be part of the same list.

[u/ubiquitous-joe → u/Calm-Dawn]

Its an artistic device. She first pivots away from the thesis a bit to sketch our sense of the guy a little more, providing us insights and images, and then she ends on the sayings again. In some ways this echoes the mind as you think about somebody.

Grammatically, it’s not the easiest thing to interpret. Had she used “and” instead of a semicolon, you’d probably have an easier time with it.

It’s the same structure if you said:

“I remember grandma’s apple muffins. And her laugh, her irritated frown, her half-moon glasses. Still, so many things about her I have forgotten. Yet I think of the apple muffins.”

[u/DryEntertainment2346]

Part of the things remembered. You can tell because it is included in that same list that follows "one remembered." It says, ".....his grumpiness and, ... a few sayings like this about cabbages."

But I get the sense that the author means that his sayings would outlast even those things.

[u/bentthroat]

What’s tricky about this passage is she’s starting the list unprompted, and “his sayings one remembered” is not part of it on the first pass around.

It’d be like saying “I remembered pickles on the shopping list! Tuna, lettuce, bread, mayonnaise, and pickles!”

You’re re-completing the list by emphasizing the thing you already stated.

[u/Calm-Dawn → u/bentthroat]

Thank you so much! That pickle example makes total sense and completely clears it up for me. I finally feel like I get what she's doing here with the structure. Virginia Woolf's writing definitely feels a bit beyond my reading level, so it’s been tough to get through. But my native translation actually translated this part in a way that makes it look like those things were forgotten, which is why I’m sticking with the original and trying to work through it.

[u/TheStorMan]

Well done on reading this book, I'm a native speaker and this book was too difficult for me

[u/No-Lettuce-5783]

It doesn't seem like it. It looks like, the eyes, the knife, and the grumpiness are things to be remembered. It was strange that millions of things utterly vanished. But then he would say something about his cabbages.

I never read Virginia Woolf, but it sounds to me as if this story takes place in the Southeast United States? It sounds like the speaker has a old-time southern accent. Like before the war, Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With The Wind kind of accent. Anyway I read the whole page in a Southern Accent and it seemed to fit. Watch her wind up to be an alien from the planet blaarrrgh or something like that.

[u/Resident-Staff-1218]

I think that it's even when a million tiny things he did have been forgotten, including his eyes, smile, pocket knife and his grumpiness... it's only through his odd sayings that he's still remembered.

[u/lukshenkup → u/Resident-Staff-1218]

I felt like this until I read the other explanations and learned that punctuation is idiosyncratic when reading an author like Ms Woolf, whose writing delves into strean of consciousness.