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Holmes' Homes

         Out of the many characters in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, one that stood out to me was Dr. Holmes, the "villain" of the novel.           The choice of his name is very much an intentional choice by Woolf. In her essay, "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown," she comments on a Doctor from Aurthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes:  " For instance, in this article he says that Dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes is real to him: to me Dr. Watson is a sack stuffed with straw, a dummy, a figure of fun." (Woolf). She pokes fun at the beloved Victorian sidekick, challenging the status quo. Many of Watson's features show up in Dr. Holmes' character. They are both medical doctors, classic Victorian gentlemen, and end up having intellectual superiors (Sherlock and Bradshaw). Virginia Woolf's own critique of these attributes may be reflected in Holmes' role in the book.          Throughout the novel, Dr. Holmes represen...
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The Great Tie Dissertation

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by  Linden           Nicholas Baker's The Mezzanine, in many ways, is a mixed bag to read. At some times, the endless digressions feel excruciating and stagnant. Yet, Baker also disperses many gems through the intricate footnotes. His indictment of air dryers, his love for perforations, and his bathroom experiences he maybe should have kept to himself could all make the list. For me, the most memorable digression was his long footnote on page 27 about doorknobs and neckties. I found that this section went beyond trivial observations and hinted at some more moving ideas.          Although it is one of the longest digressions in the novel, we are initially sucked in just by the mention of a holding a doorknob while pondering broken shoelaces: "I paused in my doorway, looking out at the office, with my hand resting on the concave metal doorknob,1..." (Baker 27). With just the mention of the word "doorknob", we warp into a 1.5...
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