Books that feel like this one

The Inferno by Dante

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOErZuzZpS8

>>8668236
Woolf's other books, namely Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando

YouTube: We All Complete composed by Rachel Portman. Too lazy for URL.

To the Lighthouse is in my all time top 3. Something that's often overlooked is her autobiographical essay A Sketch of the Past. It's written in her characteristic impressionistic, time-fluid style. It's gorgeous and a fairly quick read!

>>8668512
but I haven't read The Waves yet. How does it compare to, say, Dalloway/TTL?

>>8668516
To the Lighthouse is the most "literary" of the three. It's the most linear, it's the most focused, it's prose and narrative is the most consistent, and it's tone, themes, setting, and psychological examinations feel more homogenic, like they all fit the same tone of the book. It's a favorite here, almost unanimously. Very melancholic, very quiet and vulnerable.

Mrs. Dalloway, in my opinion, can be more dry than TtL, but at its most profound it cuts deeper than TtL. Same for the prose, both better and worse, and the characters as well. It's existential and psychological themes are darker; solitude, solipsism, suicide, loneliness, unrequited love, the feeble struggle of existing as a woman in a man's world, the struggle of communication between humans. She cast a wide net, and it's not nearly as controlled as TtL. Better than Lighthouse at its best, but worse than Lighthouse at it's most dry.

I haven't yet read The Waves, but it's her most poetic and experimental. Also a common favorite.

Comfiest book, OP.

>>8668622
Hmm, it's interesting that you say Mrs. Dalloway is 'better than Lighthouse at its best, but worse than Lighthouse at it's most dry'. TtL contains all the themes you list with the exception of suicide, but even that is counterbalanced by the abundance of death in Time Passes. The correspondence between the two is extensive-- 'the struggle of communication between humans' being one of my favorites (and the idea that consciousness acts as both a unifying and an isolating force). I can't really say one is deeper than the other, but TtL was more poetic too me. I love your descriptions though.

Lol OP here, I wasn't trying to spark up a Woolf discussion, just get recs similar to that. Thanks anyways guys, appreciate it.

>>8668236
Proust, particularly Swann's Way.

Many of the chapters of Ulysses are very comfy, especially Bloom's first few chapters and "Ithaca" towards the end. Great descriptions of domestic life and the thoughts that go along with it.

There's a similar type of comfiness in Portrait of the Artist too, but it only lasts for a few paragraphs at most.

>>8668236
Cannery Row?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAqfz-MYSlo&list=PLwg9i64Jhnpcihe0rz8Kyo7V_-HjvepK3

but the waves aren't comfy to read, it's a pretty sad book overall