Book Review: To the Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse


by


Virginia Woolf


About the Book
(Barnes and Noble)

The novel is one of Woolf's most successful and accessible experiments in the stream-of-consciousness style. The three sections of the book take place between 1910 and 1920 and revolve around various members of the Ramsay family during visits to their summer residence on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. A central motif of the novel is the conflict between the feminine and masculine principles at work in the universe.

With her emotional, poetic frame of mind, Mrs. Ramsay represents the female principle, while Mr. Ramsay, a self-centered philosopher, expresses the male principle in his rational point of view. Both are flawed by their limited perspectives. A painter and friend of the family, Lily Briscoe, is Woolf's vision of the androgynous artist who personifies the ideal blending of male and female qualities. Her successful completion of a painting that she has been working on since the beginning of the novel is symbolic of this unification. -- Merriam Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

My thoughts

This is my second adventure with Virginia Woolf. My first experience “Mrs. Dalloway” was quite difficult and I did not enjoy it.

I was determined to give “To the Lighthouse” a fair chance, so to prepare for reading this book I read the chapter about Virginia Woolf from the book Modernist Fiction by Randall Stevenson. This book was helpful and informative about Ms. Woolf’s distinctive style of writing, “ . . . in much of Woolf's work, subjective experience forms the whole substance of the novel, but interior monologue, rather than stream of consciousness, is the appropriate term for the style in Woolf's writing generally.” It was helpful for me to read this chapter to understand the way this book was written. To me she did not write a “story” as much as an exploration of thought through fictional characters.

I also studied from “spark notes” as I read. The chapter summaries and other notes helped me to figure out the sequence of events and the importance of those events to the characters. It was also helpful in keeping track of the characters as Ms. Woolf likes to fill her books with people. Interpretations of symbols and passages were also very helpful.

Even with all this help I still had a lot of trouble with this book. This style of writing makes me feel out of control and disconnected. I can’t overcome the urge to define the story and gather it in. That aside I did find myself enjoying portions of “To the Lighthouse”. I identified with the lead character Mrs. Ramsey on a personal level. We are of an age, she has eight children-I have five. I would get lost and confused and wonder what was going on—then Mrs. Ramsey would ground me helping me to locate myself in the sequence of events.

For me the big discovery about Virginia Woolf was finding that I could not expect a traditional story—but an exploration of thoughts stimulated by a series of events and biased by the author's personal experiences.

I found this excerpt in "To the Lighthouse" that describes how I feel about Ms. Woolf's writing style, "the words became symbols, wrote themselves all over the grey-green walls.  If only she could put them together, she felt, write them out in some sentence, then she would have got at the truth of things. (location 2490 e-book)

It has been interesting, but I still can’t say that I like reading Virginia Woolf.

Here is a sampling of Mrs. Ramsey's thoughts that I identified with:

[the children] came to her, naturally, since she was a woman, all day long with this and that; one wanting this, another that; the children were growing up; she often felt she was nothing but a sponge sopped full of human emotions.  (location 546 e-book)

[Mr. Ramsey] must be assured that he too lived in the heart of life; was needed; she assured him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by her laugh, her poise, her competence that it was real.  (location 644 e-book)

Why, she asked, pressing her chin on James's head, should they grow up so fast?  (location 1005 e-book) 

A tenpenny tea set made Cam [daughter] happy for days.  She heard [the children] stamping and crowing on the floor above her head the moment they awoke.  They came bustling along the passage  Then the door sprang open and in they came, fresh as roses,   (location 1008 e-book)

I also experienced a bit of melancholy after reading this book.  My father passed away 5 years ago.  The grief was terrible to experience and I miss him a great deal.  I liked this poetic description of grief as it enters the hearts and lives of the Ramsey's.

a downpouring of immense darkness began.  Nothing, it seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which, creeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers.  Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely anything left of body or mind by which one could say, "This is he" or "This is she."  (location 2158 e-book)

 After completing this book I felt that the first part of the book was actually a rememberance of one grand day in the lives of the Ramsey's when everybody was well and happy and their mother was the queen of their lives.  I gathered that from the moment that Ms. Woolf states that "Mrs. Ramsey turned upon the stairs and looked like the queen she was".   After Mrs. Ramsey dies the book takes on an air of grieving.  I love the descriptions of the house in its state of disrepair and emptiness--"It only wants human habitation".

What people had shed and left--a pair of shoes, a shooting cap, some faded skirts and coats in wardrobes--those alone kept the human shape and in the emptiness indicated how once they were filled and animated; how once hands were busy with hooks and buttons; how once the looking-glass had held a face; had held a world hollowed out in which a figure turned, a hand flashed, the door opened, in came children rushing and tumbling; and went out again. (location 2211 e-book) 

The place was gone to rack and ruin.  Only the Lighthouse beam entered the rooms for a moment, sent its sudden stare over bed and wall in the darkness of winter, looked [on] with equanimity. (location 2367 e-book)

Following the death of Mrs. Ramsey the story takes a break and picks up again 10 years later.  There is no center character at this point--just the rambling points of view from fellows affected by the life of Mrs. Ramsey, as if her going has left them in a state of confusion with no direction to their lives.

The threads of the story pick up with Mr. Ramsey, his son James and daughter Cam returning to the Island to take the trip out to see the lighthouse.  The now grown children have no idea why they must do this only that there father demands it.  Mr. Ramsey in my mind is determined to fulfill his wifes desire to take James to the lighthouse.  Lily Briscoe also returns to finish the painting she began of Mrs. Ramsey so many years ago. 

The final chapters of the story rotate between the happenings on the beach as Lily reflects on the life of Mrs. Ramsey, eventually recieves a vision of how the painting should look and finishes the work--and the events that take place in the boat as the family finally arrives at the Lighthouse.

from the boat:  "Well done!" [spoken by Mr. Ramsey] James had steered them like a born sailor.  There! Cam thought, addressing herself silently to James.  You've got it at last.  For she knew that  this was what James had been wanting, and she knew that now he had got it he was so pleased that he would not look at her or at his father or at anyone.  There he sat with his hand on the tiller sitting bolt upright, looking rather sulky and frowning slightly.  He was so pleased that he was not going to let anybody share a grain of his pleasure.  His father had praised him.  They must think that he was perfectly indifferent.  But you've got it now, Cam thought. (e-book location 3514)

Back on shore Lily has a feeling accompanied by a thought:  "He has landed," she said aloud.  "It is finished."

There it was--her picture.  Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines runing up and across, its attempt at something.  It would be hung in the attics, she thought.  But what did that matter? she asked herself, . . . It was done; it was finished.  Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.(e-book location 3561)

So the book ends with the characters feeling satisfied that they have given Mrs. Ramsey what she desired of them.

I read this book as part of the "woolf in winter" reading group

An online discussion will be held Friday January 29

hosted by Emily

this book is part of my e-library on my kindle

Book #4

Challenge 7: Break A Prejudice

We all have reading prejudices--authors, genres. or even publishers we don't like. For this challenge, think of a reading prejudice you have and then find a book that is an example of this type of book. Read the book and then write about the reading prejudice you had BEFORE you read the book and how reading the book either changed your prejudice or reinforced it.