To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf
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Book Reviews of To the Lighthouse
Book Review: Brilliant and Entertaining
Summary: 5 Stars
Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was a well known writer, critic, feminist, and publisher. This was her fifth novel.
As background information, I read her first novel "The Voyage Out" published in 1915, skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop, Night and Day from 1919 - and then read "Jacob's Room," her third, then went on and read "Mrs. Dalloway," her fourth, and next read "To The Lighthouse," etc. Also, I read some of Woolf's non-fiction.
"The Voyage Out" is simple and straightforward work and it might remind the reader of a Jane Austen novel, but it set on a ship and then at a remote location. It is over 400 pages long, and has an Austen theme. After her second novel - which did not do very well - Woolf decided to be more risky and creative with the next book. She changed her style and approach to the novel and Woolf uses the stream of consciousness technique to bring a sense of the chaos and shortness of a young man's life around the time of World War I, Jacob's life, i.e.: from the pandemonium of Jacob's life as portrayed by Woolf through the use of the stream of the consciousness technique, we eventually have clarity in the novel. She carries this writing style on into the similarly chaotic story in the novel "Mrs. Dalloway."
This is her third novel using her stream of consciousness technique and she does it in a very dramatic fashion. The story is centered on the life of Mrs. Ramsay, a beautiful woman in her early fifties, and her older husband, and their eight children, plus other guests and neighbors and domestic help all at a beach house somewhere in Scotland on a warm summer day. Her husband is an academic and a bit remote. Mrs. Ramsay is more down to earth, and she is mostly loved and admired by all.
As in the novel "Jacob's Room" the reader is left dangling as Woolf moves from character to character, giving the reader glimpses of their inner emotions. It is hard to determine what Woolf is doing and where she is going. But what she seems to be doing is celebrating a moment in a life. This is done very effectively with the stream of consciousness technique, and very dramatically as the story proceeds. The prose is brilliant and awe inspiring in some spots, and we see the genius of Woolf.
To say a lot more would ruin the story for the reader, but most will appreciate the way the story unfolds, and it unfolds very dramatically after a seemingly slow and complex start. The change has an effect on the reader - or so I found. Some think that it is Woolf's finest work and it would be hard to find fault with that assessment. She takes her ideas from "Jacob's Room" and applies them to a more complicated and dramatic setting at a family get together at a beach house, and it works.
This is a must read novel.
Book Review: 1 Stars
"To the Lighthouse" is a rambling monotony, a lifeless droning. No matter how loudly the literary lemmings scream, that will always be so. Woolf opens "To the Lighthouse" with a very uninteresting sentence and a "So what" bit of exposition; both come to nothing, promising us little and failing to deliver even that. The story was rambling, incoherent and boring in the extreme. Woolf jumped from head to head, thought to thought, as if each threatened to bite off her foot as she landed. The "story" (and calling "To the Lighthouse" a story is a huge generosity) is painfully slow. So slow, in fact, that you come to "The End" and still nothing has developed.The book is filled with poorly written exposition that not only stops the story dead, but takes us completely away from it time and again. Each sentence starts with a jerk, wanders around, twists back upon itself, spirals away from us, then trips its way back to the starting point. Woolf seemed to have no idea about what it was that she really wanted to say and no ability to state any of it succinctly or coherently. Continuing in this trend, Woolf keeps the dialogue brief in the extreme and does it for no other reason than for her to run on and on and on and . . . with her exposition, using those miles long sentences that the reader is PRAYING will end, but that just keep muddling along, belaboring point after senseless point. The poor woman had no talent at all when it came to simply telling a straightforward tale and making it interesting to anyone but herself.
Little of the book has anything to do with the lighthouse, or with going there. It's more about the inner workings and complexities of a small group of people. Kind of like taking a series of snapshots of the group, then going one by one and telling what is in each of their heads. As we go through the various bits of these snapshots, now and then Woolf tosses out the seeds of something interesting, then immediately stamps the life out of them before they can sprout into something greater. Included in these are some tantalizing crumbs of internal monologue, but Woolf can't even stay focused on that. She wonders through each character's personal musings just the same way that she wonders through the main story, never allowing one thought to fully form before rambling away from it. This is the story's real tragedy, because she turns some marvelous phrases, but loses them in the tale's incoherence.
The shrieking chant of "but it's EXPERIMENTAL fiction!" cannot excuse the many and severe shortcomings. Bad writing is bad writing, no matter what feeble attempts at justification are made to hide that fact.
Book Review: To the Lighthouse
Summary: 3 Stars
To the Lighthouse is a novel about a boy named James Ramsay who is growing up during World War I. "The Window" opens up by telling us how James longs to go to the lighthouse that is just across the sea. He hates his father because he takes joy in being rude to his eight children and his wife, Mrs. Ramsay who would not say a mean word about anyone. The Ramsays' house a number of guests at their home in Hebrides. Mr. Tansley is a present day "understudy" of Mr. Ramsay who is a metaphysical philosopher who doesn't think his profession is impacting anyone. Mr. Tansley worships Mr. Ramsay because anything he says, Mr. Tansley is always backing him up no matter whose business he's intruding upon.Lily Briscoe is also a guest at the home. She is a painter who like Mr. Ramsay feels her artistic abilities are getting her nowhere in life. She admires Mrs. Ramsay and starts a portrait of her, however never finishes it. Mrs. Ramsay introduced her to William Bankes who was a friend of the family. Her plan was to get them to marry one another but it did not work out that way. She did manage to arrange one wedding which was between Paul Rayley and Minta Doyle.
During the next chapter, "Time Passes", World War I spreads over Europe. The Ramsay's eldest son is killed in battle. Also one of their daughters, Prue died from a birth defect. During this chapter, Mrs. Ramsay passes away suddenly. James is left in a tough situation. He has to cope with the loss of his mother, but also come to the fact that his abusive father is the only one left. Through all of this misfortune, the summer house in the Hebrides is no longer visited.
Ten years pass and Mr. Ramsay decides to take James and James' sister, Cam to the lighthouse. James has turned into the kind of man that his father is, he is very moody and stubborn. When they get close to the shoreline to the lighthouse, bonding between son and father occurs. Mr. Ramsay is proud of his son because of person he came to be. Just as they arrive at the shore, Lily, the aspiring painter finishes one of her paintings.
I enjoyed this book overall. It was slow in the beginning but after the first few pages, I really came to enjoy reading it. It made me realize my life's worth even though my life has yet to start. No matter where it takes me, I now know to never give up and be persistent with what I like to do. If I continue on that path even with the bumps along the way, by the end my life with be put in perspective for me.
Book Review: To the Lighthouse
Summary: 5 Stars
To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf, is about the internal states of its characters: their sensations, emotions, thoughts, and motivations. Events occur in the outside world, but the real action in the book takes place in interior worlds. Woolf mostly focuses on two women: Mrs. Ramsay, who finds happiness, of a sort, in marriage and Lily Briscoe, who finds happiness, of a sort, alone.
The action in the first part of the book, "The Window," takes place during part of a day and an evening as the Ramsay family and some of their friends and acquaintances gather for a dinner.
In the second part of the book, "Time Passes," the last light is turned out, ten years pass, and, parenthetically, the reader learns of some major developments: Mrs. Ramsay and two of her children die and a family friend becomes famous. In her extended rumination on time, Woolf compares time to a wheel that thoughtlessly crushes us. "Time Passes" features some of the most beautiful writing in the book:
"So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming on the roof 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. ... But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of a wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers."
In the last part of the book, "The Lighthouse," a few of the characters introduced in "The Window" gather again. Several of them undertake an expedition they planned, but did not take, ten years earlier: sailing to a lighthouse far offshore. Meanwhile, Lily Briscoe paints in the garden, amateurishly. Again, the real action takes place inside the characters, and this interior action has less to do with events in the outside world than with memories and associations from past events.
Book Review: Illumination
Summary: 5 Stars
Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse" can be a difficult read, with its highly stylized stream-of-consciousness prose, but it is a rewarding one in the end, even if it seems that nothing much has happened over the course of the novel. Despite taking place within a set period of time, from 1910-1920, the conflicts and themes presented transcend far beyond the scope of the novel. "To The Lighthouse" is a unique standard bearer for early modern literature.
To say that "To The Lighthouse" is a tale about the Ramsay family would be selling the book short. While this family and their experiences are the core of the novel, Woolf delves into some heavy examination of the roles that males and females are meant to play in society. Mrs. Ramsay is beloved by all for her extraordinary beauty, still evident in her fifties, but she is tied down by a demanding husband, eight very different children, and her own need to oversee every facet of people's lives. Mr. Ramsay, a selfish philosopher, depends upon his wife to build his ego, no matter the expense or the damage caused to his children. This examination of their lives takes place at their summer home on the Isle of Skye in Scotland with their various guests. Woolf begins by painting a loving and generous portrait of the Ramsays (modeled upon her own parents) before moving the action of the novel ten years into the future after the family has experienced a few catastrophes that they struggle to get over. The novel ends with the perspective of the outsiders, trying to make sense of what has been lost and what it means to life as a whole.
Virgina Woolf was an exceptionally talented writer, able to make mundane details vivid and able to capture the intricacies of family life and marriage without seeming sentimental. Her prose is poetic, following tangential thoughts to complete her circuitous paragraphs. Woolf allows her readers insight into not only one family, but into situations that concern everyone; mortality, love, family, and one's legacy. "To The Lighthouse" is a wonderful testament to Woolf's legacy as one of the premier authors of modern literature.