Virginia Woolf's To the LighthouseThe most miraculously beautiful fiction is always true. Great authors have an uncanny insight into the human experience; no matter the frame, the picture is true. We readers reach a sentence, close our eyes and recognize insightful genius has put the essence of our feelings into words--unearthing a bond we may not have known existing between us and all humanity. Look at this description of reading: "...so that when he looked up...it was not to see anything; it was to pin down some thought more exactly. That done, his mind flew back again and he plunged into his reading." Marvelous. Isn't that a reader's experience?
The joy of discovering what that quotation represents—the joy of reading—is repeated over and over again in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, a novel so intuitive and true that it moves me with its powerfully charged visions of the way we live our lives--both singularly and as part of the whole. It is uplifting and positive despite the fact that we understand life is filled with rough seas one must navigate on the way to the Lighthouse.
The novel is divided into three intense sections. The first, "The Window" introduces us to a range of characters and their thoughts presented as stream of consciousness, one character's feelings colliding and bouncing off another's. We're introduced not only to the many people vacationing at the Ramsay's summer home off the coast of Scotland but also to the symbols--the lighthouse and Lily Briscoe's painting, for instance. The intellectual clashes between emotional and scientific responses, the divergent approaches to life by men and women and by generations, and other glimpses into the human experience appear.
The second section is entitled "Time Passes," and it does. Inevitably. Time and nature wear on the house and on the people. Things expected and unexpected occur as time marches forward, yet in many ways, things remain the same. Don't they, though?
The last section, "The Lighthouse" profoundly ties together all the strands and fills in the spaces that separate people from one another. The shining beam that stretches out to offer the goal of safe harbor is in the sight of each of us. This revelation is eye-opening and potentially life-altering.
The joy of discovering what that quotation represents—the joy of reading—is repeated over and over again in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, a novel so intuitive and true that it moves me with its powerfully charged visions of the way we live our lives--both singularly and as part of the whole. It is uplifting and positive despite the fact that we understand life is filled with rough seas one must navigate on the way to the Lighthouse.
The novel is divided into three intense sections. The first, "The Window" introduces us to a range of characters and their thoughts presented as stream of consciousness, one character's feelings colliding and bouncing off another's. We're introduced not only to the many people vacationing at the Ramsay's summer home off the coast of Scotland but also to the symbols--the lighthouse and Lily Briscoe's painting, for instance. The intellectual clashes between emotional and scientific responses, the divergent approaches to life by men and women and by generations, and other glimpses into the human experience appear.
The second section is entitled "Time Passes," and it does. Inevitably. Time and nature wear on the house and on the people. Things expected and unexpected occur as time marches forward, yet in many ways, things remain the same. Don't they, though?
The last section, "The Lighthouse" profoundly ties together all the strands and fills in the spaces that separate people from one another. The shining beam that stretches out to offer the goal of safe harbor is in the sight of each of us. This revelation is eye-opening and potentially life-altering.
All of this occurs as characters quest for a kind of immortality--through creating
memorable moments, through work, or through art. What is the answer?
memorable moments, through work, or through art. What is the answer?Virginia Woolf was a mover and shaker in her own time, but what she has to say is timeless.
To the Lighthouse is a perfect vacation companion. I found some of her sentences so breathtakingly beautiful, I had to close my eyes and let the words swirl in my brain allowing myself to take the moment to enjoy them. It's not often that life gives us enough time to breathe deeply like that.
To the Lighthouse is a perfect vacation companion. I found some of her sentences so breathtakingly beautiful, I had to close my eyes and let the words swirl in my brain allowing myself to take the moment to enjoy them. It's not often that life gives us enough time to breathe deeply like that.
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