Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
To the Lighthouse pours over me, takes me in, cools my spirit. I come to Virginia Woolf for sympathy and plunge myself into the waves of her world, conspiring with the blunders and satisfactions of her people, but only for a moment. Just as soon as the words touch me, they steam away, leaving behind only vaporous phantoms of a house, a garden, marriage, family, waves, and a lighthouse. I don’t remember them, only their outline. But actually, the story is reality, and I am the phantom. My writing is a pose; Woolf’s is a vision.
This is the most domestic of what I have read of Woolf, but complexly so, intimately so. It is not romantic, but it is comforting and sympathetic. It is about satisfactions and dissatisfactions. This is the third (second and a half?) time I’ve read To the Lighthouse, but the first time I saw its beauty. This type of Woolf story, in my experience, becomes more real with re-readings. I learn what glasses to put on when I take up the book, so that I can see into its waters and the stories and shapes beneath the surface. The rest is not about the book, but about what it brings to mind, what it means to me. Also, perhaps spoilers, or at least alert to my badly laying down here some of Woolf’s phrases because they are knocking around in my head.
My own Mrs. Ramsey, in her comforting, regal way congratulated me on my successes in law school recently. I must take the bar myself sometime, she joked. I’ll be able to pass it just from hearing Mr. Ramsey talk about the law. “And is there any special boy in law school?” she asked. No, I answered, no special boy. But there must be a special boy for the conversation to continue, she thought. And the conversation must continue. But not without a special boy. Then we could talk about the intimacies and foreignness of men, with their socks and cigars and silences. Iron sharpens iron, Mrs. Ramsey thought. Without the special boy, without the marriage, our irons become dull; we lose our best selves.
“James, you know,” my own Mrs. Ramsey said, “I think he has a girlfriend now. Though when I was visiting, he didn’t say for sure. He was always more sensitive than my other boys. He was always my delicate spirit.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I said warmly with a smile. When their James was moving to Eugene, the Ramseys all approached me separately. “How old are you?” they would ask. After I replied, they said without a pause, “Have you met James?” Or in the middle of discussing some details of their James moving they would pause and turn to me, “How old are you?” they would ask again. On his first day in town, they took me to see a movie with them. They all sat in a row when I arrived, so that I had to climb gracelessly across all of them and sit next to James. We were sent on walks together. Because you must marry. Women shouldn’t argue, can’t write.
Then, later, on a tour bus – I’m not kidding, really, on a tour bus – a friend and I talked about Virginia Woolf. How beautiful she was. Was she the smartest person who ever lived? How could her writing be so opaque and then suddenly transparent, as though the change was in us, and we had been looking through it the whole time. And James said, “Bah! Virginia Woolf. She can’t write.” Who can then? we asked. “Emily Dickenson.” I said, I don’t typically care for poetry.
James’ brother, sitting across the aisle burst out, “You don’t care for poetry?! How is that possible?! Poetry is life!” I like some, I said, but not all. “Who do you like?” My favorite is Li-Young Lee. He stopped, still, and looked at me, suspicious. “Are you joking?” No. “But he’s my favorite.” Irises, I said. City in which I love you, he said. He thought I loved Li-Young Lee for him, at him. And a door in my head banged shut, but in my heart a window opened. I worried that it opened to him, but it didn’t. It opened to you, to tell you this story. Later, I said, “Do you like tattoos?” He said, “They can be hot on some girls, but not usually.” I smiled, having not thought to ask whether they were hot, but didn’t correct him.
But you must marry. Women can’t paint, can’t write.
“The wedding was beautiful and funky, just like them,” Mrs. Ramsey told me after congratulating me on my law school successes. We sat outside at a table, shaded from the sun by an umbrella. Kids played in the pool and threw frisbees on the lawn. I held my friend’s baby while she high-fived the patterns on the glass table. James’ brother married the weekend before. Because you must marry. While Mrs. Ramsey’s brother drove the newlyweds to their hotel, he sang Sunrise, Sunset, and the new bride cried to be welcomed into such a family. So it is a mercy it wasn’t me because I would have laughed inappropriately, unable to sympathize, and that’s no kind of wedding story.
Instead, I learn to move the tree to the middle. I try to balance the shapes of how I see the world, and I move the tree to the middle. I refrain from telling Mrs. Ramsey about a friend who bubbles over talking about finally being herself now, divorced. It shouldn’t mean more to me that someone is happy single than happy married. And it does not mean more. I can balance the shades of my vision of life without disrespect to the mother and child in the painting. They mean something to me as well. It all means something: the pattern on the table, the clippings from a magazine, the lighthouse, the waves, marriage, the flowers in the garden, the magic fish, the cost to repair a greenhouse, thinking to Z, the shawl hanging on a picture frame, children, handing someone tools to fix a car, milk, books, writing the last sentence of a review.
This is the most domestic of what I have read of Woolf, but complexly so, intimately so. It is not romantic, but it is comforting and sympathetic. It is about satisfactions and dissatisfactions. This is the third (second and a half?) time I’ve read To the Lighthouse, but the first time I saw its beauty. This type of Woolf story, in my experience, becomes more real with re-readings. I learn what glasses to put on when I take up the book, so that I can see into its waters and the stories and shapes beneath the surface. The rest is not about the book, but about what it brings to mind, what it means to me. Also, perhaps spoilers, or at least alert to my badly laying down here some of Woolf’s phrases because they are knocking around in my head.
My own Mrs. Ramsey, in her comforting, regal way congratulated me on my successes in law school recently. I must take the bar myself sometime, she joked. I’ll be able to pass it just from hearing Mr. Ramsey talk about the law. “And is there any special boy in law school?” she asked. No, I answered, no special boy. But there must be a special boy for the conversation to continue, she thought. And the conversation must continue. But not without a special boy. Then we could talk about the intimacies and foreignness of men, with their socks and cigars and silences. Iron sharpens iron, Mrs. Ramsey thought. Without the special boy, without the marriage, our irons become dull; we lose our best selves.
“James, you know,” my own Mrs. Ramsey said, “I think he has a girlfriend now. Though when I was visiting, he didn’t say for sure. He was always more sensitive than my other boys. He was always my delicate spirit.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I said warmly with a smile. When their James was moving to Eugene, the Ramseys all approached me separately. “How old are you?” they would ask. After I replied, they said without a pause, “Have you met James?” Or in the middle of discussing some details of their James moving they would pause and turn to me, “How old are you?” they would ask again. On his first day in town, they took me to see a movie with them. They all sat in a row when I arrived, so that I had to climb gracelessly across all of them and sit next to James. We were sent on walks together. Because you must marry. Women shouldn’t argue, can’t write.
Then, later, on a tour bus – I’m not kidding, really, on a tour bus – a friend and I talked about Virginia Woolf. How beautiful she was. Was she the smartest person who ever lived? How could her writing be so opaque and then suddenly transparent, as though the change was in us, and we had been looking through it the whole time. And James said, “Bah! Virginia Woolf. She can’t write.” Who can then? we asked. “Emily Dickenson.” I said, I don’t typically care for poetry.
James’ brother, sitting across the aisle burst out, “You don’t care for poetry?! How is that possible?! Poetry is life!” I like some, I said, but not all. “Who do you like?” My favorite is Li-Young Lee. He stopped, still, and looked at me, suspicious. “Are you joking?” No. “But he’s my favorite.” Irises, I said. City in which I love you, he said. He thought I loved Li-Young Lee for him, at him. And a door in my head banged shut, but in my heart a window opened. I worried that it opened to him, but it didn’t. It opened to you, to tell you this story. Later, I said, “Do you like tattoos?” He said, “They can be hot on some girls, but not usually.” I smiled, having not thought to ask whether they were hot, but didn’t correct him.
But you must marry. Women can’t paint, can’t write.
“The wedding was beautiful and funky, just like them,” Mrs. Ramsey told me after congratulating me on my law school successes. We sat outside at a table, shaded from the sun by an umbrella. Kids played in the pool and threw frisbees on the lawn. I held my friend’s baby while she high-fived the patterns on the glass table. James’ brother married the weekend before. Because you must marry. While Mrs. Ramsey’s brother drove the newlyweds to their hotel, he sang Sunrise, Sunset, and the new bride cried to be welcomed into such a family. So it is a mercy it wasn’t me because I would have laughed inappropriately, unable to sympathize, and that’s no kind of wedding story.
Instead, I learn to move the tree to the middle. I try to balance the shapes of how I see the world, and I move the tree to the middle. I refrain from telling Mrs. Ramsey about a friend who bubbles over talking about finally being herself now, divorced. It shouldn’t mean more to me that someone is happy single than happy married. And it does not mean more. I can balance the shades of my vision of life without disrespect to the mother and child in the painting. They mean something to me as well. It all means something: the pattern on the table, the clippings from a magazine, the lighthouse, the waves, marriage, the flowers in the garden, the magic fish, the cost to repair a greenhouse, thinking to Z, the shawl hanging on a picture frame, children, handing someone tools to fix a car, milk, books, writing the last sentence of a review.
James Ramsay finally reached the lighthouse, and Lily Briscoe completed her painting
Well. I really don't know what to think. I'm in a whirl.
It is brilliant.
It is brilliant.
something about this book made me so sad. the emptiness of our lives, the desolate reality of ageing, all the words left unspoken... i just wanted to shake all the characters and tell them to SAY what they're thinking. anyway here's some call passages:
"...a downpour 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 dahlies, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers..." - this really is a great example of the lyrical, overwhleming, surreal style of description that envelops you completely.
after Mrs Ramsay left the room, the scene "changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past." - the realisation in a moment that this would become in the future a clear memory, it's such a jarring feeling and one tends to feel nostalgic vicariously through their future self
"... her eyes were so clear that they seemed to go round the table unveiling each of these people, and their thoughts and their feelings, without effort like a light stealing under water so that its ripples and the reeds in it and the minnows balancing themsleves, and the sudden silent trout are all lit up hanging, trembling." - only virginia woolf could describe someone looking round a table at dinner in such a magical way, transporting you away from the dinner to the depths of a dimly lit lake
"... divining, through her own past, some deep, some buried, some quite speechless feeling that one had for one's mother at Rose's age. Like all feelings felt for oneself, Mrs Ramsay thought, it made onen sad. It was so inadequate, what one could give in return." - anything that attempts to portray the vast overwhelming and unquantifyable greatness of love is so impressive, especially when it shows how difficult it is to let oneself feel it without sadness, as we feel like we are not worthy of such a great emotion, but are burdened with it nevertheless
"how life, from being made up of little seperate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach." - what a lovely way to describe life, each day, each droplet, forming a massive wave that eventually crashes down onto the shore leaving only foam residue
"...a downpour 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 dahlies, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers..." - this really is a great example of the lyrical, overwhleming, surreal style of description that envelops you completely.
after Mrs Ramsay left the room, the scene "changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past." - the realisation in a moment that this would become in the future a clear memory, it's such a jarring feeling and one tends to feel nostalgic vicariously through their future self
"... her eyes were so clear that they seemed to go round the table unveiling each of these people, and their thoughts and their feelings, without effort like a light stealing under water so that its ripples and the reeds in it and the minnows balancing themsleves, and the sudden silent trout are all lit up hanging, trembling." - only virginia woolf could describe someone looking round a table at dinner in such a magical way, transporting you away from the dinner to the depths of a dimly lit lake
"... divining, through her own past, some deep, some buried, some quite speechless feeling that one had for one's mother at Rose's age. Like all feelings felt for oneself, Mrs Ramsay thought, it made onen sad. It was so inadequate, what one could give in return." - anything that attempts to portray the vast overwhelming and unquantifyable greatness of love is so impressive, especially when it shows how difficult it is to let oneself feel it without sadness, as we feel like we are not worthy of such a great emotion, but are burdened with it nevertheless
"how life, from being made up of little seperate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach." - what a lovely way to describe life, each day, each droplet, forming a massive wave that eventually crashes down onto the shore leaving only foam residue
I had heard that most people like this book more than Mrs. Dalloway and I LOVED Mrs. Dalloway so I expected a lot from it.
I am still unsure of what I think of this book. I know that I understood her tangents more than I did the plot. I would like to read up more on what the plot symbolized.
I am still unsure of what I think of this book. I know that I understood her tangents more than I did the plot. I would like to read up more on what the plot symbolized.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Edited review 12-8-15
http://nikkithereader.tumblr.com/
Ah, Virginia Woolf. I gave it a shot. I really did. Either all the symbolism went over my head, or I wasn’t patient enough to understand it. The story was actually pretty boring even though the story wasn’t really important to the book itself. I guess I’m just not into Woolf’s writing style. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The book follows the Ramsays, a family who spends their summer holidays in Scotland every year in a house near a lighthouse. When the first world war breaks out, everything shifts and changes in the family. Deaths happen suddenly and the family no longer visits their summer house so it falls prey to weeds and bugs and decay over time.
I did like some of the passages and how they interpreted the characters thoughts, but it wasn’t very engrossing to me. Some of the long, and I mean LONG, passages weren’t even groundbreaking to my way of thinking. I will say that she is really good at making beautiful sounding sentences even if they aren’t really all that interesting to me.
http://nikkithereader.tumblr.com/
Ah, Virginia Woolf. I gave it a shot. I really did. Either all the symbolism went over my head, or I wasn’t patient enough to understand it. The story was actually pretty boring even though the story wasn’t really important to the book itself. I guess I’m just not into Woolf’s writing style. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The book follows the Ramsays, a family who spends their summer holidays in Scotland every year in a house near a lighthouse. When the first world war breaks out, everything shifts and changes in the family. Deaths happen suddenly and the family no longer visits their summer house so it falls prey to weeds and bugs and decay over time.
I did like some of the passages and how they interpreted the characters thoughts, but it wasn’t very engrossing to me. Some of the long, and I mean LONG, passages weren’t even groundbreaking to my way of thinking. I will say that she is really good at making beautiful sounding sentences even if they aren’t really all that interesting to me.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Quite literally a bunch of people thinking about other people. It made me feel neither good nor bad but definitely empty. Nothing really happened.
The writing is beautiful, and there were some sentences that really resonated with me, but all that introspection with very little happening is just not the kind of book I really enjoy.