A review by sofiakws
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

4.0

Having read 3 of her books, this is definitely my favourite Virginia Woolf thus far. The writing is beautiful and quite painfully accurate at times (there's this sense of someone finally being able to express in imagery and train of thought prose what I never could pin down with words). I love the complexity of the characters' thoughts and emotions, their struggles in the roles they occupy, not to mention the insightful yet flawed and ever-changing way they perceive each other.
The first section of the book felt a lot like Mrs Dalloway, but then, with the strange yet perfect mid-section, Time Passes, where we zoom out of the characters' heads and are rushed through shocking, kind of heart-breaking events whilst also enjoying beautiful writing, nature slowly eating away at human life, everything is wonderfully altered. It's such a strange book - reckless as far as the construction of the plot, but so successful artistically because of this abnormality. We zoom in so deep into various characters' minds and experiences, forced to sympathize with and resent pretty much every single person, and then we are thrust out of their heads, unable to do anything but watch the scene eroded away.
Of course, after this brief summary of a decade, we return to that island, now only a shadow of its former self, and are given a strange, more disillusioned version of the original scene, where the characters who remain are battered and all lacking something within, all reflecting on the past.

That was a rambling summary, but it was really such a special novel. Would recommend.