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tolstoj4ever 's review for:
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf
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