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bartv90 's review for:
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse is a book I did not expect to enjoy at all. I only mildly enjoyed reading Mrs. Dalloway, which is probably quite a bit easier to read than this one (aside from also featuring those paragraph-sized sentences Woolf is so proficient in), so I thought Virginia Woolf works weren't for me and I wouldn't enjoy this one at all.
It seems reading these kinds of novels by yourself for personal enjoyment rather than for college helps a great deal, because my expectations were turned upside down. Yes, in the beginning this was challenging to read because of the stream of consciousness and the many shifts in point of view. However, even though I wasn't always sure what exactly was going on, it was mesmerizing to read, and almost dream-like. There were moments I just kept reading without even realising it. Especially combined with annotations or short summaries, it's actually easier to read than it seems at first glance, and you start getting used to the writing pretty quickly.
This novel is very atmospheric and descriptions are truly vivid. Soon after starting you accept that not much happens in terms of big events, and you start reading it for the masterfully artful language and the way Woolf seamlessly presents the different characters. She lays bare the minds of most of them, and while it takes a few chapters to get into, the characters have great depth to them because of this style. There isn't much of a plot, and the few big events that do happen are explained crudely in three sentences or less barricaded by parentheses. Yet still, the novel is chock-full of content: philosophical, psychological, societal, romantic, artistic and metafictional elements are packed in 209 pages of beautiful sentences.
It seems reading these kinds of novels by yourself for personal enjoyment rather than for college helps a great deal, because my expectations were turned upside down. Yes, in the beginning this was challenging to read because of the stream of consciousness and the many shifts in point of view. However, even though I wasn't always sure what exactly was going on, it was mesmerizing to read, and almost dream-like. There were moments I just kept reading without even realising it. Especially combined with annotations or short summaries, it's actually easier to read than it seems at first glance, and you start getting used to the writing pretty quickly.
This novel is very atmospheric and descriptions are truly vivid. Soon after starting you accept that not much happens in terms of big events, and you start reading it for the masterfully artful language and the way Woolf seamlessly presents the different characters. She lays bare the minds of most of them, and while it takes a few chapters to get into, the characters have great depth to them because of this style. There isn't much of a plot, and the few big events that do happen are explained crudely in three sentences or less barricaded by parentheses. Yet still, the novel is chock-full of content: philosophical, psychological, societal, romantic, artistic and metafictional elements are packed in 209 pages of beautiful sentences.