|
Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse" can be a difficult read, with its highly stylized stream-of-consciousness prose, but it is a rewarding one in the end, even if it seems that nothing much has happened over the course of the novel. Mr. "To The Lighthouse" is a unique standard bearer for early modern literature.To say that "To The Lighthouse" is a tale about the Ramsay family would be selling the book short. Mrs.
Her prose is poetic, following tangential thoughts to complete her circuitous paragraphs. Ramsay, a selfish philosopher, depends upon his wife to build his ego, no matter the expense or the damage caused to his children. Woolf begins by painting a loving and generous portrait of the Ramsays (modeled upon her own parents) before moving the action of the novel ten years into the future after the family has experienced a few catastrophes that they struggle to get over. Woolf allows her readers insight into not only one family, but into situations that concern everyone; mortality, love, family, and one's legacy. The novel ends with the perspective of the outsiders, trying to make sense of what has been lost and what it means to life as a whole.Virgina Woolf was an exceptionally talented writer, able to make mundane details vivid and able to capture the intricacies of family life and marriage without seeming sentimental. Despite taking place within a set period of time, from 1910-1920, the conflicts and themes presented transcend far beyond the scope of the novel.
This examination of their lives takes place at their summer home on the Isle of Skye in Scotland with their various guests. "To The Lighthouse" is a wonderful testament to Woolf's legacy as one of the premier authors of modern literature. While this family and their experiences are the core of the novel, Woolf delves into some heavy examination of the roles that males and females are meant to play in society. Ramsay is beloved by all for her extraordinary beauty, still evident in her fifties, but she is tied down by a demanding husband, eight very different children, and her own need to oversee every facet of people's lives.
What's the point of this edition. The real problem, though, is that I am now up to page 26 and the typos have been so numerous it's really almost unreadable--after just encountering the word "furtile" I had to stop and write this review. Buy a different version, reader. The book is great, but this edition, by Classic House Books, is unacceptable. It looks home-published from cover to cover, including the ridiculous blurb on the back and the junior high graphics.
Somehow her writing reminds me of Sylvia Plath, with that same brilliance of wordplay. Her writing style includes long sentences and a flow consciousness that some might find too burdensome. Quite simply it is a great book. The plot of this book on the surface does not seem necessarily like it would engender a classic: a family with a caustic father, a loving mother and a youngest son who despises his father and in this particular instance wants to visit a lighthouse out in the ocean, a desire his father opposes. However, Woolf infuses this story with her fabulous (I think) writing style and a breadth of insights and observations that leave one fascinated and thinking throughout.
Does she provide a happy ending.--No, not exactly. But it's enough to help Lily make it through the dark storm of life to use a perfectly horrible metaphor. Like Proust, Woolf begins with a childhood incident that will echo down through the years. Again and again, Woolf asks the question, "What does life mean. --As I understand it, this is a novel in which ten years passes in about fifteen pages, while the rest of the novel meticulously describes two days.--Yes, exactly. Reading "To the Lighthouse" is a bit like viewing a painting in which the characters move.but very slowly. Her greatest gift is to capture these gossamer-thin states in a language of exquisite accuracy--capturing in words the flavor of fleeting emotions seldom if ever described before, even as they evaporate on the tongue. --"The subject of this brilliant novel is the daily life of an English family in the Hebrides." That's the copy description on the back cover of my edition of "To the Lighthouse." I found it hilarious.
Woolf passes from character to character, inhabiting each of their minds in turn, seeing the world through their eyes. What is it for." --Does she have an answer.--Yes. That is to say, Woolf's focus is on the fleeting but all-important impressions that the world leaves on us and that ultimately make us who we are. What happens in "To the Lighthouse," when anything happens at all, isn't as important as how it affects each character internally. Mr. I laughed for five minutes.--So it's an inadequate description of the novel.--Inadequate is an inadequate word to describe just how inadequate it is.--So what is "To the Lighthouse" about. --Well that's just the thing. She writes a poetic prose that many contemporary readers might mistake for unnecessarily flowery and overwrought--when, in fact, it is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel and cuts to the heart.
It's her lighthouse.--Woolf has a reputation as a difficult author to read.--And it's well-deserved. And no.--It's ambiguous.--It's provisional. Ramsay and their flawed but enduring marriage are the central bodies around which the rest orbit and Lily Briscoe, a spinsterish amateur painter, ostensibly stands in for Woolf herself, but it is hard to say that any of the characters are less or more important than any of the others--this is essentially the genius of Woolf's handling of psychological perspective. And yet for all its surgical accuracy, it is the sensuous prose of a writer for whom language is like a box of brilliant colors is to a painter, for whom sentences are like caresses to a lover, except that in this case what is touched are the most potently orgasmic areas of our brains--needles to say, the ones most difficult areas to reach.--But Virginia Woolf reaches them.--You might say she's a master masseuse.--Ha ha.
Her sentences don't move the story forward; they move the story deeper. But it's a deeply satisfying experience all the same. --You would have to love language, then, to fully appreciate her work.--Indeed. To say it's about a family vacationing by the shore, about the delicate relationships between them and their friends, about how time changes them and their relationships between each other.is to miss the point entirely even if it is perfectly accurate.
She is a difficult read for the majority of readers, who, let's face it, are awaiting Dan Brown's new novel as if it were a major event in world literary history. Everyone has a point of view and each point of view is essential to attain a vision of the whole.--But it is a novel essentially about family relationships.--And relationships between men and women, men and society, women and society, human beings and the inescapable fact of their mortality. Like Joyce, she concentrates on the epiphanic moment. and Mrs.
Not the best bedtime read.Overall, a beautifully-written and an intense search for meaning. I kept longing for a letup that never came, like driving a winding road where you wait for a straightaway so you can recover. Demanding but worth the effort; disturbing and unsettling too. One of my favorite novels. Becomes even more poignant when you consider the tragic fate of Woolf herself. So many passages say so much so well that I found myself constantly re-reading passages to get the meaning. It's dense and provocative and profound. At times Woolf lays it on a bit thick and it felt like reading through molasses.
|
