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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of--to think; to be silent; to be alone.",
By
This review is from: To the Lighthouse (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)
In what many call her most autobiographical novel, Virginia Woolf creates a warm and intimate portrait of a family which resembles her own-her parents, brothers and sisters-and the friends with whom they enjoy their summer vacation on the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides. Mrs. Ramsay, the mother of eight children, is the linchpin of the fictional family. She adores her husband, and though she often feels she fails him, she persists in smoothing his way so that he can work, managing the house and children, and inviting large groups of his students and friends to visit. Often strict and always right, Mr. Ramsay loves being the center of praise, but rarely praises others, and is often insensitive to the hopes and dreams of his children.
In Part I, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay, their children, several women and men (including philosophy students), for whom Mrs. Ramsay enjoys acting as a matchmaker, all contribute their thoughts as Virginia Woolf explores some of her favorite themes during the course of one day on the island. Mrs. Ramsay's running commentary on her everyday life emphasizes her vision of the role of women and opens the question of whether or not it is possible for women to find a meaningful role in life outside of marriage. The importance of the thinking life-with peripheral attention paid also to the artistically creative life-reflects the intellectual climate of England in the lead-up to the First World War, and the desire of many thinkers to create a significant intellectual legacy which will survive them. Part II, a brief bridge, ten years later, focuses on the changes which have taken place. The war has begun and ended. Many key characters have died, and Mr. Ramsay, devastated, also fears that all his writing will have been for naught. In Part Three, what's left of the family returns to the house on Skye for a visit after a ten year absence. Perhaps showing his personal growth and desire to atone for his previous insensitivity to James's desires, Mr. Ramsay now insists on making the trip to the lighthouse with teenagers James and his younger sister Cam, though James is no longer even interested in going. James commands the boat, however, and receives unaccustomed praise. Back on land, Lily Briscoe, a young woman artist for whom Mrs. Ramsay was hoping to be a matchmaker, decides to begin work again on an unfinished portrait of Mrs. Ramsay, and as she works, she also realizes a new kind of freedom for herself. Taking a modernist approach, Woolf has no primary narrator, instead slipping in and out of the minds of several characters as they think about life and observe life around them. Her modified stream-of-consciousness allows her to create a vibrant, free-flowing atmosphere which she peoples with unique characters who have revealed their innermost thoughts. The overall effect is powerful, and Woolf's often lyrical prose conveys the sights and sounds of life on the island at the same time that it also enlivens the highly philosophical but very personal portrait of family life. No unifying plot and no unifying voice tie the three sections of the novel together, and many of the early characters play little role in the ending, yet in her hands the novel "works." Woolf captures not only the passage of time but also the effects of time on all of her characters as they continue their lives, however changed, following in the footsteps of experimental writers like James Joyce, and taking literary chances which place her work with the best of the twentieth century. Mary Whipple Orlando: A Biography
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
By
This review is from: To the Lighthouse (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)
There's one point in the novel in which one of the characters reflects on the form of perceiving others. Looking at people from a distance, she thinks that this way of identifying and following others through their outlines is one workable approach. It can be taken, as I believe it's meant to be, as an analogy for the whole form of the book. In a way it's a book of intensely realized, complex, three dimensional characters each of whom encounters the other as if the outsider were a two dimensional sketch, lacking real substance. More than direct conflict, this aspect of the perception renders a deep insubstantiality in the social ties that people build, and the deep distance that they build more effectively. The isolation doesn't emerge just from self-absorption, rather it's a sense of lacking the language or real community for authentic relation. In this amazingly writen account that manifests not in the major dramatic disconnect we might expect but in quiet, subdued points of systemic, often unnoticed, rupture.
It's a beautiful, heartfelt and deeply sophisticated novel. Says a lot about class, gender, family and the way such conditions shifted into the first world war, all in under two hundred pages. Deservedly classic, and indicates that Woolf applied a comparable level of talent to her fiction as to her essays.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply Brilliant - A Must Read,
This review is from: To the Lighthouse (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)
Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was a well known writer, critic, feminist, and publisher. This was her fifth novel.
As background information, I read her first novel "The Voyage Out" published in 1915, skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop, Night and Day from 1919 - and then read "Jacob's Room," her third, then went on and read "Mrs. Dalloway," her fourth, and next read "To The Lighthouse," etc. Also, I read some of Woolf's non-fiction. "The Voyage Out" is simple and straightforward work and it might remind the reader of a Jane Austen novel, but it set on a ship and then at a remote location. It is over 400 pages long, and has an Austen theme. After her second novel - which did not do very well - Woolf decided to be more risky and creative with the next book. She changed her style and approach to the novel and Woolf uses the stream of consciousness technique to bring a sense of the chaos and shortness of a young man's life around the time of World War I, Jacob's life, i.e.: from the pandemonium of Jacob's life as portrayed by Woolf through the use of the stream of the consciousness technique, we eventually have clarity in the novel. She carries this writing style on into the similarly chaotic story in the novel "Mrs. Dalloway." This is her third novel using her stream of consciousness technique and she does it in a very dramatic fashion. The story is centered on the life of Mrs. Ramsay, a beautiful woman in her early fifties, and her older husband, and their eight children, plus other guests and neighbors and domestic help all at a beach house somewhere in Scotland on a warm summer day. Her husband is an academic and a bit remote. Mrs. Ramsay is more down to earth and mostly loved and admired by all. As in the novel "Jacob's Room" the reader is left dangling as Woolf moves from character to character, giving the reader glimpses of their inner emotions. It is hard to determine what Woolf is doing and where she is going. But what she seems to be doing is celebrating a moment in a life. This is done very effectively with the stream of consciousness technique, and very dramatically as the story proceeds. The prose is brilliant and awe inspiring in some spots, and we see the genius of Woolf. To say a lot more would ruin the story for the reader, but most will appreciate the way the story unfolds, and it unfolds very dramatically after a seemingly slow and complex start. The change has an effect on the reader - or so I found. Some think that it is Woolf's finest work and it would be hard to find fault with that assessment. She takes her ideas from "Jacob's Room" and applies them to a more complicated and dramatic setting at a family get together at a beach house, and it works. This is a must read novel.
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