To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When I was studying writing and literature in college, this was the novel that I often heard people speak of in the most glowing, wondrous terms. It is the most perfect use of point of view I have ever encountered, an omniscience that is quietly carried from object to object, person to person. In my experience of sharing this book with students, many are put off by the quiet of it, or the long sentences, or the story that is almost not there. But many are enthralled as I was by the rhythm of those sentences, the luminous quality that Woolf affords to every person, every moment, every object. It represents the height of that voice she found in Jacob’s Room, what she called the “loose, drifting material of life;” at least this is my opinion. The middle section of the book, in which the house itself is the subject of scrutiny, opens this quiet novel to the shadow of dying, the image of Mrs. Ramsay no longer where she should be, the settling of years of quiet onto the house. What appeared ordinary and peaceful is changed utterly, and the small novel is no longer measurable. Yet I have a hard time rereading this book. Maybe it just daunts me.