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A review by richardrbecker
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Why does To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf still feel as relative as the day it was written? It's mainly because Woolf captures the essence of people, places, and things with such exacting detail — quirks, characteristics, mannerisms, beauty, social constraints, states of decay — through a perspective filtered through philosophy, psychology, and personal reflection.
Everything about it feels so real because the writing is realistic, a glimpse inside the characters who populate the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides on the Isle of Skye (which may imitate Talland House and St Ives Bay). It is set up in three parts — The Window, Time Passes, and The Lighthouse — with each part providing a snapshot of its players before and after World War I and then again when some of the remaining Ramsays and other guests return to their summer home.
Sometimes writers ask me how to write in stream of consciousness, weaving different perspectives together with one omniscient voice. To The Lighthouse provides a blueprint with complex characters with more depth than linear characters with singular motivations. Woolf allows her players to be as complex as any people who might know, sharing absolutes and then ideas that run contrary to those absolutes. In doing so, she allows the readers to peel back and pull away any number of impressions.
One of mine, for example, is this idea that Part 2, Chapter 4 does a beautiful job marginalizing all our petty human dramas to what they are—dust to be swept away. In this case, time and war change everything until what feels familiar in Part 1 becomes unrecognizable in Part 2 simultaneously. It's all so terribly temporary — everything that defines the human experience.
While not one of my favorites, the book's brilliance is not on me. If you are looking for a book that explores how people live their lives, relying on some distant lighthouse that can never be reached, acting as a metaphor to help us navigate through life's challenges and difficult times, To The Lighthouse may give you something expressly personal to you.
Everything about it feels so real because the writing is realistic, a glimpse inside the characters who populate the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides on the Isle of Skye (which may imitate Talland House and St Ives Bay). It is set up in three parts — The Window, Time Passes, and The Lighthouse — with each part providing a snapshot of its players before and after World War I and then again when some of the remaining Ramsays and other guests return to their summer home.
Sometimes writers ask me how to write in stream of consciousness, weaving different perspectives together with one omniscient voice. To The Lighthouse provides a blueprint with complex characters with more depth than linear characters with singular motivations. Woolf allows her players to be as complex as any people who might know, sharing absolutes and then ideas that run contrary to those absolutes. In doing so, she allows the readers to peel back and pull away any number of impressions.
One of mine, for example, is this idea that Part 2, Chapter 4 does a beautiful job marginalizing all our petty human dramas to what they are—dust to be swept away. In this case, time and war change everything until what feels familiar in Part 1 becomes unrecognizable in Part 2 simultaneously. It's all so terribly temporary — everything that defines the human experience.
While not one of my favorites, the book's brilliance is not on me. If you are looking for a book that explores how people live their lives, relying on some distant lighthouse that can never be reached, acting as a metaphor to help us navigate through life's challenges and difficult times, To The Lighthouse may give you something expressly personal to you.