Customer Reviews:
 Exquisitely delicious prose invokes tragic beauty January 15, 2008
Lauded as a staple of the modernist canon, Woolf's stream-of-consciousness novel of alienation is better appreciated for its exquisitely delicious prose and her ability to invoke the tragic beauty of striving for intimacy and immortality (symbolized by the eponymous lighthouse), only to find it always just beyond one's grasp. Is there a sadder line anywhere in Western literature than when Mrs. Ramsey is tucking her young son James into bed? "In a moment he would ask her, `Are we going to the Lighthouse?' And she would have to say, 'No: not tomorrow; your father says not.' Happily, Mildred came in to fetch them, and the bustle distracted them. But he kept looking back over his shoulder as Mildred carried him out, and she was certain that he was thinking, we are not going to the Lighthouse tomorrow; and she thought, he will remember that all his life."
On Listening to "To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf January 10, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
"'To the Lighthouse,'" he thought. "Yes. I shall read `To the Lighthouse.'"
The thought was not a new one to him, but this time, it had appeared in his mind almost before he realized that it had appeared. He did not know why it had appeared just now, but there it was. And it was a good thought, he decided, one that he would act upon, one he would make a success of. He was glad for his decision, for he was one of that class of people who find it difficult to distinguish between the thought and the actual practice of the thought, and so was endowed with a sense of satisfaction and bliss that he would soon be reading, once again, "To the Lighthouse."
But a second thought came to him, immediately following the first. It chided him, and said to him, you did not like the book before, when you tried to read it the first time, so why do you want to read it again now, and probably fail once more. The time is not right for you to read "To the Lighthouse."
As soon as he thought it, the new thought infuriated him and he felt that if he had a knife, or a hatchet, or a blade of some sort, and if the thought had been a person, and not just a random thought, that he would pierce its heart with the blade and kill it. He was that upset about not being able to finish "To the Lighthouse" when he had attempted to read it the first time.
He recalled the time he had first tried to read "To the Lighthouse." It was only a month or so ago. He could not recall the exact day, or the time, or even the month, but on one fine fall day, sitting in his office, Scot, sitting on the other side of the cubicle wall, had asked him, as he often asked such questions, if he had ever read Virginia Woolf. No, he had replied, he had not.
He searched his memory, seeking to find a title by Virginia Woolf that he could remember. Almost at once, he realized, after thinking about it for only a moment, that he had not ever read anything by Virginia Woolf, and wondered directly why he had not read anything she had written. In point of fact, he thought to himself, he did not even know the title of a single book by Virginia Woolf. It was strange.
Of course, he had heard of Virginia Woolf, as had anyone of his generation, for he could remember clearly the movie, what was it called, with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Oh, yes. "Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" That was the title of the movie. But he could recall little about the movie itself, and, because it was so many years ago, he had almost forgotten its title, or even what it was about, except that it was about a college professor and his frustrated wife, and something about an imaginary child. Beyond that, he could remember nothing about the film, and had in fact wondered, even as he had watched it, first in the theater and then several years later on a television rerun, what, indeed the movie had to do with Virginia Woolf. And many years later, now, brooding about the novels of Virginia Woolf and the movie "Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf," he was still perplexed as to what this film had to do with Virginia Woolf, for he could think of nothing, nothing at all, beyond the title, of course. Except that the husband, as played by Richard Burton, was a college English professor.
And as he often did with such thoughts, in this case, the thought that he should read a book by Virginia Woolf, he decided to follow up on it and find out more about Virginia Woolf and acquire one of her books to read. Online, he searched the catalog of the Dallas Public Library, and eventually, after discovering at last how to spell the name correctly, W-O-O-L-F and not W-O-L-F-E or some other such variation, he found the lengthy list of books written by Virginia Woolf, and was startled, for he usually knew such things, when he realized that he did not recognize even one of the titles.
In dismay, he had called back across the cubicle wall to Scot, who was sitting there patiently, doing what Scot does, whatever it is, to pass the time of day at the office. Which book by Virginia Woolf should he read, he had asked, and directly came back the reply, across the cubicle wall: "To the Lighthouse." Scot had said he should read "To the Lighthouse."
Upon arriving home from the office that day, he had discovered that he had no other pressing obligations for the evening, and so he had collected his various things to return to the library, books he had finished, records he had played, library things, collected them all together and carried them out to the car, and driven into town, directly to the library. Shortly thereafter, on the third floor of the library, in the fiction section, correctly but not predictably filed under W, for the library had recently been rearranged, and sometimes books were taken off the shelf to be part of a temporary display, or even taken downstairs to entice patrons randomly seeking an interesting book to read, he had found a copy of "To the Lighthouse."
Happily he checked it out, and took it home with him, with much anticipation of beginning it in the morning, for he planned to read it on the train while going to work.
Unfortunately, when he started it, sitting in his usual seat on the train the next morning, riding to work, he found the book uninteresting. He simply could not grasp its meaning, or follow the flow of its words, or the complexity of its sentences, or the vague and fleeting thoughts that Virginia Woolf had so carefully crafted for its pages. After all the weak romance novels, and slick mystery novels, and cheap crime thrillers, and clumsy science fiction stories that he had recently been reading, all written in the usual, direct, post-Hemingway style of contemporary American fiction, heavily laced with terse dialogue and carefully constructed plot twists according to standard formulas, the ephemeral beauty of Virginia Woolf's luxurious writing and lush prose and sketchy plot was able to make scarcely a dent in his shallow American consciousness.
So, after a few days of making little headway, even after what he considered to be an heroic effort, he snapped the book shut in confusion and frustration and put it aside. He did not like "To the Lighthouse," he told Scot the next day, and said that he had found it boring, and had put it aside. Reluctantly, of course, he had said, he had put it aside, for it was his usual custom to finish a book he had started, especially if it was a significant one, as in this case, a classic, like "To the Lighthouse."
And Scot, rather unperturbed, as was his way, did not say anything much in response to his comment. He just said that he was reading it himself because of a school requirement and was happily deciphering its meaning. That is what Scot said he liked to do, in actual fact, to decipher meaning.
And so it was now weeks later, and there it was, still sitting on the table in his house, the copy of "To the Lighthouse" he had not yet returned to the library. He saw it there sometimes, sitting on the table, and he felt that it was reproaching him, chiding him as it were, that he had not been able to finish it, scolding him because he had found it vague and frustrating and meaningless and finally, boring.
And then, just a week or so prior to his Christmas vacation, the new thought had occurred to him, the thought that he should read "To the Lighthouse" again. Yes, he decided, he should read it again, and this time he would succeed, he was sure. He would try once again to read "To the Lighthouse." This time, he thought, he would learn how to decipher its intricate text, parse its lush sentences, and find a way to penetrate to the very core of its meaning. But this time, he would not read the book, page by page, depending on his visual faculties, his eyes, to communicate the words to his brain. No. Instead, this time, he would use his ears, his auditory senses, the senses that he, as a trained musician, most favored. He would listen to someone read the text to him. Suddenly, he knew what he was going to do. He would listen to a recording of the book, read by an accomplished reader, in the car, on the trip he was about to take for his Christmas Holiday.
By a fortunate chance, he found another copy of "To the Lighthouse," an audio book on 7 CD's, eight hours long, narrated by a British actress called Virginia Leishman. And so he acquired it out and carried it with him in the car on his trip.
Time passed.
First, time passed in the car.
And then, the time of the Christmas Holidays passed, as well.
The long trip from Texas to South Carolina had taken two days, two long rainy days of bad restaurants and a cheap hotel room, and driving in the rain in heavy traffic trying to avoid an accident. And the music on the XM Radio he had just bought had managed to divert his attention away from the album of seven CD's carefully packed in the box on the back seat of his car, the audio book recording of "To the Lighthouse" that he had obtained with such anticipation to wile away the long hours on a road trip of many days, such as this one.
When he had arrived at his destination, he still had not listened to his recording of "To the Lighthouse." And while on vacation, the busy activities of the Christmas season occupied his time to such an extent that he had little time to read, much less listen to a book on tape for eight hours at a time, or even in one hour segments.
The happy days of the Holidays sped by, those short days and long nights of fun and festivity and family warmth, passing by quickly in a whirlwind of parties and dinners and gatherings and church services, those family moments that are the happy custom of celebration during the Christmas season. Suddenly, almost in a flash, he realized that the holidays were over and the joyful family celebrations and parties and gatherings were finished and it was time for him to return home.
With both a feeling of relief that the hectic holiday schedule was quickly drawing to a close, and yet with a tinge of regret that he would leave behind him once again the loving arms of his dear mother and the good-will of his family to return to his self sufficient life style, he began to make his plans for the long trek west, the journey of more than one thousand miles that he would make to return home.
On the morning of his departure, as he carefully loaded his belongings back into the car, he saw the audio book recording of "To the Lighthouse" carefully packed in the box he had placed on the back seat. This time, on this leg of his journey, he thought, he really was going to read "To the Lighthouse." At last, he was ready to listen attentively. And so he reached behind the seat and into the box to pull out the album that contained the collection of CD's that was the recording of "To the Lighthouse." He carefully placed it on the front seat of the car, within arms reach, and then placed beside it the portable CD player that he had brought along just for that purpose. Yes. Today he would listen to "To the Lighthouse," and began at once to feel a strong sense of anticipation for the reading.
But the driving conditions were poor that morning, with clouds and wind and rain and generally bad weather threatening to make the driving difficult. For that reason, he feared that, if his attention were diverted from the recorded performance by the strain of driving, he would fail in his endeavor to make a success of the reading of "To the Lighthouse." Furthermore, in case he became too involved in the story, he was somewhat frightened at the thought of having his attention averted from the road during a difficult traffic maneuver, thus putting himself in danger of an accident. For this reason, for both of these reasons, for all of these reasons, in fact, he decided to postpone his reading of "To the Lighthouse" until after he had passed over the mountains of South and North Carolina and had descended onto the plains of eastern Tennessee, where the road gradually wound down out of the mountains and gently stretched across nearly 400 miles of fertile farmland to the Mississippi River, and beyond. Making one last stop to say farewell to his mother, he carefully guided the car out onto the highway and began the difficult journey through the mountains.
The drive was indeed difficult, and the pavement, wet because of the clouds and the wind and the rain and the generally bad weather, and the heavy traffic, and the condition of the highway, which wound slowly up the steep mountain sides and then plunged down quickly, deep into the valleys, where the road ran alongside rushing rivers swollen with newly fallen rain, impeded his progress and required that he concentrate fully on the road.
On one occasion, he came upon the flashing lights of a police cruiser and an ambulance, and surreptitiously glanced at the accident and its victims as he crept by, his progress hampered by the traffic backup. Someone may have died here, he reflected, and wondered what his own fate would be if he failed to negotiate the mountain roads successfully. But no, he conceded, such a circumstance was unlikely, and he drove on. As he drove, he recalled from time to time the empty seat next to him, the seat empty of a passenger, but in which he had placed his audio book recording of "To the Lighthouse," and anticipated in his mind the time when he would be able to listen to it and give it his full attention.
Finally, after three intense hours of driving through the steep mountains in the rain and the wind and the generally bad weather, he crossed from North Carolina into Tennessee. A short time later, he stopped at the first rest stop which appeared alongside the highway. And after taking a moment to refresh himself, he was able to relax and feel the stress of driving through the mountains in bad weather begin to melt away. In a few moments, he was renewed and invigorated and climbed back into his car to continue his journey.
He re-entered the highway and joined the swiftly flowing stream of traffic driving west along the Interstate. Gradually, just as he knew it would, the road left the mountains and descended onto the gently rolling plains of eastern Tennessee. With a sigh of relief, and knowing that the trip would quickly assume a familiar routine, he settled back for the long drive that would take him through Knoxville, and Nashville, and Memphis, and Little Rock, before turning south towards Shreveport, bringing him finally to his destination, Dallas.
Now, he decided. Yes. Now is the time to read "To the Lighthouse."
Awkwardly, while keeping his eyes on the road, he reached over to the passenger seat, found the CD player, and clumsily hooked it up. Then, fumbling around again until he found the album that contained the audio book recording of "To the Lighthouse," he opened it and extracted the first CD, which he placed, still somewhat awkwardly, for it is tricky to manage a CD player and drive at the same time, into the player. He punched the button on the machine, adjusted the volume, and the words floated out of the speakers and into the car.
"'To the Lighthouse'" by Virginia Woolf. Disk One," came the announcer's voice. Then the reader, Virginia Leishman, intoned: "Prologue. Chapter One."
He began to listen, and he listened for the next 800 miles, and, listening intently, he immersed himself in Virginia Woolf's story of the Ramsay family, their summer vacation on the Isle of Skye, and their son James' much anticipated and long delayed journey to the lighthouse.
"Well done," he thought, two days later, when it was finished. And he was pleased as he congratulated himself in his own private way, because he had listened to "To the Lighthouse" in its entirety, and found it enjoyable.
Thus, he put the finishing touch on his trip, the trip that was his Christmas vacation.
***
A short time afterwards, only a few days, really, he reflected on his experience of reading "To the Lighthouse" as an audio book.
The trick to reading Virginia Woolf, he decided, is in knowing where to break the sentences, where to pause, and where to separate the subordinate clauses, so that the sentences parse correctly. If one does this incorrectly, as often happens on first reading of the printed page, the effect can be jarring, when, for example, a noun is unfortunately connected with the wrong verb, causing the sentence to go in the wrong direction, or parts of the sentence are left dangling. If such a thing happens, and it is likely to happen often on a first reading, the only solution for the reader is to re-read the sentence until it parses correctly, and the proper meaning emerges. This makes for slow going at first, when reading printed text, but if one can get the knack of the Woolf style, and if the reader perseveres, and is willing to make the effort to do a second reading whenever necessary, the inherent beauty of the text will soon emerge.
This unfortunate problem is nearly absent when one listens to the story read aloud as an audio book. On the recording, the reader, in this case Virginia Leishman, on the audio book version of "To the Lighthouse" published by Recorded Books, Inc., has of necessity, already analyzed the material, and the sentences as they are read have an ebb and flow of natural speech that is eminently satisfying. Also, the text takes on a transparent, poetic quality, as of carefully constructed blank verse, which allows the listener's imagination to free itself from the printed page, visualize in the mind's eye the situations and places described in the story, and immerse itself in the thoughts, emotions and utterances of Virginia Woolf's characters.
Listing to Virginia Woolf's prose, when read aloud and properly delivered, is both soothing and exciting. Her story, with the most sketchy of plots, and carefully constructed out of the most mundane of events of daily life, the painting of a picture, sewing, shopping, a chance encounter on the road, the preparation of a meal, and the chit chat of diners sitting at table, becomes both engaging and exciting to the listener, who feels himself becoming involved as part of the inner being of the various characters as they engage themselves in the shifting scene around them and react to the situations they encounter. Even if the mind occasionally wanders while the reading continues, it does not matter much, for in such cases, the listener's inner voice will merely merge into the texture of the tale, while the subconscious mind will continue listening to the words being read aloud, and quickly pull one back into the story after only a short moment.
The plot of "To the Lighthouse" is a simple one.
The story begins in the year 1910. The Ramsay family is on vacation from London and living in a cottage they own in Scotland, on the Isle of Skye. There are eight children in the family. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay have also invited several guests to join them for the summer.
James, Mrs. Ramsay's youngest son, who is six, asks if they can go to the lighthouse the next day. Mrs. Ramsay agrees, but Mr. Ramsay contradicts his wife and tells his son the weather will be bad. James is very disappointed.
That evening there is a dinner party, and the next morning, the weather is indeed wrong for a boat trip to the lighthouse.
10 years pass. Mrs. Ramsay has died of unknown causes, Andrew, the oldest son, has been killed in World War I, and Prue, the oldest daughter, has died in childbirth after a short marriage. The Ramsay cottage on the Isle of Sky falls into ruin.
The year is now 1920. Mr. Ramsay decides to come back to the cottage for the summer one more time. The cottage is quickly put in order, and Mr. Ramsay arrives with James and his sister Cam and a few guests.
During this stay, Mr. Ramsay decides to take James to the lighthouse. James, who is now 16, guides the boat through the billowing waves, so that the group arrives safely. "Well done," says Mr. Ramsey to James when they arrive safely at the lighthouse, and James is secretly pleased to receive this simple declaration of praise from his demanding father. Finally, James has had his visit to the lighthouse. It is a moment of intense satisfaction for the reader.
Searching for the "meaning of life" January 6, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Published in 1927, "To the Lighthouse" is Virginia Woolf's elegy for her parents--her attempt to describe and understand them through the prism of fiction. Two years earlier, Woolf had written in her diary that the book would be "fairly short" (it is) and that it would have "father's character done complete in it; & mother's; & St. Ives [the family summer home]; & childhood." It's impossible to overestimate the influence of Woolf's parents on the development of this book; a year after the book was published, she acknowledged that she "was obsessed by them both, unhealthily; & writing of them was a necessary act." As Hermione Lee put it in her biography, the novel is set in a "haunted house."
The remarkable empathy (and, to some extent, sympathy) for the novel's characters is testimony to Woolf's success: in powerful stream-of-consciousness passages told from ever-shifting perspectives, she re-creates from her own biography three entirely believable protagonists. Woolf's mother becomes Mrs. Ramsay, whose domain is largely confined to her home, her children, and her guests; like Clarissa Dalloway planning a party in Woolf's previous novel, Mrs. Ramsay sees the highlight of her day as carrying off a successful dinner for her family and guests--"she wished the dinner to be particularly nice." Her husband, a philosopher, remains aloof from his family and their social sphere; his abrasiveness is a source of occasional annoyance to Mrs. Ramsay, and his own obsession is nothing so fleeting as a dinner party but rather the legacy that will be left by his life's work.
Lily Briscoe, a young painter who is one of the guests, observes the family dynamics and critically regards the relationship between Mrs. Ramsay and her husband: "What was this mania of hers for marriage?" Lily also serves as a fictional alter-ego for Virginia Woolf herself. While working on a painting of Mrs. Ramsay reading to her son, Lily's lack of confidence is exacerbated by the opinion of another houseguest: "Women can't paint, women can't write"--a declaration linking Lily's timidity as a painter with Virginia's own qualms about the novel (she was anxious that it would be criticized as "sentimental"). Worrying unduly about what others think is inhibiting their talents.
It's become obligatory to mention the supposed lack of plot in this book--but that old saw ignores the transformation of the novel's characters and their pursuit for meaningfulness. Mr. Ramsay wants respect; Mrs. Ramsay wants to be happy in her marriage; their son James wants the approval of his father; Lily wants to be an artist--but all are thwarted in their search for happiness. One houseguest muses, "What does one live for?" Similarly, Mrs. Ramsay reflects as dinner starts, "What have I done with my life?" And Lily wonders while she works on her painting: "What is the meaning of life? That was all--a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years."
The novel's "action," then, is the quest to find the ever-elusive "meaning of life": both within a single day (during the first half of the novel) and then ten years later, after the first World War, when what remains of the shattered family returns to the summer home and finally makes a long-postponed boat-trip to the lighthouse. Not everyone finds what they are looking for, but at last Lily Briscoe, who remains behind at the cottage, understands that approval and contentment and artistic talent had been there all along--within herself. She never had to leave the shore.
 Beware of Abridged editions December 26, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you are looking for an audio recording of Virginia Woolf's complete book, be cautious here. Neither the Amazon site nor the sellers necessarily tell you whether you are getting an abridged or unabridged version. I ordered what turned out to be an abridged version. The seller took it back, but without telling me I would end up paying the shipping both ways (which exceeded the price of the item) -- all for an error that was theirs, not mine. Neither Amazon nor the seller get any points for this kind of abuse of customers.
Perfect for the lit-crit-for-clits claque... September 21, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is not a book for everyone. It wasn't meant for me, and it is not one that I'll ever re-visit, but I can acknowledge that it is a minor classic.
Much like the far superior Under the Volcano, this book focuses on how the thing is said, and not the thing itself. The plot is spare and banal, and what little action there is is tangential: what matters to Woolf is the inner psychology, the interpersonal dynamics, the thoughts, perceptions, emotions and feelings.
The book has a calamitous exordium, populated with clunkers such as this:
"Then, up behind the great black rock, almost every evening spurted irregularly, so that one had to watch for it and it was a delight when it came, a fountain of white water, and then, while one waited for that, one watched, on the pale semicircular beach, wave after wave shedding again and again smoothly, a film of mother of pearl."
But, gradually, the lyricism and prose pick up, and become almost sublime in many parts. Woolf does not have much to say, but she says it very beautifully, once she's found her sea-legs.
To the Lighthouse is very overrated at #15 on the MLA 100...it should be ranked far beneath All the King's Men, Appointment in Samarra, and the incredibly brilliant Pale Fire. (Most English professors would doubtless disagree.) That said, it does deserve a spot on the list, and is not an aesthetically devoid waste of time like Wide Sargasso Sea.
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