| To the Lighthouse (Annotated) | 
 enlarge | Author: Virginia Woolf
Creator: Mark Hussey
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $4.06
You Save: $10.94 (73%)
New (42) Used (31) from $4.06
Avg. Customer Rating:  168 reviews
Sales Rank: 22749
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 312
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0156030470
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780156030472
ASIN: 0156030470
Publication Date: August 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Book is new and unread, shows some shelf wear
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Essence of Things April 26, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
To the Lighthouse, published in 1927, is a landmark Modernist novel.
Written from multiple perspectives and shifting between time and characters, Woolf is not really concerned with plot. Instead, she paints a psychological portrait of the members of the Ramsay family and their friends, at their summerhouse in the Hebrides. To the Lighthouse is divided into three parts.
In the first section, (The Window), the character of Mrs. Ramsay is the lens through which most of the perspectives are focused, and her son's (James) desire to go "to the Lighthouse" is the catalyst from which the chapter takes shape.
In the next section, (Time Passes), told by an omniscient narrator, Woolf dramatises the decay of the summer house over a period of ten years, and the fate of various characters is divulged. This section has some powerful visual images that expound Woolf's skill as a writer.
In the third and final section, (The Lighthouse), the remaining family and friends finally get to the Lighthouse, and the novel becomes a meditation on love, loss, time and creativity.
To the Lighthouse is a difficult read. But if you can understand the nature of the stream-of-consciousness technique and Woolf's goal of representing the essence of experience, then you will be able to glean a better understanding of the narrative. To the Lighthouse creates internal landscapes, and the main technique is invoking memory and various associations on the thoughts and feelings of the characters.
This book will take time and patience. But if you keep working at it and savour ever word, then you will be in for a rewarding literary experience.
Who's Afraid April 1, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Though this is an incredibly difficult read, it's worth it if you have the time and patience. The story is in three parts, the first being a family planning a trip to a lighthouse, the second being a tragedy that occurs, and the third being the actual trip to the lighthouse. The story asks the questions, "Is man the sum of his experiences?" and "Is time the succession of a line of lampposts?" I won't tell you the answers that Woolf provides or that I agree with them (she was certifiable and reading this book gives a glimpse into that tragic mind), but I will tell you that in between the sometimes laborious but skillful symbolism there is often a passage of beautifully poetic stream-of-consciousness prose.
As the masterpiece it is, 5 stars are not enough.
J. Lyon Layden
The Other Side of Yore
Superb March 7, 2007
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I agree with the previous reviewer: this takes time to read. You cannot speed read this book. I find myself having to concentrate on almost every phrase, certainly every sentence. I also find that I cannot read more than one "chapter" at a time, except for some of the real short chapters.
But if you take the time, shut out all other distractions, perhaps some soothing Norah Jones or Connie Rae in the background (at very low volume), and absorb each word, phrase, sentence, you should really enjoy "To The Lighthouse."
I am about a third of the way through. I don't even know if there's a plot. I doubt that there is. But the observations that Virginia Woolf makes of those around her is incredible. I can understand why she often recorded that she could only write for an hour or so each day.
Her understanding of the relationship between a child and a mother is phenomenal. It heightens one's appreciation for all moms. Maybe this was the mother's day card Virginia was never able to give her own mom.
(Incidentally, "To The Lighthouse" concerns a family with eight children, which sounds a bit far-fetched, but in fact Virginia was one of eight children growing up in London.)
Great Writing Style Overcomes Average Story Line [34][15][T] February 4, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Written nearly one hundred years ago, this book is more distant from today's reader than the great Lighthouse may have been to the inhabitant's of Woolf's village island.
Centering on a large and dysfunctionally polite family, the book has three very different parts: first when the majority of the family is still young; second when certain life-changing events occur to members of the that family; and last a trek to the Lighthouse by a few members of the family - a trek which was the subject of disdain and scorn between father and son in the first part.
Written with an almost ADHD style - where comments of the events are interwoven with the thoughts of characters, and at times the two interwoven with dialogue -- the book shifts and turns and rocks, much like the sailboats of the island's denizens. This makes the book unique, and I warn readers that it also makes the reading more difficult.
This is deemed a classic - but it is not a classic for the story, but rather for the prose and narrative form. You read this to honor the writer, not to honor the story created by the writer.
If you wish to read a great writer's greatest novel, try this. If you like this, follow with "Mrs. Dalloway." And, if you like each, read Cunningham's "The Hours," which seeks to honor Woolf as a writer by copying much of her style while incorporating much of her life with her stories.
Nice hard cover edition November 17, 2006
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
This has no footnotes, so if you are after anything but the bare-bones, then look on. Is a simply nice hard cover edition.
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