| 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:
 Pure, mindless, dribble. May 28, 2006
6 out of 26 found this review helpful
"To the Lighthouse" is the first book by Virginia Woolf I have read, aside from the first volume of her diary, and I was greatly disappointed. I felt that this was just a juxtaposition of random thoughts spewed onto the page, without any consistency or coherency. This is the first book I did not read word-for-word, and even skimming it was painful. I do not recommend.
 The First Novel To Transcend The Genre March 31, 2006
This particular edition of Virgina Woolf's "To The Lighthouse" has never left me, so to speak, since first reading it when I purchased this exact book in 1990. So much has been written about the work, and the woman, one can feel the groans. But to me - with this novel, Virginia Woolf had truly created a genre that never existed before: fiction as a prose poem; or to be more specific - using the format of prose in novel parameters but elevating it to poetic heights that no other author had ever accomplished. I don't think Shakespeare could have done it - even if he had a sister. Indeed, the last five words of the novel itself sum up exactly what I am trying to say. If you have not read this book, I respectfully urge you to do so. If you have read it, please pick up a copy of this particular edition so beautifully rendered in cover art, layout and design by HBJ Modern Classics especially as a Hardcover. And as an endnote here, the only other author writing today who has followed this trail blazed by VW is the great writer and poet, Susan Minot ("Folly" "Evening" "4 am"). So if you have the interest, both authors' books are well worth your time.
 Confusing on audio March 19, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Woolf's style of writing (changing between several characters' thoughts) causes difficulty for one to follow this novel on audio. The paperback proved to be easier for me.
if you are only going to read one Woolf, read this one March 9, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you are going to read only one of Virginia Woolf's many works, this is the one to read. She is the greatest novelist, but her novels cannot be equal, some being better or more universal than others. She really *arrives* in this one. I first read it twenty years ago in college, but I still think of phrases, thoughts, and concepts from this book. The novel's themes resonate the way poetry does. Worth the reputation. I hope no one ever tries to make a movie out of this one.
To the Lighthouse February 11, 2006
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf, is about the internal states of its characters: their sensations, emotions, thoughts, and motivations. Events occur in the outside world, but the real action in the book takes place in interior worlds. Woolf mostly focuses on two women: Mrs. Ramsay, who finds happiness, of a sort, in marriage and Lily Briscoe, who finds happiness, of a sort, alone.
The action in the first part of the book, "The Window," takes place during part of a day and an evening as the Ramsay family and some of their friends and acquaintances gather for a dinner.
In the second part of the book, "Time Passes," the last light is turned out, ten years pass, and, parenthetically, the reader learns of some major developments: Mrs. Ramsay and two of her children die and a family friend becomes famous. In her extended rumination on time, Woolf compares time to a wheel that thoughtlessly crushes us. "Time Passes" features some of the most beautiful writing in the book:
"So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming on the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which, creeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers. ... But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of a wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers."
In the last part of the book, "The Lighthouse," a few of the characters introduced in "The Window" gather again. Several of them undertake an expedition they planned, but did not take, ten years earlier: sailing to a lighthouse far offshore. Meanwhile, Lily Briscoe paints in the garden, amateurishly. Again, the real action takes place inside the characters, and this interior action has less to do with events in the outside world than with memories and associations from past events.
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