Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    To the Lighthouse
    To the Lighthouse
    To the Lighthouse
    Ebook256 pages5 hours

    To the Lighthouse

    By Virginia Woolf

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an English writer. She is widely hailed as being among the most influential modernist authors of the 20th century and a pioneer of stream of consciousness narration. She suffered numerous nervous breakdowns during her life primarily as a result of the deaths of family members, and it is now believed that she may have suffered from bipolar disorder. In 1941, Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse at Lewes, aged 59. First published in 1927, “To the Lighthouse” is a novel that centres around the Ramsey Family and their numerous trips to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. A modernist novel inspired by the works of Marcel Proust and James Joyce, philosophical introspection takes priority over plot, and its employment of the multiple focalisation technique results in a distinct absence of dialogue and direct action. Highly recommended for fans of modernist literature and Woolf's seminal work. Contents include: “The Window”, “Time Passes”, “The Lighthouse”. Other notable works by this author include: “Pattledom” (1925), “A Room of One's Own” (1929), “The Captain's Death Bed: and Other Essays” (1950). Read & Co. Classics is proudly republishing this classic novel now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead & Co. Classics
    Release dateFeb 3, 2022
    ISBN9781528792882
    Author

    Virginia Woolf

    Virginia Woolf was an English novelist, essayist, short story writer, publisher, critic and member of the Bloomsbury group, as well as being regarded as both a hugely significant modernist and feminist figure. Her most famous works include Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own.

    Read more from Virginia Woolf

    Related to To the Lighthouse

    Related ebooks

    Family Life For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Mr. Rain Jacket

      May 20, 2019

      Mr. Rain Jacket
      10 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Charles Baudelaire

      Jun 9, 2020

      After my friend and I left the tobacco shop, he carefully sorted his loose change; slipped some small gold coins in his left jacket pocket; into the right went the silver pieces; in his left pants pocket, a handful of centimes; and in the right, a si

      2 min read

    • Article

      Lover of Cars

      Sep 12, 2023

      all those Stingers Jaguars Tiguans Fiat 500sand San Remo Green Beemer i4s I love allthose model numbers numb-sexy like cashmerethrown over a dinosaur skeleton like a robot’skiss I fell asleep watching an Audi documentaryand dreamt of a low low R8 sco

      1 min read

    • Article

      The 40 Greatest Books To Read Before You Die

      Apr 25, 2021

      Books, books, books. They will increase your lifespan, lower your stress and boost your intelligence. They will give you fuller, thicker hair. Whatever the breathless claims about reading, one thing is certain: losing yourself in a great novel is one

      14 min read

    • Article

      Just Trust Me: In Praise Of Strange Books

      Dec 23, 2017

      Author Victoria Schwab says she loves the books that can't be categorized, that fall between library-shelf categories, and that spark passionate debate among readers who either love them or hate them.

      3 min read

    • Article

      TWO ESSAYS from FINGER EXERCISES FOR POETS

      Nov 1, 2022

      Russian Formalists have a word, “ostranenie,” which means constantly attempting to discover new ways of looking at everyday things. There are almost always two realities rubbing up against one another in every poem, whether they are specified or not,

      10 min read

    • Article

      Top 10 Books

      Mar 4, 2022

      Top 10 Books
      1 min read

    • Article

      NEWS AND Trends

      Apr 12, 2023

      NEWS AND Trends
      7 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: Summer 2023

      Jun 28, 2023

      Notable new poetry collections from Taylor Byas, Terrance Hayes, Sam Sax and more. The post Must-Read Poetry: Summer 2023 appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Women’s Work

      Dec 15, 2020

      Women’s Work
      12 min read

    • Article

      My Good Friend

      Jun 5, 2023

      Sunday evening About the roof repair, I have nothing new to report. The tiles were supposed to arrive yesterday; they did not. I rang that young man at the store to give him a piece of my mind, but he’s always so nice that I forget I called to quarre

      20 min read

    • Article

      A Christmas Memory

      Nov 1, 2018

      A Christmas Memory
      18 min read

    • Article

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two

      Oct 30, 2019

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two
      25 min read

    • Article

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work

      Dec 15, 2018

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work
      6 min read

    • Article

      Prevarication Jones

      May 1, 2019

      Prevarication Jones
      16 min read

    • Article

      Very Hampstead, very Kingsley Amis

      Oct 29, 2020

      I HEARD THESE WORDS in the Flask Bookshop in Flask Walk, Hampstead — which I owned and ran from 1975 until 1988 — while slumped in the back room on my leather swivel chair, quite as usual, smoking a pipe and reading: I was always reading. It was a un

      10 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for To the Lighthouse

    4/5

    3,027 ratings110 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I have read this before, centuries ago in a college English class. Then, I was unable to rhapsodize but only struggle to turn the pages and keep my attention on the prose. I say 'prose' because there is no story, not in the classic sense. I have now read it again, and as I was ill I had nothing else pressing but to distract myself from my symptoms, I was able to immerse myself in the rhythm of Woolf's language, not sprint to the finish, but just consume the words, make pictures in my mind, go back and forth across the page. This is a work about the inner lives of several people and how those people intersect with and mold one another. Woolf is painting a group portrait with words, and the words inevitably fail to show all the facets she wants to show, but that failure is part of the story. It is impossible to comprehend the complexities and emotional tides of other people. Just as Lily, the spinster artist in the group, both fails and succeeds in completing her painting, Woolf has also 'had her vision' and it is enough to have had it, whether or not she is entirely successful in her endeavor.The impressionistic cover to my version of this book is perfect, because the narrative itself is very impressionistic, showing us brushstrokes and colors and the occasional exquisite detail, but the whole is necessarily without hard edges or even borders. When I rate books, I try to judge them as what they are, rather than what I want them to be. This book isn't a page turner, isn't a thriller, isn't even really a story. It's one woman's attempt to do something different, to push the boundaries of literature. And because I think she succeeded, I'm giving her five stars.
    • 3/5
      Published in 1927, To the Lighthouse is one of Woolf’s most well-known and widely read books. I finished Mrs. Dalloway earlier this year and enjoyed it immensely once I got immersed into the writing style. I did not feel quite as immersed in this one, but she definitely has a unique voice. We basically spend lots of time in the minutia of the characters’ thoughts as they look at and evaluate people and the world around them.

      I normally love books with deeply drawn characters, but I must admit, even I need a tiny bit more structure than what is depicted here. I enjoyed the observations about life, death, and the passage of time. It is a lyrically written psychological study that ebbs and flows fluidly, as thoughts tend to do. While I understand the literary merit of this work, I did not find it a particularly pleasant reading experience.

      One of my favorite quotes from the book provides a sense of that special feeling when everything feels “just right,” a scene from a dinner that has had its issues, but which the guests will remember fondly years later:

      “It partook, she felt, . . . of eternity . . . there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that remains forever after.”
    • 1/5
      I'm sorry but of the thousands of books I've read in my lifetime (I'm 74) this book, despite it being placed on a top 100 must-read books list, is in my opinion, unreadable. It just does not flow; there's no link between characters and actions. I'm obviously missing the big picture here and if so, please tell me what it is.
    • 3/5
      In To the Lighthouse, we spend two days, spaced ten years apart, with the Ramsays and their guests at the family’s summer home on the Isle of Skye. On the first visit, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay quarrel over whether the next day will bring weather nice enough to take six-year old James, one of their eight children, on a sailboat ride to a nearby off-shore lighthouse. The family and their friends—including the young painter Lily Briscoe, the old poet Augustus Carmichael, and the sycophantic academic Charles Tansley, then suffer through an extremely tense dinner. Ten years later, following World War I, much has changed for the Ramsay clan, most notably the untimely deaths of three of its members. Nevertheless, the remaining family and many of the same friends gather once again at the island retreat and this time the long-awaited boat trip to the lighthouse is accomplished.If that strikes you as a story in which very little external action occurs, you would not be wrong. Of course, the fame and lasting legacy of this novel comes from what happens inside; that is, inside the heads of the main characters. Virginia Woolf, extending the tradition of other modernist writers like James Joyce, makes it clear early on that this is a novel of interior monologues and personal introspection rather one where the plot is placed front and center. The book is divided into three parts: 'The Window' tells of the family’s first pre-war day on the island, mainly through Mrs. Ramsay’s interior thoughts; 'Time Passes' tells of the deaths that happened during the ten years surrounding the war in a terse and almost clinical fashion; and 'The Lighthouse' tells of the second post-war island trip, with shifting focus on the thoughts of Lily, James, and another of the Ramsay children.I will happily concede that this is an Important Work in literary annals, both for its innovative, complex structure as well as the author’s deep exploration of human thought and relationships. (By the way, it is also considered an important feminist work, mainly I would guess because of Lily’s decision that she would rather remain single and working as an artist than married and unhappy.) It was not, however, a particularly interesting or enjoyable book to read. In fact, despite the occasional sublime passage, most of the prose is dense and turgid as the central characters try to work out their various emotional complaints (wives against husbands, children against parents, friends against friends) and angst-ridden issues within the space of their own heads. This made for some very long, wandering sentences that were not redeemed by whatever brooding self-discovery the protagonist in question ultimately made. So, while I am happy to have read a book that several notable lists rate a classic, it was not an altogether pleasant experience.
    • 3/5
      The Ramsays are at their summer residence with guests. Mrs. Ramsay keeps promising her youngest child they will go to the lighthouse the next day, but her husband says they won't because of bad weather. Unfortunately, tragedy happens before they can go to the lighthouse. When they do go to the lighthouse, the youngest son is now a teenager. It is a reunion of sorts from that time 10 years earlier.This was not my cup of tea. I found the beginning boring. Quotation marks would have helped when characters were having conversations or thoughts. I often had to re-read passages to understand what was happening as well as who it was happening to. The book is in three parts. The first part is the basic story as in the above synopsis. The second part is what happens after the tragedy. The third part is 10 years later with the return of the Ramsays to the island. The third part I find interesting. It is a stream of consciousness by different people. Some interesting thoughts occur. Some rebellious ones. Some on how to change others' responses to one. There are recriminations and anger in the thoughts. There is sorrow in remembrance. These people are flawed. I just had a problem making a connection to any of them. Fortunately, I borrowed this from the library for book club. It is not a keeper for me.
    • 4/5
      Luckily I was in the mood to immerse myself in these word pictures, these impressions and suggestions of characters, because this is a very literary book, with little narrative drive. You have to be prepared to read this slowly and uninterruptedly.However, allowing for these demands, it is wonderful experiment with language, difficult to explain without surrendering to the hypnotic prose, elegaic. The middle section, Time Passes, is like an epiphany (or was when I was reading it).
    • 5/5
      "It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment."Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse is different and brilliantly so. It demands your full attention and each of your emotion. It knocks on your door, persuades you to let a room to it in your mind, set a comfortable bed, and welcome its stay then embrace its hovering presence once it decides to leave. It is a wonderfully-crafted introspection that broods and muses within different lives link — the comings and goings of the ideas, the rushing and disappearing of the waves by the shore — by a Lighthouse (Woolf wrote the word 'Lighthouse' as a proper noun), by a woman who seemingly serves the same purpose: to guide, to enlighten, to comfort.The wrath and peace of perception tear this novel apart and put it back together. Memories and thoughts are hives the characters protect and destruct their selves in over and over again. The ordinary is extraordinary, the extraordinary is ordinary. There is no lesson here. Death does not change anything although it changes everything. Life continues to flow, to happen and it is grief and absence that painstakingly, persistently impact these characters, these people we may find a common ground with. Nothing is left out with Woolf be it a glance, a touch, a gesture, a sigh; their weight is conspicuous; they lose, contradict, and fight themselves in this eminent passage of time."She had a sense of being past everything, through everything, out of everything, as she helped the soup, as if there was an eddy — there — and one could be in it, or one could be out of it, and she was out of it." (p94)There is no doubt that the mind flies inside the paragraphs of To The Lighthouse, it traverses every nook and corner, sweeps its every floor of thought and opens a window to an array of interpretation. It lingers on regret, yearning, anger, and affinity. Here, nothing happens yet everything does. It is a loyal servant of mood rather than a narrative pleaser. It is a food for thought, a home for sentiments. It nudges to question and to ponder on women's societal roles, demands of marriage, a sense of career failure and dissatisfaction, and most importantly life's purpose whilst stimulating the smell of childhood and sketching the complexities of adult relationships accompanied by a bleak summer backdrop.After closing this book at once, I knew that it doesn't end there. It will show itself, every now and then, on empty plates, busy harbours, passing empty moments, words on random book pages, some thoughts I thread, some thoughts that insist, and some people I part with and encounter."Sitting alone (for Nancy went out again) among the clean cups at the long table she felt cut off from other people, and able only to go on watching asking, wondering. The house, the place, the morning, all seemed strangers to her. She had no attachment here, she felt, no relations with it, anything might happen, and whatever did happen, a step outside, a voice calling ('It's not in the cupboard, it's on the landing,' someone cried), was a question, as if the link that usually bound things together had been cut, and they floated up here, down there, off, anyhow. How aimless it was, how chaotic, how unreal it was, she thought, looking at her empty coffee cup."
    • 2/5
      I am not sure that I finished it because everyone was talking, or I should say thinking, all at once. I got confused. I got lost. I finished it. I think.
      Kudos to those who liked it and gave 5-star reviews.
      Reading this book is a little like riding a bronco. You either manage to ride it to the end or, like me, keep falling off.
    • 5/5
      I want to read this book over and over for the rest of my life. Its insights into the (Western) psyche are tremendous.
    • 2/5
      Many of the themes and motifs were poignant, thought-provoking, and extremely relevant to my current phase in life. I enjoyed the depth of thought and meaning buried within the text, but I did not enjoy Woolf's verbose and clause-laden style (it was difficult to follow). I may have enjoyed the book more with a bit more plot or "action", but the most interesting pieces of the story are glossed over (intentionally). I "get" it. But I didn't enjoy it.
    • 3/5
      Woolf's strange use of time was effective in result albeit uninteresting. Her characters are similar, in that their psychologies are (sporadically) interesting even if they aren't. Perhaps this isn't my kind of book; I got very little out of it.
    • 4/5
      There are books I’ve had on my shelves that I have always meant to read, and that I feel I ought to have read. To The Lighthouse was one of those books, so I took it with me on holiday and read it.But I didn’t really know what it was about, and it’s a strange book to encounter if you have no preconceptions. The first section, with its cloyingly deep analysis of the minutia of life, hundreds of pages where nothing much happens except they go to dinner, all the Meaning trapped in ‘do you think it will be fine enough to go to the Lighthouse tomorrow?’ ‘No, I think it will not be fine’. Marriage and motherhood and thwarted career ambitions and hosting and matchmaking, and the way the smallest thing can hold so much meaning. I found it quite intractable and frustrating at first, and then found a rhythm and a sympathy and settled into it...... when all at once I hit the second part and the book simultaneously broke my brain and my heart. Ten years pass in a flurry of pages. People we had known down to the grain on their fingerprints are casually dispatched in passing in the final sentence of a paragraph. The house slowly decays, the bubble that has been there so clearly is gone, as the dust and mould creep in.And then in the final part we are there again, and are drawn into musing around what fingerprints do we leave on the world, how are we remembered, what is success? Those complex family relationships, so much love and anger tangled up,and all inside, no ripples on the surface. But we paint. And we make it to the Lighthouse.
    • 3/5
      Lily Briscoe is a kindred spirit. She asks a pertinent question at the beginning of the final section: what does it mean then, what can it all mean? I have been asking myself that, often out loud for most of my adult life. A pair of events this weekend illuminated that disposition and likely also besmirched my reading of To The Lighthouse. My Tenth wedding anniversary was followed quickly by the funeral for my uncle Fred. The first event was grand, of course, though it does lend itself to a certain survey, of sorts. The second was simply queer. this was no great tragedy, the man was 85 years old had seven sons and had suffered through terrible health these last few years. I leaned quickly that there are no poets in that section of my family and apparently no Democrats either. It was nice to hug, slap backs and smile at one another, most of the time counting the decades since we last spoke at length. Through the depths of such I ran to the Woolf and read for an odd half hour here and there.

      To the Lighthouse is a tale of caprice and desperation. It is a kaleidoscope of resonance and impressions. Much like life it can be dusty and wind swept on an even manner. I would likely have been great affected were it not for the switchbacks of the weekend.
    • 4/5
      This book reads more like a poem than a novel. Evocative, fragile, nuanced, ephemeral moments of family life set in a gorgeous landscape. It would make a beautiful arthouse movie with long scenes filled with stark seascapes and little action.
    • 5/5
      The language is so beautifully evocative. The careful echoing of the longer first section, which allows the reader to meet and understand the Ramseys and Lily Briscoe in particular, with the concluding section where Lily (the artist) is forced to come to terms with what it all means is balanced by the much briefer middle part. That section is where we learn of the events of the painful period of Mrs. Ramsey's death, World War II and the passage of time. It functions as a sort of intercession for both the reader and Lily, allowing us to gain perspective (almost without realizing it) on how "we perish, each alone." Such a very powerful book.
    • 4/5
      a family goes to the same vacation house through the years
    • 4/5
      There are moments of great crystalline beauty here, seamless amalgam of little sharp perceptions and language their vehicle, and I won't forget this family, in particular the two parents, in whom I see so much of archetype, of my parents and my friends' parents transfigured and ennobled by, well, class, I suppose. Mrs Ramsey regal and anxious, Mr Ramsey needy and forbidding, which is almost another (male) way of saying the same thing. But a sprawling family deserved a sprawling novel that would let the modernist psychological superstructure unfold at a less compressed pace. I feel like that pressure relief would have led to fewer "But what is it all? And what does it all mean? And what are ... WE???"-type eruptions. Sure am glad James made it to the Lighthouse and had a moment with his dad though.(On class: the last gasps of compulsive Victorian world-building as well as Victorian formality are on display here, and it's affecting to watch that world list and capsize and the hard-won homeliness of it convert into something more twentieth-century and atomized. But I guess that made the proscribed lighthouse trip possible?)
    • 2/5
      Typical Woolf. Long sentences. Inner dialogues showing way too much overthinking. Way too much detail over little nothings. Tiring. Nothing exactly happens in the the book. Things happen between chapters, then characters start the next chapter thinking about what happened. But we never see what happens.But poor James spent 10 years waiting to get his visit to the lighthouse. Which we don't actually get to see or hear about, because the book ends as they begin getting out of the book.Glad it's done. Glad it was short.
    • 4/5
      I had close to the same feeling about these characters as I had to the ones in The Age of Innocence, which is to say, close to none. The writing here, however, was much better, as it seems to me, so there's that.
    • 4/5
      Not much of a plot in this work of dreamy prose. But still worth a read, if just to suck from the marrow of these sentences. Being a short work one, can read it over and over again.,
    • 3/5
      I feel like I need cliff notes and a college level lecture on this one. There was just so much going on in this...every sentence heavy with meaning and infused with hidden feeling. The inner lives of Edwardians who perhaps grew up in the Victorian era...so repressed and filled with the expectations of society, struggling not to be themselves, but to even find themselves in the first place.
    • 3/5
      Took me a while to finally get around to reading a Virginia Woolf book. Not sure why. Maybe it was her trashing of James Joyce ("the book of a self-taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating."). Maybe since she was critical of a book that had far more originality and seamlessly woven psychology in its prose than in her offerings--and she once had let this slip in a diary entry that her attempts were “probably being better done by Mr. Joyce.” But since "To the Lighthouse" seems regarded as an exemplar of stream of consciousness, it was only a matter of time before I dug into it. I found beautiful phrases warring with each other in the same sentence, strangled by punctuation, cordoned from the rest of the paragraph in endless parenthetical digressions. The second part had me interested with its jump in time and smashing of a plodding expectation. And then the third part took control of the reins with some truly great moments of uninterrupted thought-flow, only rarely sliding into the ruts with the irksome "he thought/she thought" or needless diversion or mixed metaphor. I know it was supposed to resemble thought, but at times it felt more like grasping at a style. And, as I’ve said, it had already been done better.In any case, those brilliant passages deserve their time in the sun, planted beside the stalwart side of a lighthouse that seems to alternate between unattainability and naked shivering reality."So some random light directing them from an uncovered star, or wandering ship, or the Lighthouse even, with its pale footfall upon stair and mat, the little airs mounted the staircase and nosed round bedroom doors. But here surely, they must cease. Whatever else may perish and disappear what lies here is steadfast. Here one might say to those sliding lights, those fumbling airs, that breathe and bend over the bed itself, here you can neither touch nor destroy. Upon which, wearily, ghostlily, as if they had feather-light fingers and the light persistency of feathers, they would look, once, on the shut eyes and the loosely clasping fingers, and fold their garments wearily and disappear.""So much depends then, thought Lily Briscoe, looking at the sea which had scarcely a stain on it, which was so soft that the sails and the clouds seemed set in its blue, so much depends, she thought, upon distance . . ."
    • 4/5
      Although I think I like Mrs. Dalloway better, this wasn't bad.
    • 4/5
      I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I found it frustrating to read, as little actually occurred in the book, with the content made up almost entirely of the leisurely musings of the English upper-class. On the other, I enjoyed the thoughts on art and I liked seeing the character of Lily grow into a more confident artist. I had some inner laughs at Mr. Ramsay, who in the second half of the novel finds himself in a difficult place without his wife to consistently praise him and his work. I did find the style in which this book was written, the focus on perception without much dialogue or action, difficult to read and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is wary of those writing styles.
    • 4/5
      This was my second Woolf book and I'm no closer to being a fan of this author than at any other time of my life. Lighthouse was much more enjoyable than Waves, but I won't be rereading either of them any time soon.
    • 5/5
      What a treat to read a masterpiece. I love the way Virginia Woolf writes weaving the story through the thoughts of each character. The silence of her characters held by unspoken rules and expectations they live their lives on the edge of what’s expected of them and what they want to question.
    • 5/5
      This was an unrelenting richness that I could enjoy only in small segments before feeling overwhelmed.
      I should very much like to see Lily Briscoe's painting.
    • 4/5
      The audio unabridged version, read by Nicole Kidman, was very well performed. As a first reading for me, I found it interesting in a vague, historical way, but I wouldn't want a steady diet of novels like this one. There isn't much plot; it's more a story of relationships and thoughts. Not all the characters were likable, but the reader is shown what they are thinking, whether the reader cares or not.For a family with eight children, most of them played little part in the story. The novel is full of disappointment and resentment. It goes largely unspoken, especially by the females. The males are a good deal less reticent about their opinions, and are quit fond of telling everyone else what they should do and how they fail. I hated the bit about the fish.While I am glad I listened to this book, and while it is a remarkable book in many ways, I am also glad I don't have a steady reading diet of books like this one.
    • 4/5
      I am definitely not a Virginia Woolf enthusiast, but my pursuit of the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die keeps forcing me to sample different novels. "To The Lighthouse" was my fifth by Woolf and definitely one of the more enjoyable ones (second to "The Years" which is probably her most traditional narrative structure.) Told in stream of consciousness style, "To The Lighthouse" explores relationships and legacy by focusing on the The Ramsey family as they stay in their vacation home in Scotland, along with a group of friends. The story definitely wasn't as challenging as others by Woolf -- so much centers on simple disagreement about the weather -- and the psychological insights into the family dynamics were interesting. This is surely one of Woolf's more accessible novels (at least of the ones I've read anyway.)
    • 4/5
      Virginia Woolf takes a seemingly insignificant disagreement about tomorrow's weather and turns it into an analysis of human character and relationships. Woolf shifts perspective often, revealing each character's thoughts and feelings through a stream of consciousness technique. The Ramseys and a few guests are at a summer home near the sea, and Woolf uses the sea's movement as a metaphor to describe the thoughts, emotions, and interpersonal relations of the characters. The book is divided into three sections. By the end of the first section, Woolf has given the reader a pretty good idea of how some of the characters influence the others. The middle section provides a bridge to the latter section, where Woolf explores the effects of the absence of characters from the first section on the remaining characters.Although I've read only a handful of stream of consciousness novels, I'm fascinated by the technique. Done well, it really does mirror the activity in my own head. I'm an introvert, so I tend to spend a lot of time there. I'm not sure that this technique will appeal so much to extroverts. I think stream of consciousness novels may be books by introverts for introverts.

    Book preview

    To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

    19ebook_preview_excerpt.html}|۲Ƒ@OdUDFC#[Ԩ[#^M/ІǔSqkcuvUKv#s;4m8wah'˧qNa 7Źkc~Ao 1Kl> U:U]\8͇-Nn|LYk|qIZ|1LԞW h.7qy[0)ԗ'G 6^U_=MFlpZfغzYƴ[I:GO>Rýaj>ҿ+|+A&U=jepl-'qx0_ٻ(h]Y'~U o 楉ng%#OP-]1pai!O567 5}0ih^]H_uٝ?[o|'⿸AtnHc4Mz?60x(cc[H_ivA K d/O0j;0nBK HR'mZ>P<ʼnvgn?4  E/d_^3r_q?, fذZօX>NId}>mCZg>9%(t"ew09s&gc"t0a]sI ^!Xj4_ AHG#HnNɐm$~]}\ǔצE9!T ,pN֬7mX-lc[sB바V:_OMC&<*WZDz LN`Q6ΝtV>0IߜK XvFг*G+l1ȉCϵ?g!{Dl ;c.q^u N>aPW8Q6=ai:.MDR \!{"8` z+7q_!" V9,:G4NOTN40>_>Gu`žy ]z <+orBaWK{Q ̰i=hZKd$33T`Z>ov@Yj-``| S # xdwϬ7:7%2-80eZ1,6/IAA_xp:Q1߂.h)=M#r!eu% B':00 ᣅQ1땞z%?DaHE;$ 0jaLCd6mt&4#V/83d=u/4uʫ%WQ.f;b<wqO.O8̤F(phC# sW/#w@=eaF{|~BILvV!6M[]4W moiA%&)Yo.`2ξ>7 X^Xؓ0AR1@63rOSW+2ڜ=HVMk,: "_{]̪(OZ|\P/`1m 4d._@zّvyГV+PITMdSͳ e98ҥvY/,9Blö4|8>6dX͉Ӥ 6fz$(`I.iĮ1KY!!6f}ܑ[7;ڂ{V%p㿤% /icCBxDSI#g4gIcknk}rO~m陲urm0i㑁[B@QE51@G5;bְ$ګU |dz;M檴5/[_OJkF0 (p0lGcN@~i& D9()>6V~əצBt7F$ BB|  t&2sĨƀ9ಗHL 7]1T:qt)W+c$`*F[ĬH?S1 9!bE&2;obbhlk;^ Pmbƴ&Ǟ HHpE᫚q\L$HzW5[pB|u9R &H"}ڔ $;"RrO t "Z~Ql1ﶤGY+ՙKPy/jkr}i l,&+mmH ^8ƿ^7ӼΖՇpVjhe_..g >־Wn=xaX+mR1KR1"ۈa&nZLj2M0m7IJI0u/}K! \" x-Du>aMdM%|֢L"\mCyӧ-68uq+~/d AŃnjlE;iQb%S覛)/ZKc5ǪbJĠ@>+p7(?J&%ZfmY``N"S.YhQ;C>`dh,QHkfȖI\ʴbwԁ0]槃Wp/ͭ=X]Cȑ.n,P&.=ۘ0J7m#5gO&C2mBݶD|@IM%!Vwt9 k9xL"}_#QN r%a7Ψ/du:-V'qx48E~`t{2k\#=Qa. I:)9Ex NU0?0 W+3RO&Q ,)&x #.DO~A(K`J TX!C~ժhb.!7n{d,eԱ-`qd-L ݬMkAeq^i`39.OJb Z')ؠuzt1G€ҍv>s?Jn9T GiϷ)Ve`$G>uY"vuYS9=I%8g1t5;QȒ)=e )wDR}J>/uYisclԅrO^Q yzsf` %oVbakὝMl iJ91>9 Bj%LNzpV߹!%nT9 dt"v82N^];[&N@29B3a9z摯k"maip |d©#d"5bl:oq:Yܓhyx8J1?uٞ&kѾ5H,̳$>} 6q깛ַtNIw.z!&| C8χYΒ0$eZGbYE4jS,R?)Gw{ռcǺҕ~m$KYt79r:.Y}٪Ƅew-xD"cbY'bxɶB9X\9Mw˯ is,?Nq4yZ٣f@K"EIuĺȍ%5Rnւ&wJWcm aYuz 2im215?!2K&}@ub˴dxCR nXzl, V,L''s~݊"O'm֝pU/;D5MHwTG/&c`7)8 lV,=w!%b;Q}_'V;RI Z(kuӊ\8).my=WL媔Ll`/iBk9a) " {l곒j],'yU+hbwNcN@K_R6U@ ?DoĖRu,i22=:4rxlc?Unj![2"N TV]*m&Ҭ(.Ҙ&@\ECe]54U(,;Ȗ0cB9{uw"R5qn&,TN!pYkzevđ?]t;懄Jڻ]#P&㡔ab%SۜPIsfܷX\-&X: Ţ߬ǸCR>%zBUu|y_H0=${JT(e.6)dUį,K NV?4BCICw J/t,a;ǨVL"1Z#0%-ڏl L ݲlYp.[lRka;"֎CJ~ 8e NJVb:.~Y%w5I`n ~8bܛiC.W'i3gw >72W4' ͒[$Zؚx9%>3;ٝsw֥e:#&w\O: 31iCr;̲mJy.Y8S`CoSRfĭ8鮴{cYT@tM{fE( rPTuauAVk4:MuOc]GCv\}kQƄz^j* 9*dqYCR#riJuP r+Oǝ'>I/z:yxf;e+_<зݣyU}ٲdl:봫59?yX5ڽh¦_53kJd'?W-Ǵ_WiQu0|Z;1͈I)x*&nyQ*ΐ+dw#zvdN ybE '=|Q[f>Y,~yjXqq/S\0gRb+Zʭ 6%!Fs߁>Vr}=\Ч)aKoUKʭ4ޗ!֮} FnyX8B&lA~dXIw5+aĩW=rrYAAkb S,w Wn){Vz4-{V5˶ULCtsgr#.\adih>64[\[8M blM^ kqut ,&Zh;Sښ5O0 A .-֤jj4?NG+uj /2źY޸+vtJ rȟj;iͭvO[κxZlU+=bL>sU3ǏR>{#WW1H~xPe)mdKi}M˽"7a= qjKnޒ̄lDlg~Yw/Zvϛ6d%ElQۙ `s\ o;8ɟ8:H1#FW]}[?Rɞ}?]FoNŗLCb!"f?Ӄ^ZEwda*ao>x@I5uI'O^Bj"WjbYmmFvGd20쎵);ރ<߳<O8[NCP9\j8<ɘYBe?aJ''/mAgvRpǞ"۝]jfףh/ "3b]ȁ_`~3 C3ۺ ^WL_5)A`>㎽"I;P
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1