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Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse (5 May 1927) is a novel by Virginia Woolf. A landmark novel of high modernism, the text, centering on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920, skillfully manipulates temporality and psychological exploration.
To the Lighthouse follows and extends the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, where the plot is secondary to philosophical introspection, and the prose can be winding and hard to follow. The novel includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls the power of childhood emotions and highlights the impermanence of adult relationships. One of the book's several themes is the ubiquity of transience.
246 printed pages
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Impressions

  • b3123927773shared an impression5 years ago
    🔮Hidden Depths

    Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? I wasn’t at first. But two chapters in I started fearing her and was not sure if I would ever make it through. going to be able to make it through the entire book. Maybe that whole modernist literature thing was simply not me. What I appreciate in literature are smart plots after all. And that’s what “To the Lighthouse” doesn’t offer at all.
    But when I read more about the book, about Virginia Woolf, about her unique literary style of capturing what’s happening on the inside of her characters I decided to push reset and give it a new try. Now I’m glad I didn’t give up. The characters came alive. It’s a book about life, relationships and legacy. I admire how masterfully Virginia Woolf crafted her work. It’s definitely worth reading but it’s not an easy read.

  • Willie Kateshared an impression5 years ago
    👍Worth reading
    🔮Hidden Depths

    It's a woman's mind.
    Beautifully crafted. The story is pleasant, talking about ironically enough, unpleasant topics. The book shows how utterly necessary closures are.

  • b0243866297shared an impression9 years ago
    👍Worth reading

    Great

Quotes

  • Варвара Слугинаhas quoted6 years ago
    follow her thought was like following a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down by one's pencil
  • Stas Irodovhas quoted3 years ago
    ndeed he seemed to her sometimes made differently from other people, born blind, deaf, and dumb, to the ordinary things, but to the extraordinary things, with an eye like an eagle's. His understanding often astonished her. But did he notice the flowers? No. Did he notice the view? No. Did he even notice his own daughter's beauty, or whether there was pudding on his plate or roast beef? He would sit at table with them like a person in a dream. And his habit of talking aloud, or saying poetry aloud, was growing on him, she was afraid; for sometimes it was awkward—
  • Stas Irodovhas quoted3 years ago
    she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things truly.

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