Product Description

Virginia Woolf's lyrical, nostalgic novel centres at first on a family holiday in Skye where the subtle shifts of tension and affection between the Ramsays and their guests are delicately explored. James, the youngest son of Mr and Mrs Ramsay, has a devout wish to visit the lighthouse but his father, a rather pompous, philosophical man, seems determined to disappoint him. It is only many years later, when the war has brought dramatic changes to society and to the Ramsay family in particular,that the journey is made under very different circumstances.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #240586 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From the Publisher
With introductions by Eavan Boland and Maud Ellmann

About the Author
Born in 1882, Virginia Woolf suffered a traumatic adolescence after the deaths of her mother, father and step-sister which left her subject to breakdowns for the rest of her life. Among the writers and artists of the Bloomsbury Group she met her future husband, Leonard Woolf, and together they founded the Hogarth Press in 1917. In 1941, fearing another attack of mental illness, she drowned herself. Her major novels include Mrs Dalloway (1925), Orlando (1928) and The Waves (1931).

Excerpted from To the Lighthouse (Everyman's Library Classics) by Virginia Woolf, Julia Briggs. Copyright © 1991. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
‘Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,’ said Mrs Ramsay. ‘But you’ll have to be up with the lark,’ she added.

To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were settled the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night’s darkness and a day’s sail, within touch. Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallize and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests, James Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores, endowed the picture of a refrigerator as his mother spoke with heavenly bliss. It was fringed with joy. The wheelbarrow, the lawn-mower, the sound of poplar trees, leaves whitening before rain, rooks cawing, brooms knocking, dresses rustling – all these were so coloured and distinguished in his mind that had already his private code, his secret language, though he appeared the image of stark and uncompromising severity, with his high forehead and his fierce blue eyes, impeccably candid and pure, frowning slightly at the sight of human frailty, so that his mother, watching him guide scissors neatly round the refrigerator, imagined him all red and ermine on the Bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise in some crisis of public affairs.

‘But,’ said his father, stopping in front of the drawing-room window, ‘it won’t be fine.’

Had there been an axe handy, or a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr. Ramsay excited in his children’s breasts by his mere presence; standing, as now, lean as a knife, narrow as the blade of one, grinning sarcastically, not only with the pleasure of disillusioning his son and casting ridicule upon his wife, who was ten thousand times better in every way than he was (James thought), but also with some secret conceit at his own accuracy of judgement. What he said was true. It was always true. He was incapable of untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altered a disagreeable word to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all his own children, who, sprung from his loins, should be aware from childhood that life is difficult; facts uncompromising; and the passage to that fabled land where our brightest hopes are extinguished, our frail barks founder in darkness (here Mr. Ramsay would straighten his back and narrow his little blue eyes upon the horizon), one that needs, above all, courage, truth, and the power to endure.

Customer Reviews

a lyrical family story
To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf's fifth novel and one of her most widely read. In three parts, it tells the story of the Ramsay family before and after the First World War: The first one describes a September day spent by the family and some of their friends on the Isle of Skye. The second part deals with the change in the holiday residence and the gradual decline of the house in the following ten years as well as with the life and the fate of the family members. In the last part, Woolf tells us how Mr. Ramsay and two of his children come back after the long absence and how the journey to the lighthouse promised ten years ago finally takes place.
With her usual gift of understanding and reflecting people's thoughts and feelings, fears and longings, griefs and joys, Virginia Woolf steps into the background and leaves it to the characters' reflections to tell the story of their life in an astonishing and beautifully lyrical way.
We read about childhood, marriage, loss and death, grief and love, but also about British society and patriarchal family values during the transition from Victorianism to the Modern times.
I really enjoyed reading To the Lighthouse, because Virginia Woolf's knows, like nobody else, how to combine the thematic challenges she sets herself with a beautiful fluent and lyrical style. What is striking is the identification of the author with the inner state of her characters. You just can't stop reading and deeply regret having reached the final page of the novel.

Enjoyable, but slightly difficult.
To the Lighthouse was my first Virginia Woolf book, and I did enjoy it, although I was slightly taken aback by the difficulty of the stream-of-consciousness style. It is probably helpful to read some research on the author, or at least to be a little familiar with her work, before approaching this book. Within Virginia Woolf's books, I believe that To the Lighthouse is rated as "average" difficulty, so it probably should not be the first to read, as I did.

In any case, it is an excellent novel from a literary point of view; it is beautifully well written and projects intense feelings on the reader. The book should not be approached as an ordinary novel; you should not expect a conventional plot, because that is not what the writer is aiming at. Instead, you will be able to feel as if you were part of each character, which is a breath-taking experience.

The best book I have ever read
Is it a cliche to argue that books can alter your life? I firmly believe that 'To The Lighthouse'(TTL) does. I first read this when I was 14 and rather uneducated Literature wise, but I believe this book is what sparked off my interest in Literature, and I've gone back to read TTL repeatedly and I am yet to be bored by it.

The plot is basic. It centers around the lives of a family who holiday up in Skye one long summer. The book is split up into 3 sections. There is relatively little action in the whole of the novel. In fact, I'd say about 50% of the novel is in 1 day or afternoon, and about 10% of the novel skips time about 10 years.

To really get to grips with TTL it is essential you come to the novel with an open mind. Really appreciate the focalisation on individuals. Woolf is famous for her place in the stream of conciousness movement which included Joyce etc. The beauty of this novel comes from the interactions between different characters. She can focus on the thoughts of the young son in the family, then she can zoom out and focus on the reactionary thoughts of the mother who is engaged in conversation with her son.

Moments like these are what makes TTL a masterpiece. If you haven't read any Woolf then I would recommend TTL as a good initiation. You could read 'Mrs Dalloway' which receives more publicity, but frankly I find it slightly dull.

TTL, however, is far from it and I firmly believe that this will be a book that comes back to haunt you long after you close it.