Litwit Lounge discussion

To the Lighthouse is the first book I've attempted to read by Virginia Woolf. I am finding it hard to follow. I can't always tell who is speaking to who, the dialogue seems to be presented so strangely or is it just me?

I haven't read this one, but I did read Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf has a rather unusual style, uses a lot of stream of consciousness. I found reading her is similar to reading Faulkner. Not really something one does for a bit of light reading. ;)

There's that phrase again "stream of consciousness". I couldn't help but wonder why Woolf couldn't clue the reader in as the changes of consciousness flitted back & forth. I wouldn't have minded reading a thought process so much if I could only place them in the right context of time.

Charly, I will follow your example and choose my next read accordingly. ;)

I read this as part of a local book group but was the only person who showed up for the discussion. To make matters worse, I had only read to p. 49, lol. I felt so bad for the facilitator but we had a good discussion anyway. :p Her reactions were not unlike ours.

I find VW hard going too. I'm slightly enbarrassed by this, as I feel I ought not to be so finding her, but there you go.......

Barbara wrote: " I find VW hard going too. I'm slightly enbarrassed by this, as I feel I ought not to be so finding her, but there you go......."

Barbara,

Nothing to be embarrassed about. Reading Woolf is only slightly less painful than reading Faulkner, in my opinion. I've only read Mrs. Dalloway and found her difficult to follow although I did like the lyrical quality...the flow... of her writing. I have To the Lighthouse and one or two others of hers on my to read list because of that.

Thanks Dan - though I don't think I'm ready to play that game they played in ( I think) Joseph Heller's Good as Gold. You scored points for naming books you ought to have read/understood but hadn't . So if you were a psychiatrist who hadn't read Freuds Sexual Theories of Chidren you scored big, or if you taught sociology and hadn't read Marx's Das Kapital etc etc
You got nothing for not having read obscure stuff or stuff that had nothing to do with your profession.

I admire you for sticking with it to read as I am definitely not a VW fan. Having waded through Mrs Dalloway and Orlando and one other, I gave up trying to think she was worth reading. On the other hand,, I am a huge Faulkner fan, but then I think he had something worthy of saying.
Did you ever read Nightwood by Djuna Barnes? It's not a book I would ordinarily have read, but it came highly recommended and the language is very impressive.

Rhonda said: I admire you for sticking with it to read as I am definitely not a VW fan.

Until that time it really grabs ahold of me, it's working as well as my nightly melatonin. Dan is right though about VW, often there is a lyrical quality to her words.

Finished this a couple of days ago and thought I'd add my two cents about Woolf's writing style and the book.

Mrs. Dalloway is the only other Woolf I've read, so my opinions on her writing are based on it and To the Lighthouse. Some of the sentences she puts together make Cervantes and Pynchon look like Dr. Seuss. Parthentical phrases and stream of consciousness bits and pieces nested three or four deep make for some very long and often incomprehensible sentences. Although her stream of consciousness segments have a tendency to ramble, they seem to relate to what's going on better than those of other practioners of the form. Reading Woolf well requires a higher level of focus than do other authors but I think the effort is worthwhile. Once you get used to her style, you can catch a lyrical quality or flow that somehow helps with understanding those convoluted sentences. Once you catch that, you start seeing some amazing insights into human nature.

The first thing to note about To the Lighthouse is that it's more a character study than a story. The story is two days in the life of a family, separated by ten years. The ten years account for only about 10% of the story and the two days that make up the other 90% are pretty boring from a plot perspective. From the perspective of human nature, individual personality, relationships, and social interaction this is an exceptional book. The symbiotic relationship of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay despite their seeming incompatible individual personalities is both beautiful and frustratingly painful. The depiction of the various ways a strong personality such as Mrs. Ramsay's can impact others is startling. In the second section, the metaphor of the decline and restoration of the house for the effect on the other characters of the loss of Mrs. Ramsay is brilliant. I loved the "dinner" chapter for the fun it poked at the inane conversation we subject ourselves to in the name of being sociable at such gatherings. Finally, I think Lily Briscoe's finishing her painting is a superb way of showing the importance for each of us of finding our own "self" in spite of the influence of others on our lives.

So, there's my two - maybe four - cents worth. Would love to hear other perspectives.

Dan wrote: Although her stream of consciousness segments have a tendency to ramble, they seem to relate to what's going on better than those of other practitioners of the form. Reading Woolf well requires a higher level of focus than do other authors but I think the effort is worthwhile. Once you get used to her style, you can catch a lyrical quality or flow that somehow helps with understanding those convoluted sentences. Once you catch that, you start seeing some amazing insights into human nature.

I feel that those "insights" shared in such a "lyrical" style are the only parts that redeem the book, at least for me. Confusion was still with me when I reached the end of the story but you have summed up in words and ideas better than I could have. It may have been "boring" to me mostly because I just didn't know what was going on, if anything. Nevertheless, I was very struck with Mrs Ramsay as I felt myself relating to her, well, somewhat, for I never could understand her devotion to her husband -- the incompatibility of which was troubling to me (but I may be interjecting my own personal feelings there).

Dan wrote:In the second section, the metaphor of the decline and restoration of the house for the effect on the other characters of the loss of Mrs. Ramsay is brilliant. I loved the "dinner" chapter for the fun it poked at the inane conversation we subject ourselves to in the name of being sociable at such gatherings. Finally, I think Lily Briscoe's finishing her painting is a superb way of showing the importance for each of us of finding our own "self" in spite of the influence of others on our lives.

I confess, most of the symbolsim went right over me (more on that in a moment). I did enjoy the dinner scene as well, I found it the most coherent and even a little amusing:

from the book: "It is a triumph," said Mr. Bankes, laying his knife down for a moment. He had eaten attentively. It was rich; it was tender. It was perfectly cooked. How did she manage these things in the depths of the country? he asked her. She was a wonderful woman. All his love, all his reverence, had returned; and she knew it.

"It is a French recipe of my grandmother's," said Mrs. Ramsay, speaking with a ring of great pleasure in her voice. Of course it was French. What passes for cookery in England is an abomination (they agreed). It is putting cabbages in water. It is roasting meat till it is like leather. It is cutting off the delicious skins of vegetables. "In which," said Mr. Bankes, "all the virtue of the vegetable is contained." And the waste, said Mrs. Ramsay. A whole French family could live on what an English cook throws away. Spurred on by her sense that William's affection had come back to her, and that everything was all right again, and that her suspense was over, and that now she was free both to triumph and to mock, she laughed, she gesticulated, till Lily thought, How childlike, how absurd she was, sitting up there with all her beauty opened again in her, talking about the skins of vegetables. There was something frightening about her. She was irresistible. Always she got her own way in the end, Lily thought. Now she had brought this off--Paul and Minta, one might suppose, were engaged. Mr. Bankes was dining here. She put a spell on them all, by wishing, so simply, so directly, and Lily contrasted that abundance with her own poverty of spirit, and supposed that it was partly that belief (for her face was all lit up--without looking young, she looked radiant) in this strange, this terrifying thing, which made Paul Rayley, sitting at her side, all of a tremor, yet abstract, absorbed, silent. Mrs. Ramsay, Lily felt, as she talked about the skins of vegetables, exalted that, worshipped that; held her hands over it to warm them, to protect it, and yet, having brought it all about, somehow laughed, led her victims, Lily felt, to the altar.

Your understanding of Lily's finished painting earns you extra credit! :D It wasn't until I reread the passage I included above, and going beyond it a couple of paragraphs realized that perhaps it was 'okay' for me to read into the story what I thought it was sometimes saying.

from the book: But what did he reply to her offer? She actually said with an emotion that she seldom let appear, "Let me come with you," and he laughed. He meant yes or no-- either perhaps. But it was not his meaning--it was the odd chuckle he gave, as if he had said, Throw yourself over the cliff if you like, I don't care. He turned on her cheek the heat of love, its horror, its cruelty, its unscrupulosity. It scorched her, and Lily, looking at Minta, being charming to Mr. Ramsay at the other end of the table, flinched for her exposed to these fangs, and was thankful. For at any rate, she said to herself, catching sight of the salt cellar on the pattern, she need not marry, thank Heaven: she need not undergo that degradation. She was saved from that dilution. She would move the tree rather more to the middle.

Now, I am able to relate this "tree" to the end of the book as Lily examines her feelings for Mr Ramsay but ultimately, and with clarity after considering her painting hung in the attics, looks at the empty steps and then decides to draw a "line" in the "centre". I'm assuming that line is the tree, she has had her vision.

It is beautiful writing but much of the symbolism I didn't appreciate (notice) as I was so busy looking for the 'story'. It is only easier to understand as I look at the book through others' eyes. Like when you equated the importance of Lily's finished painting "in spite of the influence of others on our lives". I think one has to be completely independent to do that.

A question about Mrs Ramsay's beauty:

from the book, again, sorry: ...all at once he realized that it was this: it was this: --she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen.

With stars in her eyes and veils in her hair, with cyclamen and wild violets -- what nonsense was he thinking? She was fifty at least; she had eight children. Stopping through fields of flowers and taking to her breast buds that had broken and lambs that had fallen; with the stars in her eyes and the wind in her hair...

He is not talking about physical beauty, right? it is perhaps something she held within her that he saw?

Reggia,

I enjoyed your insights and especially your comment about interjecting your own personal feelings. With Woolf, I thnk you have to do that in order to get anything out of her writing. She almost invites it in order to get the reader to think about 'the human condition.' I agree that Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay as individuals seem to be totally incompatible...the old how-did-they-end-up-together syndrome. Mr. Ramsay's personality desparately needs attention and affirmation and, despite her strenghth, Mrs. Ramsay needs to provide that. The interesting thing about the relationship is the way she selectively withholds that from him in order to keep him from being a whiny little child all the time. It's interesting also to note the similarity, in the first section, between Mr. Ramsay's behavior and that of six-year-old James.

As for Mrs. Ramsay's beauty: I think that she retains the physical beauty of a 50-year-old woman who has always been physically beautiful but that everyone considers her beautiful primarily because of the outward expression of her strong and beautiful character. I've read in several places that To the Lighthouse was somewhat autobiographical and that Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay are based on Woolf's parents. If that is the case, I think that Lily Briscoe represents Woolf.

Dan wrote: The interesting thing about the relationship is the way she selectively withholds that from him in order to keep him from being a whiny little child all the time. It's interesting also to note the similarity, in the first section, between Mr. Ramsay's behavior and that of six-year-old James.

This is why it's so good to get another perspective as I hadn't picked up on that. Thanks for your comments, Dan. :)

I'm re-reading this discussion as the book came to mind after beginning Swann's Way. Maybe some get this at a younger age, and it's just taken me one more decade, lol, to "get" streams-of-consciousness as a literary style. Perhaps One Hundred Years of Solitude is another for this category which went a little easier for me. (I just checked on my theory, and sure enough I read this about 6 yrs later and it went a little better.)

If there was only more time, I'd re-read this to see how it affects me now. I'm glad that I got the encouragement somewhere to just get a notebook to keep next to me while reading Swann's Way. Is it cathartic? Ego-centric? Or just a different angle to enjoy a novel?