Reading the 20th Century discussion

Welcome to our October 2024 buddy read of...


To the Lighthouse

by

Virginia Woolf


All are welcome

Starting this now.

I'm going to read Bowen first before moving on to this.

Who else will be joining us? Have you read Woolf before, if so?

I’ll follow the discussion but I don’t know if I’ll have time for a reread.

I've tried a couple of times to read this but didn't get very far. I might have another bash but I'd have now also ha v to overcome a pretty strongly ingrained prejudice.

I was wondering if listening to it might be the best way of approaching the material.

The plethora of five star reviews makes me think I must be missing out on a wonderful experience if I could only find a way in.

If it helps, Nigey, the first time I read this was at 18 and I was sorely disappointed as it was my first go at Woolf and I had expected to love this and actually had no idea what was going on with it.

I think it can be a perplexing experience for readers who come to it cold without knowing the cultural and literary context, and Woolf's own creative trajectory.

I know for some people the gorgeous 'poetic' prose is enough but I suspect that isn't the case for you or, indeed, for me: I need some substance as well. Which the book does actually have but it wasn't immediately clear to me.

It's also the case that Woolf isn't for everyone and if you don't enjoy her earlier and more conventional books like Mrs Dalloway, then this one may very well not change your mind.

I've never listened to this but have the feeling there's a Juliet Stevenson audio which might be a way in, she's such a superb and feeling reader.

I might have previously suggested that this isn't your type of book but you surprised me, greatly and pleasantly, by loving The Vegetarian. I have the feeling that Han Kang has either written on Woolf or talked about her so there are connections between what they're doing in terms of subjectivity, gender and the capturing of experience.

I'd love it if this is the time you click with Woolf.

Renee wrote: "I’ll follow the discussion but I don’t know if I’ll have time for a reread."

Same for me, Renee. I loved it the first time around and regret not doing it with all of you for a second time, but October is filled with travel and visitors for me. It was one of my favorite reads, especially the amazing interlude section, which gives me the chills just mentioning it.

Nigeyb, I would strongly recommend the audio book combined with a reading of a few pages here and there as a literary equivalent of a walk-run. I know you don't care for Woolf, and I've had a mixed experience with her too, but this was a peak experience for me.

Thanks RC


Very helpful and inspiring

I shall ponder and, perhaps, have another go

I read, and reviewed, this a couple of years ago. It does take persistence but I found it very rewarding in the end.

I intend to read it after David Lodge. I have had very limited reading time lately, but I do want to read more Woolf. She is an author that has always fascinated me.

I’ve only read a few pages so I’m going to slot some quick reads in until we are all ready. Nearly finished The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow, now that’s a quick read!

It's an interesting book though, SueLucie. If And Then There Were None was based on it, I think Christie's genius was in making all the guests strangers. The Invisible Host, involving so many guests known to each other, reduces the tension so much.

You’re so right, Susan, and I had difficulty keeping track of everyone and their connections with each other. I think Christie setting hers in a complete house with access to outdoors and over several days opened up plot possibilities impossible in this book.

Yes, they could link up, had previous knowledge of each other and were so limited by the size of the apartment. An island and nobody sure of who each other was, or their intentions, was much creepier.

I plan to join later in the month. This was my first Woolf novel, and I loved it from the first paragraph, but it took me about 5 tries and several years to read it to the end that first time, because nothing in my reading life had prepared me for this way of telling a story. I was probably about 30, and knew Woolf principally from essays that I had read in my college honors English course. Perhaps by then I had also read A Room of One's Own. It's been one of my favorite books ever since.

34% - at this rate I’ll be finished by Christmas! I’m really enjoying this but have to find time to concentrate on it.
You’ll be surprised to learn I have a degree in English, predominantly Old & Middle English, and have not read Woolf before. What was I doing?

61% - this is taking me so long to read, so intense. Loving it.

I think it's best as a slow read and glad you're loving it - I haven't started yet but it is on my bedside table.

I have just started this. Having read biographies of Woolf, plus the introduction by Hermione Lee (whose biography is one that I read) I can immediately see how autobiographical this is.

I have never read this novel before and am looking forward to it.

Eight children though... I have yet to discover whether they are all Mr and Mrs Ramsey's or whether, like Virginia's own family, there are the children of previous marriages.

How lovely that you're reading this for the first time with us, Susan. I hope to make a start tomorrow. I've just started reading The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World an am completely gripped - quite a change of pace from Woolf!

Just started this. Yesterday drove through Skye. Now on another Hebridean island. After reading the first chapter, seems appropriate.

Very appropriate, Stephen. Hope it is not too blustery!
Enjoy the Siege, RC. Looking forward to seeing Mr Macintyre at Daunt Books next month.

It's been a bit quiet in our group recently but I'm literally starting this book this very moment so will, no doubt, have lots to say and ask!

I am nearly finished the audio as performed by Juliet Stevenson. I thought I'd finish today, but most of the rest of my day is scheduled: trying (again) to spot the comet (last night the moonrise was a delight, but it was not what I went out seeking) and choir rehearsal. Tomorrow, probably. Then we'll see what I have to say.

Except I will say this: I noticed an awful lot of language about "making" someone do something against their inclination, and I'd not noticed that before.

G wrote: "I noticed an awful lot of language about "making" someone do something against their inclination, and I'd not noticed that before."

I agree that it's worth paying attention to patterns of words in this book: that 'making' might be contrasted with liberation and freedom, for example. There are definitely engagements with issues of domestic 'making' such as manipulation which tends to be Mrs Ramsay's way of doing things versus the more obviously dictatorial Mr Ramsay. But also ideas of inherited ways of doing things versus sweeping away the old and tired: this can be artistic as is the case with Lily Dale's vision... or, indeed, Woolf's own remaking of the novel.

G wrote: "I am nearly finished the audio as performed by Juliet Stevenson."

How are you finding the audio? I'm tempted but don't know whether I'd pick up the nuances in listening to a book like this.

Roman Clodia wrote: "G wrote: "I am nearly finished the audio as performed by Juliet Stevenson."

How are you finding the audio? I'm tempted but don't know whether I'd pick up the nuances in listening to a book like this."

This one is good. There are several audio version, and in the past I've tried a couple of others that were not particularly suited to this text.

I am on part three now. I am enjoying it - beautifully written, as you would expect. However, there is also a little edginess between the characters which she writes so realistically. In part one, the scene with Mrs Ramsay and her son James is so well done. How the mother wishes to protect her child from disappointment. Considering Woolf never had a child (although clearly often wished to) you feel she understood those emotions and behaviour extremely clearly.

Susan wrote: "I am on part three now. I am enjoying it - beautifully written, as you would expect. However, there is also a little edginess between the characters which she writes so realistically."

Yes, it's that edginess that is standing out more to me on this reading, and the tensions between people. Am I correct in remembering from the Hermione Lee biography that Woolf regarded her parents as fundamentally incompatible? Even as she loved them both deeply. I'm noticing that more, and the way James is a little version of his father even while Mrs Ramsay, as you say, also wants to protect him.

Interesting that question of motherhood: I think she was ambivalent but then never had the opportunity of seeing how she would negotiate the role. She was close to Vanessa's children though, wasn't she, though not the same, of course.

There's also the way she imaginatively inhabits the feelings of the children with hindsight so I think some of her own childhood feelings go into James and Cam.

It's such a a gorgeous book but there are darker elements playing out beneath the sunniness.

I want to say something about the Army &Navy Stores catalogue and the refrigerator so this is a memory to self to pick up later.

I was puzzled by the refrigerator, given the time in which that part is set. I knew that refrigeration using a variety of systems became commercially viable sometime around 1860 or 1870, but that technology was not suited to home use. Home refrigeration, using a process to create cold inside the unit --as distinct from ice boxes which used ice procured from another source, often, by 1900, a commercial ice manufacturer--didn't, as I understand it, come into being until later than the setting of this part of the novel. Wikipedia says 1915 (earlier technology was either unsafe for home use, or impractical due to size and other requirements).

I admit it: I always notice anachronism, and find it completely distracting, even when it's a fairly trivial detail like it seems to be here. But with Woolf, who was of an age to know this timing from personal experience, and who has always struck me as a very careful writer, I wonder if the anachronism is intentional, and is telling us something about the web Mrs. Ramsey has spun around her family. I think of it as a web because of the way Woolf deploys the green shawl. It sounds like nothing so much as a spider web, and later a cobweb.

G wrote: "I was puzzled by the refrigerator, given the time in which that part is set."

I don't know any of that history so can't comment on whether it's deliberate anachronism but I made connections between the Army &Navy store and British imperialism - and the refrigerator as a marker of wealth and social class. There are other intimations of these discourses throughout the book. Will hopefully post more later.

If it helps until mechanical refrigerators were invented, marketed on a broad scale, what's now labelled an ice box was commonly referred to as a refrigerator. And a not-uncommon feature of Victorian life/households.

I can see the link between the Army and Navy and imperialism, although for Woolf not sure that connection would hold, it seems quite interesting historically as both linked to the military and the rise of co-operatives.

Alwynne wrote: "I can see the link between the Army and Navy and imperialism, although for Woolf not sure that connection would hold,"

Yes, her politics are complicated and hard to neatly label but I'll post as I read on some of those systems of values that are in contention that made me suggest this.

Alwynne wrote: "If it helps until mechanical refrigerators were invented, marketed on a broad scale, what's now labelled an ice box was commonly referred to as a refrigerator. And a not-uncommon feature of Victori..."

Thank you for that clarification. I'd not known that. Possibly the terminology was different in England and America. We used to tease my mother because she could never remember to call the refrigerator anything other than an ice box. She'd grown up before mechanical refrigerators were affordable for ordinary working-class households. Possibly the shortage of materials due to WWII delayed her parents' access to a mechanical refrigerator past the time at which they otherwise might have been able to afford one.

G wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "If it helps until mechanical refrigerators were invented, marketed on a broad scale, what's now labelled an ice box was commonly referred to as a refrigerator. And a not-uncommon fe..."

We also had ice houses not sure if those were a thing in the US, but tended to be built on larger properties, so like a small brick outhouse designed to keep things cold - sometimes built so that part of the structure was underground.

G wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "If it helps until mechanical refrigerators were invented, marketed on a broad scale, what's now labelled an ice box was commonly referred to as a refrigerator. And a not-uncommon fe..."

And thanks for your clarification too. I thought Americans talking about ice boxes meant the small freezer compartments found in earlier styles of refrigerator.

Alwynne wrote: "We also had ice houses not sure if those were a thing in the US, but tended to be built on larger properties..."

We had those also, usually on farms or large estates. I have the impression that some communities had a community ice house. As far as I know, "ice house" is exactly what they were called here. My father's family lived on the Gulf coast of Mississippi, so until mechanical manufacture of ice was possible, ice had to be harvested on northern lakes, shipped down to that region, and stored, so it was pretty expensive. Even after mechanical manufacture of ice was possible, the businesses that made and sold ice still tended to be called ice houses, but I think that was a case of old terms hanging on to describe new technologies. We in America still "turn on" our lights, even though the turn switches went out of fashion before my father was born.

‘Turning’ lights on and off and even out - it had never occurred to me that this was a strange expression but it is, isn’t it? I and pretty much everyone I know use it just as often as ‘switching’ lights.

G wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "We also had ice houses not sure if those were a thing in the US, but tended to be built on larger properties..."

We had those also, usually on farms or large estates. I have the im..."

That's interesting, the ice also reminded me of Mr Neely in 'Meet Me in St. Louis' going around delivering blocks of ice to houses. I assume that actually happened since the book was based on Sally Benson's memories Meet Me in St. Louis? Think it was set in the early 1900s.

Ooh, this group! I love the way people pick up on something seemingly insignificant and run with it in fascinating ways. So did light switches originally turn?

I suppose gas lamps did and still do.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Yes, her politics are complicated and hard to neatly label but I'll post as I read on some of those systems of values that are in contention that made me suggest this"

Just following up on some of the political values that are used in the book:

Mrs Ramsay thinks of the young men like Tansley who admire Mr Ramsay as the types who 'negotiated treaties, ruled India, controlled finance'.

Thinking of her own children, she imagined their 'life different from hers ... a wilder life' and their implicitly connected 'questioning of deference and chivalry, of the Bank of England and the Indian Empire'.

A little later there's mention of the Ramsay children debating the Reform Bill - I checked and guess this is the 1920 act on enfranchising women over 30?

It's a subtle and lovely way of, right from the start, capturing the passing of time and the emergence of different values between the generations.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Ooh, this group! I love the way people pick up on something seemingly insignificant and run with it in fascinating ways. So did light switches originally turn?"

They originally did, at least in America. After the turn ones, there were ones with two buttons: you pushed the upper one to cut the lights on, and the lower one to cut them off. Or, as some Southerners would say, you mashed the buttons, which is probably why various relatives over the years have asked me to mash a given light switch. I find these linguistic fingerprints of older technology fascinating, but they admittedly are far afield from our read.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "Yes, her politics are complicated and hard to neatly label but I'll post as I read on some of those systems of values that are in contention that made me suggest this"

Just fo..."

I confess I am bothered by Lily Briscoe's "Chinese eyes". It seems more pejorative in some places than others.

Roman Clodia wrote: "A little later there's mention of the Ramsay children debating the Reform Bill - I checked and guess this is the 1920 act on enfranchising women over 30?"

For what it’s worth my print copy has footnotes by Stella McNichol, which are copyright 1992. The footnote to this passage cites Woolf's essay "Social Life in England" and posits that the children were discussing the 1832 bill, and that this may signal that they "may have been discussing the history of their parents' vanishing mid-Victorian age"; it also suggests that they may have been talking about the "moves towards the LIberal Government's Parliament Act of 1911."

This may be a good place to bring up one of my persistent questions about this novel: when are the three parts set. I often see the claim made that it's set between 1910 and 1920, but I haven't noticed anything quite that definitive. I seems close enough, but I keep wondering if there are specific time clues that I've missed. And even more than that, for me the matter of dating the action raises questions about the relationship between time and gender.

Ah yes, of course: this is pre-war - silly moi!

And yes, the 'Chinese eyes' are well-attested problematic description.

The first instance also clarifies one aspect of Mrs Ramsay:

'With her little Chinese eyes and her puckered up face she would never marry; one could not take her painting very seriously; but she was an independent little creature, Mrs Ramsay liked her for it'

Is this an aspect of parental attitude that Virginia and Vanessa grew up with, two bright, clever, artistic girls who were not allowed an education?

It also reminds me of the Hilberys in Woolf's Night and Day.

G wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "Yes, her politics are complicated and hard to neatly label but I'll post as I read on some of those systems of values that are in contention that made me s..."

I found it fascinating and slightly puzzling. Regardless of the time in which the story's set - and I'd always assumed roughly in line with Woolf's own timeline - the novel was written in the 1920s. That period in England was one of the most intense in terms of the so-called 'yellow peril' and people from China or of Chinese descent were fiercely discriminated against. Some historians argue that in this period they were the grouping that attracted the highest levels of prejudice/blatant racism - communicated very effectively in Lao She's Mr Ma and Son. So, I can't help wondering what Woolf intended by using 'Chinese eyes' in the novel, was it a throwaway, ultra-negative phrase that she absorbed because of her historical context? Or something else? Certainly at the time its connotations went far beyond the suggestion of slightly undesirable, but fascinating, exoticism. For many white people to be compared to someone of Chinese heritage at this time would have been a major, major insult - from what I've read tantamount to comparing them to a murderer/violent criminal. At the very least someone inherently dangerous and/or unstable.

Thanks, that's great context. I'd detected something patronising in that 'little... little' in Mrs Ramsay's thoughts about Lily but it's hard to escape something more insidious going on given the background you've outlined.

I guess the issue is whether, as individual readers, we feel this is reflecting something of Woolf's own feelings or whether we think it's part of the scheme she's sketching where the Ramsay children don't wholly share the values of their parents and start questioning e.g. the 'Indian Empire'.

So far, the instance I've come across is in Mrs Ramsay's thoughts, but I haven't got to later instances yet.