Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Jun 01, 2010

Choupette rated it:

My grandmother died last Monday, peacefully in her sleep. Yesterday at the funeral my dad read a tribute to her, which was very interesting. I remember at my grandfather's funeral, almost two years ago now, Dad's tribute was all about Pa's achievements as an industrial chemist, his OBE, the results of his important work on water purification. This tribute, though, was about Nana's pioneering work as a founding member of the Blackburn Tree Preservation Society, the visits she made to new migrants More...

15 comments like (31 people liked it)

Aug 16, 2011

Eric rated it:

I think that in certain scenes of To the Lighthouse Woolf’s method—introspective exhaustiveness—disclosure of the vistas within our gestures, the little worlds that flare and die in the time it takes to pass the salt—approaches its own parody. Sometimes reading this was like watching a movie frame by frame. And I found the texture less evenly lyrical than that of Mrs. Dalloway. But cavils aside, it is amazing. Last year I got far enough in Hermione Lee’s biography to know that this novel is Wool More...

16 comments like (21 people liked it)

May 11, 2010

Caris rated it:

We perished, each alone.

Mr. Ramsay is on the boat with James and Cam. The two are united in their disdain for their father, and their coldness toward him almost another member of the family. Their resolve, like everything else that has ever existed, cracks and breaks, betraying their determination. A feeling of fondness for the old man permeates the scene, as if it were the very wind in the sails. Or the mutilated fish discarded, alive, into the water.

Because what does it More...

98 comments like (28 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2010

Miriam rated it:

You know how you secretly fear that if anyone really knew you, knew all your pettinesses and fears and insecurities and unkindnesses, they wouldn't, couldn't, like you? I'm sure Virginia Woolf was familiar with that feeling. I suspect she went back and forth on the question of whether it were true or not. At times she seems to love her characters; at other moments, to despise them. The characters display the same shifting extremes of emotion for one another, moving from an almost idolizing devot More...

30 comments like (37 people liked it)

May 07, 2010

Elizabeth rated it:

I feel like a child. This may have everything to do with the fact that regardless of what my job title is or that I have the livelihoods of more than a dozen people dependent on my decisions (oh, god, I really just realized that), I feel like an impostor there. How can anyone think I'm capable of that? (It's also a fairly common feeling among women in software development, IT generally; there have been studies, which don't help, but I know them anyway). The feeling has everything to do with the More...

44 comments like (55 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Teresa rated it:

Yesterday, on the subway to work, I finally finished Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse." It took me longer to read than such a short book probably should have, but it's such dense writing that, in a way, I'm surprised it didn't take me longer. This has been said before by people much smarter than I, but I'll say it again: Virginia Woolf was a genius. As I closed the book, I said to myself I want to write. Like. That.

Synopsis (from the Webster Encyclopedia of Literat More...

1 comment like (21 people liked it)

Jun 23, 2011

Jennifer (aka EM) rated it:

All I know right now is that:

a) I liked it better than Mrs. Dalloway (purely subjectively/emotionally, which would seem to be the best way to take in and then respond to this work), and
b) my trick of using Atwood as a lever to catapult me into the depths of Woolf seems to have worked, at least partially, for some strange reason.

In trying to come up with points of comparison (see comments below) between Woolf and Atwood while reading this, I first of all could onl More...

30 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jul 31, 2011

Justin rated it:

When Harold Bloom urged us to pursue difficult pleasure, he must have been talking about this book. Although short, it requires patience. The prose is tear-inducing beautiful, the plot simple, the relationships complex. I read the short chapter on Mrs. Ramsay's death aloud, over and over again. To say I loved this book is a gross understatement. The themes of passing time and family relationships really moved me.

Indulge me here for a moment...this book is difficult, probably boring More...

7 comments like (12 people liked it)

Jun 10, 2009

Bram rated it:

1
Within the first 20 pages of To the Lighthouse, I fell head over heels in love. Gorgeous, fluid writing…the kind that gives me that buzz. You know that buzz. It was pure joy. There are passages here that unlock memories and past smells; sounds; feels; the summation of which reaches a crucial liminal stage that, when crossed, offers that pinnacle of reading: the buzz, the click, whatever you want to call it. At least, that was my experience from rea More...

44 comments like (26 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2007

amy rated it:

My first Virginia Woolf book! Maybe Virginia Woolf books are like Christopher Guest movies in that the first one you read/see is forever afterwards your favorite.

I'm not used to "identifying" with characters in books, even though that's how a lot of people (high school students) talk about what they read. As in: "This book is, like, all about tragedy and loss, and I can TOTALLY IDENTIFY with that because my parents just took my convertible keys away and I'm really sa More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2012

William rated it:

Notes on second reading, mostly on structure.

The first section, "The Window," is the longest and its action spans a single twenty-four hour period. Fifteen people, mostly the Ramsay Family but also several guests, are going about their activities at this great house on the beach in Skye (Hebrides). It is the end of the season, September already, and their holiday will soon be over. They will all return to their home in the city. Woolf's nifty technique here is to take this More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 09, 2011

Dan rated it:

Mrs. Dalloway and Jacob's Room are the only other Woolf I've read thus far, so my opinions on her writing are based on them 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 More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 05, 2010

RandomAnthony rated it:

He read, she thought, as if he were guiding something, or wheedling a large flock of sheep, or pushing his way up and up a single narrow path; and sometimes he went fast and straight, and broke his way through a bramble, and sometimes it seemed a branch struck at him, a bramble blinded him, but he was not going to let himself be beaten by that; on he went, tossing over page after page.

(p. 193)

Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse is an amazing book, evidence of raw ta More...

14 comments like (25 people liked it)

May 07, 2011

K.D. rated it:

On the first two pages, I thought of dropping the book or thinking that this classic is bound to get a one star (I don't like it). However, when I finally finished reading the entire novel, I decided to give this a five-star rating (It's Amazing!)

Really, this one is AMAZING! It's like reading a deep moving poem in prose. The dialogue is minimized as most of the narratives are thoughts of the main protagonist, Mrs. Ramsay. It's mesmerizing as for me, the storytelling style is one of a More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Cheryl rated it:

This was my first foray into the works of Virginia Woolf and I have to say that it was one of the most boring books I've ever read. 'To the Lighthouse' kept cropping up on all the literary lists as a "must-read", so I diligently got my copy and prepared for something meaningful and thought provoking, worthy of somebody as iconic as Virginia. Despite a fairly dull beginning I perserved and was sure something brilliant was just over the page - then I got to the last page and realised tha More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

May 12, 2008

Mat rated it:

I just re-read this book a few months ago, thinking it was time to give Virginia another go. Her writing style is as original as they come, but this story is still as pointless as it was when I was forced to read it in highschool.

I am fascinated with her prose, but that can only sustain me through about 50 pages or so before I start to require more substance. Now, some surely argue that there is substance here - but I find it to be a rather redundant message, unaccompanied by a plot More...

2 comments like (9 people liked it)

May 21, 2010

Ceridwen rated it:

I saw five lighthouses today, and at each one, I told my children that "We shall not be going to the lighthouse today", and every single time, they almost started crying. I've been laughing about this, in an extremely immature fashion, but I'm also sad about how I can't seem to stop joking about this thing that hurts them, even if it's transitory and easily remedied by the fact of real lighthouses blow over by a clear, cold wind. Ah.

-----

We're walking back on More...

19 comments like (29 people liked it)

Jun 29, 2010

Tatiana rated it:

Oh well, life is too short to force myself through this...

7 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2011

Erik rated it:

To the Lighthouse is a book best read in relaxing, desultory circumstances - perhaps on the beach, while the waves gently nibble on your toes, or atop some mountain veranda, whilst seated before a cozy fire, or perhaps on a bench in some hidden garden, surrounded by lillies and roses and the scents of spring. But then what activity is not enjoyable in all of those circumstances? Baking cookies or writing a dissertation or being stabbed to death, which of these is not superior in exotic, relaxi More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 01, 2010

Jeff added it

My only experience with Woolf, this is still my favorite novel, or at least among the top few. I read it again last year after more than 10 yrs, when I had read it repeatedly, and now, especially after 4+ volumes of Proust's "In search of lost time", and dozens of other novels and novellas, I finds Woolf's sentence flow uncomfortable, really I thought of a train or bus with a new driver that doesn't have the stop and go rhythm down yet. I was surprised, I kept thinking I just need to More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2007

Dianna rated it:

This is a review in progress as I am currently reading this book. I picked it up yesterday and am now on page 79. After a summer of very difficult reading (The Idiot, Faust and The Federalist)I wanted to read a novel that I could relate to. So far I am relating. It seems like sometimes she has climbed up into my mind with the character of Mrs. Ramsay.

There are some things I don't like about this novel. I don't like the way she always says, "Mrs. Ramsay did this...Mr. Rams More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2008

Emily rated it:

I'm conflcited about my feelings for Virginia Woolf. One one hand I adore her and think her work created breathing room for countless women writers and artists. I appreciate the depth of her characters, the struggles through which those characters were born, and the creativity of her often subtle language. At the same time, sometimes she just BORES me.

My feelings about Woolf as basically my feelings about "To the Lighthouse." In one sense I treasure it, but have to ad More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Katie rated it:

Thus far my only Virginia Woolf experience, To the Lighthouse impressed me by placing a heavy emphasis on the fact that characters only exist in their interactions with others ... a character is terrible, then forgivable, until another character reads and acts on his expression, at which point you get angry and lose yourself in this web of sympathy and fear and insecurity, scrutinizing the characters and shrinking as they scrutinize each other. There's a love that falls apart and acts untorn, o More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2007

Leigh rated it:

Aside from all its other merits--which I can't do justice to extemporaneously, here--this book contains the best justification for creating art that I've ever read. The warm secrecy of it, the sense of having something inviolable all to yourself:

Then her eye caught the salt cellar, which she had placed there to remind
her, and she remembered that next morning she would move the tree
further towards the middle, and her spirits rose so high at the thought
of painting to More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 22, 2010

Carol jinx rated it:

I learned that i could never write like Virginia Woolf. She's amazing.
The book is about the common struggle that each of the characters faces to bring meaning to their lives.
All young James wants is to go to the lighthouse. Mr Ramsay just wants his wife to tell him she loves him and give him sympathy. Lily wants to complete a painting and Charles Tansley insists that women can't paint or write. Woolf tells this story in deep "stream of consciousness" and gives us so much i More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Tim rated it:

Unbelievable. I'm listening to this now. If the audiobook wasn't so good, I'd rush to finish it in print. I've never read Virginia Woolf, and I don't know whether to kick myself for waiting so long, or pat myself on the back for still having her to read.

The mixture of insight, style, beautiful words, character is a true delight. More when I finish the book. But if it keeps going as it is now, this will be on my "top ten" list. A "must read."

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2008

Pocket rated it:

ok, so i actually havent finished this one. i got bored or confused or something... i tried to read it on vacation, and it was great for putting me to sleep on the plane, but not much else. sad.

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 25, 2007

W.B. rated it:

It doesn't really get any better than this. It's that simple.

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2012

Anne Nikoline rated it:

No, I did not happen to like To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. The reason therefore is the plot; from the very beginning and until the very end, I did not felt captured by it at any moment. Instead it was like being in a boring lesson in school where you are only seconds away from falling asleep. Even so, I really did happen to like the authors writing style, as i also wrote in a status update earlier. So, believe it or not, I actually got a great hunger to read more of her wroks, even though More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 05, 2012

Julia rated it:

Talvez o livro mais perfeito de Virginia Woolf.
"He has landed," she said aloud. "It is finished." Then, surging up, puffing slightly, old Mr Carmichael stood beside her, looking like an old pagan god, shaggy, with weeds in his hair and the trident (it was only a French novel) in his hand. He stood by her on the edge of the lawn, swaying a little in his bulk and said, shading his eyes with his hand: "They will have landed," and she felt that she had been right. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

reviews