Evan's review
To the Lighthouse (1927)
by Virginia Woolf
Evan's review
To the Lighthouse (1927) by Virginia Woolf
Evan's review
rating:
recommended for: absolutely anybody
Rather than talk about the well-picked-over critical points-- Lily Briscoe as cipher for VW, the autobiographical mother and father figures, the symbolism of the lighthouse, etc., let me recall why this beautiful novel holds a special place in my library.
This was the book that first got me going on my plan to read all of VW chronologically. I found a weather-beaten copy in a tourist bookstand on Jalan Jaksa in Jakarta in 1999 and read it on the plane to Australia. The sheer craft of it took my breath away (especially after a few months immersed in Indonesian aesthetics that place less of a premium on such detailed rendering of inner life). As VW herself noted in her journal entries, the book is shaped like the letter "H" with two long parts joined by a shorter (20 page) interlude. It is that interlude that I remembered as being one of the best pieces of prose I had ever read. Once again, as in Jacob's Room and Mrs. Dalloway, VW does not represent the Great War, but (...more
This was the book that first got me going on my plan to read all of VW chronologically. I found a weather-beaten copy in a tourist bookstand on Jalan Jaksa in Jakarta in 1999 and read it on the plane to Australia. The sheer craft of it took my breath away (especially after a few months immersed in Indonesian aesthetics that place less of a premium on such detailed rendering of inner life). As VW herself noted in her journal entries, the book is shaped like the letter "H" with two long parts joined by a shorter (20 page) interlude. It is that interlude that I remembered as being one of the best pieces of prose I had ever read. Once again, as in Jacob's Room and Mrs. Dalloway, VW does not represent the Great War, but (...more
