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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59716.To_the_Lighthouse?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="To the Lighthouse" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172302627m/59716.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59716.To_the_Lighthouse?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">To the Lighthouse</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6765.Virginia_Woolf">Virginia Woolf</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8310814?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 3 of 5 stars 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. Ramsay did that..." Why can't she just say, "he or she did this or that?" I don't like the way the book flips from one person's mind to another without any warning. I don't like the sense of foreboding I get. (Is Nancy going to die?)
 
 But I do think Virginia Woolf definitely had the ability to probe into the human condition. Has anyone noticed the obvious Oedipal complex between Mrs. Ramsay and her son James? Anyway, those are my thoughts as I am a little over one-third through the book.
 
 ...As I read I realize even more that she really did understand the human condition, at least as I see it. I love the dinner table scene where every adult thinks their own thoughts, some pretending to be civil, saying things they don't mean...
 
 There is a real conflict between masculine and feminine that I can relate to. Not only is it the conflict between the masculine and feminine sex at the table but the masculine and feminine in each individual. 
 
 Ok I am finished with the book... I did like it. I have 2 more points to make.
 
 first, I believe one of the most important sentences in the book is this: "For whatever reason she could not achieve that razor edge of balance between two opposite forces..." (P 193). I can sense that so much from Virginia Woolf herself in her writing, and with that I do indeed relate.
 I saw the movie "The Hours" and have wondered more than once if Woolf was bi-polar.
 
 The other thing is that I see Mrs. Ramsay herself as a type of lighthouse. I saw this when I read about the lighthouse, "there it loomed up, stark and straight..." (p 203). More than once Mrs. Ramsay was painted as "straight." I see her as the entity that everyone found shelter in. But really, the lighthouse is nothing without people to shelter, so the lighthouse (Mrs. Ramsay) did not really have a life apart from the people that needed it/her. That is kind of sad, don't you think?
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/288948?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Dianna's review
rating:

bookshelves: classic-literature
recommended for: People who like the unordinary

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. Ramsay did that..." Why can't she just say, "he or she did this or that?" I don't like the way the book flips from one person's mind to another without any warning. I don't like the sense of foreboding I get. (Is Nancy going to die?)

But I do think Virginia Woolf definitely had the ability to probe into the human condition. Has anyone noticed the obvious Oedipal complex between Mrs. Ramsay and her son James? Anyway, those are my thoughts as I am a little over one-th...more 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. Ramsay did that..." Why can't she just say, "he or she did this or that?" I don't like the way the book flips from one person's mind to another without any warning. I don't like the sense of foreboding I get. (Is Nancy going to die?)

But I do think Virginia Woolf definitely had the ability to probe into the human condition. Has anyone noticed the obvious Oedipal complex between Mrs. Ramsay and her son James? Anyway, those are my thoughts as I am a little over one-third through the book.

...As I read I realize even more that she really did understand the human condition, at least as I see it. I love the dinner table scene where every adult thinks their own thoughts, some pretending to be civil, saying things they don't mean...

There is a real conflict between masculine and feminine that I can relate to. Not only is it the conflict between the masculine and feminine sex at the table but the masculine and feminine in each individual.

Ok I am finished with the book... I did like it. I have 2 more points to make.

first, I believe one of the most important sentences in the book is this: "For whatever reason she could not achieve that razor edge of balance between two opposite forces..." (P 193). I can sense that so much from Virginia Woolf herself in her writing, and with that I do indeed relate.
I saw the movie "The Hours" and have wondered more than once if Woolf was bi-polar.

The other thing is that I see Mrs. Ramsay herself as a type of lighthouse. I saw this when I read about the lighthouse, "there it loomed up, stark and straight..." (p 203). More than once Mrs. Ramsay was painted as "straight." I see her as the entity that everyone found shelter in. But really, the lighthouse is nothing without people to shelter, so the lighthouse (Mrs. Ramsay) did not really have a life apart from the people that needed it/her. That is kind of sad, don't you think?...less

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message 1: by tuesday

09/22/2008 09:35PM

I just recently finished a biography on VW where the author wrote that Mr and Mrs Ramsay were based heavily on Woolf's own parents. Your comment really was spot on, because apparently Mrs Woolf was a nurse; she was always nursing others, and taking care of them, and that was her life. She never had any time for herself, nor did she attempt to make time. And yes, I do think it is kind of sad.