To the Lighthouse in James Mustich's 1000 Books to Read Before You Die

Feb 10, 2020 Matthew rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: hoopla, library, classic, 2020, completist-book-club, least-favorite, audio

1 to 1.5 stars

I had to go look at some other reviews before I wrote this. I can honestly say that I am shocked to see so many 4 and 5 star reviews. That does not mean I think those reviews are incorrect, I am just surprised at how many people connected with this book in a very positive way. I will hang out in the cellar of the 1 and 2 star reviews, because in this case, those are my people!

I always want to try new and interesting books from a variety of genres. Sometimes I find some big, positiv 1 to 1.5 stars

I had to go look at some other reviews before I wrote this. I can honestly say that I am shocked to see so many 4 and 5 star reviews. That does not mean I think those reviews are incorrect, I am just surprised at how many people connected with this book in a very positive way. I will hang out in the cellar of the 1 and 2 star reviews, because in this case, those are my people!

I always want to try new and interesting books from a variety of genres. Sometimes I find some big, positive surprises, other times I find books I struggle to finish. In this case, it was a struggle. I read this book as part of my Completist Book Club as this book is featured on Time’s All Time Best 100 Novels list. And, since I am seeing lots of passionate 5-star reviews, many agree with this assessment for To The Lighthouse. And, with that in mind, if you have a passion for the classic must-reads you may enjoy this one. However, I enjoy many, many, classic must-reads so that may not be the best criteria to use.

Within minutes of starting this book, I was confused. I reread the beginning a few times and it still was not clicking. Over the course of the book, I reread several sections to try and connect to the writing and pull something from the story. I also read an online summary of every chapter TWICE! Often, after reading a summary section, I would say to myself “Did I really just read and reread sections of this book!? Nothing in that summary sounded familiar!” And, when I got to the end of the summary I figured it would clarify for me the whole point, but it really didn’t. I know the book is about life, death, and relationships and I get the impression it is somewhat dark. But, after all that, I think I would have taken more away from it all, but I’ve got nothing.

I will say that the one silver lining about it that kept me interested in it is that one of the main characters is named Minta. I have a friend with the same name and always thought it was an unusual name that her parents made up. But, when I asked her, not only did her parents not make up the name, they didn’t get it from this book, either! So, just hearing her name frequently as the book went along kept me somewhat engaged.

So, yeah . . . this book is a BIG no for me. It is very obviously a masterpiece for some, and maybe it will be for you. But after the effort I put into it and still feeling nothing but nothing, I cannot join the masterpiece crowd.

And . . . I guess I’m afraid of Virginia Woolf! ...more

361 likes · Like · see review

Mar 22, 2020 Chuck rated it it was amazing

Prior to Lighthouse, the only other Woolf I had read was "Mrs. Dalloway". As I dove into Lighthouse it all came back to me how hard Woolf makes you work for your reward. She so brilliantly weaves in massive details of the wide ranging thoughts of her characters, all in the third person, no less. It's so easy to want to dislike most of the characters, after listening to their inner static as they work through longings, conflicts, crises, and intimacy or the avoidance of it. But just like with Mrs Prior to Lighthouse, the only other Woolf I had read was "Mrs. Dalloway". As I dove into Lighthouse it all came back to me how hard Woolf makes you work for your reward. She so brilliantly weaves in massive details of the wide ranging thoughts of her characters, all in the third person, no less. It's so easy to want to dislike most of the characters, after listening to their inner static as they work through longings, conflicts, crises, and intimacy or the avoidance of it. But just like with Mrs. Dalloway, I finally realized that the inside of their heads sounds an awful lot like mine - and I think that's where Woolf hooks us. It's as if we can learn to tolerate the neurotic chatter that others deal with we might then begin to have some compassion for our own experience. Once this clicked in for me, the moments and micro-moments of transcendence are everywhere in Lighthouse as it was in Mrs. Dalloway.

An important difference: Mrs. Dalloway drives a pretty simple linear plot right to its satisfying conclusion. Lighthouse jumps around and seems to be a meditation on the impact of others on us through memory. The first section of the book gives us the Ramsey's and their many children plus other hangers-on who vacation with them in a large house overlooking the coast of the Isle of Skye, where an ominous working lighthouse can be seen. Much of the plot in this section focuses on whether the family will find a safe time to take a boat to visit the lighthouse. One of the regular visitors to there is a struggling artist/painter named Lily. We learn of the deep but difficult bond of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey. Woolf's dissection of their marriage - he being impulsive, harsh, and seemingly impenetrable; she highly social, verbal, accommodating - is wonderful, helping to make all the more powerful when we finally witness what really happens when they are confronted with true intimacy.

A second section is a complete shift that focuses on the years after the Ramsey's have stopped coming to the vacation house. The house, the beach, the ocean, and the lighthouse now are highlighted as major characters. Very cinematically Woolf leads us into the experience of absence, loss, and time passing, with mostly only the memory of people having an impact.

The last section focuses on Mr. Ramsey finally returning to the island with 2 of the children to visit the lighthouse. But fundamentally, this section focuses back on Lily Briscoe, the artist, who is also there visiting and painting. First, a little aside:

Last night I watched the film "Portrait of a Lady on Fire", and it helped me understand this last section of Lighthouse much more than I had. The central character of the "Portrait" is an artist, and the film does an excellent job allowing us to watch an artist visually collect material as she tries to paint the truth on canvas - which then leads to unexpected great personal implications for the artist.

In this final section of Lighthouse, much of the action take place in Lily's (the artist) mind, as she attempts to capture her experience on canvas. What we experience with Lily is how what she is painting is inseparable from her own relationships. Lily's high skills of observation and her desire to capture her experiences at the vacation house drive her to a deeply personal and profound epiphany.

The upshot here is Woolf showing us how the true artist cannot be just a skilled technician but an ongoing distiller of all of life's experiences, no matter how limited the medium being worked with.

...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Jun 04, 2022 Carlton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 1000-books-to-read

Luckily I was in the mood to immerse myself in these word pictures, these impressions and suggestions of characters, because this is a very literary book, with little narrative drive. You have to be prepared to read this slowly and uninterruptedly.
However, allowing for these demands, it is wonderful experiment with language, difficult to explain without surrendering to the hypnotic prose, elegaic. The middle section, Time Passes, is like an epiphany (or was when I was reading it).

Like · see review