Reviews with content warning for Death - To the Lighthouse

Prepare for a crawling, yet poetically meandering read if you're picking this book up for the first time. It is written in Woolf's classic coveted stream of consciousness style. This doesn't make it a bad book if you don't like that style, it just means it isn't a book for you, most likely.

Quite honestly, I don't think I'm intelligent enough to fully grasp the profundity and implications of everything in the novel, but that didn't detract from my contentment with the text. Others undoubtedly comprehend and therefore appreciate the book much more fully than I do, just something to consider if you are reading this one review and wondering whether to pick this up.

Woolf's eloquent prose scrutinizes human nature and connection, highlighting, despite stark differences, subtle universalities with the extremely fluid and volatile POV. It is very worth noting, however, that this is a very white, privileged scrutiny of white, privileged people. This creates one's of the novel's few downfalls: it reinforces a white gaze within English literature. To expect diversity from this novel would be to set one's self up for disappointment. In the interest of balancing a deep admiration of Woolf's poetic prose and recognition of the stifling whiteness (Woolf was very actively ingrained in the myopism of white, upper class, 20th-century English society), this book earns a hearty 3.75 from me; an enjoyably challenging, reflective read from an excellent author who didn't express much interest in and subsequently did not venture outside the white world view in a work that examined the nature of humankind (which is, of course, not majority white).

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theremightbecupcakes's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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jodar's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I read this novel first in 2015 and I remember the feeling of awe and admiration as I closed the last page. I decided then that To the Lighthouse was my absolutely favourite novel and that I really should reread it again some time. Finally eight years and many novels later I have done so, and it remains my absolute favourite!

The point of view is not ‘the Eye of God’ but instead one that penetrates within the very hearts of the characters and observes their emotions even as they feel them. Relationships between family and friends and estranged friends are the focus, and attitudes towards each other vary between characters – and even within the same character within a few minutes – with psychological realism. Later there is tragedy and grief, but also mixed feelings aroused from a sense of loss of the departed.

Part Two is lyrical and serves to locate the human microcosm within an overarching perspective of the natural world, space and time.

Part Three does not so much resolve the human relationships from Part One but rather strives to discern what our humanity may ultimately signify. This is explored especially through the private reflections of Lily Briscoe: “What a power was in the human soul!” but from the outside “who knows what we are, what we feel?” Although no “great revelation” may ever appear, little daily events and individual endeavours may be able “to make of the moment something permanent ... [and create what] was of the nature of a revelation.”

(I read it both times as an epub ebook, converted from the MOBI ebook at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2537610 which was proofread against the Hogarth Press edition, imprint of 1963).

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jaan's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I feel PERSONALLY fucking VICTIMIZED by this book. I am not a Virginia Woolf fan—not for any particular reason, I just don’t like her style—but a Reddit post convinced me to give this particular book a shot by just reading it. And not trying to think about anything. Just letting myself enjoy the experience. And I got through it!

To the Lighthouse is a wonderful, wonderful meditation on marriage and partnership, death and grief. I do think it necessitates a great many more rereads before I can really get a handle on it, though—will they happen? Probably not! But I want them to.

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cdua's review against another edition

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challenging reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

Sweet words, well written. I’m not used to reading such poetic language and 60 pages in (given that I was also picking up the book after a long break from it), I had to read the SparkNotes to actually understand what was going on and reread the pages to derive the meaning of all the flowery language. There were snippets I feel like I understood but I still feel like I’m lacking the final step and some wisdom that would allow me to actually understand the meaning of the book—not unlike Lily’s missing factor to her painting! Time Passing is something magical that I could read over and over and over again. What an eloquent way to talk about time—and what stood out to me most was that nature will prevail. One day, when we are all dead and rot in the ground, nature will thrive again. If anything, this climate crisis will drive our own species to extinction. That’s definitely a distraction from the novel, but it’s what I thought of most. And two quotes to round off this review:

“All the odds and ends of the day stuck to this magnet; her mind felt swept, felt clean.” (Page 121)

“But this was one way of knowing people, she thought: to know the outline, not the detail, to sit in one’s garden and look at the slopes of a hill running purple down into the distant heather.” (Page 195)

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jessthanthree's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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