To The Lighthouse

To The Lighthouse is a modern classic.  Everybody says it, so it must be true.  I mean, I'm not too sure how this compares to other works of Virginia Woolf like Mrs Dalloway in regards to books that academics like to get their knickers in a twist about, but it's definitely up there.  And it's good. I know that's damning it with faint praise, I mean to, it is good- I'm just not sure that it's all that.  I know that whenever it comes up I'm quick to point out that Modernism just isn't my thing, and I think it's just a case of that.  For a Modernist tale, it is good.

The novel is split into three parts and the story, such as it is, follows the Ramsay family (Mr, Mrs and eight children) on two days ten years apart- these are dealt with in parts one and three of the book.  The first day follows a visit by friends to the Ramsays at their summer home in the Hebrides.  I'm not sure why anyone would have a summer home in the Hebrides, but still.  The family talk about visiting the lighthouse, don't visit the lighthouse and then there's some chat about soup, a brooch and the (in)ability of women to be as good artists or writers as men.  Standard dinner party fodder. Ten years later, in part three, most of the interpersonal relationships detailed in part one have fallen apart, but Mr Ramsay and his two youngest children do eventually reach the lighthouse.

My first issue with the book is the children.  I feel like, in both life and literature, eight children is too many children.  It's impossible to keep track of them all.  I've read the book very recently, and I could only name half of them for you now. 

On a more serious note, I did like the middle section.  I feel like this is a little bit hypocritical, having banged on about hating Modernism and then saying that my favourite part was the most Modernist bit.  But, whatever.  The section is called Time Passes and focuses on the constant rather than the transitory human lives.  The abandoned summer home is described in detail, Mrs Ramsay's death given only a couple of sentences.  Her death and the deaths of two of her children are sudden- we're given little context and no warning or closure.  They are realistic deaths.  And, in being so realistic, you experience a sense of loss.  The deaths are concise in a way not even Ernest Hemingway could have managed.  They are not overwrought.

I find Woolf difficult as a writer.  She is someone I want to like more than I actually do like.  I can read her work and see the objective goodness- the quality of it- but still, I have trouble warming to her.  This is despite A Room of One’s Own.  Maybe one of the problems was that I was reading this on a coach- it’s neither easy, nor is it relaxing reading Woolf and I think I could have enjoyed To The Lighthouse more in a more appropriate setting.

Another coach-read net: Pierre et Jean by Guy du Maupassant.