To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf

1927

March, 2024

9.5/10

The book immediately takes a very "hazy" approach. Not quite dreamlike as in Sleep Has His House, but in a similar style. The theme of projection of emotional issues is also quickly set as best expressed by the following:

[H]e was for the most part happy; he had his wife; he had his children... But this and his pleasure in it... all had to be deprecated and concealed... It was a disguise; it was the refuge of a man afraid to own his own feelings, who could not say, This is what I like—this is what I am... [Others] wondered why such concealments should be necessary; why he needed always praise; why so brave a man in thought should be so timid in life; how strangely he was venerable and laughable at one and the same time.

Everything has a very sad, contemplative quality to it, particularly around youth and growing up. There is a constant tone of melancholy and hopelessness, a sombre and reflective mood. It feels like an interweaving of Suicide with Jane Eyre and Stoner. It is all of those books at once.

How could any Lord have made this world? she asked. With her mind she had always seized the fact that there is no reason, order, justice: but suffering, death, the poor... No happiness lasted; she knew that... [W]hen her husband passed... he could not help noting, as he passed, the sternness at the heart of her beauty. It saddened him, and her remoteness pained him, and he felt, as he passed, that he could not protect her, and, when he reached the hedge, he was sad. He could do nothing to help her. He must stand by and watch her. Indeed, the infernal truth was, he made things worse for her. He was irritable—he was touchy. He had lost his temper over the Lighthouse. He looked into the hedge, into its intricacy, its darkness.

And with all the sadness, I also felt a peculiar constancy of romantics. Everyone may have been sad in their own way, but everyone's pain stemmed from heartache: they loved and cared for one another — wanted to be loved and cared for. Yet everyone kept everything to themselves. They feared the very people they wanted to love.

A heartless woman he called her; she never told him that she loved him. But it was not so—it was not so. It was only that she never could say what she felt. Was there no crumb on his coat? Nothing she could do for him? Getting up she stood at the window... partly to turn away from him... For she knew that he had turned his head as she turned; he was watching her. She knew that he was thinking, You are more beautiful than ever. And she felt herself very beautiful. Will you not tell me just for once that you love me? He was thinking that, for he was roused, what with... their having quarrelled about going to the Lighthouse. But she could not do it; she could not say it. Then, knowing that he was watching her, instead of saying anything she turned... and looked at him. And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not said a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him. He could not deny it. And smiling she looked out of the window... (thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness)…

The book is truly exceptional. Though what exactly happens is difficult to follow, the "drifting" nature of the story is key to the mindset the book evokes. However, there are moments where the drifting nature feels just a little too loose or (maybe cliche) references to war are too strong. In any case, To the Lighthouse is rife with quotably beautiful expressions of humanity. Additional noteworthy quotes follow:

Nancy felt, though it might be true that she minded losing her brooch, she wasn’t crying only for that. She was crying for something else. We might all sit down and cry, she felt. But she did not know what for.

And Rose would grow up; and Rose would suffer, she supposed, with these deep feelings.

Lily was listening; Mrs Ramsay was listening; they were all listening. But already bored, Lily felt that something was lacking; Mr Bankes felt that something was lacking. Pulling her shawl round her, Mrs Ramsay felt that something was lacking. All of them bending themselves to listen thought, "Pray heaven that the inside of my mind may not be exposed," for each thought, "The others are feeling this. They are outraged and indignant with the government about the fishermen. Whereas, I feel nothing at all."

For how could one express in words these emotions of the body? express that emptiness there? (She was looking at the drawing-room steps; they looked extraordinarily empty.) It was one’s body feeling, not one’s mind. The physical sensations that went with the bare look of the steps had become suddenly extremely unpleasant. To want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not to have—to want and want—how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again and again!