To the Lighthouse

I wasn’t sure what this reading experience was going to be.   My only knowledge of  this book by Virginia Woolf was some vague recollection that a friend had to read it for a course in college and she really hated it.  My only knowledge of Virginia Woolf was remembering something about her killing herself by walking into the ocean and having to sit through the really horrid "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?" the play by Edward Albee that's got absolutely nothing to do with Woolfe.  So, without many preconceptions I picked up To the Lighthouse. 

I did read the book jacket which let me know it was some stream-of-consciousness novel about an English family.  It also said something about Virginia Woolf’s “tireless experiments toward developing the novel beyond a mere fictional narrative.”  As I read the book it was less like a novel and more like an effort to evoke a mood.  I didn’t hate it (like my college friend) but I also didn’t make much sense of it as story.  My thought was that it was trying to make an impression on our psyches or something.  An article in Wikipedia describes Woolfe’s writing thusly “Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions.”  Wish I’d said that.

Anyway, the book is divided into three parts.  The first part is a particular day in the life of a family named Ramsey and it is looked at and described from many perspectives.  The second part is all sorts of things described as time passes for the family and it isn’t a concrete description of what happens in the time that is passing but you get the gist of what has happened anyway.  The third part is a day where many of the characters revisit their recollections of the day described in the first part.  In the first part, there is something really important to the youngest child, James, about getting the opportunity to visit this lighthouse that is off the coast of the island where they are staying.  In the third part he actually gets to the lighthouse.  What this is all about I’m sure I couldn’t tell you.  But it is obvious the lighthouse is metaphor for something and it is up for debate what that is.  Something about life and its flashes of insight we sometimes get about it?



Don't look for any illuminating flashes at this lighthouse
at Hilton Head, it's purely for show

  As for the writing I found it kind of soothing.  Woolf writes in a style that evokes moods and feelings rather than any clear thought as to this happened and then that happened.  I kind of liked it.   Everyone’s most inner thoughts are conveyed and they are pretty potent stuff.  There is this constant thought process going on while they are having conversations and thinking about the conversation as well as two or three other things.  It can get a little confusing and annoying, pretty much the exact way our minds work.  My feelings about this can best be summed up in a monologue from a Gilmore Girl's episode, Santa's Secret Stuff:

"...my brain is a wild jungle full of scary jibberish.  I'm writing a letter.  I can't write a letter.  Why can't I write a letter?  I'm wearing a green dress.  I wish I was wearing my blue dress.  My blue dress is at the cleaners.  'The Germans wore gray.  You wore blue.'  Casablanca.  Casablanca's such a good movie.  Casablanca.  The White House. Bush. Why don't I drive a hybrid car?  I should really drive a hybrid car.  I should really take my bicycle to work.  Bicycle. Unicycle, unitard, hockey puck, rattlesnake, monkey, monkey, underpants."  
This is how Woolfe writes only with more "lyricism and virtuosity" as noted above.

The pivotal characters are Mrs. Ramsey, Lily Briscoe and Mr. Ramsey and there are lots of other characters who get their share of time to describe their thoughts.  Published in 1927 and being written by a woman I suppose it’s no surprise that the role of women in society is examined pretty thoroughly.  Men think women are for marrying and having babies and taking care of them.  Women are not so sure. 

Mrs. Ramsey is the quintessential woman of the time period, perfect wife and mother but her inner life seems to be filled with conflict as she goes from happiness to despair about her life.  The mother of eight, Mrs. Ramsey is so “boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by” and if you are the mother of just one or even just married I’m pretty sure you can relate to this.  She has “all this desire…to give, to help” but is afraid she will be found out for what she suspects her desires are really about, vanity.  “For her own self-satisfaction was it that she wished so instinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her, ‘O Mrs. Ramsey!  Dear Mrs. Ramsey…Mrs. Ramsey, of course!’ and need her and send for her and admire her.” Her two youngest children “she would have like to keep for ever just as they were...never to see them grow up into long-legged monsters.”   Hmmmmm, long-legged monsters, nice euphemism for adults.  Her inner life is quite different than the outer life she portrays to everyone around her. 

The character of Lily Briscoe, a guest at the Ramsey vacation house, is more of a “modern” woman although her desire to paint and not get married are frowned on by society.  She’s just weird, right?  To read some critiques of the story she and her vision are really important elements of this story.  Other than being the embodiment of the idea that women can actually do creative things and have a life outside motherhood/wifehood I'm not sure I "got" what she was supposed to be telling me.

Mr. Ramsey comes across as a selfish, narcissistic bully.  He appears to be quite a jerk who is only interested in people paying attention and tribute to him.   His observation that the weather will not cooperate the next day so they will be unable to go to the lighthouse is seen as particularly cruel by his youngest, James and by his wife.  James is six and “had there been an ax handy, or a poker, any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it.”  This seems rather harsh to me and while I’m sure there’s some Oedipal stuff going on, I never have been able to figure out what the big deal is.  The mother is sure James is going to be scarred for life over this incident, being told he can’t go to the lighthouse.  James, his sister, Cam and father do finally make the trip to the lighthouse by the end of the book, so hopefully he can get over it. 

After reading the book I looked up a little about it and found that it was based on Virginia Woolf’s parent’s marriage and her childhood.  Oh, and she actually drowned herself in the River Ouse,  not the ocean.

Next week we both read:  The Wind in the Willows