To The Lighthouse

"A classic for a reason. My mind was warped into a new shape by her prose and it will never be the same again." -- Greta Gerwig

The authorized, original edition of one of the great literary masterpieces of the twentieth century: a miraculous novel of family, love, war, and mortality, with a foreword from Eudora Welty.

From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Woolf constructs a remarkable, moving examination of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life and conflict between men and women.

To the Lighthouse is made up of three powerfully charged visions into the life of the Ramsay family living in a summer house off the rocky coast of Scotland. There's the serene and maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr. Ramsay, their eight children, and assorted holiday guests. With the lighthouse excursion postponed, Woolf shows the small joys and quiet tragedies of everyday life that seemingly could go on forever.

But as time winds its way through their lives, the Ramsays face, alone and together, the greatest of human challenges and its greatest triumph--the human capacity for change.

A moving portrait in miniature of family life, To the Lighthouse also has profoundly universal implications, giving language to the silent space that separates people and the space that they transgress to reach each other.

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209 pages

Average rating: 7.1

71 RATINGS

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5 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

E Clou
May 10, 2023
8/10 stars
I love this book a little, but it also leaves me so sad, and so out at sea - to borrow the author's metaphor. And that's how I already felt even before reading this book, so maybe it's not exactly what I needed.

Also, is it strange that Mr. Carmichael is my favorite character in this book?
Anonymous
Apr 26, 2023
6/10 stars
Mrs. Ramsay kept reminding me of the State Farm commercial where the fisherman dude says, "I gotcha a dollar," and the girl tries to snatch the dollar off the end of the fishing line and misses, which prompts the fisherman dude to say, "Ooh you almost had it. You gotta be quicker than that."

She was always thisclose to a real revelation. I would be shifting into an upright position to stand up and applaud her when she would waffle back to her womanly role and disappointing praise the patriarch thoughts. I know she was stuck in the cycle of the times, but man, I really wanted more for her.

Mr. Ramsay, you can go fly a kite, my friend.

3.5 Stars Rounded to 3
spookyreading
Mar 28, 2023
9/10 stars
It's no wonder that Woolf revolutionized American novel writing.
CazzaT
Feb 02, 2023
Book review can be entered here
OpenWater67
Sep 06, 2022
7/10 stars
It took me until halfway through this to appreciate and understand Woolf's stream of consciousness style. Should have come sooner, being so close on the heels of reading The Sound and the Fury. Once you get into the headspace of her narrative style, it's addictive. That voyeuristic glimpse into what others are really thinking is very readable and hard to put down. My most memorable example of this was Mrs. Ramsay's obsession over her arrangement of a bowl of fruit at a dinner party. This was actually pretty damn funny, although I don't know that Woolf intended it as such...

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