HI Everyone! Hello from Boston. Excited to be on this journey with you all. This is my second time reading To the Lighthouse. I just borrowed an audiobook of it from our library. I am planning on listening to it this time around (I am also a big knitter!). Everyone has such thoughtful things to say, which so deepen the reading experience. I really appreciated the context provided by Tash and Nancy - and the little audio set up!
Two thoughts on the first few pages:
1. Woolf's humor. Am I the only that laughed out loud when James responded (internally) to Mr Ramsey's pontificaiton that "it won't be fine" by fantasizing about killing him in the most gruesome and detailed manner? I find that whole section so funny. I have often felt and sensed Woolf's humor and I don't think it's commonly thought about her or her writing. The British literary establishment accused the Bloomsbury group of being overly serious and gloomy - in fact they were nicknamed "Gloomsbury" but I never thought that did justice to the humor found throughout Woolf's writing.
2. Just a little asterisk about the use of the word "lark" in the first sentence of the book. I am currently also doing a bit of a deep dive into Mrs Dalloway (I missed the Wolfish reading of it last year!) as this June will be the 100 anniversary of its publication. And of course, the word "lark" is used in the first lines of Mrs Dalloway - though in quite a different usage. Just thought it was interesting and didn't know if anyone had any thoughts on that. Happy reading all!
Hello Genevieve! I'm glad someone mentioned Woolf's wry sense of humour. (I've been enjoying Mr Bankes' obsession with the nutritional value of vegetable skins - when he's in good humour, he immediately launches into a celebration of vegetable skins ('in which all the virtue of the vegetable is contained'!)) Woolf can also be rather acerbic ('Like all stupid people, he had a kind of modesty too, a consideration for what you were feeling...' ouch!).
Regarding your second point - I missed that repeated appearance of the word, lark - fascinating! (I did, however, notice the reappearance of 'rooks.') But actually, I think there is a lot of similarity between the first pages of TTL and Mrs Dalloway. Each has a similar atmosphere of bliss amidst mounded up images and objects. From TTL p1: 'It was fringed with joy. The wheelbarrow, the lawn-mower, the sound of poplar trees, leaves whitening before rain, rooks cawing, brooms knocking, dresses rustling...' From Mrs Dalloway p2: '...the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.'
Interesting points, Genevieve. I wonder if the humor you're feeling is due to the person reading. I just finished listening to my first audiobook, directly after reading it, and was taken with how different some of the 'interpretations' of the voice were to mine. But I did note some funny moments in the first few chapters.
And 'lark': I knew it sounded familiar coming out of Woolf's pen. Thanks for pointing it out in Dalloway. I have a similar feeling when I hear 'plunge.'
Lark is such a great word and she uses it in both books in the opening pages but in its different meanings: as an early riser in TTL and then as a romp or frolic or bit of un in MD (or rather the other way around as MD was published first).
I also appreciated this Wikipedia reference to usage of lark in mythology and literature: The lark in mythology and literature stands for daybreak, as in Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale", "the bisy larke, messager of day",[18] and Shakespeare's Sonnet 29, "the lark at break of day arising / From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate" (11–12). The lark is also (often simultaneously) associated with "lovers and lovers' observance" (as in Bernart de Ventadorn's Can vei la lauzeta mover) and with "church services".[19]
Tash! Wow. Such a gorgeous, well laid out and eloquent scaffolding of the novel, especially for those coming to it for the first time. You are such a beautiful writer! I am so looking forward to hearing everyone's perspective on this book, what they think about it, where they think the heart of it might be, and which character(s) resonate the most with them. So excited for this journey, and to take it with you is like giving yourself up to a very wise Sherpa. We are all in good hands!
I have to read and re-read some of these long, complex sentences. I wonder if VW planned that for her readers, not just her characters, as a window into how the mind works, oftentimes going over and over the same material. So, the book does not just reflect an individual's thought process and inner life but is a reflection of the reader's efforts at comprehension.
It's interesting to me that Mr. Ramsey, in his first appearance and in the description of his unpleasantness, seems merely an unlikable man. But he soon becomes outlandish and really eccentric, charging around yelling obscure phrases, startling and scaring. I've found that this time reading he is becoming more complex for me. And James: outwardly disciplined (cutting our the refrigerator so neatly) while wanting to axe-murder his father. Note he doesn't say that; he thinks it while being so deliberate in his actions. Scary, in a way. It's the quiet, neat ones you have to watch out for!
All in all I'm fascinated with the multiplicities within the characters, which I've registered before but now am realizing more fully. Fascinated in that Woolf sees the intricacies of personality, but also in the skill and invention in her craft. I started marking changes in point of view but gave up; my book was becoming illegible in places!
How interesting - I also find my perspective on Mr Ramsay changing a bit on this reading of the novel. Actually I have more empathy for him this time around and, yes, find him more complex. In this first scene, I can see from James's perspective that his father appears tyrannical and belligerent, but I also see Mr Ramsay's interest in facts, knowledge, exactitude... He almost imagines he is doing his children a favour by bursting their bubbles with unembellished truth.
Regarding the second part of your comment - yes, exactly! Well said!
I agree it's easy and quite tempting to read Mr R as a monster of the Patriarchy. For me VW's account of his original her own father was the way in to a more rounded understanding. "My Father Leslie Stephen" My Father: Leslie Stephen, an Essay by Virginia Woolf - The Atlantic https://search.app/KXGaG7vmZfzU16ceA
I already noted for myself several stonking long sentences; they were all within the viewpoint of Mrs Ramsay. Having just spent a week in company of our 3-almost-4 grandson, I feel these two long ones may in fact be Mrs Ramsay herself reading the rather explicit emotions of her youngest. Our little chap makes his feelings pretty evident at all times!
Yes, I did wonder whether we were in the perspective of Mrs Ramsay there. I wonder what others think. The narrative voice in that first long sentence just seemed to have quite a different quality to other moments when we're in Mrs Ramsay's head. But I think you're right that she is very tuned in to her youngest son.
Love that you mentioned the objects Woolf sprinkles through the book and how they make the material seem ephemeral. Woolf aims to turn a snapshot, a momentary slice of life, into a more profound portrait of a character, and to do that she has to time travel – or to transcend time, more accurately, because a person can't be seen or understood out of context – and so her characters carry their life context with them. An object anchors us onto a physical moment, but also evokes atmospheres and sensations of all sorts with colors, scents etc. But it doesn't stop there, because objects also evoke memories, and we'll see how Woolf often links a object in the present with a person, a feeling, an event from the past. Objects can be emblematic too, for example Mrs. Ramsay might not have her notebook and pencil with her at all times, but describing them makes us grasp who she. Like you said in the podcast it's a cubist approach, we see an object from so many different points of view at the same time, they're solid, they're nostalgic, they're symbolic.
Love this: *An object anchors us onto a physical moment, but also evokes atmospheres and sensations of all sorts with colors, scents etc.* Beautifully put. And I think you're absolutely right about objects being emblematic. They project something bigger than themselves.
Woolf also gives certain words and phrases a resonating, almost totemic quality. 'Women can't paint, women can't write.' 'Someone had blundered.' 'No going to the Lighthouse, James.' 'Windows should be open and doors shut.' Lily's painting, the green shawl, the skull, Minta's brooch, the geranium in the urn. The Lighthouse itself.
Maybe I need to join you for a re-read. I loved the first section of the book but was unprepared for the changes between it and the third section. I don't think I ever recovered. Maybe this time I'll be able to embrace all the novel and not just its first part.
I don't think you're alone there, Thaddeus. I think many people like the first section then struggle with what follows. I love the lyrical second part but have struggled, in the past, with the third part. And yet, I think, from re-reading, that all three are crucial actually...
Do join us if you have time. It might offer the seeds of another advanced craft essay...!
What a magnificent essay and analysis, Tash! I love the detailed observations. Having read just the first three pages, I find myself identifying with the six-year-old boy's worldview, haha. I share his frustration with his father's logical arguments about whether they'll sail to the lighthouse based on the weather. Though realistically, good weather seems unlikely—no surprise there, especially given England's typical rain! And I too love creating collages and cutting pictures from magazines!
The contrast between life at the lighthouse and in the house immediately caught my attention. While they all (maybe not all) yearn to reach the lighthouse, Mrs. Ramsay contemplates the lighthouse keeper's life with a mixture of sadness and sympathy.
I think that's an astute observation about the contrast between the Ramsay family group at the house and the lighthouse all alone. There seems to me to be a focus on the contrast between aloneness and togetherness that will be explored through the book. And Mrs Ramsay seems alive to the difficulties of aloneness. She works to knit people together (and to knit stockings also, haha).
Love this connection of the cutting out of the images from the magazine to a cubist sensibility. Also, what other commenters have said about the effects of the listing of concrete objects ... I love the way she often punctuates the long sentences with a nice short sentence as she does after the first long sentence of the second paragraph of the book with: "It was fringed with joy."
I knew Woolf had said something about the importance of rhythm to her writing and finally I managed to put my hands on it! In a letter to Vita Sackville-West, VW wrote that style was simply a matter of rhythm, and should flow like a wave; as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it. (I found this in Julia Briggs' bio of Woolf.)
Tash, thank you for navigating us so deftly through these pages. I haven’t read To The Lighthouse for decades and so look forward to being back on the Isle with the Ramsays and once again luxuriating in Woolf’s language — and in the company of those assembled here to read together.
I’m familiar with Woolf’s work and usually find it easy enough to follow, but there’s one sentence in this opening that I can’t parse: the one that begins “He was incapable of untruth.” I proceed it without difficulty up through “facts uncompromising,” and then lose my way.
Can Tash, Nancy, other readers untangle these final clauses for me? I’d be grateful.
Oh, good question! Yes, that sentence tripped me up a bit too.
I read that latter part of the sentence as an allusion to life being difficult and disappointing and, in view of this (in Mr Ramsay's opinion), children should be prepared for adversity and should meet it with courage, truth etc. 'That fabled land' is maybe an idealised future where everything is perfect which just does not exist in real life. Instead, hopes are extinguished, our boats founder in darkness as we oar through life. Children must be taught resilience and 'the power to endure' when the going gets tough.
(We will soon find out that Mrs Ramsay has a different perspective. She is all too aware of the pain and suffering in the world and wants to protect her children from it as much as possible.)
Anyway, that's my take. Though possibly others have a different view...!
The syntax is obscure - to clarify add back two missing verbs
The children must learn THAT a) life is difficult; b) facts [are] uncompromising; and c) the passage to that fabled land where our brightest hopes are extinguished [is] one that needs, above all, courage, truth, and the power to endure.
To make it harder 'fabled land' isn't some storied Paradise but the 'fable' (made up place) of metaphysics where all illusions of the so-called Real World are stripped away.
Mr R is I think being mocked for the fabulous made-up-story nature of his grim metaphysics. As later with Lily's upside down table.
Fantastic, thank you! It was the final missing “is” that threw me, and I was also somewhat mystified about the fabled land — I appreciate the light you shed, Ronald.
This is delightful. The Lighthouse has been staring at me from my bookcase for several years but you have now given me the courage to get started. This first post is much appreciated. Thank you so much. P.S. I am not sure I understand this "pledge" business
Don't worry about the pledge thing. I don't offer paid subscriptions yet (my newsletter is free) so those pledge buttons allow you to indicate in advance that you would like to become a paid subscriber in the event that I do turn on the paid category. Some very very lovely people have pledged money but it's not a prerequisite to participate in our reading of To the Lighthouse.
HI Everyone! Hello from Boston. Excited to be on this journey with you all. This is my second time reading To the Lighthouse. I just borrowed an audiobook of it from our library. I am planning on listening to it this time around (I am also a big knitter!). Everyone has such thoughtful things to say, which so deepen the reading experience. I really appreciated the context provided by Tash and Nancy - and the little audio set up!
Two thoughts on the first few pages:
1. Woolf's humor. Am I the only that laughed out loud when James responded (internally) to Mr Ramsey's pontificaiton that "it won't be fine" by fantasizing about killing him in the most gruesome and detailed manner? I find that whole section so funny. I have often felt and sensed Woolf's humor and I don't think it's commonly thought about her or her writing. The British literary establishment accused the Bloomsbury group of being overly serious and gloomy - in fact they were nicknamed "Gloomsbury" but I never thought that did justice to the humor found throughout Woolf's writing.
2. Just a little asterisk about the use of the word "lark" in the first sentence of the book. I am currently also doing a bit of a deep dive into Mrs Dalloway (I missed the Wolfish reading of it last year!) as this June will be the 100 anniversary of its publication. And of course, the word "lark" is used in the first lines of Mrs Dalloway - though in quite a different usage. Just thought it was interesting and didn't know if anyone had any thoughts on that. Happy reading all!
Hello Genevieve! I'm glad someone mentioned Woolf's wry sense of humour. (I've been enjoying Mr Bankes' obsession with the nutritional value of vegetable skins - when he's in good humour, he immediately launches into a celebration of vegetable skins ('in which all the virtue of the vegetable is contained'!)) Woolf can also be rather acerbic ('Like all stupid people, he had a kind of modesty too, a consideration for what you were feeling...' ouch!).
Regarding your second point - I missed that repeated appearance of the word, lark - fascinating! (I did, however, notice the reappearance of 'rooks.') But actually, I think there is a lot of similarity between the first pages of TTL and Mrs Dalloway. Each has a similar atmosphere of bliss amidst mounded up images and objects. From TTL p1: 'It was fringed with joy. The wheelbarrow, the lawn-mower, the sound of poplar trees, leaves whitening before rain, rooks cawing, brooms knocking, dresses rustling...' From Mrs Dalloway p2: '...the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.'
Interesting points, Genevieve. I wonder if the humor you're feeling is due to the person reading. I just finished listening to my first audiobook, directly after reading it, and was taken with how different some of the 'interpretations' of the voice were to mine. But I did note some funny moments in the first few chapters.
And 'lark': I knew it sounded familiar coming out of Woolf's pen. Thanks for pointing it out in Dalloway. I have a similar feeling when I hear 'plunge.'
Lark is such a great word and she uses it in both books in the opening pages but in its different meanings: as an early riser in TTL and then as a romp or frolic or bit of un in MD (or rather the other way around as MD was published first).
I also appreciated this Wikipedia reference to usage of lark in mythology and literature: The lark in mythology and literature stands for daybreak, as in Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale", "the bisy larke, messager of day",[18] and Shakespeare's Sonnet 29, "the lark at break of day arising / From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate" (11–12). The lark is also (often simultaneously) associated with "lovers and lovers' observance" (as in Bernart de Ventadorn's Can vei la lauzeta mover) and with "church services".[19]
"plunge" is also a wonderful word!
Tash! Wow. Such a gorgeous, well laid out and eloquent scaffolding of the novel, especially for those coming to it for the first time. You are such a beautiful writer! I am so looking forward to hearing everyone's perspective on this book, what they think about it, where they think the heart of it might be, and which character(s) resonate the most with them. So excited for this journey, and to take it with you is like giving yourself up to a very wise Sherpa. We are all in good hands!
Aw thanks Nancy! But I think you are a fellow sherpa on this journey!
I have to read and re-read some of these long, complex sentences. I wonder if VW planned that for her readers, not just her characters, as a window into how the mind works, oftentimes going over and over the same material. So, the book does not just reflect an individual's thought process and inner life but is a reflection of the reader's efforts at comprehension.
It's interesting to me that Mr. Ramsey, in his first appearance and in the description of his unpleasantness, seems merely an unlikable man. But he soon becomes outlandish and really eccentric, charging around yelling obscure phrases, startling and scaring. I've found that this time reading he is becoming more complex for me. And James: outwardly disciplined (cutting our the refrigerator so neatly) while wanting to axe-murder his father. Note he doesn't say that; he thinks it while being so deliberate in his actions. Scary, in a way. It's the quiet, neat ones you have to watch out for!
All in all I'm fascinated with the multiplicities within the characters, which I've registered before but now am realizing more fully. Fascinated in that Woolf sees the intricacies of personality, but also in the skill and invention in her craft. I started marking changes in point of view but gave up; my book was becoming illegible in places!
How interesting - I also find my perspective on Mr Ramsay changing a bit on this reading of the novel. Actually I have more empathy for him this time around and, yes, find him more complex. In this first scene, I can see from James's perspective that his father appears tyrannical and belligerent, but I also see Mr Ramsay's interest in facts, knowledge, exactitude... He almost imagines he is doing his children a favour by bursting their bubbles with unembellished truth.
Regarding the second part of your comment - yes, exactly! Well said!
I agree it's easy and quite tempting to read Mr R as a monster of the Patriarchy. For me VW's account of his original her own father was the way in to a more rounded understanding. "My Father Leslie Stephen" My Father: Leslie Stephen, an Essay by Virginia Woolf - The Atlantic https://search.app/KXGaG7vmZfzU16ceA
I already noted for myself several stonking long sentences; they were all within the viewpoint of Mrs Ramsay. Having just spent a week in company of our 3-almost-4 grandson, I feel these two long ones may in fact be Mrs Ramsay herself reading the rather explicit emotions of her youngest. Our little chap makes his feelings pretty evident at all times!
Yes, I did wonder whether we were in the perspective of Mrs Ramsay there. I wonder what others think. The narrative voice in that first long sentence just seemed to have quite a different quality to other moments when we're in Mrs Ramsay's head. But I think you're right that she is very tuned in to her youngest son.
Love that you mentioned the objects Woolf sprinkles through the book and how they make the material seem ephemeral. Woolf aims to turn a snapshot, a momentary slice of life, into a more profound portrait of a character, and to do that she has to time travel – or to transcend time, more accurately, because a person can't be seen or understood out of context – and so her characters carry their life context with them. An object anchors us onto a physical moment, but also evokes atmospheres and sensations of all sorts with colors, scents etc. But it doesn't stop there, because objects also evoke memories, and we'll see how Woolf often links a object in the present with a person, a feeling, an event from the past. Objects can be emblematic too, for example Mrs. Ramsay might not have her notebook and pencil with her at all times, but describing them makes us grasp who she. Like you said in the podcast it's a cubist approach, we see an object from so many different points of view at the same time, they're solid, they're nostalgic, they're symbolic.
Love this: *An object anchors us onto a physical moment, but also evokes atmospheres and sensations of all sorts with colors, scents etc.* Beautifully put. And I think you're absolutely right about objects being emblematic. They project something bigger than themselves.
Woolf also gives certain words and phrases a resonating, almost totemic quality. 'Women can't paint, women can't write.' 'Someone had blundered.' 'No going to the Lighthouse, James.' 'Windows should be open and doors shut.' Lily's painting, the green shawl, the skull, Minta's brooch, the geranium in the urn. The Lighthouse itself.
Maybe I need to join you for a re-read. I loved the first section of the book but was unprepared for the changes between it and the third section. I don't think I ever recovered. Maybe this time I'll be able to embrace all the novel and not just its first part.
I don't think you're alone there, Thaddeus. I think many people like the first section then struggle with what follows. I love the lyrical second part but have struggled, in the past, with the third part. And yet, I think, from re-reading, that all three are crucial actually...
Do join us if you have time. It might offer the seeds of another advanced craft essay...!
I had the same thought when I first read the book. I was not prepared for the transition at all!
What a magnificent essay and analysis, Tash! I love the detailed observations. Having read just the first three pages, I find myself identifying with the six-year-old boy's worldview, haha. I share his frustration with his father's logical arguments about whether they'll sail to the lighthouse based on the weather. Though realistically, good weather seems unlikely—no surprise there, especially given England's typical rain! And I too love creating collages and cutting pictures from magazines!
The contrast between life at the lighthouse and in the house immediately caught my attention. While they all (maybe not all) yearn to reach the lighthouse, Mrs. Ramsay contemplates the lighthouse keeper's life with a mixture of sadness and sympathy.
Oh thank you Dana!
I think that's an astute observation about the contrast between the Ramsay family group at the house and the lighthouse all alone. There seems to me to be a focus on the contrast between aloneness and togetherness that will be explored through the book. And Mrs Ramsay seems alive to the difficulties of aloneness. She works to knit people together (and to knit stockings also, haha).
Love this connection of the cutting out of the images from the magazine to a cubist sensibility. Also, what other commenters have said about the effects of the listing of concrete objects ... I love the way she often punctuates the long sentences with a nice short sentence as she does after the first long sentence of the second paragraph of the book with: "It was fringed with joy."
I knew Woolf had said something about the importance of rhythm to her writing and finally I managed to put my hands on it! In a letter to Vita Sackville-West, VW wrote that style was simply a matter of rhythm, and should flow like a wave; as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it. (I found this in Julia Briggs' bio of Woolf.)
Your reflections are beautiful, I have journalled them this morning to reflect on my own thoughts.
Tash, thank you for navigating us so deftly through these pages. I haven’t read To The Lighthouse for decades and so look forward to being back on the Isle with the Ramsays and once again luxuriating in Woolf’s language — and in the company of those assembled here to read together.
I’m familiar with Woolf’s work and usually find it easy enough to follow, but there’s one sentence in this opening that I can’t parse: the one that begins “He was incapable of untruth.” I proceed it without difficulty up through “facts uncompromising,” and then lose my way.
Can Tash, Nancy, other readers untangle these final clauses for me? I’d be grateful.
Oh, good question! Yes, that sentence tripped me up a bit too.
I read that latter part of the sentence as an allusion to life being difficult and disappointing and, in view of this (in Mr Ramsay's opinion), children should be prepared for adversity and should meet it with courage, truth etc. 'That fabled land' is maybe an idealised future where everything is perfect which just does not exist in real life. Instead, hopes are extinguished, our boats founder in darkness as we oar through life. Children must be taught resilience and 'the power to endure' when the going gets tough.
(We will soon find out that Mrs Ramsay has a different perspective. She is all too aware of the pain and suffering in the world and wants to protect her children from it as much as possible.)
Anyway, that's my take. Though possibly others have a different view...!
The syntax is obscure - to clarify add back two missing verbs
The children must learn THAT a) life is difficult; b) facts [are] uncompromising; and c) the passage to that fabled land where our brightest hopes are extinguished [is] one that needs, above all, courage, truth, and the power to endure.
To make it harder 'fabled land' isn't some storied Paradise but the 'fable' (made up place) of metaphysics where all illusions of the so-called Real World are stripped away.
Mr R is I think being mocked for the fabulous made-up-story nature of his grim metaphysics. As later with Lily's upside down table.
Ahaaaaaa - thank you Ronald! That makes much more sense! I see I've got the wrong end of the pineapple with 'that fabled land.' And I see the irony.
I'm tempted to take down my comment above so it doesn't lead people astray, but maybe I'll leave it up there for now. It's ok to stuff up!
Thank you Ronald and thank you Buck for asking the question!
Fantastic, thank you! It was the final missing “is” that threw me, and I was also somewhat mystified about the fabled land — I appreciate the light you shed, Ronald.
This is delightful. The Lighthouse has been staring at me from my bookcase for several years but you have now given me the courage to get started. This first post is much appreciated. Thank you so much. P.S. I am not sure I understand this "pledge" business
Excellent! Glad you found us, Anton.
Don't worry about the pledge thing. I don't offer paid subscriptions yet (my newsletter is free) so those pledge buttons allow you to indicate in advance that you would like to become a paid subscriber in the event that I do turn on the paid category. Some very very lovely people have pledged money but it's not a prerequisite to participate in our reading of To the Lighthouse.