To the Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf

252 pages

English language

Published April 12, 1989

ISBN:: 978-1-4067-9239-3

To the Lighthouse is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of To the Lighthouse is secondary to its philosophical introspection. Cited as a key example of the literary technique of multiple focalization, the novel includes little dialogue and almost no direct action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls childhood emotions and highlights adult relationships. Among the book's many tropes and themes are those of loss, subjectivity, the nature of art and the problem of perception. In 1998, the Modern Library named To the Lighthouse No. 15 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME …

11 editions

itskia2 reviewed To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Beautifully written.

5 stars

Honestly this book simply fits into a genre I didn't know I loved, but I do and oh so much. The flow of the writing as thoughts through a person's mind gave us the intimacy with a character as well as an attachment to the characters as if we were them. Absolutely loved it and looking forward to reading more of Woolf's books.

sidra reviewed To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Review of 'To the lighthouse' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

Never did anybody look so sad. Bitter and black, halfway down, in the darkness, in the shaft which ran from the sunlight to the depths, perhaps a tear formed; a tear fell; die waters swayed this way and that, received it, and were at rest. Never did anybody look so sad.

No one does the stream of consciousness prose like Woolf.

The Gnome King reviewed To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Review of 'To the Lighthouse' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

Officially the worst book I've read this year so big round of applause to Woolf for ruining one week of 2015 for me. Yay!

Now....I am a man, a pretty awesome and strong and handsome man but even I got fed up with all of Woolf's comments putting down women, I've read books where they have mentioned that the lady is the weaker sex but Woolf just comes across as whiny (like I am in this review) the comments were like walking the street at 2am and coming across a drunken woman screaming at her boyfriend and trying to walk past without making eye contact... in fact I got so good at this I managed to go pages forgetting to read, so annoyingly I had to keep going back. The characters reminded me of the great Gatsby, tedious and very bland, nobody was interesting enough for me to care.

I …

Jamie reviewed To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Review of 'To the Lighthouse' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

My attention faltered many times with this one, but I pushed through. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. Ponderous, meandering novels (even brief ones like To the Lighthouse) often send me off into my own realm while my eyes or ears continue with the text. It's hard to read about Lily's internal struggle with problems of perception and how closely it resembles reality, struggle with meaning and value, without taking your own stab at the debate in your own context.

Once I got past caring about the frequent shifts in time and voice, I enjoyed flowing with Woolf, pondering the big questions.

Michael @ Knowledge Lost reviewed To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Review of 'To the Lighthouse' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

To the Lighthouse is a book where nothing much happens, in fact the plot takes a backseat and instead Virginia Woolf focuses on a philosophical introspect. There is not much in the way of dialogue but rather uses multiple perspectives of people offering throughs and observations to make up this truly modernist piece of literature. Focusing on mainly memories and people’s emotions this book can be very dry if you don’t spend the time to look into the problems with prospective. Woolf explores the value of people’s lives, showing you that there is to someone that just their outer beauty. This book has often been described as a landmark in high modernism, while I won’t pretend to understand it fully, it was worth reading, next I might have to tackle Finnegans Wake.