To the Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf This is a difficult book to read and to like unless you've reached that state of mind where you can digest words without even actively trying to understand the whole winding paragraphs. 'To the Lighthouse' is a story by several multiple POV characters that centered around the existence of the lighthouse and the metaphors around the interaction and characterization of the book's residents. Virginia Woolf uses a literary technique called stream of consciousness where every character in this book have a chance to be the narrator's voice without the necessity of an observant out of the picture narrator as the narratives of each of the characters somehow bloated up the book enough that the plot is even rendered unnecessary. And this is the essay I did on the book : "Lighthouse" in a sense, a building guiding light penetrating the darkness of the ocean. It emphasize directly on the novel which was mostly surround itself with the inner workings of the minds and as a way to enable the characterization progression and it gave a scope of understanding through the depth of each personalities and psychologically. Although the plot of the novel was given less consideration but can be wholly redefined as the focus of the novel was foremost the characterizations. Those includes; what a person thinks or do things and what motivate them or what was their desires and their hopes which was magnified by just using words. Woolf had carefully paraphrase the multivariate narrations without compromising on the stylistic substances but its not hard to avoid being displaced by the continuous writing and the ephemeral quality of its prose. She managed to sum up human values and its intricacies between seemingly contradictory characters and unfailingly giving each their own personal voices surrounding the events inside the story. Mrs Ramsey was the most prominent voice throughout the novel. Her observation on the world and people around her was contrasted differently between her and her family and friends. Mr Ramsey provided a darker side that was a direct contrast to Mrs Ramsey. However, the style of the book compensate his actions as the narrative give an insight to his characterization down to his deep insecurity and how Mrs Ramsey complement him in their relationship. The novel provide a pathway of greater understanding of the relationship between each other and how it correlates and subsequently resulted in changes or character developments. In a way, "To The Lighthouse" is a coming of age novel at its core and as a guiding light toward a greater form of humanity.But this book is extremely exhausting to read in one sitting. I've read this a few times with audiobooks and I still don't know how on earth a person could write this way. Since someone said that this style is also used in Joyce's Ulysses, I am taking even a step farther away from that book. I don't think I have the right age to read this. I probably will mellow down in years and retry reading this book with a different perspective.