To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (****)
2/50 Amazon

This is another book that’s been hanging around for years, and it’s nice to finally knock it off my list. I don’t remember starting to read this book at all, but I found a bookmark two thirds in, so apparently I did read a good part of it before. For whatever reason, it didn’t stick the first time. That probably says more about me than it does about the book. I did find it difficult to get into the book in the beginning, but eventually I found myself involved and caring about what happened next, so I’m glad I kept reading until I reached that point.

To the Lighthouse is unique in that almost entirely written in the subjective. We hear what the characters are thinking and feeling, and about how they see and interpret their environment and the other characters, but we do not get an objective view of what’s really happening. And so through this device, the entire book is a question about reality — which becomes more obvious towards the end. It’s not a question about reality in the way that Henry James approaches it in Turn of the Screw; no one is crazy or unhinged. It reminds me more of what I was thinking about when I read Housekeeping — each of us is a prisoner in our skin, our perceptions are uniquely ours, and although they may overlap with others’ perceptions, they are probably not a perfect fit. And as with Housekeeping, the characters in To the Lighthouse felt very lonely and disconnected to me, being as they were, trapped within themselves. This is a book that’s best read slowly, rich as it is the details of the inner lives of its characters.

Currently Reading:
Stumbling on Happiness – Daniel Gilbert