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Audiobook7 hours
To the Lighthouse
Written by Virginia Woolf
Narrated by Juliet Stevenson
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
Just before the First World War, the Ramsay family go to their holiday home in the Hebrides, bringing several guests with them. While they are there, one of the children wants to visit a lighthouse. After a ten year gap, during which the war wreaks its havoc on Europe, one of the guests returns to the house; and another trip to the lighthouse is proposed. Told from multiple viewpoints, in language that is precise, delicate and allusive, To The Lighthouse gives unprecedented insight into the minds of the characters, as well as telling a broader story of personal and social change in the world after the war. To The Lighthouse is a landmark work of English fiction. Virginia Woolf explores perception and meaning in some of the most beautiful prose ever written, minutely detailing the characters thoughts and impressions.
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Author
Virginia Woolf
VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882–1941) was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. An admired literary critic, she authored many essays, letters, journals, and short stories in addition to her groundbreaking novels, including Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and Orlando.
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Reviews for To the Lighthouse
Rating: 4.0508474576271185 out of 5 stars
4/5
295 ratings129 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lily Briscoe is a kindred spirit. She asks a pertinent question at the beginning of the final section: what does it mean then, what can it all mean? I have been asking myself that, often out loud for most of my adult life. A pair of events this weekend illuminated that disposition and likely also besmirched my reading of To The Lighthouse. My Tenth wedding anniversary was followed quickly by the funeral for my uncle Fred. The first event was grand, of course, though it does lend itself to a certain survey, of sorts. The second was simply queer. this was no great tragedy, the man was 85 years old had seven sons and had suffered through terrible health these last few years. I leaned quickly that there are no poets in that section of my family and apparently no Democrats either. It was nice to hug, slap backs and smile at one another, most of the time counting the decades since we last spoke at length. Through the depths of such I ran to the Woolf and read for an odd half hour here and there.
To the Lighthouse is a tale of caprice and desperation. It is a kaleidoscope of resonance and impressions. Much like life it can be dusty and wind swept on an even manner. I would likely have been great affected were it not for the switchbacks of the weekend. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/53-2-17
Tonight I finished Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse.”
Wowzers, it’s really great. This was my first reading of Woolf, and I was really hypnotized by her style. It was an emotional rollercoaster, and I highly recommend you ride it. A very quick read, under 200 pages, and it just flows and flows. Lyrical. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Impressionistic rather than descriptive. Divided in three parts. The first, and the longest, serves as an introduction to the setting, the characters, and their interactions. And this part was tough going, especially towards the end, simply because nothing really happens in the first part, and yet it keeps on going, without any real purpose. Characters were kept at a stand-still, just so that the author could paint a detailed picture. My 21st century attention span -- used as it is to snappy, streamlined characterization and world-building -- made me put the book down a few timesThe second and third parts, though, are very much worth the effort of struggling through that lengthy set-up. This is where [To the lighthouse] comes into its own: once you understand what’s going on, the whole thing pays off beautifully.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5a family goes to the same vacation house through the years
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The language is so beautifully evocative. The careful echoing of the longer first section, which allows the reader to meet and understand the Ramseys and Lily Briscoe in particular, with the concluding section where Lily (the artist) is forced to come to terms with what it all means is balanced by the much briefer middle part. That section is where we learn of the events of the painful period of Mrs. Ramsey's death, World War II and the passage of time. It functions as a sort of intercession for both the reader and Lily, allowing us to gain perspective (almost without realizing it) on how "we perish, each alone." Such a very powerful book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zeer moeilijke lectuur, maar met ongelofelijk veel intellectueel genoegen. Gaat over eindigheid en dood, kijken naar het leven. Zeer beeldend. Om te herlezen en herlezen.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It is official. I am not a Virginia Woolf guy. I appreciated this book more than Mrs. Dalloway, but I still struggled with it. Basically there is no plot to this story, but it is simply a look inside the minds of the characters and their rapid, deep, and depressing judgements of themselves and those around them. The language is beautiful, and the insights into the thoughts and behaviors of people are fascinating to think about, but it is just too dark for me. If people really thought that poorly of each other, this would be one heck of a sad world to live in. Also, it is too much work to judge the words and actions of others so consistently rather than simply enjoy being in their presence.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There are moments of great crystalline beauty here, seamless amalgam of little sharp perceptions and language their vehicle, and I won't forget this family, in particular the two parents, in whom I see so much of archetype, of my parents and my friends' parents transfigured and ennobled by, well, class, I suppose. Mrs Ramsey regal and anxious, Mr Ramsey needy and forbidding, which is almost another (male) way of saying the same thing. But a sprawling family deserved a sprawling novel that would let the modernist psychological superstructure unfold at a less compressed pace. I feel like that pressure relief would have led to fewer "But what is it all? And what does it all mean? And what are ... WE???"-type eruptions. Sure am glad James made it to the Lighthouse and had a moment with his dad though.(On class: the last gasps of compulsive Victorian world-building as well as Victorian formality are on display here, and it's affecting to watch that world list and capsize and the hard-won homeliness of it convert into something more twentieth-century and atomized. But I guess that made the proscribed lighthouse trip possible?)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Exquisite. (*****)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolutely breathtaking literature.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Although I think I like Mrs. Dalloway better, this wasn't bad.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I feel like I need cliff notes and a college level lecture on this one. There was just so much going on in this...every sentence heavy with meaning and infused with hidden feeling. The inner lives of Edwardians who perhaps grew up in the Victorian era...so repressed and filled with the expectations of society, struggling not to be themselves, but to even find themselves in the first place.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not much of a plot in this work of dreamy prose. But still worth a read, if just to suck from the marrow of these sentences. Being a short work one, can read it over and over again.,
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I had close to the same feeling about these characters as I had to the ones in The Age of Innocence, which is to say, close to none. The writing here, however, was much better, as it seems to me, so there's that.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Found this book a hard slog because of the amount of commas in Virginia Woolf's writing, because of this found it hard to really engage with the book.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/52.5 stars
Woolf writes beautifully, but I think the form of her novel just isn't for me. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zeer moeilijke lectuur, maar met ongelofelijk veel intellectueel genoegen. Gaat over eindigheid en dood, kijken naar het leven. Zeer beeldend. Om te herlezen en herlezen.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was my second Woolf book and I'm no closer to being a fan of this author than at any other time of my life. Lighthouse was much more enjoyable than Waves, but I won't be rereading either of them any time soon.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I read this book in university and I remembered I didn't like it. So this summer I decided to read it again to find out why I didn't like it. I soon realized the reason. It is a very confusing book for me to try and read. The sentences go on forever which makes me forget what I was reading about in the first place. I have read the first 8 chapters and I barely know what is going on so I've decided to put the book back on the shelf.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I found it frustrating to read, as little actually occurred in the book, with the content made up almost entirely of the leisurely musings of the English upper-class. On the other, I enjoyed the thoughts on art and I liked seeing the character of Lily grow into a more confident artist. I had some inner laughs at Mr. Ramsay, who in the second half of the novel finds himself in a difficult place without his wife to consistently praise him and his work. I did find the style in which this book was written, the focus on perception without much dialogue or action, difficult to read and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is wary of those writing styles.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5To the Lighthouse is a challenging read because of the literary devices Woolf used in her writing. I like it because of the unique way Woolf delineates her characters. She is interested in feelings and sensations of each one and the sympathy she arouses in the reader. She can be cruel in her plot.I can only think now of this book in general terms since I've read it some time back. This is the only fiction of hers I've finished so I couldn't compare it with Mrs. Dalloway, which is also one of her acknowledged best work. I've read the first volume of her literary criticism, The Common Reader, and that one was also fantastic.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Found this book a hard slog because of the amount of commas in Virginia Woolf's writing, because of this found it hard to really engage with the book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Oh, god, how absolutely astounding! I'm in tears. Virginia Woolf is alive and well.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Extraordinary work of art! I love the way Woolf narrates this novel through different people's streams of consciousness. It envelopes the reader into the story from many perspectives. Juliette Stevenson does a fantastic job!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of my favorite works of literature - a work that demonstrates the beauty of modernism, perspective, the bending of time to the rhythm of everyday consciousness.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This narrator is fantastic, it must have taken ages to read it in such a way finding all the voices that Virginia Woolf introduced in the narrators one. I am very impressed!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very enjoyable audiobooks, though I highly encourage you to listen while reading as well. Just to catch exactly what the writer is trying to potray
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolutely love this book. I like reading while listening to the audiobook as it helps me concentrate better. My print edition was an 90s Oxford World’s Classics. It was interesting that the audiobook version was 97% exactly the same, and some of the small differences where noted on the footnotes as divergences between published editions.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A fantastic adaptation read with the right tone making this great novel enjoyable
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A beautifully read novel where a lot of time passes in the lives of the Ramsey happens but not much happens. This is the kind of book you read for the exquisite, lyrical prose rather than the plot but it is an incredible novel.