The Frame

To the Lighthouse wasn’t quite as accessible for me as Mrs. Dalloway, but it has plenty of Woolfian flashes of brilliance. The story concerns a family and various friends vacationing in the Hebrides; in the first half, the children want to go to visit the local lighthouse, but it seems weather will prevent them. In the middle section time passes (fifteen years or so in about ten pages), and in the last section, the trip to the lighthouse is finally undertaken. There’s metaphor and stuff. I really enjoyed how Woolf used the Lily Briscoe character, a painter, to represent herself, a writer–it’s subtle, yet also somehow clear. And the writing. Have I mentioned how much I like Woolf’s writing? I have? Oh well. It’s like you’re just reading along, and all of a sudden, WHAM. A passage comes out of nowhere and just smites you with its beauty and brilliance. It’s like poetry in prose form. It’s like being drowned in gorgeousness. It’s perfection.
Well Above Average