To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse was a fascinating, but meandering and melancholy, exercise in stream-of-consciousness prose. The first section of the book introduces the characters, whose lives are intertwined and connected commonly by matriarch Mrs. Ramsay. The inner thoughts of the various characters are revealed intermittently as they all vacation in the Hebrides. There is little outer dialogue, and no indication of a switch in narrator.

An abrupt chapter following this heralds the passage of ten years. Many, including Mrs. Ramsay, have died. The concluding chapter returns to some of those present in the beginning, and accompanies them as thry revisit the vacation home.

The relationships between all these people are hashed and rehashed. Mr. Ramsay is a distant philosopher-type whose children harbor resentments against him because of his emotional coldness. Lily Briscoe is a single painting dilettante for whom Mrs. Ramsay tries unfruitfully to find a partner. Mrs. Ramsay is reputedly beautiful, and she attempts to smooth out the lives of everyone around her. She becomes some sort of symbol of perfection for Lily, and inspires her to paint despite the fact that her work will just rot in an attic some day.

I did not particularly care for any of the characters. I find most complex character studies tedious and pointless. I am not sure I have a complete grasp on what Woolf was trying to say with this, either. I know she had a philosophy describing humans' inability to ever truly know one another, and I can see that here. Her characters would be complete mysteries to the outside observer, but the inner dialogue reveals so much more. I also caught the do-what-you-want-and-forget-posterity thing at the end, which is always a healthy perspective. But I feel like I may be missing something. I feel that way about literature often.