By Ryan Strong
A family takes a vacation to their cottage in the United Kingdom. The youngest child requests that they sail to the lighthouse, but they are unable to. 10 years later, they return again to their cottage, this time completing their voyage to the lighthouse. From these fairly trite beginnings, Virginia Woolf manages to craft one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.
The aforementioned family is the Ramsay family. Mrs. Ramsay- the matriarch – is kind and caring, constantly comforting her rather ill-tempered husband who goes from being furious to fretting about his position in the world. That husband- Mr. Ramsay – is a philosopher, or a metaphysician as he is referred to in the novel, who constantly worries about his position in the world, wondering whether he will ever secure his place in history. Another memorable character is that of Lily Briscoe, a painter who manages to complete her painting ten years after she began it.
Admittedly, a story about a middle-class family’s vacation to their cottage does not exactly look like the basis for an epic novel. And to a certain extent that is true: Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece is not akin to War and Peace. Indeed, it probably has much more connection with Jane Austen’s novels: limited in scope, but at the same time masterfully written. One of the reasons they are so masterful is due to Woolf’s use of style. Woolf uses a technique called Free Indirect Discourse. This style maintains a third person narration. However, the narration closely follows the thoughts and opinions of the characters. For Woolf, I must also emphasize the “s” in “characters”. Her narrative moves freely between characters’ points of view, sometimes even in the same sentence. And unlike some of her modernist contemporaries (I’m looking at you, Mr. Faulkner), her characters thought processes are actually coherent.
Another point that should be made about the story is that even though it seems enclosed at the beginning, there is plenty of emotional drama and power. Many of the characters die between the ten years that pass between the vacation days. The other characters are left struggling with existential fears. Though its setting may be limited, its themes are universal.
If one criticism can be given, it is that the book is too short. It is a little longer than 200 pages. Other modernist masterpieces that cover as short of a time are far longer, and I believe that Woolf’s story would have improved had she been able to elongate her writing about each of the days. The day 10 years later, in particular, felt truncated, especially when it was focusing on the character development of Mr. Ramsay.
Those criticisms aside, To the Lighthouse is a surprisingly accessible introduction to modernist fiction, while also being an existentialist study of the human condition, the ravages of time, and the impact of death on humanity. SAS students should be interested in such work, as these sorts of questions are confronted by all human beings. Furthermore, those who enjoy creative writing at SAS should read the work in order to expand their narrative repertoires and how to create literature.