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sunshowerdandelion) wrote2024-08-29 08:15 pm
sunshowerdandelion) wrote2024-08-29 08:15 pm
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Day 105.1: The Lighthouse
Certainly flashes there, sleek brilliance, like seeing fish-bellies as they swim. But I don't think I'm mature enough to see the beauty of To the Lighthouse - not yet - and that's definitely a personal thing, as I can feel Virginia Woolf is trying her hardest to convey the tight knit of these character's personalities. I think I loved Lily Briscoe the most, and the sequence Time Passes is utterly breathtaking, the wind snuffling, and time itself and the gradual ruin of the house, and the asides (where Mrs. Ramsay dies, and Prue dies, and Andrew dies). Beautiful. The spot I loved the most other than that sequence was the bit where Lily offers herself to look for Minta's piece of jewelry, which she loses on the beach ("ready to implore a share..."). That moment where she flings herself - perfect.
The prose I felt to be natural. Virginia Woolf trying her hardest, her hardest to translate thought is amazing and I definitely felt it, though such is her fidelity that I sometimes lost myself and had to will even more concentration and effort into reading (I do not concentrate all that well). Others' thoughts do not make comfortable reading sometimes.
I found the bit about Mrs. Ramsay at the end very touching. That image of her that Lily has, her on the beach, trying to see something, and then emerging at last as complex and beloved - I thought that was also perfect. Lots of nodding, too, at Mr. Ramsay's antics - his need for reassurance, his weight, and the way he warps space as her barrels around, 'bearing down' on everyone (but especially women), his schemata of him being stuck at Q in the A to Z of human brilliance.
I'm aware I am quite probably missing the meat of the book, but this was my experience reading it.
The prose I felt to be natural. Virginia Woolf trying her hardest, her hardest to translate thought is amazing and I definitely felt it, though such is her fidelity that I sometimes lost myself and had to will even more concentration and effort into reading (I do not concentrate all that well). Others' thoughts do not make comfortable reading sometimes.
I found the bit about Mrs. Ramsay at the end very touching. That image of her that Lily has, her on the beach, trying to see something, and then emerging at last as complex and beloved - I thought that was also perfect. Lots of nodding, too, at Mr. Ramsay's antics - his need for reassurance, his weight, and the way he warps space as her barrels around, 'bearing down' on everyone (but especially women), his schemata of him being stuck at Q in the A to Z of human brilliance.
I'm aware I am quite probably missing the meat of the book, but this was my experience reading it.