Summer '07 Reading: 'To The Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf

[Janine]

I think Virginia Woolf may be my favorite stream of consciousness writer, now. The discussion has encouraged me to go out and get a couple of her other novels and I've been impressed. I think the middle of Mrs. Dalloway is some of the best writing I've ever read. I'm curious, though, Janine. Why did you like the middle section more than the other two? I think the writing is quite different between them; most of the book is told in a critical tone that maintains intellectual precision, but the second part deviates and becomes poetic. I actually prefer the first and third part, though, because I think that the middle section--while being very poetic--isn't as affecting as the other parts of the book. The descriptions of the house decaying seem kind of forced at time. It seemed like just words with nothing behind it. The other sections were much more powerful, I thought. For some reason, Virginia Woolf does much better with understatements in prose than effusions of poetry.

You know Quark, perhaps I should not have made that statement. I recall that when I first got to the middle section I felt a little thrown off but I felt too it added a bit of relief from the intensity of the first section. I think you might be right that in section one and section 3 Woolf really does exhibit her best writing ability - going deeply into the minds and thoughts of the characters. The center section, with quirpy interjections about the cleaning woman, is rather humorous at times. No one can doubt it is uniquely written and very well done, but when Woolf shines brightest is definitely within her characters. I think when you read "Mrs. Dalloway", you will experience this. A friend of mine told me her favorite Woolf novel is "The Waves". I should put that one on my list. I read only two so far, but TTLH I did read twice.

So in conclusion, I would agree that the powerful aspect of Woolf's writing is definitely in the characters and their thoughts and the straight prose style. But the poetic style of in descriptions is commendable, as well. I especially like the aspects of waves and the use of this as a metaphor to the changing of peoples lives and the ebb and flow of life.

[Virgil]

I wanted to make a few posts on the last part of the novel, "The Lighthouse" since this concludes the novel. For the most part there are two narratives running in parallel here, Lily completing her painting (and through her thoughts reaching a series of epiphanies) and Mr. Ramsey, James, and Cam sailing to the lighthouse.

Let's look at Lily's first epiphany. In part III her thoughts go from Charles Tansley to Mrs. Ramsey:

Charles Tansley used to say that, she remembered, women can’t paint, can’t write. ... He sat, she remembered, working in a blaze of sun. At dinner he would sit right in the middle of the view. But after all, she reflected, there was the scene on the beach. One must remember that. It was a windy morning. They had all gone down to the beach. Mrs Ramsay sat down and wrote letters by a rock. She wrote and wrote. “Oh,” she said, looking up at something floating in the sea, “is it a lobster pot? Is it an upturned boat?” She was so short-sighted that she could not see, and then Charles Tansley became as nice as he could possibly be. He began playing ducks and drakes. They chose little flat black stones and sent them skipping over the waves. Every now and then Mrs Ramsay looked up over her spectacles and laughed at them. What they said she could not remember, but only she and Charles throwing stones and getting on very well all of a sudden and Mrs Ramsay watching them. She was highly conscious of that. Mrs Ramsay, she thought, stepping back and screwing up her eyes. (It must have altered the design a good deal when she was sitting on the step with James. There must have been a shadow.) When she thought of herself and Charles throwing ducks and drakes and of the whole scene on the beach, it seemed to depend somehow upon Mrs Ramsay sitting under the rock, with a pad on her knee, writing letters. (She wrote innumerable letters, and sometimes the wind took them and she and Charles just saved a page from the sea.) But what a power was in the human soul! she thought. That woman sitting there writing under the rock resolved everything into simplicity; made these angers, irritations fall off like old rags; she brought together this and that and then this, and so made out of that miserable silliness and spite (she and Charles squabbling, sparring, had been silly and spiteful) something—this scene on the beach for example, this moment of friendship and liking—which survived, after all these years complete, so that she dipped into it to re-fashion her memory of him, and there it stayed in the mind affecting one almost like a work of art.

Again we see above the power of Mrs Ramsey, to make something out of "that miserable silliness and spite...something—this scene on the beach for example, this moment of friendship and liking—which survived, after all these years complete." She, despite being dead now eleven years, is still the force which summons images and feelings. Lily's thoughts continue:

“Like a work of art,” she repeated, looking from her canvas to the drawing-room steps and back again. She must rest for a moment. And, resting, looking from one to the other vaguely, the old question which traversed the sky of the soul perpetually, the vast, the general question which was apt to particularise itself at such moments as these, when she released faculties that had been on the strain, stood over her, paused over her, darkened over her. What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one. This, that, and the other; herself and Charles Tansley and the breaking wave; Mrs Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs Ramsay saying, “Life stand still here”; Mrs Ramsay making of the moment something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to make of the moment something permanent)—this was of the nature of a revelation. In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability. Life stand still here, Mrs Ramsay said. “Mrs Ramsay! Mrs Ramsay!” she repeated. She owed it all to her.

"'Like a work of art,'" Lily says out loud, and thereby connecting Mrs. R's magic to her painting. Through Mrs. Ramsey Lily is trying to penetrate the most philosophic of questions: "What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come." An impossible question to answer and it goes unanswered. Lily has felt throughout the novel that Mrs. R has the answer to that question. But she doesn't answer it, but here's Lily's epiphany:

Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one. This, that, and the other; herself and Charles Tansley and the breaking wave; Mrs Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs Ramsay saying, “Life stand still here”; Mrs Ramsay making of the moment something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to make of the moment something permanent)—this was of the nature of a revelation. In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability. Life stand still here, Mrs Ramsay said. “Mrs Ramsay! Mrs Ramsay!” she repeated. She owed it all to her.

The small "daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck in the dark," those are what make life worthwhile, what makes the struggle worthy. In the midst of chaos (nature and its movement toward entropy) there is the human mind, consciousness, giving shape, providing order, creating form. Mrs R by inviting people to her home on the beach, by soothing egos, by entertaining in a dinner party while bringing people together, makes "Life stand still here," just like Lily is doing in her painting that very moment.

[Quark]

I like these quotes, Virgil. You're right that Lily and Mrs. Ramsay are connected. I don't know--maybe connected isn't the right word. Their relationship is pretty one way. Most of the novel is about Lily admiring Mrs. Ramsay. There are some parts where we see that Mrs. Ramsay likes Lily, but it never rises to the level of profound respect that Lily has for Mrs. Ramsay. Lily worships Mrs. Ramsay because she's the solution to her problems as an artist. Mrs. Ramsay has all the mastery of form that Lily wishes she could have. And, when Lily is painting, she is very much like Mrs. Ramsay. Both are trying to bring things together. Lily, though, has more difficulty with this. She puts the question to herself of how to connect this with that in her painting; and, she's stumped. She can't move forward. Mrs. Ramsay, however, is quite adept at doing this, and this easy skill draws Lily to her.

Your last observation brings nature into the discussion.

The small "daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck in the dark," those are what make life worthwhile, what makes the struggle worthy. In the midst of chaos (nature and its movement toward entropy) there is the human mind, consciousness, giving shape, providing order, creating form. Mrs R by inviting people to her home on the beach, by soothing egos, by entertaining in a dinner party while bringing people together, makes "Life stand still here," just like Lily is doing in her painting that very moment.

"Entropy" is kind of a specific concept that states that the universe is chaotic , and that it rejects human efforts to control, change, or understand it. I don't think this is really the right way to define nature in this story. You're right to suggest that the old Romantic temperament that viewed the environment as a symbol for the soul is gone in this novel. Woolf in an outpouring of metaphor narrates,

"marvel how beauty outside mirrored beauty within. Did Nature supplement what man advanced? Did she complete what he began? With equal complacence she saw his misery, condoned his meanness, and acquiesced in his torture. That dream, then, of sharing, completing, finding in solitude on the beach an answer, was but a reflection in a mirror, and the mirror itself was but the surface glassiness which forms in quiescence when the nobler powers sleep beneath?... to pace the beach was impossible; contemplation was unendurable; the mirror was broken"

Instead of an empathic, spiritual universe, the author describes the environment that is enigmatic--but not unsolvable. "Entropy" would go to far. The mirror has shattered, yes, but there is a cause. If we look earlier in the book--just one paragraph before what I just quoted--we see a naval vessel intrude upon the scene.

“There was the silent apparition of an ashen-coloured ship for instance, come, gone; there was a purplish stain on the bland surface of the sea as if something had boiled and bled, invisibly, beneath. This intrusion into a scene calculated to stir the most sublime reflections and lead to the most comfortable conclusions stayed their pacing. It was difficult blandly to overlook them; to abolish their significance in the landscape; to continue, as one walked by the sea, to marvel how beauty outside mirrored beauty within."

The ship breaks the connection that Woolf believed we once had to nature--just as WW I causes the elements to rage against each other. But, when the war is done, is the world still beyond human understanding. Read the last part of that chapter:

"Then indeed peace had come. Messages of peace breathed from the sea to the shore. Never to break its sleep any more, to lull it rather more deeply to rest, and whatever the dreamers dreamt holily, dreamt wisely, to confirm—what else was it murmuring—as Lily Briscoe laid her head on the pillow in the clean still room and heard the sea. Through the open window the voice of the beauty of the world came murmuring, too softly to hear exactly what it said—but what mattered if the meaning were plain?"

Now that WW I is over, nature is espousing peace and tranquility. But, unlike before, the message that the universe gives is obscure and hard to understand. Woolf says that nature murmurs "too softly to hear" with a meaning that isn't "plain". It isn't that the world is naturally chaotic. There is meaning and order; it's just difficult to detect.

There is a negative, counter-human influence in the novel. It's death. Mortality is both a mover of the plot and a mental centerpiece for many of the characters. It takes both Mrs. Ramsay and Andrew. It also sets a limit for what Mr. Ramsay's intellectualism and Mrs. Ramsay's politeness can hope to achieve. Virgil, I can see how you might conflate Entropy with mortality. There are long passages describing tumultuous storms followed by a decaying home. You might believe that there is some proclivity towards disorder. But, when you read closely the text that gives us these images, you'll see that there are causes. The world in To The Lighthouse is complicated but not incomprehensible.

[Virgil]

Now that WW I is over, nature is espousing peace and tranquility. But, unlike before, the message that the universe gives is obscure and hard to understand. Woolf says that nature murmurs "too softly to hear" with a meaning that isn't "plain". It isn't that the world is naturally chaotic. There is meaning and order; it's just difficult to detect.

But isn't the peace and tranqulity variable, whimsical? It comes and it goes in a chaotic manner too. And you might be able to lump human whims in there too.

I wouldn't hold Woolf to a scientific definition of entropy. I'm fairly certain she is conscious of it (she even mentions rust at the beginning of "Time Passes, and rust is a classic example of entropy) but I think she's just suggesting the power of nature to overwhelm human struggles for order, and thereby human struggles to create art.

[Quark]

But isn't the peace and tranqulity variable, whimsical? It comes and it goes in a chaotic manner too. And you might be able to lump human whims in there too.

If by variable you mean changing then yes it is. If by whimsical you mean random then no it's not. If reality were beyond understanding and fundamentally absurd, how could Lily paint? Why would Woolf point out that "The war, people said, had revived their interest in poetry"? These are human struggles to create art that succeed. In the Time Passes section, the Ramsay's house does rust and decay, and there is seemingly aimless violence in nature. But, all of the destruction and loss in that part are framed as a small part of a larger cycle. After the raging storm in the second part, Woolf poetically summarizes the previous scenes:

"Nothing it seemed could break that image, corrupt that innocence, or disturb the swaying mantle of silence which, week after week, in the empty room, wove into itself the falling cries of birds, ships hooting, the drone and hum of the fields, a dog’s bark, a man’s shout, and folded them round the house in silence. Once only a board sprang on the landing; once in the middle of the night with a roar, with a rupture, as after centuries of quiescence, a rock rends itself from the mountain and hurtles crashing into the valley, one fold of the shawl loosened and swung to and fro. Then again peace descended; and the shadow wavered; light bent to its own image in adoration on the bedroom wall; and Mrs McNab, tearing the veil of silence with hands that had stood in the wash-tub, grinding it with boots that had crunched the shingle, came as directed to open all windows, and dust the bedrooms."

The whole storm--WW I and all--are considered to be one event that happens every hundred years. Soon, peace and order are restored. But, things have changed since the storm. Reality has become more subtle and difficult to see objectively. Nature still has a purpose and a meaning; it's often referred to as a force or power. That force, though, has become complex. This leads to the need for poets and painters--like Carmichael and Lily. And, it also motivates Woolf to write. On the Chekhov thread I brought up Woolf's response to Chekhov. I think it sounds very similar to Woolf view of reality, so I'll post it here. She says, "We need a very daring and alert sense of literature to make us hear the tune, and in particular those last notes which complete the harmony".

I wouldn't hold Woolf to a scientific definition of entropy. I'm fairly certain she is conscious of it (she even mentions rust at the beginning of "Time Passes, and rust is a classic example of entropy) but I think she's just suggesting the power of nature to overwhelm human struggles for order, and thereby human struggles to create art.

The reason I keep rephrasing "Entropy" is that "Entropy" means absurdity. Nowhere is that a theme. There is loss and change as described by the second part, but this isn't a movement towards absurdity.

[Virgil]

The reason I keep rephrasing "Entropy" is that "Entropy" means absurdity. Nowhere is that a theme. There is loss and change as described by the second part, but this isn't a movement towards absurdity.

Entropy doesn't mean absurdity. It means non-order, the opposite of what an artist does.

[Quark]

Entropy doesn't mean absurdity. It means non-order, the opposite of what an artist does.

Well, I wasn't meaning absurdity as in like comic absurdity. I meant the philosophical sense; that people cannot properly understand reality because it's naturally chaotic and disordered. Like you said, Entropy means non-order, but now you have to prove that non-order is a theme.

[quasimodo1]

First law of entropy states that systems, without maintenence, devolve from a state of order to various levels of disorder, and finally to chaos.

[Jozanny]

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to chime in and say that To The Lighthouse is the Woolf masterwork, in my estimation. Been some time since I've read it, and I am not sure where my tattered paperback from college is, and so I cannot make any detailed arguments, but it straddles fairy tale literature and psychological realism with just the right balance (unlike Orlando), and equally holds the reader suspended between humor and pathos.

If I had been around earlier I would have been able to join in the discussion without having to chase after the text!