Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5219 in Books
• Published on: 1989-12-27
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 228 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. It's wondrous to listen to a fine reading of a long-loved novel. Leishman makes masterly use of volume, timbre and resonance to distinguish between characters and draw us into the emotional swings and vibrations of the internal musings of each. She creates not a new but a more nuanced reading, following the interwoven streams of consciousness in a British English that lends authenticity to each voice. Leishman swims smoothly through Woolf's sentences that ebb and flow with numerous parenthetical thoughts and fresh images. These passages are interspersed with quick, sharp, simple sentences that gain strength in contrast. Leishman also draws our attention to Woolf's poetic prose: her rhythms and images, her use of hard consonants in monosyllabic words in counterpoint to long, soft, dreamy words and phrases. To The Lighthouse plays back and forth between telescopic and microscopic views of nature and human nature. Mrs. Ramsey is both trapped in and pleased in her roles as wife, mother and hostess. The introspective Mr. Ramsey is consumed with his legacy of long-since-published abstract philosophy. This is a book that cannot be read—or heard—too often. (Jan.)
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From AudioFile
Woolf's beautiful, if somber, 1927 novel falls into three parts. First is a scene of a large, complex family on summer holiday before the Great War, their guests, their servants, their belongings, their style of life, and a postponed day trip to the distant lighthouse, longed for by the youngest child, James. The second section deals with what happened next, to them and to England, and the last reassembles some of the remaining characters at the scene of the first, for the lighthouse trip, so changed from the one once anticipated. Phyllida Law's rhythmic, poetic reading renders it with finesse, though her reading of Mrs. Ramsey may not satisfy every reader's concept of the character. B.G. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Download Description
Virginia Woolf is one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century, and To the Lighthouse is perhaps her crowning achievement. The story of the Ramsay family and the guests visiting their summer house in the Hebrides, Woolf?

Customer Reviews

Brilliant Experimental Novel
I almost put this book down after the first 100 pages. The writing was difficult to get into and I kept thinking to myself, "is it worth the bother?"

I am SO glad that I did persist through the book, because it certainly was worth it. Woolf's writing is very lyrical and flows so freely (and so scattered!) that I sometimes had to re-read sentences multiple times to make sure I'd understood things correctly. It was slow going compared to my usual reading; but it was so beautiful! There's a passage in the book where Mr. Ramsey is reading, and it explains my approach to the book rather well:
"He read...as if he were guiding something, or wheedling a large flock of sheep, or pushing his way up and up a single narrow path; and sometimes he went fast and straight, and broke his way through the bramble, and sometimes it seemed a branch struck at him, a bramble blinded him, but he was not going to let himself be beaten by that; on he went, tossing over page after page."

Woolf's brier patch of words is thick and convoluted, but it was completely worthwhile picking it apart in spite of the slow start.

To The LighthouseA beautif
A beautifully and thoughtfully written novel examining and comparing life and art during the WWI era in Great Britain and contrasting those who experience life primarily through deeds and action (Mrs. Ramsay) and those who primarily experience life through thought and reflection (Mr. Carmichael)--and the underlying contempt and misunderstanding each has for the other.

An insightful, sensitive reading.
The idea of Virginia Woolf's fiction being read aloud effectively has struck me as an impossibility. The very interiority of Woolf's style seemed to suggest that readers hear the narrative voice within themselves. This reading proves me dead wrong. Virginia Leishman's reading--and interpretation--added much to my passion for a novel I have always loved. Readers--and listeners--new to Virigina Woolf need to be able to listen for long stretches of time in order to follow the stream of consciousness that propels the story. This commitment will be amply rewarded.

I am glad I purchased this. I will listen to it many, many times.