To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf is a formidable force. I'll admit that her novel, To the Lighthouse, was not an easy read, but the rumination of it, after, was delicious. It read as a stream-of consciousness, the point of view flitting from one character to another. Flitting emotions as well. This was dizzying and yet satisfying. Absolutely worth it. 

Consider this delightful exchange between husband and wife:

Page 23:  There wasn't the slightest possible chance that they could go to the Lighthouse tomorrow, Mr. Ramsey snapped out irascibly. 

                How did he know, she asked. The wind often changed. 

                The extraordinary rationality of her remark, the folly of women's minds enraged him. He had ridden through the valley of death, been shattered and shivered; and now she flew in the face of facts, made his children hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies. He stamped his foot on the stone step. 'Damn you,' he said. But what had she said? Simply that it might be fine tomorrow. So it might. 

                Not with the barometer falling and the wind due west. 

                To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other people's feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without replying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked. There was nothing to be said. 

                He stood by her in silence. Very humbly, at length, he said that he would step over and ask the Coastguards if she liked. 

                There was nobody whom she reverenced as she reverenced him.