Site Navigation Menu
Every Friday, at 11:00 am, on the library’s YouTube Channel and Facebook Page, the library will stream a brand new recording of local thespian, Joseph Coté reading aloud selections from a wide variety of fascinating and entertaining books of fiction and non-fiction. This is a program to help keep our community connected to books during the pandemic when we are unable to meet in person.
For February 24, Coté will read aloud from Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse.
This 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf centers on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.
Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of To the Lighthouse is secondary to its philosophical introspection.
Cited as a key example of the literary technique of multiple focalization, the novel includes little dialogue and almost no direct action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations.
To the Lighthouse is made up of three powerfully charged visions into the life of the Ramsay family, living in a summer house off the rocky coast of Scotland.
There’s maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the highbrow Mr. Ramsay, their eight children, and assorted holiday guests.
From Mr. Ramsay’s seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Virginia Woolf examines tensions and allegiances and shows that the small joys and quiet tragedies of everyday life could go on forever.
The novel recalls childhood emotions and highlights adult relationships. Among the book’s many tropes and themes are those of loss, subjectivity, the nature of art and the problem of perception.
In 1998, the Modern Library named To the Lighthouse No. 15 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels since 1923.
Click the links to find the library’s YouTube Channel and Facebook Page.
Thoughts to share? Book ideas to suggest?
Contact Joseph at friday-explorations@usa.net
