Getting to the Lighthouse.

You know, I almost gave up reading To the Lighthouse after about the first ten pages. I found it such hard going because I’d never read anything like it before. The stream-of-consciousness writing style and the almost total lack of plot made the beginnings of the journey rocky and uncomfortable.

But gradually I got used to it and the rocks gave way to soft, warm sand, welcoming to the feet and a delight to walk upon. The characters revealed by their thoughts and mannerisms are wholly engaging in a way I hardly thought possible. At the moment they’re all taking dinner by candlelight and I have the most unusual sense of sitting off to one side, watching and smiling as this group of oddball people reveal their natures with their thoughts, their protestations, their concurrences, and their insecurities. And all revealed with more than a little subtle, quirky humour. Virginia Woolf now joins the Brontë sisters as the people I would most like to meet if I could go back in time.

And then I read a sentence which caught my step and arrested my progress for a second. It said: He was not ‘in love’ of course; it was one of those unclassified affections of which there are so many. It took me back to a time when my life was made sunnier by the occasional presence of a certain important person. And it said what I tried to say then, using more words but achieving less clarity.

I’ve also come to realise that Mr Ramsey, with his unconventional ways, his tetchiness over seemingly trivial matters, his innocent fondness for the company of young women, and the sense that he stands a little off centre and aloof from the company, reminds me rather a lot of me.