This is such an amazing and wonderful book. Actually it's more of an immersive experience than a book. I didn't expect to enjoy it, I approached it with caution, but I loved it and am sure I'll read it again. I've now bought Mrs Dalloway and will read that next. I'm also concurrently reading Angela Garnett's Deceived by Kindness, about her life growing up in the strange world of the Bloomsbury set. It reads in a way very much like To the Lighthouse, and I am sure that Mrs Ramsay must have been based on Vanessa Bell.
I'm sure this must have been discussed and written about ad infinitum, but I rarely read forewords and introductions, I never read exegeses, because I don't want to know what some supposedly learned person says I SHOULD think about a book. I want to experience the book for myself, first hand, with no mental clutter.
Favourite quote from To the Lighthouse (regarding a witnessing of Mrs Ramsay's changing state of mind) 'something clear as the space which the clouds at last uncover -the little space of sky which sleeps beside the moon.'
What more can I say? I love it.
