To The Lighthouse

For my first post on our lovely Ignore The Forecast blog, I'm going to take a leaf out of the equally lovely Allegra's book - incidentally, I was fortunate enough to admire her extensive collection of novellas whilst housesitting her abode with Kirsty, where I made a lifelong friend in Jet the cat.

I'd been meaning to read Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse for quite some time, mainly thanks to the Patrick Wolf song of the same name, and and also because I'm in love with the imagery of lighthouses. I'm halfway through so far, and although I'm finding the style and language quite hardgoing in places, I've already been captured by a few quotes that I've decided to share here.


'Indeed, he seemed to her sometimes made differently from other people, born blind, deaf and dumb, to the ordinary things, but to the extraordinary things, with an eye like an eagle's. His understanding often astonished her. But did he notice the flowers? No. Did he notice the view? No. Did he even notice his own daughter's beauty, or whether there was pudding on his plate or roast beef? He would sit at table with them like a person in a dream.'

'And that's the end', she said, and she saw in his eyes, as the interest of the story died away in them, something else take its place; something wondering, pale, like the reflection of a light; which at once made him gaze and marvel. Turning, she looked across the bay, and there, sure enough, coming regularly across the waves first two quick strokes and then one long steady stroke, was the light of the Lighthouse. It had been lit...
...he kept looking back over his shoulder as Mildred carried him out, and she was certain that he was thinking, we are not going to the Lighthouse tomorrow; and she thought, he will remember that all his life.'