To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf)

The book is a set of excerpts from private remembrances while at the Ramsays family beach house. The remembrances centre round Mrs Ramsay both while she is alive as well as after her death. There is s strong sense of melancholy about human transience set against the impassiveness of the house itself - and the lighthouse.

Just as the book begins to envelope me within the small world of the Ramsays, the self-conscious cleverness disturbs the engagement. My mind receeds from the Ramsays and instead sees Virginia Woolf sitting and thinking of some phrase for readers more impressed by cleverness than simple sincerity.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book for this cleverness of language, as well as the many short sections where I was transported, iluminated, impressed and intrigued.