Title: To the Lighthouse
Author: Virginia Woolf
Published: 1927
Pages: 209 pages (Harcourt edition)
Structure: 42 chapters in three parts
On the surface, this novel describes a simple event: a trip to a lighthouse which is postponed, and then finally undertaken ten years later. But it is a rich experience which allows us to inhabit the thoughts and feelings of several different people over that period. I was surprised by how immersive that experience was.
Title: Mrs Dalloway
Author: Virginia Woolf
Written: 1925
Pages: 224
Structure: No chapters.
What does it feel it like to be a middle-aged woman in 1920’s London? Or a traumatised war veteran battling insanity? Or dissatisfied playboy who never really got over being rejected by the love of his life? Mrs Dalloway answers these questions in an intimate way, allowing us to dwell in the minds of different people for one day in June 1922, flitting from mind to mind like a telepathic butterfly.
It’s one of the most unusual novels I have read, and one of the most rewarding.
