Book Discussion: To the Lighthouse (1927) by Virginia Woolf, Revisited

Virginia Woolf's exploration of domestic life during a summer visit to the Hebrides is among the most challenging and also rewarding of modernist novels. Woolf crafts a deeply interior narration that gives insight into each of the characters while, at the same time, showing how far apart they are from each other. On display in the story are human affections and dependencies and resentments and passions, while each of the characters tries to find his or her way to fulfillment. Read Woolf's novel with an eye toward the creative life, the way in which we all individually make meaning for ourselves in a contemporary world. Participants should come to the first class having read and prepared to discuss part one of the novel.