Length7h 57m
About this audiobook
Set on an island off the Scottish coast,
To the Lighthouse minutely examines the fleeting impressions of a large cast of family, friends, lovers, and hangers-on. Who can we be, Virginia Woolf invites us to ask, if no one can ever know our hearts - if they're unknowable even to ourselves?
To the Lighthouse remains one of the most important Modernist novels, exquisitely composed by one of the most gifted writers of the Modernist movement.
The opening section follows the passage of a day with a thwarted objective: to go to the nearby lighthouse. The concluding section revisits this expedition a decade later, when so much is irrevocably changed, as a chance to glimpse interpersonal understandings and connections. The novel provides a brilliant example of stream-of-consciousness writing, and raises questions that provoke us still: questions about whether children are the fullest realization of one's posterity, how women artists are regarded socially, and how money and status enable - or close off - networks, relationships, and the dreams we hold most dear.
As masterful as its technique is, however, the lasting value of this novel for twenty-first-century readers may be its sharp representation of the emotional labor that people - particularly women - perform in order to manage the needs and expectations of others. Woolf wrote in an age when women's participation in society was tightly restricted by class norms and stultifying domesticity. Nearly a century later, scholars still have a great deal to say about Mrs. Ramsay, Lily Briscoe, and the tension between Mr. Ramsay and his son James.
Woolf's fifth novel, and one of her most successful books both critically and commercially,
To the Lighthouse was originally published in 1927, simultaneously in England and the United States. Due to a quirk in the management and correction of the proofs, according to scholar Hans Walter Gabler, the two editions were "not identical, since in a significant number of instances Virginia Woolf marked up the first proofs differently" for her two publishers.
Audiobook details
GenreLiterary Classics
Length7 hrs 57 mins
Narrated byPhil Benson
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateMay 1, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Opening Credits
24Time Passes III
2The Window I
25Time Passes IV
3The Window II
26Time Passes V
4The Window III
27Time Passes VI
5The Window IV
28Time Passes VII
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6The Window V
29Time Passes VIII
7The Window VI
30Time Passes IX
8The Window VII
31Time Passes X
9The Window VIII
32The Lighthouse I
10The Window IX
33The Lighthouse II
11The Window X
34The Lighthouse III
12The Window XI
35The Lighthouse IV
13The Window XII
36The Lighthouse V
14The Window XIII
37The Lighthouse VI
15The Window XIV
38The Lighthouse VII
16The Window XV
39The Lighthouse VIII
17The Window XVI
40The Lighthouse IX
18The Window XVII (Part 1)
41The Lighthouse X
19The Window XVII (Part 2)
42The Lighthouse XI
20The Window XVIII
43The Lighthouse XII
21The Window XIX
44The Lighthouse XIII
22Time Passes I
45The Lighthouse XIV
23Time Passes II
46Closing Credits
