November 11th7pm
“Literature is open to everybody” wrote Virginia Woolf, one of the 20th century’s most lauded writers. Within her lifetime, Woolf penned nine novels, dozens of stories, and countless essays that blend the aesthetic pleasures of life with the sociological and psychological phenomena of the human experience. Existential dread never sounded so beautiful than in Woolf’s words. Join us on our voyage through Woolf’s oeuvre, in chronological order, as we examine the stylistic and philosophical elements of her fiction and essays.
This month we'll move on to Woolf's miraculous novel of family, love, war, and mortality, To the Lighthouse.
"A classic for a reason. My mind was warped into a new shape by her prose and it will never be the same again." — Greta Gerwig
“I reread this book every once in a while, and every time I do I find it more capacious and startling. It’s so revolutionary and so exquisitely wrought that it keeps evolving on its own somehow, as if it’s alive.” — Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home
To the Lighthouse is made up of three powerfully charged visions into the life of the Ramsay family living in a summer house off the rocky coast of Scotland. There’s the serene and maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr. Ramsay, their eight children, and assorted holiday guests. With the lighthouse excursion postponed, Woolf shows the small joys and quiet tragedies of everyday life that seemingly could go on forever.
But as time winds its way through their lives, the Ramsays face, alone and together, the greatest of human challenges and its greatest triumph—the human capacity for change.
A moving portrait in miniature of family life, To the Lighthouse also has profoundly universal implications, giving language to the silent space that separates people and the space that they transgress to reach each other.
Reserve your place with a $5 voucher, redeemable on the night of the book club meeting on any product in store.