It appears that I am something of an anomaly(this seems to happen with disturbing regularity, but never mind), in that I am one of the few members of class who actually likes To the Lighthouse. But as Mr. Sexson said yesterday, it perfectly fits into the two categories for qualifying as Highbrow Literature: the responses are 1. I don't like it and 2. I don't understand it.

But at the same time, we find that it is truly replete with epiphanic revelation, particularly if one sees it as a displacement of myth; Mrs. Ramsey as Penelope in the opening chapters, weaving and weaving but destined not to finish. Or the great moment Taylor mentioned of Nancy at the tide pool, on page 75, which suggests a finer line between mortality and immortality, Gods and mortals than we are generally lead to believe exists. It illustrates that ultimately all we can do is strive to become Gods.

I also found this passage intriguing, in the first chapter of The Lighthouse section.

"And he shook his head at her and strode on("Alone", she heard him say, "Perished" she heard him say)and like everything else this strange morning the words became symbols, wrote themselves all over the grey-green walls. If only she could put them together, she felt, write them out in some sentence, then she would have got at the truth of things. " (pg 147)

This brings to my mind associations with Kabbala, which is centered upon word magic and the divine, creative properties inherent in words(fitting, as this is Lily Briscoe the artist here, listening to Mr. Ramsey), and how the act of applying words,even bleak frightening words like "alone" and "perished" grants reality where there previously was none(the house was abandoned, after all, and left open to Time and Mrs. McNab). And in the fact of there being something as opposed to nothing, there is the reality and the impetus to live and to work--Lily decides to finish the abandoned painting.

I can't say that Virgina had intensive knowledge of Kabbala, but there is another place, sadly forgotten by me at this present time and moment(one of her letters or her diary maybe) where she says "Nothing has happened until it has been described." Which applies to this fittingly.