To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf!

Full of paragraphs of absolute brilliance!

In To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf accomplishes a feat that every writer hopes to accomplish in his/her lifetime: she creates out of the ordinary humdrum of the daily life of an English family of Ramsay's characters and paragraphs that will ever be part of the best of English writing produced in last century. In my opinion, several paragraphs in this novel are like jewels of English prose, that must be prized, possessed and displayed likewise. Woolf settles for a very subtle narrative, though which she presents innermost thoughts of her characters, especially women, and in the brilliance of her words, romance and life are captured like snapshots labelled thoughtfully and carefully!

The book is sort of divided into two parts, separated by decades. What was most intoxicating part of the book was the description of this change, as was the description of the nightfall. Be it secret thoughts of women or their admirers, or the doubts and uncertainities of a professor-father or the feelings of children (in both times separated by more than a decade) or the simple description of nature, Woolf shows a talent that must make her as important to twentieth century literature as Joyce and Lawrence. She is in my opinion one of the finest (if not the finest) female novelist to have ever existed! Maybe my hyperbole is uncalled for, but my admiration stems from the deep admiration of an exquisite piece of creative writing! Like every classic, this one must be savored with slow speed; deep thoughts, few pages at a time and remembered by the beauty of the sentences and emotions they capture or arouse; and not by the turn of events or unfolding of drama, which even though interesting, is incidental to this incredible piece of literature!