On Listening to "To the Lighthouse" on CD

Back on 2/6/10, I wrote about how I love listening to audio books while in my car, and how I especially like to listen to the “classic” novels that I have read before. I enjoy audio versions of new novels as well, but it is a particular pleasure to listen to well-loved books that I not only have read before – often several times – but feel I know well. Hearing those novels read to me shows me new aspects of their language, themes, and characters. This is partly because it forces me to slow down and listen to every word, whereas when I read, I am sometimes rushing forward and not feeling the import of every word or phrase. When I listen, I feel the weight and gravity and beauty of every word, phrase, and sentence. I can savor the language and the insights in a different way, a way that is mentally, emotionally, and aesthetically powerful. These past few days I have been listening to the wonderful English actor Phyllida Law (who is Emma Thompson’s mother) read Virginia Woolf’s great novel “To the Lighthouse” on CD. I have read this novel a few times before, and have been awed by it, but have always preferred Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.” This time, having the novel read to me by this gifted actor, I am savoring, more than ever before, the access to the consciousnesses and experiences of the two main female characters, Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe. These two women, quite different, one married with eight children, and the other a single painter, both wonder about the ways they have chosen to live their lives. They are also both -- especially Mrs. Ramsay -- highly conscious of and tuned into the feelings and needs of those around them. I also admire the novel’s insights into the complex world that each marriage grows into, gender roles, and the importance of the small daily events in life. I may write again about this rich tapestry of a novel when I finish it, but here I wanted to focus on the unique and lovely experience of listening to its being read aloud.