"All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf," by Katharine Smyth

There is a newish mini-trend toward memoirs intertwining an author’s personal stories and her stories of her connections with a certain well-loved classic novel, exemplified by Rebecca Mead’s wonderful 2014 book, “My Life in Middlemarch” (about which I posted here on 3/4/14). I have just finished reading another book in this genre, “All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf” (Crown, 2019), by Katharine Smyth. Smyth finds Woolf’s novel “To the Lighthouse” full of wisdom and comfort, especially as she struggles with her beloved father’s too-early illness and death. Woolf represents her own traumatizing and life-changing experience with the death of her mother through the character of Mrs. Ramsey in this novel. The more that Smyth reads, re-reads, studies, and researches the novel and its author, the more she finds connections with her own experiences and feelings. She does an admirable job during the course of this book of balancing her own experiences with those portrayed in the novel, and with providing context for that novel through her extensive research. Smyth’s book is moving, and as someone who also greatly admires Woolf and "To the Lighthouse,' I could relate to much of what Smyth writes about. In addition, I strongly believe in the possibilities for great fiction to make readers feel connected to something larger, deeper, even transcendent, and I can see that that magic happened with Smyth and “To the Lighthouse.” This book is a living testimony to the power – and I do not use that word lightly – of literature in our lives. My only small quibble with Smyth’s memoir is that at times it seems a little repetitive, as well as a bit overwritten. But I am glad I read it, and now I want to re-read (for perhaps the fourth or fifth time) “To the Lighthouse.”