This summer I got caught up re-reading some of the modern classics of the 20th century. I had not read Virginia Woolf since college, so I was curious what my reading experience would be without the analysis and criticism of the classroom. I found both To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway to be the perfect summer reads. The descriptions of the landscape, the attention to details, the atmosphere of the dinner parties all flowed. Both books condense time in unusual ways that I loved. Here is a quote from a description of To the Lighthouse:
A moving portrait in miniature of family life, it also has profoundly universal implications, giving language to the silent space that separates people and the space that they transgress to reach each other.
I think this says it clearly. This summer I found my modernist heart.
