To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf with Villa Job Sudigiri

Nobody has Virginia Woolf beat on feelings. Or rather, her characters—specifically the ones in To The Lighthouse—beat on feeling. It’s hard for me to write that and not think of how, for so long, it was a slight against writers, specifically female, and most specifically Woolf herself. When I write it now, in the middle of a global pandemic that’s unfolding at lightning speed, I mean it with utmost praise. Today I had a lot of feelings. A lot of thoughts about feeling that couldn’t find solid ground. And then, they receded. I imagine many people feel this way, especially now. I take comfort in Woolf ’s world for that very reason. Everything changes. Time passes. It’s a novel ruled by emotion, the silent interior world that makes metaphor and lushness out of seemingly serene surroundings. Everything is a tunnel deeper into itself, “a fold unto a fold”: like waves crashing and receding, the distant shoreline, a rocky bank—nothing is solid, or what solidity there is appears only for a mo