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Summary: The Greatest Novel in the English Language
Review: Woolf, the "Mother of Stream of Consciousness" , is at her best in To the Lighthouse. It is simply the most beautifully written novel in the English language, period. While some may feel Woolf and the Bloomsbury crowd were insufferable snobs, there's no denying her triumph here. Required reading for anyone interested in great literature.
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Summary: Woolf wouldn't find pleasure in nationalism... she pioneered
Review: I feel it's only fair to say I consider Virginia Woolf to be a visionary artist who transcends genre, time, gender, and nation. As to the "idea" that Faulkner and Joyce employed "Stream of Consciousness" to better effect than V Woolf I feel entirely the opposite. In the woman's work, good old V. Woolf, we find the "Stream" perfected. May I recommend another Virginia Woolf book "A Room of One's Own" as a companion piece. "To The Lighthouse" champions the feminine principle in a way that many women nowadays don't seem to recognize as important and yet the mild, internal workings of a book that has most obviously been written by a woman still seems to set men's teeth on edge and the women that haven't learned to recognize themselves in print appear reluctant to look at themselves in Virginia Woolf's mirror. TTL is a book for the yin/female principle on the planet which celebrates the yang/male principle as well. It's so sad that many readers fail to grasp the importance of this synthesis. I might even venture to call Virginia Woolf a mystic, although not in the conventional way. TTL is a masterpiece.
Rating: 
Summary: tedious
Review: basically James Joyce did the one day of introspection thing and showed that a) he was a clever bugger, and b) this kind of book is not an enjoyable read. so then Vwoolf does the same thing with a second-rate bunch of tedious people. hmm.bet that will prove fascinating. it does. not.god knows why everyone runs around pretending this turgid nonsense is great literature -- maybe wanting to be pseudo-intellectual? bloomsbury is like the cancer of British literature, and as this year's Pultizer was won by a Woolfie-book, maybe its contagious. Beware, o American brethren, this foul stuff has already laid waste to the country of Shakespeare et al.
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Summary: take the time to really read this
Review: When I first started to read this book, I said oh no another stream of conciousness novel. I have plowed through James Joyce and William Faulkner in the past and felt like I was taking part in a laboratory experiment. But Lighthouse was very different. Only a great writer can make me take interest in a boring story, or care about characters in their day-to-day life. Excellent book, the description of the run-down house really hit me.
Rating: 
Summary: Let it go...
Review: To the lighthouse was my first experience in reading a stream of conciousness book. I remember that it took me several trials to go past the two first pages. I thought it was MY MIND that wondered. When I understood what it was about I became in love with Mrs. Wolf. Her style is unique and through it she unravels the deepest traits of humanity. Read and live with it!
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Summary: This book puts insomniacs to sleep
Review: Shouldn't a great novel be enjoyable to the reader? This is the most boring novel I have ever wasted time on. Admittedly the prose was beautiful. But if you merely want to read a bautiful flow of words read a Burns poem. Maybe the aristocracy of Britain in the 1920's loved this book but it is not woth reading today.
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Summary: There's no plot...
Review: ... but that's okay. Actually, that's more than okay. The only complaints people seem to have about this book is that nothing physically happens in it. Duh. You can't critizice Beethoven's 5th because he only uses musical instruments and there's no actors up onstage. *To the Lighthouse* is a symphonic work, not an opera or a friggin' musical. If you're prepared to accept this, then definitely read the book. If not, go see *Rent* a few more times.
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Summary: A good book makes you want to write and speak.
Review: Art of such consequence as this makes demands on its audience, but the return is colossal. This is an extraordinary book. It is at least as much poem as tale, as much music as prose. It will certainly change your idea about limitations of expression. For readers who require signposts of plot to trigger their perception of information, and who don't find it easy to appreciate the subtle flavours of words, be warned: you will need to depend very heavily on your inner ear, to allow some of the more exquisite sensations of language to wash in of their own accord. (Other reviewers have hinted here at the role of reading skills in our understanding.) It is possible though, by such openess, to develop a reliable method of perceiving and pulling ideas which is not at all the way we are so used to guzzling and then spitting them out, in our late 20th century consumerist addiction to news media sensation. A good book makes you want to write and speak, to learn how language can serve you. Woolf gently turns the relationship between events in time and the play of human feeling on its head in the search for universal truth. I read it the first go in two or three bites because it's flavours are so rich and I did not want to miss anything by failing to savour them properly. I'll always revisit it to learn and feel more and to be enriched further. This is not an Oprah book.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply insightful, very lifelike
Review: After you get accustomed to the stream-of-consciousness style, the characters really come alive with their all-too-human thoughts. I really connected with some of Mrs. Ramsay's ideas, and that was very moving.
Rating:
Summary: Flawless piece of art
Review: When I read this novel, I knew that Virginia Woolf must have had an incredible and vivid vision to have CREATED such an oustanding canvas of words. Though most people who read this think that the plot is slow moving, that is exactly what makes it unparallel. We actually come close to understanding characters not only in their concious states, but stripped of personality and exposed to the world.
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