What is the meaning of life?

            I was a coward. I chose a book that was safe and was guaranteed a reaction. My friend Ailbhe was braver. (It would go in alphabetical order from now on, it probably should've started that way). Ailbhe is studying English, the same degree I did actually and decided to kill two birds with one stone and choose a book from her module reading list. Typically enough it was one that I hadn't read but that was a good thing, I wanted to expand my horizons. Ailbhe daringly chose Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, a book that arguably lacks much plot but allows us to experience the modernist movement through prose.
Woolf's writing style wasn't too unfamiliar to me, I didn't find it hard to get a grasp on it, perhaps because we studied texts like it in my degree, perhaps I related to the sleepy, hypnotic beat.
           The reaction was a mixed one, which again I think is what makes book club fun. A lot of my friends didn't like the book, few even went as far to say that they hated it, one compared it to a Jane Austen novel which mustered up many disagreeing comments, comments which I stand by.
           Written around the time of such great minds as Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, To the Lighthouse reflects the innovative methods of the scientific minds of the time. Woolf successfully incorporates these changing times into the style of her novel, and yet does not neglect the personal aspect that readers yearn for, as we get a glimpse into what has been arguably Woolf's most autobiographical work.
            With regards Ailbhe's choice, I think it was a gem. By choosing such a literary masterpiece it broadened our minds, gave us material for a healthy debate and raised the bar for the next books. However in saying that it gave us some leeway to read the more stereotypical books too, after all we are just a bunch of girls with a fondness to a discussion about anything regardless of how high brow it is!