Over the last year or two, a loose cabal of aliased co-conspirators has been using this site to tackle challenging books en masse — everything from the dread pirate Gravity’s Rainbow to the surprisingly Spanish Don Quixote. We call these experiences “Deathmarches,” despite the increasingly rabid protestation of my erstwhile nemesis, Itto Ottagami.
The fifth in this series — “The To the Lighthouse Deathmarch” — is comin’ ’round the bend, and I thought I’d take this moment to extend an open invitation.
How It Works
As you may have guessed, this time out we’re reading Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. (More specifically, I’ll be reading the HBJ hardcover edition, available on Amazon.)
We do this in small bites — 40-60 pages a week. Every Wednesday starting 10/18, I’ll post an entry up here on ye olde cecilvortex.com letting folks know how far we’re aiming to read that week. In the days that follow, folks comment on the thread. These comments range from “I like donuts” to “[insert sophisticated literary analysis here].” And are all comments are viewed as equal in the eyes of el cabal.
Up to 30 Deathmarchers who make it to the end of the book and post a comment every week get prizes — in this case, prizes that tap the awesome power of magnetic energy. I can’t tell you more than that because it’s a really big surprise. OK. I give. They’re magnets.
So, all that said, if reading a book by Virginia Woolf and quite possibly gaining partial control over one of the most powerful forces in nature has any appeal to you, you’ve almost certainly come to the right place. Any questions, just drop me a line at deathmarch@cecilvortex.com.
Hope to see you out on the trail,
-Cecil
Shrieks of agony from two offices sitting side by side in Indianapolis this morning. Katie and I were really routing for Mrs. Dalloway. Why, why, why do our fellow deathmarchers hate us so? There’s a paperback copy of To the Lighthouse in nearly new condition that’s been sitting on a shelf at my parents’ house since my college days. I have yet to finish it. I guess mom finally gets it out of her house. I’ll go pick it up this weekend.
I’m the other half of the shrieking Indianapolis marchers. Who’s the glutton for punishment? Is this called a “Death March” or something?
i’m in, and i’ll be a good deathmarcher this time, i promise.
I’m in by the way despite shrieking!
Okay, so I want to know who voted for To the Lighthouse. A call for more transparency in needed!
I’m in. Bah.
Not entirely sure how I am supposed to do this so here goes:
I only got through the first twenty pages, having started yesterday, but am once again enthralled with Woolf’s mastery of personality through language. It is difficult to follow, and challenging to simply read as a story because the tone requires a certain amount of empathy and understanding of the character narrating at that moment. at the same time you are forced to jumo from person to person in an almost schizophrenic movement of personality and character –
A short book with a need for slow reading, I am much enjoying the march so far!
Read the whole book. Had to as i have to teach it .An o.k book. Virginia’s critical essays
and feminist utterances are far more interesting.