Do you ever read a book that is so perfect for you that you wonder if anybody else will want to read it? While away in Cornwall, I read my review copy of Katharine Smyth’s memoir All The Lives We Ever Lived (2019) – the subtitle of which is ‘Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf’. I’ve used the word ‘memoir’, but it covers more categories than that – biography, philosophy, literary criticism – and it is extraordinarily good. But it does, perhaps, require a love of a Virginia Woolf and a familiarity with To The Lighthouse.
Luckily I have both those things. I’ve read To The Lighthouse three times (far fewer times than Smyth has read it, I should add) and believe it to be one of the greatest books ever written – and quite a few of the books to which I would give that accolade are by Woolf. To me, she is easily the best writer of the 20th century. To Smyth, she is that and more. The solace she is seeking (in that subtitle) relates to the death of her father – a man she idolised – and she uses To The Lighthouse to better understand the role of a parent, and the impact of filial love, and any manner of other things that she draws out of Woolf’s writing.
Much of this book is a portrait of her father. One of the impressive things Smyth achieves is conveying how deeply she loved this man who was evidently, openly flawed. For much of her life, he was an alcoholic – and her descriptions of his glassy-eyed appearances at dinners, his mood swings, his melancholy are vivid and uncomfortable. Despite a few stays in rehab facilities, he refused to go to AA meetings; Smyth’s parents had multiple times where they announced their separation, but stayed together. Smyth not only draws unlikely parallels between this troubled man and the almost saint-like Mrs Ramsay of To The Lighthouse, but makes the reader believe them. She is also keen to point out that her mother is not akin to the frustrating, unthinking cruel Mr Ramsay – but we see the dual portraits: this suffering, patient mother, and the mother that Smyth could not love in the way she loved her father.
People sometimes ask me if I’m angry with my father. When I say I’m not, they think I’m lying to myself. I don’t think I am. When I look back on his worst acts, I can remember my wrath and hatred, certainly – so violent, so complete, so inexorable, I thought at times that I could barely stand to be in my own skin. But I can also remember the way in which, within a week or two, such vehemence had faded to nothing; how that brutish stranger was again and again vanquished by that other, most gentle and lovable being: my father. And the truth us that neither memory – neither the loathing nor the absolution – feels especially familiar now. They feel like stories attached to someone else.
Smyth weaves together the various strands of All The Lives We Ever Lived beautifully, with extremely good judgement. Any time that I wondered why we hadn’t heard from To The Lighthouse for a while, it appeared in the next paragraph. The links she draws between the novel and her experiences are always thoughtful and illuminating, and never feel forced. It’s impact on her life and how she frames her understanding of life is so great that it is natural to take it as a guidebook to the intense experiences of loving and grieving. (Incidentally, having never grieved for anybody close to me, I am always reading books about grief as something of a tourist – fascinated but without truly understanding. I imagine this book would feel very different to somebody who has lost someone.)
I remember when I first started reading Virginia Woolf – Mrs Dalloway, mostly on the school bus. It was a revelation. Language had previously been something that sat around in piles, being clumped together to form books that were buildings of meaning – some architecturally elegant, some more workmanlike, but always simple enough constructions. And now this; now Woolf. She seems to disregard everything that language has previously had to do, and find new, beautiful, extraordinary ways of using it. Unlike other authors I had read, she was not finding words to match her meaning, but giving language new meaning, new vitality, through her ways of using it.
Her writing has not affected how I relate to the world in quite the way it did for Smyth, but I certainly share her admiration for Woolf’s astonishing ability. If I didn’t, or if I had not read To The Lighthouse, I do wonder what I’d have made of All The Lives We Ever Lived. I can’t answer that question. I know that reading this has made me want to pick up To The Lighthouse for the fourth time, and perhaps it would inspire Woolf newbies to do the same.
I’m still not sure why this book was published. Smyth hasn’t written any others, and its audience must be relatively niche. But I’m so, so glad it was. It is beautifully written, movingly thoughtful, and something I feel sure I will return to. Woolf fans – rush to it. For those who aren’t – I hope you find as much to value as I did.