To the Lighthouse 2012 Reprint of 1927 London Edition. A landmark novel of high modernism, the text centers on a visit to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Woolf skillfully manipulates temporal and psychological elements in her novel. "To the Lighthouse" follows and extends the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, where the plot is secondary to philosophical introspection, and the prose can be winding and hard to follow. The novel includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls childhood emotions and highlights adult relationships. Among the book's many tropes and themes are those of loss, subjectivity, and the problem of perception. In 1998, the MODERN LIBRARY named "To the Lighthouse" No. 15 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present. |
