"To the Lighthouse" is a book on memory and childhood; an elegy in the light that illuminated the figures of the real mother and father, who in the novel become the lord and Mrs Ramsay. A theme is a clash between the maternal yes ("yes, we will go to the lighthouse") and the paternal no ("no, you can not go to the lighthouse"), as it resonates in the heart of his son James, and in the mind of his daughter Virginia, which after years is measured, writing, with the power of those ghosts. The effect is liberating. "Is one of the greatest elegies in the English language, a book which transcends time.” –Margaret Drabble