The Waves (Wordsworth Classics)

Virginia Woolf in 'The Waves', by means of episodic chapters separated by framing interludes describing the motions of sea upon shore during one day, seeks to explore the nature of modern human existence from childhood to later middle age through the minds and experiences of six friends, capturing the immediacy of thoughts and emotions, but only as surface phenomena without depth of substance. Woolf's characters live lives of upper middle class meaningless, moving from one encounter to another, and associating with one another in suitably class-defined environments, but without developing significantly distinct persona rooted in their own individuality, instead merely presenting as ephemeral personalities, whose only reality is to be found in the shared consciousness that the author has constructed by which their existence is delineated.This is an experimental novel, written at the height of modernism, and can be understood within that context: the attempt of an author to construct a new way of capturing the specificity of existence, and what it is to be aware of what it is to exist, in prose, but with the sensibility of the poet. It is a fictionalised collective biography, which in elegant and highly descriptive writing weaves a single, disjointed narrative from the lives of the six, first person narrators, but in such a way as to only explore the surface appearance of experience and not reveal the fundamental nature of being. 'The Waves' is thus a literary work of phenomenology, beautifully drawing out the vivid colours of life but without delving deeper to discover what meaning life, or the lives of her six characters, might have, so that these characters become almost passive actors to whom events occur, capturing sights and sounds, but lacking in agency and unable to do anything beyond pursue their humdrum lives, whose sole value is the consciousness, framed within the collective, by which they perceive their experiences. It is a study of living, but not of life; of means, but not of ends.The only active character, Percival, exists entirely outside of the six characters, and we see him and know him only through their eyes. He is the ultimate hero/antihero of the liberal age, being the epitome of late imperial, muscular Christianity, whose destiny is robbed from his friends as much as himself by a most unheroic, premature death when his horse stumbles on a molehill. In Percival, Woolf gives free reign to the ever present sense of irony that lies within her works, creating as the object of adoration a rather dull, stereotypical man of action, whose heroism is as much as anything an imposition made by his non-heroic friends, and whose death, while causing them distress has but little effect upon the world. His heroism is simply a construct made of the successful public school and Oxbridge type by his contemporaries, and is, like the lives of his friends, ultimately meaningless, a meaningless of which each character becomes consciously aware, particularly Bernard, who becomes the group's self-chosen biographer, and Rhoda, who throws herself off of a column in a offstage, valiant act to escape the nothingness ascribed to her in this work of laboratory fiction. Percival, dead at twenty-five, becomes the (un)heroic talisman of his coterie by the mere chance of dying young, while the others remain doomed to live on, prosaically, unheroically, and materially but not spiritually satisfied.Woolf in 'The Waves' purposely tries to move away from the ego-centricism of Joyce or Proust, but in so doing, by exploring a group consciousness through the interconnections of six individuals and their consciousness of their selves as formed by their group, she loses sight not just of her characters' individuality, but of the meaning that individuality gives to life. As a work of modernist prose it might be considered as a counterpoint to 'The Wasteland', but, unfortunately, while it has style it lacks the substance of that masterpiece, because while Eliot brilliantly draws out meaning from the banal, Woolf only reveals her characters' banality and meaningless without making any aesthetic point, documenting all phenomena but no reality. And so, what might have been a triumph of modernist, first person plural consciousness - the exploration of what it is to be I through our lives as We - becomes just a pale, watercolour group portrait of six upper middle class characters in search of a meaning their author intentionally denies them: no sound and no fury, ultimately signifying nothing.

Once bitten......

I bought this book to check a reference, ended up reading it in full, and I wish I could read it again. It is one of those texts that one must read at least twice because the reader's understanding of the characters increases slowly in a complex but very satisfying way. I notice that this novel is often defined 'mystical' but this is a clumsy stereotype: there are no ecstasies here, just people (well off people with no material worries) trying to make sense of life

I will not repeat other peoples words praising Virginia Woolf's The Waves. For I truly love the woman, her style and her stories.I have only one MAJOR complaint about this edition. Even if I am very lucky, not having too many people around me who can spoil the story for me(they read modern junk), this book actually spoiled itself.The Wordsworth editions are usually lined with numbered references which are very useful for understanding the context of current events, people you've never heard of etc. But one of the notes in this edition, spoiled a major change in the book before it had happened.Buy it for the story, do NOT read note #50.

This was tricky to read, but definitely worth finishing. It is written in a stream of consciousness style which can be disconcerting. However, it is worth persevering with as there are a number of interesting comments on life within. Although it is certainly not easy to read, it is one that you will be pleased you have completed.

It is hard to describe this book. It is poetry as prose. It follows five people from childhood through to adulthood, running in the same style as waves as they are lapping against a beach, as the tide comes in and goes out.You need to concentrate at the beginning to find how the language and words pull you in, but you are subtley included and drawn in the the text and the "mysticism" it encapsulates. It is the first book by Virginia Woolf that I have read and it wont be the last.

Amazing book!!! Without words she's incredible!!!

just as described, thank you