Virginia Woolf

Against the background of the sea, the author presents a group of characters from childhood to old age who speak in soliloquy, and we see them as they appear to themselves and to each other. In the end one of the characters sums up the effect of their lives as a whole.

The Waves

WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY JEANETTE WINTERSON AND GILLIAN BEER The Waves is an astonishingly beautiful and poetic novel. It begins with six children playing in a garden by the sea and follows their lives as they grow up and experience friendship, love and grief at the death of their beloved friend Percival. Regarded by many as her greatest work, The Waves is also seen as Virginia Woolf's response to the loss of her brother Thoby, who died when he was twenty-six. The Vintage Classics Virginia Woolf series has been curated by Jeanette Winterson, and the texts used are based on the original Hogarth Press editions published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf.

madina

The mind grows rings; the identity becomes robust; pain is absorbed in growth.

yana

i think sometimes i am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. i am the seasons, i think sometimes, january, may, november; the mud, the mist, the dawn.

The Waves is a 1931 novel by Virginia Woolf. Consisting of six characters: Bernard, Louis, Neville, Jinny, Susan, and Rhoda, The Waves explores ideas of individualism and self as it follows the narrators from childhood to adulthood. This book was voted the 16th greatest novel ever written according to a 2015 BBC poll. This book has 178 pages in the PDF version, and was originally published in 1931.

Virginia Woolf (Classics, Literature) [Annotated]

'Then comes the terrible pounce of memory, not to be foretold, not to be warded off - that I did not go with him to Hampton Court. That claw scratched; that fang tore; I did not go. In spite of his impatiently protesting that it did not matter; why interrupt, why spoil our moment of uninterrupted community? - Still, I repeated sullenly, I did not go, and so, driven out of the sanctuary by these officious devils, went to Jinny because she had a room; a room with little tables, with little ornaments scattered on little tables. There I confessed, with tears- I had not gone to Hampton Court. And she, remembering other things, to me trifles but torturing to her, showed me how life withers when there are things we cannot share. Soon, too, a maid came in with a note, and as she turned to answer it and I felt my own curiosity to know what she was writing and to whom, I saw the first leaf fallon his grave. I saw us push beyond this moment, and leave it behind us for ever. And then sitting side by side on the sofa we remembered inevitably what had been said by others; "the lily of the day is fairer far in May"; we compared Percival to a lily - Percival whom I wanted to lose his hair, to shock the authorities, to grow old with me; he was already covered over with lilies. 

'So the sincerity of the moment passed; so it became symbolical; and that I could not stand. Let us commit any blasphemy of laughter and criticism rather than exude this lily-sweet glue and cover him with phrases, I cried. Therefore I broke off, and Jinny, who was without future, or speculation, but respected the moment with complete integrity, gave her body a flick with the whip, powdered her face (for which I loved her), and waved to me as she stood on the doorstep, pressing her hand to her hair so that the wind might not disorder it, a gesture for which I honoured her, as if it confirmed our determination - not to let lilies grow.'

"we need not whip this prose into poetry. The little language is enough."

'But unfortunately, what I see (this globe, full of figures) you do not see... But in order to make you understand, to give you my life, I must tell you a story - and there are so many, and so many - stories of childhood, stories of school, love, marriage, death, and so on; and none of them are true. Yet like children we tell each other stories, and to decorate them we make up these ridiculous, flamboyant, beautiful phrases. How tired I am of stories, how tired I am of phrases that come down beautifully with all their feet on the ground! Also, how I distrust neat designs of life that are drawn uodn half-sheets of notepaper. I begin to long for some little language yons as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement.'

'I have sunk alone on the turf ... and thought: When the wind stoops to brush this height, may there be nothing found but a pinch of dust.'

'I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams.'

'Why ask, like Louis, for a reason, or fly, like Rhoda, to some far grove and part the leaves of the laurels and look for statues? They say that one must beat one's wings against the storm in the belief that beyond this welter the sun shines; the sun falls sheer into pools that are fledged with willows... They say truth is to be found there entire, and virtue, that shuffles along here, down blind alleys, is to be had there perfect. Rhoda flies with her neck outstretched and blind fanatic eyes, past us. Louis, now so opulent, goes to his attic window among the blistered roofs and gazes where she has vanished, but must sit down in his office among the typewriters and the telephones and work it all out for our instruction, for our regeneration, and the reform of an unborn world.'

'Our discomfort was at first considerable, for each by that time was committed to a statement, and the other person coming along the road to the meeting-place dressed like this or that, with a stick or without, seemed to contradict it. ... We saw for a moment laid out among us the body of the complete human being whom we have failed to be, but at the same time cannot forget. All that we might have been we saw; all that we had missed; and we grudged for a moment the other's claim, as children when the cake is cut, the one cake, the only cake, watch their slice diminishing.'

'But since I wish above all things to have lodgment, I pretend, as I go upstairs lagging behind Jinny and Susan, to have an end in view. I pull on my stockings as I see them pull on theirs. I wait for you to speak and then speak like you. I am drawn here across London to a particular spot, to a particular place, not to see you or you or you, but to light my fire at the general blaze of you who live wholly, indivisibly and without caring.'

'Where then is the break in this continuity? What the fissure through which one sees disaster? The circle is unbroken; the harmony complete. Here is the central rhythm; here the common mainspring. I watch it expand, contract; and then expand again. Yet I am not included. If I speak, imitating their accent, they prick their ears, waiting for me to speak again, in order that they may place me - if I come from Canada or Australia, I, who desire above all things to be taken to the arms with love, am alien, external. I, who would wish to feel close over me the protective waves of the ordinary, catch with the tail of my eye some far horizon; am aware of hats bobbing up and down in perpetual disorder. To me is addressed the plaint of the wandering and distracted spirit (a woman with bad teeth falters at the counter), "Bring us back to the fold, we who pass so disjectedly, bobbing up and down, past windows with plates of ham sandwiches in the foreground." Yes; I will reduce you to order.'

'That is my face,' said Rhoda, 'in the looking-glass behind Susan's shoulder - that face is my face. But I will duck behind her to hide it, for I am not here. I have no face. Other people have faces; Susan and Jinny have faces; they are here. Their world is the real world. The things they lift are heavy. They say Yes, they say No; whereas I shift and change and am seen through in a second. If they meet a housemaid she looks at them without laughing. But she laughs at me. They know what to say if spoken to. They laugh really; they get angry really; while I have to look first and do what other people do when they have done it.

'See now what extraordinary certainty Jinny pulls on her stockings, simply to play tennis. That I admire. But I Iike Susan's waybetter, for she is more resolute, and less ambitious of distinction than Jinny. Both despise me for copying what they do; but Susan sometimes teaches me, for instance, how to tie a bow, while Jinny has her own knowledge but keeps it to herself. They have friends to sit by. They have things to say privately in corners. But I attach myself only to names and faces; and hoard them like amulets against disaster. I choose out across the hall some unknown face and can hardly drink my tea when she whose name I do not know sits opposite. I choke. I am rocked from side to side by the violence of my emotion. I imagine these nameless. these immaculate people, watching me from behind bushes. I leap high to excite their admiration. At night, in bed, I excite their complete wonder. I often die pierced with arrows to win their tears. If they should say, or I should see from a label on their boxes, that they were Scarborough last holidays, the whole town runs gold, the whole pavement is illuminated. Therefore I hate looking-glasses which show me my real face. Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang my hand against some hard door to call myself back to the body.'

Francesca 

I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. 

I will give; I will enrich; I will return to the world this beauty. I will bind my flowers in one garland and advancing with my hand outstretched will present them—Oh! to whom?

dima

One of Woolf's most experimental novel, consisting of soliloquies spoken by the book's six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis. A seventh character, Percival, also play an important role though the reader never actually hears him speak in his own voice. The soliloquies that span the characters' lives are broken up by nine brief third-person interludes detailing a coastal scene at varying stages in a day from sunrise to sunset. As the six characters or "voices" speak Woolf explores concepts of individuality, self and community. Each character is distinct, yet together they compose (as Ida Klitgård has put it) a gestalt about a silent central consciousness.

loisesya

i had to sink into the syntactical landscape of the waves (woolf) first but like... WOW okay. people might say the narration of the children are dramatic but i digress - thats how those emotions feel, espc as a child,raw & earnest & without pretension & care of "is it acceptable"

p. 217: "I have a little dagger of contempt and severity hidden up my sleeve. But I am apt to be deflected."

the way the narrative contracted towards the end (of being adults, of aging, of after death) and clearer yet became repetitive vs. the all-expansive wildly leaping story in the beginning (of childhood, youth, every brimming possibility) was so masterful

24 oct, 2023

i had to sink into the syntactical landscape of the waves (woolf) first but like... WOW okay. people might say the narration of the children are dramatic but i digress - thats how those emotions feel, espc as a child,raw & earnest & without pretension & care of "is it acceptable"

p. 217: "I have a little dagger of contempt and severity hidden up my sleeve. But I am apt to be deflected."

/

the way the narrative contracted towards the end (of being adults, of aging, of after death) and clearer yet became repetitive vs. the all-expansive wildly leaping story in the beginning (of childhood, youth, every brimming possibility) was so masterful

ellie 💐💌⭐️

y✦

✦ picture the prettiest artwork you've ever seen but make it prose
✦ an otherworldly experience in all its tides
✦ lowkey changed my life

'I, who would wish to feel close over me the protective waves of the ordinary, catch with the tail of my eye some far horizon.'Intensely visionary yet absorbed with the everyday; experimental, daring and challenging, The Waves is regarded by many as Virginia Woolf's greatest achievement. It follows a set of six friends from childhood to middle age as they experience the world around them and explore who they are and what itmeans to be alive. As the contours of their lives are revealed, a unique novel is slowly unveiled. Enfolded within Woolf's lyrical and mysterious language, the mundane takes on a startling new significance while distant pasts are no less in play than the clamorous sounds and kaleidoscopic sights ofthe modern city. Yet precisely where the alluringly enigmatic pages of The Waves are leading, and what deeper meanings are held within its undulant chapters and shimmering interludes, are questions that have never ceased to enthral readers and critics alike.In this new edition David Bradshaw considers the spellbinding oddness and originality of The Waves, helping the reader to negotiate a way though this most poetic and haunting of novels.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expertintroductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

jess

the in-depth stream of consciousness that flows in each and every alter egos Woolf has written, brings an elucidation towards the multitudes she owned, and a journey of a reconfigurement she thoroughly seek, all bridges in an un-deliberate connexion of intertwined fates, towards an attempt to make sense of what is living itself. we succumb into the erosion of living, the cumbrances of luminescence from the sunrise, the warmth of the ocean breeze, the coldness of the dawn, the loneliness of the mist, and eventually, the ebb and flow of the waves. we live, unordinarily so, we lay in stillness, in forwardness, in remembrance, yet so, we live. the very thing that could put a cease upon our constant oscillation in veneering through life, the making sense of it, in forging towards it, is the very waves of death that advances towards us, and we all eventually, lay in residual acceptance, or in the perpetuity of defiance, against the inevitable ultimatum of living, death, and such, the waves broke on the shore.

iamazoo

a challenging read, especially in the first two chapters, but it doubly rewards you for sticking with it. wouldn’t recommend as anyone’s first introduction to woolf though - feels extremely abstract and stylistic even for her.

Michael Springer

There are different kinds of depressing stories. 

One kind of depressing story is the personal tragedy. Through the events of the fiction, horrible things befall the characters, allowing you to experience that painful journey with them. Think Romeo and Juliet, Moby Dick, Winter's Bone, or The Gashlycrumb Tinies. 

That sort of thing is a little bit depressing. But it's not that bad. 

Then, there's tragedy that points to a systemic flaw in humanity, or human culture. Horrible things happen to (or because of) the characters, and we see how these flaws are a consequence of the culture around these characters. Society is the catalyst for tragedy and horror, and without changing an entire society, these tragedies will continue to take place. Think Requiem for a Dream, Blood Meridian, The Yellow Wallpaper, or The Wire.

These stories are more deeply depressing, because the story--and the horror--aren't over at the end of the book. The true villain is ourselves, and these books promise that the tragedy will continue. These books force us to confront something hard about what it means to be human. But, I would argue these books leave a little room for hope that people will evolve, and these tragedies could eventually be overcome.

And then there's this fucking book, The Waves. 

The Waves is an experimental novel with six protagonists, and in 250 pages you travel with these characters from childhood to old age. You see the way these people change (and don't change), how they come together and grow apart, and how they experience the passage of time, and the final section of the book is a long meditation on death, life, and the meaning of story.

This book is a lot of things, but among them, this book is a contemplation of the smallness and shortness of human life. Of how quickly we become old. Of how few paths we have time to explore in just seventy or eighty years. Of how narrow the individual human experience truly is, and how fast we move down that narrowing path. 

This book, then, feels least hopeful of all, because we are all mortal, and the few moments of our lives are ticking by, at a rate that never slows, but often feels like it is accelerating. With the book structured so that we check in on the characters periodically over the course of their entire lives, it's easy to reflect on how quickly youth passes, how quickly humans begin feeling the effects of age. 

It is a book that confronts you with mortality simply by showing you people as they move steadily and inevitably from the beginning to the ending of the time they have. 

And when you look at life from beginning to end, to what extent do people change? The characters in this book get married, have careers, have children, change in a variety of ways, but nonetheless reflect in their old ages the same values and quirks of personality they showed as children. This could be comforting, but it could also be seen as tragic, because if so much of who we are is inescapable, how much choice do we have in who we become? 

I'm sure this book could be read in many other ways, and perhaps the near-death experience I had while reading it changed how I interpreted it. (Not literally while reading it. . . the book didn't attack me.) But being in the emotional place I was in while reading it, The Waves felt like the most depressing possible kind of book, one that shows you without flinching what it means to be mortal, and that asks you to contemplate all the inescapable limitations of being human.

heleen de boever

!!! 

(I have a more eloquent opinion on this book than just exclamation marks, but those pretty much sum it up. Just... hypnotizing.)

Katie Chua

A beautiful book, will definitely need to read again. Questions: what is self? How does one find self or is our idea of self always a projection? What is "true" authenticity? What is the role of others in finding ourselves?

The Waves is a 1931 novel by Virginia Woolf. It is considered her most experimental work, and consists of soliloquies spoken by the book's six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis. Also important is Percival, the seventh character, though readers never hear him speak in his own voice. The soliloquies that span the characters' lives are broken up by nine brief third-person interludes detailing a coastal scene at varying stages in a day from sunrise to sunset. As the six characters or "voices" speak Woolf explores concepts of individuality, self and community. Each character is distinct, yet together they compose (as Ida Klitgård has put it) a gestalt about a silent central consciousness. In a 2015 poll conducted by BBC, The Waves was voted the 16th greatest British novel ever written.

Fraser Simons

I’ve been curious about this ever since reading Bunny by Mona Awad; one of my favourite books. It kept referencing The Waves and I didn’t even know what the premise of it was, just that it eluded to a pretty heavy melancholy. 

I loved everything about this. Sinking into rich prose and layered meaning is my absolute favourite thing in this world, and this is all that, all the time. I’ll be rereading it, without a doubt. 

What a fantastic concept for a book. I have done plenty of reviews what I talk about first person narration being interesting, but flawed or unreliable. We miss so much as an audience and as individuals when we aren’t privy to a perspective outside of ourselves. We lack a very fundamental component to our humanity, I think. We have to be perceived and consume that information to really form any sense of a whole. 

The Waves takes this to heart, pivoting point of views in same situations, showing the differences of interpretations and the impacts the same event can have on a person is done so well here. Then the added component of this insular group speaking on and interpreting their friends across a lifetime - and the added component of it being what? autofiction / memoir / biography, is just so satisfying at a meta level as well. 

It is fairly incredible to me how progressive this and To the Lighthouse feel, but especially this one. Certainly makes Woolf one of my all time favourites.

Certainly, one cannot read this poem without effort. To read this poem one must have myriad eyes.

Thomas George

The waves by Virginia Woolf is perhaps one of the most experimental works I've come across and i don't mind admitting that it took me reading it twice to fully grasp it. The book is written in an unusual style and speaks of 6 frinds and a seventh ghost character who never speaks in his own voice. The book stuck me as the search for meaning of the beings of the characters through a lot of chaos. The book is also VERY descriptive. 

Kwan Ann Tan

A confusing, thoroughly intricate tapestry of thoughts and consciousness, this novel is nothing short of a painting told in words, a look into the minds of six individuals that all come together to create the story. Not a light read, but a very enjoyable one that I will have to come back to later on.

Lindsay Hollmann

I don't know what to say so I'll sum it up with: I really feeeeel this book. That is all.

Arden Kowalski

THE VIRGINIA WOOLF PROJECT: THE WAVES

Book 1: Orlando [3.5/5]
Book 2: To The Lighthouse [5/5]
Book 3: Mrs. Dalloway [4/5]
Book 4: The Waves [4.5/5]

I want to bottle the feeling of finishing a Woolf novel late at night and live in it forever. 

To get new followers and friends acquainted, The Waves is the fourth novel I've read in a self-imposed project to read all of Virginia Woolf's novels. Yes, you read that right. A high school student with absolutely no pressure from English class to read more than one book every two months decided to tackle the entirety of a classic author's work of her own volition. If you think I'm pretentious online, you should see what I'm like in real life. However, I digress—the point is that reading this book was the latest instalment in this project.

It was really, really exceptional. It's a very experimental novel—it's told in the form of soliloquies from six different characters, with third-person descriptions of waves interspersed—but it has such a uniquely humane perspective on life and relationships that it succeeds in being a compelling story. It reminds me of one of my favourite films, Mirror (or The Mirror, depending on the translation) in that it feels like art that is meant to be felt rather than understood. I couldn't dissect this book's plot if you asked me, but I know I felt a visceral ache in my chest for more than half of it.

For lack of a better word, The Waves feels like a dream. You wander around a plain filled with people, listening to their stories while waves (sorry, it is genuinely relevant) crash in the background. While you may not be able to puzzle out what the story means to each specific person, or even what they mean to say from a chronological point of view, you feel a deep transfer of emotion while absorbing the story. It does take a while to get into it (hence 4.5 as opposed to 5) but once you're in, you're done for. Naturally, this absorption is assisted by the insane caliber of Virginia Woolf's prose. I cannot stress this enough: Woolf was an utter genius who deserves to be taught alongside Orwell, Salinger, and Shakespeare. (I did a quick search for most common authors taught at the high school level because I go to an alternative school. It's okay to be pretentious if you admit to it!)

I finished reading this book fifteen minutes ago; I always feel such an intense urge to write about Virginia Woolf's novels immediately after I read them. I suppose that this review is my way of trying to bottle this feeling, to articulate in some form the sheer emotional response that finishing a book like this causes. In a similar sense to Bernard's final words, I felt as though I was every character (Neville, Jinny, Louis, Rhoda, Susan, Bernard, and even Percival) and yet, in an incoherent but relevant way, utterly myself. 

This book earns my highest recommendation. I think that this project may end up causing me eternal emotional distress, and I mean that as a compliment. Next up, I'll take on Woolf's first novel. Join me in the coming weeks in reading The Voyage Out.

A beautiful book. It was well written and I loved the writing style and the characters. So cool how the whole book was build out of monologues. The flow of the book was very smooth and I loved how Virginia wrote the ending. Virginia Woolf is an amazing writer. 

Set on the English coast against the vivid backdrop of the sea, The Waves introduces six characters who are grappling with the death of a beloved friend, Percival. The characters are almost imperceptibly revealed through the kaleidoscopic accumulation of their reflections on themselves and each other. Regarded by many as Virginia Woolf's masterpiece, The Waves was partially written in order to exorcise her private ghosts as the central, yet absent, character of Percival represents her brother Thoby, who died in 1906. It is a poetic dreamscape, visual, experimental and thrilling.

Jade Flynn

"All that we might have been we saw; all that we had missed, and we grudged for a moment the other's claim, as children when the cake is cut, the one cake, the only cake, watch their slice diminishing". 

My first experience with Woolf and I truly loved every moment. It struck a chord with me.

The Waves is an astonishingly beautiful and poetic novel. It begins with six children playing in a garden by the sea and follows their lives as they grow up and experience friendship, love and grief at the death of their beloved friend Percival. Regarded by many as her greatest work, The Waves is also seen as Virginia Woolf's response to the loss of her brother Thoby, who died when he was twenty-six.

Ashling Brown

' All mists curl off the roof of my being. That confidence I shall keep to my dying day. Like a long wave, like a roll of heavy waters, he went over me, his devastating presence - dragging me open, laying bare the pebbles of the shore of my soul.'


  The waves is a beautifully poetic novel that had me marking every page.


When I started this novel, I had no clue what it was about, and when I began, it wasn't what I expected. This book, to me, is one giant poem, and it is so beautiful. A lot of the lines spoke to me in ways I never expected. The entire book is about living, growing and death, and we follow the characters all through their lives as children, adults and seniors. 

There isn't much to say in plot or character development because it isn't much; it's all lives put into words that create a poem that moves with the waves. It is a beautiful book; however, I feel like I need to share the issues I found.

(I got bored...)

“There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me.”

Towards the end, I got bored. Although I still found the book beautiful, the words didn't resonate with me, and maybe its because I am still too young to understand, and at a later stage may resonate and connect with them more; however, at this point, I could not love them as I did the first chunk of the book. 

I think this book is beautiful, and at a later stage in my life, I will re-read to see if I resonate more with the words in the last portion of the book.

Nati

Unpopular opinion of the day: there are objectively good and objectively bad books. After is an objectively bad book, and so are most things SJM writes. Bleh. 

There are also objectively good books. This is plainly a good book, and the old case of "it's not you, it's me". You'll have a hard time finding anything other than 5 star reviews for The Waves, and yet I personally didn't enjoy it much. Stream of consciousness doesn't do it for me. I found myself interested in the plot, but it was completely drowned in the thoughts and extensive scenery descriptions of terrifyingly eloquent children. I don't really care enough to dig through six kids describing the same mountain for 10 pages, so I can't say I enjoyed it much.

Heather Murray

Such a different style of writing. I think she was very experimental with this piece of work and while some parts were hard to get through, it was a new way of experiencing a story. Woolf is just a damn good writer and this is perfect proof. Each character was differentiated while contributing to the story as a whole. Very wonderful book! Would highly recommend.

Greta V. 

Dream-like, almost hallucinatory in its intensity and lyricism, a journey inside the mind where a myriad of images, or perhaps should I say visions, appear, fuse, dissolve with the swiftness of an Alpine brook, gradually revealing the inner consciousness of six selves. Is Woolf simply holding a pen or a brush? "All great writers are great colorists" says Woolf. In order to achieve this, she uses words in a very suggestive way like an impressionist painter squeezes the colors from the tube and the reader can only absorb in awe and wonder these everlasting moments. There seems to be no architectonic structure in the novel, no plot. We have to face the fluidity of wave-like thoughts, always pressing on the mind of the characters, Bernard, Rhonda, Jinny, Louise, Neville and Susan and on the mind of the writer. If it is true there's no plot, there's certainly a rhythm pervading the novel; when read aloud the reader will perceive the musicality, the pitch and the cadences of the words. Words, now, like brushstrokes of colors straight onto the white canvas. Now, words like notes. At times, to my ears, "The Waves" sounds like the eternal lullaby of the mind. A most beautiful, dramatic, poignant orchestration of words whose aim is, I believe, to present the mystery of human existence.

The Waves

Reviews

Highlights