The Waves

Great, like new.

I have been a devoted fan of Virginia Woolf since I was a teenager and first discovered the brilliance of her writing in "To The Lighthouse"... after which I devoured everything she had written, including her diaries and essays. There is nothing else like The Waves in the whole of English literature, before or since. The best summary of it I have ever heard was the author Jeanette Winterson's comment that it represented "a 200-page insult to mediocrity". Indeed it does.Six characters, followed from childhood to old age, narrating what they see, think and feel, always in the present tense. As with her other novels, Woolf's insights into the individual's inner realm of emotion and thought are keen and complex. But the true magic of the book lies in the writing and the way all this is expressed. The language is uniquely lyrical; Woolf's words almost paint pictures on the page.This is not to say that The Waves is for everyone. So try this simple test: pick it off the shelf in a bookstore and read the first dozen or so pages. You will likely have one of two reactions: either that it is extraordinary, magical prose poetry, or a less prosaic "Huh?" If you're in the latter category, don't read the rest... and if you're still curious about Woolf, start with To The Lighthouse or Mrs Dalloway, both of which are more conventional in their form (though Woolf's work can rarely be termed conventional).I return to this book every few years as I myself advance in age and can relate more directly to a different part of the characters' lives. The old dinner party question about which three or four books one would take to a desert island finds, for me, one of its answers here in this wonderful, unique novel (for the record, the others would be Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, some good trash - maybe James Clavell's "Shogun" - and an anthology of poetry of my own choosing).

For the first 50 or 100 pages of The Waves I was enthralled. Late in the novel Woolf has a character muse on the blurry outlines of our everyday consciousness where there is a "rushing stream of broken dreams, nursery rhymes, street cries, half-finished sentences and sights...There is nothing one can fish up in a spoon; nothing one can call an event. Yet it is alive too and deep, this stream" (255-256). Woolf has set herself the task of describing six lives from the standpoint of this stream which can never truly be captured in language and the novel is at times revelatory. One learns a lot about oneself reading this book.However, it is difficult to sustain for 300 pages. While there are priceless gems scattered throughout the whole book after 50 or 100 pages it becomes a bit repetitive and tedious and I found myself longing for the surface. It just felt like too much to be submerged in this stream for 300 straight pages. I think in general there needs to be rhythm in works of fiction. If there is a climax there also have to be duller sections and periods of build up and return. If there are revelations or epiphanies they need to be separated by periods of routine. If there is profound poetry there also need to be sections of plain prose. This novel seemed to me to be an attempt at pure poetry, every line made an attempt to be deep and profound, every moment needed to give birth to some new epiphany, and it is too much. We lose the rhythm of the waves and of life. The novel was missing the rhythmic returns to normalcy that are necessary to highlight the moments of exceptional clarity and beauty.There are lots of interesting themes in the novel involving the nature of identity, the self, language, consciousness, and so on and there are some tremendously beautiful lines and insights that I will return to over the years so the book is worth reading. It is also a tremendous feat to have written this book and I have the utmost respect and admiration for Woolf for not only attempting it but succeeding as well as anyone possibly could. But I don't think the experiment was ultimately entirely successful. We cannot live in the stream. We can dive occasionally and bring back a pearl or a shiny rock but we also need to breathe the air and forget about the stream for extended periods of time. While I gathered some pearls along the way, and am grateful for them, by the time I finished the book I was ready for some fresh air.

It is, of course, a brilliant experimental novel by one of the greatest minds of English literature. Not for everyone, but the writing is astonishing. Its reputation and Woolf's are well established. I'm only writing this review to have the opportunity to complain about the Kindle edition, which was clearly scanned and never thereafter edited, so it's full of glitches that thump and bump the reader like potholes. One pauses and wonders did she mean "Ups" or "lips?" Of course, it's obvious, but why have to guess? The book must be pure profit at this point. It's embarrassing that the publisher had no more pride in their work than this. Still, a fine read.

The Waves is an extraordinary book, narrated by the wind that swirls around a family and their beach home for decades. I have never read another book where a natural force, like the wind, narrates, but the literary device is so very effective as the wind presents the family with no prejudices - just as an observer that really is a part of the family and at the same time, has distance that allows for pure observation. To me, one of the most important books in English literature. The device does not feel like a device. At first, it is hard to understand where the narration is coming from - as the book starts with the wind narrating. But easily, as one reads further, one falls into pace with that wind, which is so unsentimental that a certain purity of observation is achieved. Really amazing.

I would have loved this more if I read it when I was in college. Now, while I recognize and can appreciate its poetry and experimentation, it comes off as overly pretentious (but maybe that’s on me for becoming more cynical?). Still brilliant, it was just a slog to get through.