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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
I can’t bring myself to assign a star rating to this — maybe because I felt it deeply but can’t articulate what it evoked in me, or maybe because the rigidity of the star rating feels so antithetical to the disruption of form in The Waves. This novel, or poem, or novel in verse, is neither character- nor plot-driven; the motif of the waves to represent the paradox of repetition and change, individuality and universality drove the text forward as did the theme of the inadequacy of language to fully access our knowledge of ourselves and our world. I felt that the experience reading this was a powerful meditation on grief, regret, and friendship. A sense of tenderness for each of the characters’ thoughts and actions is clear throughout Woolf’s writing, and the reader can see herself as well as the author in all six of the friends whose lives are represented as profound, yet temporal, waves in a sea of countless others.
I adore Virginia Woolf's writing but at the same time I feel like I'm too stupid to completely understand her meaning. Either way, whenever I read her beautiful prose it inspires me to write better, to compose more beautiful metaphors, to create more concrete and more original images. I love you, Virginia.
I will never be able to come up with so many beautiful and spot-on images and metaphors in my whole life that Virginia crams into one 167 page book. Wow.
Hayatımda okuduğum en farklı yazım tarzı. Böyle bir şey hiç okumamıştım. Mükemmelsin Virginia Woolf. Şiir ve düz yazıyı öyle bir harmanlamış ki kendine özgü yeni bir tarz ortaya koymuş. Bazen okurken zorlandığım ve anlamak için üst üste okuduğum paragraflar oldu. Bu yüzden okunması zor ve dikkat istiyor. fakat her karakterin olayları ve kendilerini betimleme şekilleri çok değişik ve güzel. Okurken karakterlerde kendimi gördüğüm birçok yer oldu .
The language will awe the reader with its intricate descriptions and flow. My big drawback was that this story, written in 1930, is hard to follow (six friends) and it was a challenge to continue reading at times.
The format is different from any other novel I've read and had a poetic aspect to it although this was not written in verse. The story doesn't have a distinct plot so this may prove difficult for many readers. I read it for the wonderful language and sensory detail.
The format is different from any other novel I've read and had a poetic aspect to it although this was not written in verse. The story doesn't have a distinct plot so this may prove difficult for many readers. I read it for the wonderful language and sensory detail.
woolf’s prose is so vivid and lyrical and raw, this was the most beautiful thing i have ever read. i wish i could review this book properly, but it feels like analyzing it more intensely would ruin its beauty. anyway virginia woolf is a genius and she just gets me <3
slow-paced
What is that quote, that one that says that you cannot read some books, you can only reread them. Here is one. Rampant poetry that you ride, crest in and crest out of the waves of words that flow in such a way that one sentence is one of many, a social construct like the bees and the birds flocking in the sky. Fluidity does little justice to this book. One word does not exist without all the rest, and it is better to float through the sentences rather than tear them down and open into some semblance of meaning. Reread to your pleasure until the meanings flow through without excessive force on your part, otherwise they'll drip through your fingers as fast as thought. Oh Bernard, you and your phrases, ones that at the end did not show your friends to the world in the way that they have melded together and to you. They cannot convey Neville's love, Susan's hate, Louis' past lives, Jinny's aesthetics, Rhoda's water, your story. Virginia herself may not have accomplished it, for who can say they have compared and contrasted between these pages and her mind. We do get a small insight though. And that is worth everything.
It feels unfair of me to rate this book...
As far as ‘abstract mystical eyeless playpoems’ without tone or characters go, this was a smashing success!
However, as a novel, it's a slog...but it's NOT a novel, so that’s hardly a valid statement...
The last part, which adopts a more traditional structure and brings clarity to the thesis and story, is excellent...but she admits in this section that she is pretending, probably for our sake, that life is a plain and logical story...
The good news is that having read this makes me want to read her other works. Woolf was obviously brilliant and talented and had lots of interesting things to say.
Lots of great quotes throughout as well, if you can stay alert long enough to find them.
As far as ‘abstract mystical eyeless playpoems’ without tone or characters go, this was a smashing success!
However, as a novel, it's a slog...but it's NOT a novel, so that’s hardly a valid statement...
The last part, which adopts a more traditional structure and brings clarity to the thesis and story, is excellent...but she admits in this section that she is pretending, probably for our sake, that life is a plain and logical story...
The good news is that having read this makes me want to read her other works. Woolf was obviously brilliant and talented and had lots of interesting things to say.
Lots of great quotes throughout as well, if you can stay alert long enough to find them.