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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
On beginning: Yeah I don't quite get this
On finishing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vHRMeRszw4
(among many things it's so deftly avoids easy dichotomies with its 3-a-side structure and it has the best evocation of how [U.K.] public school can be beautiful despite ubiquitous cruelty)
On finishing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vHRMeRszw4
(among many things it's so deftly avoids easy dichotomies with its 3-a-side structure and it has the best evocation of how [U.K.] public school can be beautiful despite ubiquitous cruelty)
Upea, kaunis, heleä, jotenkin juuri tällä hetkellä haastava ja hankala, mutta sellaisella kiehtovalla, woolfmaisella tavalla: tästä saa joka lukukerta varmasti täysin uuden lukukokemuksen, ja seuraavaksi haluan lukea tämän suomeksi, omalla kielelläni, vaikka niin upeaa ja erityisen kaunista Woolfin omakin on, ettei siitäkään meinaisi malttaa päästää irti.
‘Why look,’ said Neville, ‘at the clock ticking on the mantelpiece? Time passes, yes. And we grow old. But to sit with you, alone with you, here in London, in this firelit room, you there, I here, is all. The world ransacked to its uttermost ends, and all its heights stripped and gathered of their flowers, holds no more. Look at the firelight running up and down the gold thread in the curtain. The fruit it circles droops heavy. It falls on the toe of your boot, it gives your face a red rim – I think it is the firelight and not your face; I think those are books against the wall, and that a curtain, and that perhaps an arm-chair. But when you come everything changes. The cups and saucers changed when you came in this morning. There can be doubt, I thought, pushing aside the newspaper, that our mean lives, unsightly as they are, put on splendour and have meaning only under the eyes of love.
i will eternally love this book.
reminds me of sea & black swan by bts and as the introduction said "the waves is a book of constant re-orientation— to a changing world, to a changing self. Without this re-orientation, where the compass must be checked and new directions given, it is not possible to survive".
i will undoubtedly be re-reading this till i get myself to exhaustion, this books means the world to me and i feel like it will always leave me baffled by its content and the mastery of virginia woolf.
reminds me of sea & black swan by bts and as the introduction said "the waves is a book of constant re-orientation— to a changing world, to a changing self. Without this re-orientation, where the compass must be checked and new directions given, it is not possible to survive".
i will undoubtedly be re-reading this till i get myself to exhaustion, this books means the world to me and i feel like it will always leave me baffled by its content and the mastery of virginia woolf.
Normally I can’t get too into classics or 19th and 20th century literature, and I think that’s because I wasn’t born in the time they were written and I can’t appreciate them for what they’re supposed to be. Even as an English major, the classics always left something to be desired. But there have been a few that I’ve really enjoyed, and this is one of them. I think it’s also different because I chose to read it on my own and it was never assigned to me in school. I love Virginia Woolf and I loved this story of identity, friendship and love. I especially loved the way the story was told, in soliloquies from each character, and I would love to see a modern novel written that way. I think my favorite characters were Bernard, Rhoda and Neville. I would also love to see a director’s interpretation of this as a film, because there are so many ways it can be done. At times it was hard to follow because the language was so dense and chock full of metaphors (another of my main problems with classics) but there were key phrases that stuck out and made me feel something. In short, I loved these characters and the chronicle of their lives, and Virginia Woolf should always be remembered for her writing.
Changing it to 5 stars because I think about this book at least once a week.
"it goes on; but why?"
incredible from start to finish, blurring individuality and collectivity, through theme and form, getting at the vagaries of time and identity through every beautiful or devastating poetic observation. and yeah, basically every other sentence is the best sentence i've ever read.
incredible from start to finish, blurring individuality and collectivity, through theme and form, getting at the vagaries of time and identity through every beautiful or devastating poetic observation. and yeah, basically every other sentence is the best sentence i've ever read.
Wow! What was that? I came into The Waves unprepared for what it was going to be and was very nearly swamped.
The book evades a simple description. But it's sort of a stream of consciousness tapestry woven between six point of view characters (and one non-PIV) that make up a childhood friend group. It then follows them through the stages of their life.
The story is less about the major external events that come to define one's life than it is the interior of the soul. Woolf shows how identity is often formed by small, seemingly random inciting incidents early in one's life. She also seems fascinated with the idea of the fragility of the self. She disregards an objective version of the self -- something fashioned by God or society -- in favor of an amalgam of lived experienced and the funhouse-mirror reflections of the self created by our friends and loved ones.
There is no sign-posting here, no hand-holding. Sometimes a chance reflection about self-identity or an observation about a friend will be all the signal you have that Woolf has danced from one character to another.
Reading it requires careful attention. At the same time, there often isn't a fixed object for you to focus on, so you often need to let the prose wash over you in order to create some sense from the flood of described sensation.
In other work, Woolf demonstrates such a talent for depicting the profundity of the everyday moment and especially the fleeting epiphany. The Waves is basically just freeing that talent from the constraints of narrative form.
That doesn't mean it's always fun. I don't think it's even supposed to be. Getting your feet under you in the early going takes patience. The last section has even fewer toe-holds than the rest of the book and seems to go on forever until somehow still ending abruptly.
This was a fascinating book to have read, though I can't imagine actually recommending it to anybody, strange as that seems.
The book evades a simple description. But it's sort of a stream of consciousness tapestry woven between six point of view characters (and one non-PIV) that make up a childhood friend group. It then follows them through the stages of their life.
The story is less about the major external events that come to define one's life than it is the interior of the soul. Woolf shows how identity is often formed by small, seemingly random inciting incidents early in one's life. She also seems fascinated with the idea of the fragility of the self. She disregards an objective version of the self -- something fashioned by God or society -- in favor of an amalgam of lived experienced and the funhouse-mirror reflections of the self created by our friends and loved ones.
There is no sign-posting here, no hand-holding. Sometimes a chance reflection about self-identity or an observation about a friend will be all the signal you have that Woolf has danced from one character to another.
Reading it requires careful attention. At the same time, there often isn't a fixed object for you to focus on, so you often need to let the prose wash over you in order to create some sense from the flood of described sensation.
In other work, Woolf demonstrates such a talent for depicting the profundity of the everyday moment and especially the fleeting epiphany. The Waves is basically just freeing that talent from the constraints of narrative form.
That doesn't mean it's always fun. I don't think it's even supposed to be. Getting your feet under you in the early going takes patience. The last section has even fewer toe-holds than the rest of the book and seems to go on forever until somehow still ending abruptly.
This was a fascinating book to have read, though I can't imagine actually recommending it to anybody, strange as that seems.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated