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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I am not one person; I am many people; I do not altogether know who I am- Jinny, Susan, Neville, Rhoda, or Louis; or how to distinguish my life from theirs
I am thankful to my advisor for making me read this, I would not have picked this masterpiece up otherwise, and OH! What a shame it would have been!
The layered meanings, the consciousness, the rich descriptions, and the metaphors. An unique style that only Woolf could master truly! This is an unforgettable book once you solve the puzzle of the first 50 pages.
I am thankful to my advisor for making me read this, I would not have picked this masterpiece up otherwise, and OH! What a shame it would have been!
The layered meanings, the consciousness, the rich descriptions, and the metaphors. An unique style that only Woolf could master truly! This is an unforgettable book once you solve the puzzle of the first 50 pages.
challenging
emotional
reflective
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
New favorite. Most poetic, beautiful book I’ve ever read.
slow-paced
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
The waves is not a 'good' read in the sense of plot (there is hardly any) or suspense (idem). Rather, it is perhaps 'prose-poetry'. As one of the characters, Bernard, remarks somewhere (not necessarily about this book, but still): 'One cannot read this poem without effort. To read this poem one must have myriad eyes... Nothing is to be rejected in fear or horror. The poet who has written this page ... has withdrawn. There are no commas or semi-colons. The lines do not run in convenient lenghts. Much is sheer nonsense. One must be sceptical, but throw caution to the winds and when a door opens accept absolutely.'
So, it takes myriad eyes to see if eventually a door opens absolutely. A definition of art that will do.
How does our outer self, the self we show to the world, relate to our inner self, the many voices in our head that we leave unspoken? What is our identity? Is life worth living, and if so, what is it that makes it so? What is friendship? These are questions that The waves deals with.
To find answers, we must pause, reflect and go under. In the words of, again, Bernard: 'I wish to go under; to visit the profound depths; once in a while to exercise my prerogative not always to act, but to explore; to hear vague, ancestral sounds of boughs creaking, of mammoths; to indulge inpossible desires to embrace the whole world with the arms of understanding - impossible to those who act.'
Like in poetry, in reading The waves at times you grasp the meaning, or rather, a meaning, and then the next moment it eludes you, only to be recaptured later on, but quite possibly as a different meaning yet. As one of the other characters, Neville, muses: 'Something lies deeply buried. For one moment I thought to grasp it. But bury it, bury it; let it breed, hidden in the depths of my mind some day to fructify. After a long lifetime, loosely, in a moment of revelation, I may lay hands on it, but now the idea breaks in my hand. Ideas break a thousand times for once that they globe themselves entire.'
The image of the waves stands for the eternal ebb and flow of time, of the continuation of mankind through one generation to another. The sediment that the waves transport and which falls to the sand as the wave withdraws stands for our daily affairs, our outer selves (do I look all right, can I impress my colleagues, my neighbours, my friends? - 'But I beg you to also notice my cane and waistcoat. I have inherited a desk of solid mahogany in a room hung with maps.', begs Louis at one point). Monumental time versus monstrous time.
'Let us abolish the ticking of time's clock with one blow. Come closer.' These are meaningful words, spoken by Neville. Put aside the monstrous time, and give room to monumental time. Connecting with our inner selves.
The waves is not a book that yields its full potential in one reading. To make time for rereadings is to make monumental time. How fitting.
Something lies buried. And it is worthwhile to delve. For, to give Bernard the floor once more: 'We have proven ... that we can add to the treasury of moments. We are not slaves bound to suffer incessantly unrecorded petty blows on our bent backs. We are not sheep either, following a master. We are creators. We too have made something that will join the innumerable congregations of past time. We too, as we put on our hats and push open the door, stride not into chaos, but into a world that our own force can subjugate and make part of the illumined and everlasting road.
So, it takes myriad eyes to see if eventually a door opens absolutely. A definition of art that will do.
How does our outer self, the self we show to the world, relate to our inner self, the many voices in our head that we leave unspoken? What is our identity? Is life worth living, and if so, what is it that makes it so? What is friendship? These are questions that The waves deals with.
To find answers, we must pause, reflect and go under. In the words of, again, Bernard: 'I wish to go under; to visit the profound depths; once in a while to exercise my prerogative not always to act, but to explore; to hear vague, ancestral sounds of boughs creaking, of mammoths; to indulge inpossible desires to embrace the whole world with the arms of understanding - impossible to those who act.'
Like in poetry, in reading The waves at times you grasp the meaning, or rather, a meaning, and then the next moment it eludes you, only to be recaptured later on, but quite possibly as a different meaning yet. As one of the other characters, Neville, muses: 'Something lies deeply buried. For one moment I thought to grasp it. But bury it, bury it; let it breed, hidden in the depths of my mind some day to fructify. After a long lifetime, loosely, in a moment of revelation, I may lay hands on it, but now the idea breaks in my hand. Ideas break a thousand times for once that they globe themselves entire.'
The image of the waves stands for the eternal ebb and flow of time, of the continuation of mankind through one generation to another. The sediment that the waves transport and which falls to the sand as the wave withdraws stands for our daily affairs, our outer selves (do I look all right, can I impress my colleagues, my neighbours, my friends? - 'But I beg you to also notice my cane and waistcoat. I have inherited a desk of solid mahogany in a room hung with maps.', begs Louis at one point). Monumental time versus monstrous time.
'Let us abolish the ticking of time's clock with one blow. Come closer.' These are meaningful words, spoken by Neville. Put aside the monstrous time, and give room to monumental time. Connecting with our inner selves.
The waves is not a book that yields its full potential in one reading. To make time for rereadings is to make monumental time. How fitting.
Something lies buried. And it is worthwhile to delve. For, to give Bernard the floor once more: 'We have proven ... that we can add to the treasury of moments. We are not slaves bound to suffer incessantly unrecorded petty blows on our bent backs. We are not sheep either, following a master. We are creators. We too have made something that will join the innumerable congregations of past time. We too, as we put on our hats and push open the door, stride not into chaos, but into a world that our own force can subjugate and make part of the illumined and everlasting road.
I’ve literally never read anything like this and will remember this book for a long time. It’s not so much the story itself even, but the way it was written—so beautifully and with such rhythm, I definitely want to read more Woolf. The pacing of the words made me feel as if I was hearing the constant rhythm of the waves and rocking on a boat. The stream of consciousness writing style can be a little hard to grasp at times and I had to really focus to understand what was going on, but the story was so beautiful and real. I can easily see how people could not like this, but I ate it up. Highly recommended and want to reread.