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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
dark
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
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
Quite wonderful. Virginia woolf always seems to fit my inclinations sublimely. This is very much a more experimental work for an author already obsessed with pushing the sentence to its limit. This book is barely a novel, in many ways instead reading more like a play with novelistic leanings, but even that doesn't suffice to describe the form. There is melancholy seeping from every turn of phrase, every description of the sun's movements, every transition from soliloquy to soliloquy. A lot about death, the passage of time, how we never truly ascertain our identity as we age, how our perception of self in many ways is a refraction/accumulation of the perceptions that others hold of us. Maybe my new favorite Woolf? Who knows. She can do no wrong as far as I can tell.
this book was really good. so much of it went over my head unfortunately, but i did have a good time reading it. the way the story's written was confusing as hell at first, but once i understood it it was a lot easier to read. the writing was the stand out of this book, just so so good and probably some of the best writing i've ever read. i wish i was smart enough to understand everything virginia woolf was saying bc it was truly so beautifully written. i also loved the overall themes of this book about life and death and unity vs isolation, which again, i wasn't totally able to grasp as i was reading but upon researching and reflection i definitely appreciate the message this book was conveying.
The book is alive, pulsating - each voice, each strand of a shared consciousness (“I do not altogether know who I am… or how to distinguish my life from theirs”) grows closer and pulls away, with the natural vagaries of time. They are always in orbit, a whole entity whose constituent parts ebb, flow, meet, drift apart, probing at deeper meaning or purpose. Six distinctive, poetic voices that remain unchanged in style from infancy to old age may be jarring - so, a day that is extended over a lifetime becomes for us a stabilising thread, familiar to return to, necessary breathing space. The linear passing day is some of the most beautiful and evocative writing in English. The Waves is, arguably, the peak of the modernist experiment, which in many ways keeps long passages at arm’s length; it’s a movement designed to alienate, keep at remove - I certainly can’t claim to have understood/absorbed it all fully. That Woolf spends so much time inhabiting the rather aloof/self-important Bernard is often frustrating (others are much more interesting/grounded to spend time with), though his thematic purpose as a narrative voice becomes apparent in the closing sequences, where he assumes the lead. Still mate, stop overthinking things!
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
'How much better is silence; the coffee-cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee-cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself...'
The waves is a perpetual poetry, narrated by six distinct characters from their childhoods to their old age. From dawn to dusk. Their points of view of the world and each other and their emotions and experiences are beautifully told in a poetic masterpiece.
The waves is a perpetual poetry, narrated by six distinct characters from their childhoods to their old age. From dawn to dusk. Their points of view of the world and each other and their emotions and experiences are beautifully told in a poetic masterpiece.
reflective
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes