The Waves

"I know what loves are trembling into fire; how jealousy shoots its green flashes hither and thither; how intricately love crosses love; love makes knots; love brutally tears them apart. I have been knotted; I have been torn apart."

The trench of memories runs deep and dark. Whenever pulled down its depths, they engulf with resounding, blinding pressure vivid and vibrant. A hundred emotions hit all at once, successively, divisibly, conflictingly. Virginia Woolf's The Waves is not only a trench but the shoreline, the rocks, the ship where these memories caress, crash, and cradle. It isn't only about reminiscences. But also the intimate creation of memories in different dimensions of time and space. They overlap, split, dance.

In sometimes show more dreamlike, other times too tangible soliloquies of six friends, this extraordinary, profound novel transports to montages of lives interconnected; some of them graze each other for seconds, at times touch for years, others make irreversible dents. Their pivot is a voiceless seventh friend whose departure rippled throughout earthly time. Death, like love, is a cosmic event; mourning is sporadic but perpetual. And breathing doesn't come easy with reading Woolf's prose; it holds at the sight of beauty; it sighs at familiarity; it labours at the captured entirety and poetry of living ("I said life has been imperfect, an unfinished phrase.") What an intense, tearful 200 pages as it eventually leaves for the arms of the gloaming skies. And bodies consumed by its waters will be washed ashore, choking but alive. show less

Em meio ao maior colapso sanitário da história do país (falo isso porque o objetivo desses troços não é explicar o livro pra ninguém, mas sim registrar pra mim mesmo o que vivi, senti e pensei quando li), eu acabei lendo um dos livros mais difíceis que eu tinha aqui em casa. Eu sabia que esse livro potencialmente seria difícil, mas eu de fato não teria feito essa escolha se soubesse a dificuldade de antemão. Uma vez lendo, porém, o livro me cativou muito e eu me dediquei a sorver o máximo possível do que a leitura poderia me oferecer; na verdade, valeu muito que o livro fosse complicado, pois isso me impedia de olhar ao redor e sentir a angústia das milhares de mortes por dia.
As Ondas é definido pela própria Virginia show more Woolf como um playpoem, e é difícil caracteriza-lo como qualquer outra coisa. O livro é composto unicamente por solilóquios (jamais são diálogos propriamente ditos), espaçadas por breves descrições elaboradas de uma mesma cena conforme ela evolui ao longo dia (uma paisagem de praia, próxima de uma casa e com uma floresta, do começo ao fim do dia, espelhando o progresso da idade das personagens). Há algo de teatral mesmo na sensação do texto, apesar de não termos monólogos; os personagens nunca estão explicitamente em um lugar, mas estão sempre falando indiretamente sobre alguma cena ou sobre si mesmos. Jamais há um diálogo explícito, mas sim algo como 'Eu e fulano ficamos para trás, como conspiradores', etc.
A sensação, em alguns momentos até explicitada no texto, é que Bernard, Jinny, Rhoda, Louis, Susan e Neville são apenas fragmentos de uma mesma coisa, uma mesma pessoa. E é um pouco isso que o livro trata, a dificuldade dos personagens, em meio à fluidez de sua consciência, estabelecerem o que DE FATO é sua identidade. Bernard é o cara do livro que coloca isso de forma mais clara, chegando a dizer que ele não é uma pessoa em específico, mas a conjunção de todos os eus que aparecem quando ele interage com os outros. Bernard é um cara que não quer, não consegue, viver sozinho. Ele vive criando frases, o que encanta os outros e a si mesmo, e em essência ele acaba sendo o personagem que não só amarra seu grupo de amigos como o próprio livro. Isso porque seu objetivo acaba sendo o de urdir estórias a partir do que observa e dar sentido, uma cadeia de causalidade, para o mundo, que acaba por ser o problema principal que afeta os personagens e, de forma ampla, o que a ficção busca solucionar de modo geral. Ainda assim, ele sempre sente que algo da verdade escapa de seus brinquedos, e isso porque a linguagem não era suficiente, mesmo com sua ampla capacidade. Sempre faltaria algo que era impossível de realmente colocar em palavras.
O livro é, apesar do que sugere seu formato, absolutamente repleto de descrições e cenários, imagens de espaços recorrentes, e ele tem um certo liricismo MUITO charmoso, parece um livro muito bom pra citar de tanto em tanto (talvez ainda mais no original), e parece que nesse liricismo e na estrutura do livro, ela consegue resolver um pouco o problema enunciado por Bernard. Sua linguagem consegue, com esforço do dedicado leitor, capturar a realidade, a sensação do que é ser fragmentado no mundo e tentar explicar a si mesmo, definir-se. Louis é filho de um banqueiro australiano, e, por isso, tem um sotaque diferente dos demais; vendo-se como inferior aos amigos e colegas, de certa forma despreza-os e quer ser bem sucedido para impor-se. Isso serve como seu fio definidor e o leva a galgar em sua carreira, e claramente define sua persona, tão oposta à de Bernard, que amava papear com qualquer um. Jinny é obcecada pela beleza física, pelo seu corpo e aquilo que atrai; ela caça pelos salões de Londres, procurando um homem após o outro e se satisfazendo em como os atrai. Susan despreza a vida na cidade desde cedo, e só quer viver uma vida maternal em paz no campo, mas eu tive a sensação e confirmei posteriormente que ela eventualmente se arrepende. Render-se à vida campestre significou abandonar sua individualidade e tornar-se apenas uma figura vazia de mãe e provedora. Enquanto para ela Jinny era bela e livre, jamais sacrificando seus amores, Susan jamais investiu em seu primeiro amor, Bernard, e agora é acorrentada nesta vida desperdiçada. Neville é apaixonado por Percival, e, após sua trágica morte, acaba vivendo uma vida de poeta obcecado por seu amante corrente (e ele foi tendo uma série). Mesmo sendo a imagem tradicional do homossexual na ficção tradicional (um artista fisicamente fraco), Neville é o único dos três rapazes a ter sucesso literário (Louis e Bernard querem mas não chegam lá). De fato, desde cedo ele era obcecado pelos poetas latinos e por expurgar de sua vida o caos e a desordem, encontrando na literatura um meio para tal; talvez apenas a sua dedicação exclusiva, ao contrário dos outros, é o que o tenha feito bem sucedido. Rhoda é a personagem mais estranha. No começo, ela é descrita como alguém que não sabe sequer agir e precisa imitar os outros, o que me fez suspeitar que ela tivesse algum tipo de autismo ou algo do tipo. Ela nunca parece ter encontrado seu lugar, se sentindo a mais excluída de todos (até mais que Louis, com quem tem um breve caso). Ela está sempre fugindo, sem saber como agir e sentindo-se extremamente desconfortável. O motif comum em suas cenas é que ela queria sumir e não existir, e ela cita sempre a natureza, talvez porque na não interação com seres humanos ela meio que suma no background. Por isso, ela acaba se matando, mas não é claro o que rola.
O brabo desse livro é que cada um dos protagonistas podiam ser um livro inteiro, com um argumento bem desenhadinho, uma tragédia, etc. A aposta experimental de jogar os seis num livro só, tentando se encontrar só em falas longuíssimas vira completamente a chave e transforma o que poderiam ser seis bons livros em uma experiência sensorial do cacete. show less

In The Waves, Virginia Woolf has created a masterpiece. From the elegant prose to the innovative structure (yes, innovative even at a distance of almost 85 years) to the philosophy life and death, this book is a revelation. I found it both unsettling and oddly comforting.

Woolf uses the friendship of six people, three men and three women, to discover both the living world and death. The book is written in an almost poetic style, sticking largely to interior speak. There is very little direct interaction between the friends. There are nine sections, presented chronologically that range from early childhood through school, middle age, and the end of life. The writing is odd – it’s hard to figure out if you’re supposed to believe show more these people are really thinking these poetic words or is it almost what the brain sees and processes before we’d actually put language to it? In the end it doesn’t matter because it’s beautiful and different and therefore more impactful.

I read the paperback book with a pencil in hand – underlining passages, writing questions, and making connections – something I’ve not done since college but that made a big difference in my reading. This is a book that deserves to be analyzed and I intend to do some research on it after I let it settle and form some of my own opinions. It is also a book to be reread and I’m sure it will mean something different to me over the decades to come.

On a personal note, many of you know that my dad died very quickly and unexpectedly this year way too young – only 63. I think this book meant something much different to me after that experience than it would have before. The whole last section of Bernard’s musing on his life and inevitable death really struck me as a gradual personal acceptance of death and separation from earthly matters. That is, until the last paragraph.

I’m obviously pretty blown away by this book. It’s been a while since I read something both challenging to read and personal at the same time. I think it’s impressive that Woolf was able to do both – stretch a reader’s boundaries in language and form but still make a personal book that can be deeply connected to.

Fascinating. show less

I was surprised by how much I liked this book. It is more interesting than the other books I've read by Virginia Woolf. In it, Woolf has finally succeeded in breaking free of traditional narrative form. It ceases completely to be a narrative and becomes a sense. The book is part play, part extended poem. It is an incredible flow of individual self awareness eddying and combining to form a communal sense of self written like a spoken word performance. The style made me think of Walt Whitman’s essay-like poetry, and also of Greek tragedy, with the chorus narrating the action. I thought that Woolf got across the inner voices, and I mean deep inner voices, of the six narrating characters very well indeed. It was like overhearing how it show more feels to be performing the actions described, rather than imagining yourself in the place of the characters whose story is being narrated to you. We don’t overhear an internalised conversation about what has happened. Instead Woolf puts words to the sensations we feel when we are in the midst of acting. Very clever. I felt lifted out of myself as I was reading, as though I was hovering above, looking down, and at the same time as though I was seeing the action through a macro lens, so close to the characters they might feel my breath. The depiction of grief was astonishing in the way it embodied the sense of time stopping, of other people's continuation being offensive, of nothing mattering when the person who acted as anchor in your life has gone. I remember that from when my dad died. The changes that friendships undergo as we age and experience shapes us were also well depicted and caused me to reflect on the friendships that I have had for many years. How easy some are, how others take more effort and a forgiving nature to sustain.

Louis and Rhoda were my favourite characters early on, although I liked Bernard, too. Louis and Rhoda are outsiders, one desperate to break in, the other trying to escape notice. Louis knows he is cleverer than his more privileged friends, but the accident of his colonial birth means he will never have the same opportunities as them. Rhoda wants to be left alone with her rich interior world. She has no interest in being fêted or admired like Jinny, and she doesn't find fulfilment in practicalities like Susan. She lacks confidence, though, because she feels that her self is the wrong kind of self to be. Bernard revels in his multiple personalities, yearns to be famous, and always has one eye on what his legacy might be. His awareness that he only really has a self while being observed by others fascinated me. Towards the end, I preferred Neville and Susan. They seemed to distill into something I understand, in this moment when I am of a similar age to them, post-Percival.

All good, then. But no. Woolf has to spoil it in the final section of the book by casting aside her innovative chorus of inner feelings and reverting to a standard, dull narrative. Bernard drones on about how his life has passed, and it breaks the spell. From a magical sphere of disembodied voices, I was pulled back to a sort of mundanity, and I had to force myself to read to the end, even though Bernard was telling me what I had worked out, even though I wasn't interested in his conscious perspective. I wonder why Woolf chose to end the book that way. show less

Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it before you as a complete thing, I have to recall things gone far, gone deep, sunk into this life or that and become part of it; dreams, too, things surrounding me, and the inmates, those old half-articulate ghosts who keep up their hauntings by day and night; who turn over in their sleep, who utter their confused cries, who put out their phantom fingers and clutch at me as I try to escape—shadows of people one might have been; unborn selves.

My umpteenth reading of The Waves and it still floors me. There's not a wasted word here: Woolf's attention to rhythm—she was listening to Beethoven's String Quartet in B-flat Minor, Opus 130 while show more writing this novel, and Beethoven's nuances are found in her prose at all turns—and the ways in which she questions subjectivity, interpersonal relations, the ways in which we are connected and yet disparate from those around us are on display here more so than in any of her other fictional works.

The last section is sadly not as famous as the last section in Joyce's Ulysses, but it may well be even more gut-wrenchingly brutal in its philosophical underpinnings and the ways in which Woolf engages with poetics to sustain the flow of her inquiries into what it means to be human. On each reading there is something more to be found here, something more to be learned, something to relish and treasure, some keen diamond-edged truth that slices just as much as it illuminates.

A book that can never have an equal, hands down. show less

I'd say that 80% of the reason I started a Virginia Woolf book club was so that I could re-read this one with a group of friends. Here Woolf follows a group of six friends from their early childhood through old age, but what we see are their thoughts, impressions, and inner workings, with just a hint of what is happening in their outside life. Much like Mrs. Dalloway, reading this again when you are in your mid-40s makes the book hit a lot differently than it did when I was in my early 20s. The chapter in their young adulthood where the characters react to their idolized school friend Percival's death is one of the most affecting and accurate descriptions of grieving that I've ever read, and it brought back my own first brush with death show more as a young adult (love you, Carlos) with an unexpected gut punch. Not Woolf's easiest read, but one of her most rewarding. Stick with it for the final chapter with Bernard which is one of the best things I've ever read.

[Also working on a The Waves is the Breakfast Club theory -- Rhoda is obviously Ally Sheedy and Jinny is definitely Molly Ringwald. Still need to flesh out the rest of this hypothesis....] show less