The Waves

Just like that, we're done. We've finished Woolf in Winter, two months, four novels. I faint, I fail.

I'm really unsure what to say about this book.Like Orlando, which left me in an utterly clueless, confused state of mind, The Waves has me feeling inarticulate, especially in the sense of "I'm sure there's SO MUCH that I haven't gotten from this book." But unlike Orlando, where I ended the book feeling like I could not for the life of me figure out what the overall purpose was (and really didn't care to find out), I have a stronger sense of what Woolf was trying to do with The Waves, although I think it bears many readings to really fully grasp it (for me, anyway--I'm not speaking for the rest of you!). Which is to say, while I didn't particularly like Orlando, I did very much like The Waves, even if I can't 100% tell you why.

Certainly much of it--as is typical of Woolf--is beautifully written. Often I found myself pausing, then (provided I wasn't, say, in public) reading certain lines aloud, like I do for poetry, just to linger over the feel and sound of them. I have oodles of passages marked with admiring notes. I loved the repeated use of the word "immitigable," which I confess was a word I didn't know, although I could easily guess what it meant from related words like unmitigated and mitigation. Talk about a word that is a pleasure to say out loud: "immitigable." Almost sounds like what it means.

Woolf writes movingly about being a mother, apparently at the suggestion of her sister, Vanessa, and she captures the conflicts inherent in any young mother's life: "I have lost my indifference, my blank eyes, my pear-shaped eyes that saw to the root. I am no longer January, May or any other season, but am all spun to a fine thread round the cradle, wrapping in a cocoon made of my own blood the delicate limbs of my baby...

"So life fills my veins. So life pours through my limbs. So I am driven forward, till I could cry, as I move from dawn to dusk opening and shutting, 'No more. I am glutted with natural happiness.' Yet more will come, more children; more cradles, more baskets in the kitchen and hams ripening; and onions glistening; and more beds of lettuce and potatoes. I am blown like a leaf by the gale."

And the ending. Well. What a roller coaster that last ride with Bernard is, through despair and realization of how far short his life's fallen, his re-evaluation of his own life and that of his friends and companions, to his determination to rise up, to the return of the waves themselves.

That's it. That's all I got. I know I'll spend the day Friday reading far more thoughtful, insightful posts about The Waves, and I so look forward to that. My heartfelt thanks to Sarah, Emily, Frances, and Claire for organizing and hosting this wonderful read-along.  

In the meantime, I have both the Hermione Lee bio and the first volume of the diaries. Which would you recommend I read first?

Comments

[Kevin Fenton]

Immitigable is great. Woolf is one of those writers who can win you over even when she baffles or frustrates or misses the mark. There are still things there that can be found nowhere else. And thanks for tipping me off to the Woolf reading. I'd suspected that there were serious readers blogging somewhere but I'd never quite been able to locate them.

[Emily]

Ooh, I highly recommend the Hermione Lee bio - as I said to someone else today, I think Lee is almost as much a master of her form as Woolf was of hers. It's very thorough, but readable, and I love Lee's balanced, sane outlook on many of the "hot topics" in Woolf's life. I hope you enjoy it as well! :-)

More specifically to The Waves, I'm glad you spotlight Susan, because on this reading she was the character I felt most deeply. I feel she has a rootedness the others lack. In any case, I'm so glad you enjoyed the readalong! It's been fantastic for me as well.

[Sarah]

Your opening line with it's clever use of 'I faint, I fail' highlighted one of my favorite thing about the book - I think I highlighted every instance of lines like that or variations on it. I just liked the reoccurring pulse of it, and definitely felt it backed up Woolf's idea that she was writing with rhythm and not with plot. That last section with Bernard was heart wrenching - that he, of all of them, should find himself so lost, he with all the phrases in the world to keep him company.

[claire]

My favourite parts of the book were with Bernard, maybe because they were the most readable. While I didn't identify with him as a character, I found his parts the least tedious. Yes, I did find this book the most tedious of the four we've read. It's not my least favourite, but I feel that it's the one I will least reread because it was the one that felt the most like work to me. I have no compulsion to pick it up again.

Thanks so much for reading along, Amy! You were great!

[Violet]

So glad you liked The Waves. It was my least favourite, but I think I am going to have to read it again. The beautiful passages you quoted make me think that I need to pay more attention, that there is more to this book than I found during my two readings of it.

I'd read the bio first; it's one of the better ones around.