The Waves, by Virginia Woolf (book review)

The Waves, by Virginia Woolf

I’ve been re-reading The Waves by Virginia Woolf. The first time I read it a few years ago, much of it went over my head. It’s like no other novel – there’s no plot as such, or dialogue, and there’s no single narrator. Instead, The Waves is made up of a series of interior monologues ‘spoken’ by each of the six characters – Bernard, Rhoda (my favourite), Louis, Jinny, Susan and Neville – which weave in and out of each other throughout the course of the book, capturing their reflections and observations on their journeys from childhood to old age.

Through each of the monologues, the reader dives into the inner psyches of the characters, as they interrogate their sense of self - or selves – as they are situated within the present moment, as well as in relation to their pasts and futures. The style of language and depth of imagery Woolf employs also makes The Waves a difficult – yet also most unique – read. It’s a stream of poetic prose, transcendental in tone.

It’s a book that definitely requires more than one reading, more than two readings, in order to really ‘get’ what it’s all about. But that’s what makes The Waves such an immensely satisfying read; it’s potentially a book that can grow with the reader; as they visit it at different points of their life, they can extract new meanings from it. As you do with your favourite songs.

And on this, my second reading, I’m unpeeling layers I didn’t first time around. There’s such intensity to The Waves, both in the intricacy of its language as well as in the musings of its characters, something I didn’t appreciate on my first reading.

What I love most about The Waves is how the reader is lead to burrow down into the heads of the six characters, as they traverse the everyday and tread their individual life paths. At times, the characters are depicted as doing the most routine, everyday things e.g. walking the crowded streets of London, getting off a train, sitting in a café, standing in the garden; and yet Woolf takes the reader deep inside the head of the character situated in that seemingly mundane moment as they extrapolate on their sense of being within that moment.

For instance, when Bernard reflects on how passengers traveling together on a train are all united in that one space, that one span of time, in their desire to get to their destination. And yet, as soon as the train pulls up at the station, their unity is broken as everyone goes their separate ways, and go back to pursuing their individual lives, often competing against each other. The book is full of such introspective philosophising by each of its characters, all written in the most exquisite manner, captured with some beautiful imagery.

This attention Woolf affords to the inner psyche, and its relationship to external reality, is what really resonates with me; her revealing of an individual self, a truer self – or selves – who exists behind the habitual movements we make throughout our daily lives, behind the self we cloak ourselves in when in conversations with other people.

I came across a comment in which The Waves was described as a “lonely book” and I agree. The individual monologues have the effect of making the characters seem one step removed not only from each other, but the world itself. Ultimately, what each of the characters ‘say’ in this book goes unsaid; what they think to themselves and about themselves doesn’t get communicated to anyone else, and there’s a suggestion that any attempt to try to do so will fail. From the same discussion on The Waves I linked to above:

Isn't it so sad that no matter how much we share of ourselves, though, others will never really grasp who we are inside? […] the characters cannot gain access to the one speaking. He/she is alone inside himself/herself […] this is what Woolf has been talking about with regards to the relationship of self and body. We know ourselves a certain way, or even cannot attempt to capture/define our true selves, so how do we make our body correspond to how we see ourselves or how we want others to see ourselves? [..]

It's interesting to consider our relationship with others, but fundamentally arrive at our own isolation which seems inescapable.

In The Waves, Woolf explores how language often fails us in our attempts to communicate who we are and the meanings we attach to life.  From an essay entitled, The Waves, The Possibilities of Language and Perception:

In The Waves, the ominous cloud persistently hanging overhead is the question of how to articulate perceptions and, through this articulation, come to a clearer understanding of the self […] The Waves confronts language’s shortcomings, recognizing that the infinite permutations of words and phrases inevitably fall short “of finding some perfect phrase that fits this very moment exactly” (Waves 69).

As a writer, this particularly interests me. I enjoy writing because it’s an easier way of communicating for me than talking, and through the written word I feel I can more authentically express my inner self/ves. And yet when I write I also experience how words and phrases often “fall short” of being able to capture what it is I actually want to say.What Woolf manages to evoke then – and what I find so personally affecting about this book – is the perpetual disconnection that exists between the inner self/selves and the outer self/selves. We are ultimately known only to ourselves. Only I ‘know’ me.

The definition of self is an illusive quest to capture a truth, an essence by virtue of language alone.

This is the perpetual quest of the writer, to capture meaning within the confines of language, to have language be the very essence of the thing we wish to communicate. And yet, The Waves questions how possible this actually is.

Such is the illuminating and yet also troubling nature of The Waves. And yet this is precisely why I find it so life-affirming; it’s often the most troubling and melancholy ‘truths’ which shine a light on our darkness, such as they encourage the revealing of that inner self which lay underneath, the one we are alone in knowing, and yet would be lonelier for not knowing at all.

By Michelle Wright
(January 2011)