I just read The Waves by Virginia Woolf.
I had not realized the impact Virginia Woolf had on the stream-of-consciousness genre. It’s fascinating how she ties the narrative together with the coming and going of waves in each section—reminiscent of Thich Nhat Hanh’s description of birth and death as waves rising and falling but always remaining as water.
In The Sun at Midday, the section after Percival’s death, Rhoda’s segments echo her shifting distance in the crowds—from buying stockings to ending in a tribute with violets. It’s clear that both Neville and Bernard are pulled by different forces, while Susan and Louis don’t leave as strong an impression. I read Susan as accepting Percival’s death while continuing forward. Her closing the oven door with her heel suggests her closeness to the earth and the rhythm of nature propelling her onward.
I noticed a break in the cadence in the final part of the book, after the sun had set, where there’s a summation of events for the six characters. This felt like a return to the cycle of life and death.
I experienced the book on multiple levels: at a micro level, I savored individual sentences almost poetically. The sun’s transition from sunrise to sunset sets the pace, and the characters resonated in different ways. Rhoda stood out to me more than Louis, though their connection is more defined in the book. Each character carries a distinct tenor.
Reading The Waves was a dreamlike experience for me. There are moments of immediacy—like Percival’s death or the scene where the characters leave home for school with their “boxes.” This reminded me of my own experience with a large trunk on a train.
This is one of the most visual and dreamlike books I’ve ever read. Nearly every sentence is rich with vivid symbolism and imagery. It’s a book I’d certainly read again or simply dip into for the pleasure of Woolf’s writing. At night, there were times when the prose seemed to weave itself into my mind, as if it were part of my dreams.
