Revisiting "The Waves," by Virginia Woolf

Continuing my recent re-reading of, as well as my longtime fascination with, Virginia Woolf’s amazing, groundbreaking novels (see also my posts of 2/26/10, 10/22/11, and 11/1/11, among other mentions of her and her work), I have just finished re-reading “The Waves.” I am, once again and more than ever, awestruck. I am enthralled by the breathtaking explorations of individuals’ consciousnesses in “Mrs. Dalloway” and “To the Lighthouse”; in “The Waves,” this exploration is taken still further, as Woolf creates a chorus of overlapping, blending voices of the inner thoughts and feelings of six friends whom she follows from small childhood to old age. The group meets several times over the years, and each time we get glimpses -- but only glimpses -- of the changes in their lives. The “story” (and it is far from a traditional narrative; Woolf herself once called it a “playpoem”) is revealed through alternating and interwoven interior monologues from the six characters (Bernard, Neville, Jinny, Susan, Rhoda and Louis). Although the characters’ soliloquies flow together, we gradually get a sense of each character’s individuality. However, there is still some uncertainty about the line between the individuals and the group as a whole (this uncertainty is clearly Woolf’s intention) and there is even, at the end, a question: “’Who am I?’ I have been talking of Bernard, Neville, Jinny, Susan, Rhoda and Louis. Am I all of them? Am I one and distinct? I do not know.” The effect of this purposeful blurring of boundaries is enhanced by the nine interludes between meetings --indicated by italics -- that indicate the slow rising and setting of the sun over the period of the characters’ lives, as if the dawns to the dusks of their lives represent one full metaphorical day. Each of these interludes portrays nature and the context of the characters’ lives, in sublime poetic language. And always, there are in these sections the sights and sounds of the waves. The waves are not literally part of the characters' meetings, but symbolize their advances and retreats toward and away from each other, and the eternal backdrop of their lives. Readers can connect to so much in the novel: the love and yet sometimes disconnection among the six lifelong friends, the stunning early loss of their dear friend and hero Percival, the ways they choose to live (single, married, with lovers, in business, in writing, in the country, in the city), their dependence on each other and yet sometimes wariness of each other, their insecurities, their epiphanies, their emotional fluctuations, the disjunctions between what they show the world of themselves and what they feel inside, and so much more. The overall impression given by the book is one of a symphony of sounds, words, feelings, events. There are many solos. Often instruments join in and then fade out. Most gloriously, sometimes the six stories and personalities blend in moments of divine transcendence.