The Waves by Virginia Woolf

I have read a lot of Virginia Woolf, including this novel. The girlfriend of one of my best friends in college was a big fan and turned me on to her. I think she’s incredible. This is one of my favorites and has been on my bookshelf for years. I was happy to re-read it.

The novel is written entirely as monologues delivered by six friends, three men and three women, named Bernard, Neville, Louis, Susan, Jinny, and Rhoda. There is no dialogue, although occasionally the character’s monologues will seem to influence each other, as though they can share each other’s thoughts. There is little action to speak of. The friends are introduced as children and they age through to old age by the end. One additional character, named Percival, has a profound effect on the six, in different ways. Many of their thoughts and meditations are about him, but we never enter his own thoughts directly and he remains a bit of a cipher. Percival is introduced as a friend from school, a heroic, beautiful, admired person. He goes to India as a young man and quickly dies there from a fall from a horse, leaving the other characters to make sense of the loss of one who seemed destined for so much more.

Beside the monologues there is a narrator, technically, though present only in the phrase, “said Bernard,” or “said Susan” (and so on) that marks the beginning of each monologue. An additional authorial voice writes descriptive passages that separate sections of monologues and mark divisions of time. Woolf follows an extended metaphor comparing the passing ages of a human life to the movement of the sun throughout a single day. Each one of these descriptive passages follows the same pattern: the position of the sun in the sky, the light on the sea and waves and shore, the light in the garden and the behavior of birds, the light as it shines on a house and through a window into the interior of the house. There are nine such passages, which work as chapters, though not numbered as chapters. Although the characters age from childhood to old age there are no references in the writing to a time setting. It all seems to happen in a permanent now, as though an entire human life passes in a single day.

Here are the sections of the day, like chapters:

Before dawn, “The sun had not yet risen” (p. 7) – followed by monologues from the six children as preschoolers playing outdoors and studying in a home nursery. The monologues in this section are multiple and often very short – sometimes just a sentence as befits the fleeting thoughts of children.

Just before dawn, “The sun rose higher” (p. 29) – the six children attend school. The boys go to one school the girls to another. The boys meet Percival. The monologues are longer now, a paragraph or two each, and alternating between the six.

Dawn, “The sun rose” (p. 73) – Bernard and Neville are at university. Louis has started working in an office. Susan has returned home to a family farm. Jinny and Rhoda live in the city. There are exactly six monologues, each of several pages in this order: Bernard, Neville, Louis, Susan, Jinny, Rhoda.

Morning, “The sun, risen…” (p. 108). The six friends meet for a dinner in the city. Percival is the guest of honor, who is soon to leave for India. The monologues are several, beginning with Bernard. The monologues come close to dialogue, here, as they pass ideas from one mind to another.

Noon, “The sun has risen to its full height.” (p. 148) Percival has died in India from a fall from a horse, the central action of the novel, and the central event of the character’s lives, coming at the center of the “day.” Only two characters have monologues in this short section: Neville and Rhoda.

Afternoon, “The sun no longer stood in the middle of the sky.” (p. 165) Louis is at work. Susan works on her farm. Jinny is in the city. Neville is in his study.

Late Afternoon, “The sun had now sunk lower in the sky. (p. 182) Bernard, who we haven’t heard from in two sections, takes a trip to Rome. Susan, Jinny, Neville, Louis, have their monologues. The final monologue is Rhoda’s who is traveling in Spain.

Sunset – “The sun was sinking.” (p. 207). The friends, older now, gather for another meal. They reflect on the earlier meal, feeling the absence of Percival. All have their monologues, beginning with Bernard.

Evening – “Now the sun had sunk.” (p. 236). The last section is a long monologue for Bernard alone. He begins with the phrase, “Now to sum up” and precedes to reflect back to the beginning of the novel and give us again scenes from the nursery, the school, the university, and so on.

The characters all speak the same poetic language and their language as preschoolers is the same as when they are adults. It may be that Woolf is signally that their monologues are not actual speech, or even recorded thoughts, but a non-verbal interior state. But though similar in language the characters distinguish themselves by individual themes and concerns.

Bernard initially aspires to be a writer. He makes sense of the world by telling stories, which entertain the others. He collects phrases in a notebook, planning to use them later when he finds the subject of his novel, but he never does write a novel. He marries and has children. It’s never clear what work he does. Bernard is concerned with the question of identity. He feels himself to be multiple. He cannot help when he meets another person, or sees a stranger on a train, for instance, but to imagine a story for them, which he does easily.

Neville is a poet. He moves from a universal love of human culture experienced through literature to a specific love of a single person: Percival. He achieves success as a poet.

Louis, because he is working-class and Australian, feels himself a perpetual outsider. With no money for university, he enters business directly. He is a success at work. He and Rhoda are lovers for a time. Louis seeks out the seamier sides of life, perhaps because he is more comfortable among the lower classes.

Susan is a country girl, a mother, practical. She marries and has children.

Jinny connects to her body and sexuality. She dances through life. She enjoys many lovers.

Rhoda is frightened and self-effacing. She imagines that there is a tiger behind every door. She thinks of herself as unworthy and awkward. She copies the speech and actions of Susan and Jinny because she doesn’t trust her own sense of how to live in the world. She never feels comfortable. She comes close to suicide during her trip to Spain, and dies of an unspecified suicide later, so Bernard reveals at the end.

In one interpretation of the novel it may be that Bernard is the only character and that the other five are aspects of himself. Of course, all six characters belong to Virginia Woolf’s creative consciousness. Or it may be that she presents six separate individuals who somehow share consciousness as a group identity, and maybe Woolf is arguing that all people are connected in this way in a universal consciousness. At the end of the novel Bernard has a mystical experience of losing his sense of self entirely. At first the experience frightens him and leaves him despondent. But then, as a sense of individuality returns he is transformed, in the Buddhist manner, liberated from the desires and fixations of a personality, ready to approach (but not to succumb to) death.

Without plot, or dialogue, or action, this might be, for some readers, a difficult read. But if approached as extended poetry, or meditation, or free-flowing consciousness, the novel is readable, and beautiful. The language is elevated and lovely. Woolf’s ideas are full of heart-ache and melancholy. It’s sad, in the way life can be, mysterious, confusing. But there is also an affirmation of the power of love and friendship, and the heroism of asserting one’s life against death, though life’s defeat is inevitable, is courageous and thrilling and worthy.