By: Virginia Woolf
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In pure stream of consciousness style,
Woolf presents a cross-section of multiple yet parallel lives, each marked by
the disintegrating force of a mutual tragedy. The Waves is her searching
exploration of individual and collective identity, and the observations and
emotions of life, from simplicity and surging optimism of youth to the vacancy
and despair of middle –age.
There
are a few female figures in the writing world that I have frequently come
across with. There is Emily Dickinson with
her very famous and known poems; then, recently I found Toni Morrison (after her death) and about her novels and their
impacts on the readers, especially on the black communities; and then there was
Woolf, a writer I didn’t really think
I’d read but I, nonetheless, found myself crossing paths with on one too many
occasions.
While
choosing from the four books of hers that I purchased, I was not sure as to
pick which one of the four, for I lacked any relevant information about any of
her books. But Eric’s, a YouTuber and Book Blogger, list of his 100
Favorite Books gave me a very strong signal: The Waves was the first book on his list and, quite surprisingly,
he still defended, after many years since reading it, the position of this book
taking the first spot.
Now,
I would know that why he put it at the top of his list or why would anyone
else, for I am doing the very same thing: The
Waves is a darling of a novel and deserves to be at the top amongst the
other very near-hearted novels. This book is the charming, quiet, attentive,
warm and recurrently attractive novel, sitting proudly, for it knows you’d find
yourself coming back to it, yet humbly with its size of only 170 pages.
The Waves follows the lives of 6 close yet
individually unique friends, 3 boys and 3 girls, from their childhood days
filled with small pleasures, envy, curiosity, and love, and throughout till the
despairing, matured, tortured, and fulfilling days of their mid-lives. Their
different stories are bound with a tragic event, which is also mentioned in the
introductory paragraph (1st paragraph). And while it may seem like a
very typical story, which it is on the surface, and might also resemble
Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ – Woolf
nevertheless takes these 6 stories to a jaw-dropping, deep level of storytelling
with her ‘play-poem’, wonderfully unique, style of writing.
Woolf
wrote about The Waves, ‘I am writing to a rhythm and not to a plot’,
which says that the plot, that is pretty basic with having a single tragic
event that holds the stories together, is not the motivation and goal behind
her writing this book, but rather the ‘rhythm’ to which she has written this
novella. And a rhythm it is! Oh boy! It starts and then it doesn’t seem to
stutter or break to the very last line of this book – only changing narratives
and exploring different areas of life and of a person as it swiftly moves on.
One
might struggle, as I did initially, at the beginning of this book because the
narration is so different and fluent that it becomes hard to grasp everything
that is happening (which isn’t much by the way). On one hand, the characters
are described in such unorthodoxly, attentive details, that the reader might
even lose their names while being lost in their emotions, thoughts,
soliloquies; on the other, the plot is barely touched except the starting
paragraphs of each episodes (total 9) where the waves are described in
accordance with the surrounding, from sunrise to the sunset.
But
by the end of 1st episode
and the start of the 2nd
one, you automatically pick the rhythm with Woolf’s magical writing, and then
the sinking begins. From that point on, the reader would find himself in a
world where he has time to pay attention, think, feel and write about
everything that is happening inside and out. The flowing stories, swiftly
moving from Bernard to Neville, and from Susan to Jimmy, sucks the reader in as
he goes through the different emotions of his own that he never seemed to have
time to feel until this very moment, and also would find himself awing at
his/her long-going, sheer inattentiveness towards the world inside and around
him. He is, then, when completely lost in the lines of this book, an ant who
can see everything in big details, upon which, he stepped aloofly until now.
Woolf
doesn’t talk about anything outside of one’s visible reality, but rather takes
the reader on an eye-wide-opening journey where he/she finds out how much they
have been missing out on, while lost in the miseries of being a man She talks
about little pleasures, or even better, about little things that are ordinary
and ignorantly insignificant to our eyes and to our care and attention:
handkerchief, stones, waves, grass, insects, hair, pimples, fruits, trees, and
so on. Then she talks about ideas, perspectives, morals, and raises questions
that causes trouble and disturbance to our stagnant view of ourselves, others,
reality and life. And very swiftly and consoling, she then presents her answers
that lifts our buried hopes and revives your heart with available, abundant and
essential emotions and feelings: to care about now, about those dear to you,
about an ant, about a window, about a book and about love present in all the
things.
Such
is the quiet power of this wonderful, wonderful novel. In its 170 pages, it
opens your eyes, your mind and your heart to the emotions and details of very
ordinary lives that we have been living in an unlived way, and thus have costly
missed upon the abundance and joys of it. The poetic nature of the book with
its masterfully consistent fluency helps the reader to pause time in the middle
of sentences, and also in the surrounding he is in, and take notice of that: fleeting
memory, squeamish thought, moving insect, judgements about others, perceptions
about oneself and the reality, and of this and of that… and then, the reading
continues once again.
For
the days I spent reading this book, I picked up favorite time-sets when I
really enjoyed reading it with submitting my fullest attention: early mornings,
before dawn, in a quiet room with the softest kind of silence; sitting on a
garden bench with my naked feet upon the wet grass; and late into the nights
when I was completely alone and in the arms of embracing quietness. Reading
this book was a sheer joy, a prayer through being attentive, and a most
beautiful kind of introspection. I compellingly awed at Woolf’s wonderful,
divine thinking and attention, and also at my capacity to actually realize and
live these most ordinarily beautiful things said in this little book filled
with uncommon love and gladness.
While
novels and the pleasures they provide are subjective, this book is another step
further in that direction. Any reader that lacks the patience and a vast
capacity of thinking and imagination to take in and tune these abundant yet
exacting subtleties of every minute and big emotions and thoughts, might well
find it a boring read where the story is so lost in details that the plot seems
to go nowhere. But to a reader gifted with a bit of what Woolf possessed so
enormously, divine attentiveness and sensitivity, this book would proof to be
consoling in almost every way; for it will teach you to pay attention first to
yourself (inside and out) and then through those opened eyes and attentive eyes
and mind of yours, to all the laying wisdoms of every day, everything, and
everyone. It will teach you the art of living a fulfilled life.
No
matter how much one brags about the depth of each sentence of this book,
especially the ending sentences of each paragraph, or about the poetic and
beautiful way of presenting these 6 stories, or of the novel as a whole – it isn’t
enough. Until it is read, and read again, and again, and made a bedtime lullaby
or a morning prayer; until it becomes that book that you carry with you on all
trips or a book that you would read when you are alone all to yourself –
justice to this book is unfairly denied. It is a masterpiece like none other.
But
there are certain issues with the very characteristics of this book that make
this novel so wonderful: the poetic narrative of it which focuses more and
deeply on the lives of the 6 protagonists rather than the plot and the story;
secondly its sheer depth of it which flirts with your mind and almost wins it
over every time, and therefore, its requirement from the readers for their
wholesome attention and imagination within each sentences, especially (again)
the ending phrases of each paragraphs. Not every reader would be ready to put
such requiring effort and care in reading this book – without which, this novel
would definitely hit below its aim on the reader’s heart. One needs to live
with this little book as he reads it, one needs to: smile, think, feel, weep,
awe, hug and learn with this book. Now whether you can do it or not, it is up
to you; I did it and it was a wonderful experience.
An excerpt:
“Such is the incomprehensible
combination,' said Bernard, such is the complexity of things, that as I descend
the staircase I do not know which is sorrow, which joy. My son is born;
Percival is dead. I am upheld by pillars, shored up on either side by stark
emotions; but which is sorrow, which is joy? I ask, and do not know, only that
I need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour to consider
what has happened to my world, what death has done to my world.”
When
free from the burdens of reading more and more books every month, every year;
when free of the hustles of youth and free of living a fast-paced life; when
free of having no other favorite novels to read; and when free of reading and
writing and of living - I will read this book again, and again, and with the
slow pace that it requires and I will then cherish it much more than I have
been able to do now. I will live again with this novel, years later.
My praise for the novel:
Adorably
wonderful; a darling of a novel.
A
celebration of ordinary lives!
Ratings: 5/5 *****
A review by: Ejaz Hussain