Discussion - Week Five - The Waves - Conclusions/The Book as a Whole

[Jim]

This discussion covers the book as a whole.


Here are a few questions which have been rattling around in my mind while we read The Waves.


1.) In her essay ‘Women and Fiction’ (1929), Virginia Woolf wrote:

The greater impersonality of women’s lives will encourage the poetic spirit, and it is in poetry that women’s fiction is still weakest. It will lead them to be less absorbed in facts and no longer content to record with astonishing acuteness the minute details which fall under their own observation. They will look beyond the personal and political relationships to the wider questions which the poet tries to solve – of our destiny and the meaning of life.

When I first read this, I imagined Woolf referring to the 19th century women writers who preceded her – George Eliot, Jane Austen, the Brontes. Now that we have finished The Waves, would you say that Woolf has addressed the wider questions of the poet?


2.) In her introduction to The Waves, Kate Flint writes:

In three earlier novels…Woolf had moved away from conventional patterns of plot, repudiating the importance which she claimed novelists such as Arnold Bennett and H.G. Wells had placed on material, rather than spiritual, existence, and claiming that the novel’s true task is the complex one of representing character. Here, she goes further than previously in the direction of demonstrating that identity, rather than depending on the concrete circumstances of a person’s life, is primarily constructed from within through an individual’s deployment of language.

In the Waves, Woolf minimized plot and essentially excluded direct dialogue. The ‘soliloquies’ become internal monologues which indirectly comment on what is ‘happening’ and who they are ‘addressing’, albeit without actually speaking to one another.

How did this affect your ability to follow the story? Were you able to understand who these characters were? Was there enough information to understand what was happening? Is this experimental form that Woolf chose a reasonable and/or valid method for writing a novel? For exploring character?


3.) Early on, Lily posted an excerpt from one of Woolf’s letters:

'The six characters are supposed to be one. I’m getting old myself – I shall be fifty next year, and I come to feel more and more how difficult it is to collect oneself into one Virginia; even though the special Virginia in whose body I live for the moment is violently susceptible to all sorts of separate feelings. Therefore I wanted to give the sense of continuity.' (Letters IV, 397)

Looking back on The Waves, do you perceive the book as being about six distinct characters? Can you imagine the six characters’ personalities as being six facets of a single personality? If this idea from Woolf’s letter is new to you, how does this change your understanding of the book, if at all?


These are my big questions. Feel free to respond to any or all of these, as well as asking and answering your own questions and ideas about the book.

[William]

The idea of the six being facets or potential facets of a single mind made the book far more understandable to me, before I had read that the six characters seemed hard to distinguish for me, feeling as though it was once voice and not six.

I didn't have an especially difficult time following the narrative thread she left for the reader, perhaps the decades of experimental film with non-linear narrative has prepared a modern reader (well, one who watches art films?) better than a reader of the times possibly could have been?

It seems a perfectly splendid manner of writing the novel, and I enjoy it, but here's my central problem: I found myself steadily losing my enthusiasm for the book beginning at #4 and progressing as I went, and I have no idea why. It wasn't me, my diet, sleep patterns, other books, time management, etc. It was something in the text, and I cannot seem to put my finger on it. Perhaps one of the more accomplished analysts could tell me what was bothering me. For me, and as someone else posted recently in one of the earlier section discussions, as the book progressed, and seemed to lose some of the lyric qualities of childhood, I had a harder time enjoying the text.

It's unrelated, but this book may have been called the waves, but there are so many references to birds, you might as well called it "The Birds", and the sheer number of them kept distracting me, as I have one of those annoying minds that can't help seeing patterns.

In conclusion, I think this book is one I will reread slowly once or twice more over the years, continuing to tease out the essence of Ms. Woolf, and why I reacted to it they way I did, in order to learn more about both.

[Whitney]

Will wrote: "I found myself steadily losing my enthusiasm for the book beginning at #4 and progressing as I went, and I have no idea why...."

I had a similar experience, becoming less enthralled with the book as it progressed, although I continued to appreciate its poetics. I agree about the lyricism of childhood, the style was perfect for capturing the impressions of children discovering their relation to the world and each other, and constant self-reflection was appropriate for their college days as well. By the time they were adults, though, I started finding the character’s self-absorption annoying.

Regarding the separation of the characters, declaring them different facets of a single personality would make the book even more solipsistic and, in my opinion, diminish it considerably. Many of the themes are about how people are defined by other people - isn’t this idea wiped out if they are really only one person?

[Ashley]

First of all, I have to say I loved this book! This is definitely a book I will reread in years to come. Virginia Woolf is awesome. Now to get a little more specific:

Will wrote: "It seems a perfectly splendid manner of writing the novel, and I enjoy it, but here's my central problem: I found myself steadily losing my enthusiasm for the book beginning at #4 and progressing as I went, and I have no idea why..."

I agree--I loved the narrative style of The Waves! Although I wouldn't say I lost enthusiasm as the book progressed, I do sort of understand what you're saying about the later sections of the book. There was a shift, I think, in the style. The soliloquies seemed longer, more consciously philosophical, and perhaps more pessimistic? Personally, I still enjoyed the later sections, but there did seem to be a change.

Jim wrote: "How did this affect your ability to follow the story? Were you able to understand who these characters were? Was there enough information to understand what was happening? Is this experimental form that Woolf chose a reasonable and/or valid method for writing a novel? For exploring character?"

I did not have a particularly difficult time following the story. Interesting point, Will, about art/experimental films with a non-linear narrative as preparation. I had not thought about it, but I enjoy those types of films as well, so perhaps that made it easier for me to follow Woolf's style here.

[Traveller]

Sorry for changing the subject, but earlier today I managed to squeeze in some Derrida, and I was thinking about the ideas of literary form and the interconnectedness of words, meanings and so forth, and about experimentation with literary conventions and so on.

The subject of what I was reading about, was actually Derrida and his idea of différance, and how Derrida discourses on how meaning keeps being built out progressively the more you write about a certain subject.

Suddenly I started thinking about The Waves, and how "meaning" or context is built out in concentric circles like the ripples on a pond after you had dropped a stone into it, in The Waves.

When you start the novel, nothing makes any sense at all. Then each soliloquy starts rippling out, adding to your idea of the character who utters it more and more, and the soliloqies' ripples start to intersect one another, and you also start getting a better and better idea of the background setting, and so on.

Then I thought: "Virginia wrote The Waves quite a while before Derrida coined différance. Could he possibly have been influenced to some extent by a work like The Waves?

Anyway, so to me the structure of the novel is like six pebbles that have been tossed into a pond, and the waves of the ripples weaves a story, or forms a certain pattern.

[Erika]

Will wrote: "It's unrelated, but this book may have been called the waves, but there are so many references to birds, you might as well called it "The Birds", and the sheer number of them kept distracting me, as I have one of those annoying minds that can't help seeing patterns.
"

I was a bit distracted by the birds as well.


My ideas about the book are not very well formed, so forgive me if I ramble a bit. I've been wrestling with Woolf's statement that all six characters are supposed to be one. Throughout the reading I thought of them as individuals. I liked the influence and close connection that existed among them (in the beginning it seems less conscious but more powerful/intimate, in later chapters the the characters seem more self-conscious of their connections to one another, however perhaps more distant). I wonder how to explain the last meeting and Rhoda's death in terms of them all being one. On a more personal level, I find it very hard to see myself as composed of numerous distinct individuals, though I would say that that there is no doubt that aspects of certain friends and friendships have somehow become a part of who I am.

I did not have any particular problem following the narrative and differentiating the voices (after the very beginning of the first section, which I had to read a couple times over to acclimate myself).

I agree that something changes in the later chapters. Do you think the shift coincides with the death of Percival?

[Erika]

Traveller wrote: "Anyway, so to me the structure of the novel is like six pebbles that have been tossed into a pond, and the waves of the ripples weaves a story, or forms a certain pattern."

I love your image! I imagine that the ripples weave a story as they intersect and overlap. Lovely!

[Linda]

I saw I enjoyed The Waves throughout. Some of the more puzzling parts of the book I am anxious to bring up. Hopefully some of you more experienced readers can help me with them.

First question: (I brought it up in part one but no one commented on it.)
2. In part one, Bernard takes Susan on an imaginary journey to Elvdon where they see (through Bernard's imagination) men sweeping, a willow tree, and a woman sitting in a window writing. I wondered then if Virginia Woolf didn't write herself into this story. There she is, creating characters as she goes and one of them, Bernard, gets too close to her world. Maybe even too close for her comfort. Maybe Bernard was becoming too real to life. Bernard intuits this. "Run!" he says. We shall be shot...and pinned to the wall! We are in a hostile country." "Don't look back, they will think we are foxes. Run!" Even Susan was afraid, "If we died here, nobody would bury us." I took that to mean, if we are found out she will stop writing and we will no longer exist. For susan, it was all a game, but Bernard took it quite literally. And he begins to wonder, 'am I real?' 'Are any of us real?'

So I wondered if Bernard didn't persue the life of a story teller to find out. Were his characters, his tales real? Well...not if they don't have an ending, I suppose.

In answer to Jims question, "Did Woolf address the question of the poets? I'd say yes. Don't they all want to know if anything is real? Does free will exist or are we all make-believe stories of a higher imagination? Does that higher imagination include a predestination for its characters or are we moving along as a current in their mind?

Bernard comes to the conclusion, in my understanding, that divine intervention cannot be trumped and it leaves him depressed. As a story teller, himself, he hoped for more control.

Something else bothered me. In Bernard's final sililoquy, starting somewhere around page 291/292, he suddenly starts talking to "you." I'm wondering who is he talking to? My thoughts were that he finally admits that he does not measure up to the story teller in the window (his creator), that he has been an imposter, and that his only control in life is to take his own life, "Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyeilding, O Death!" and on page, after discovering that he has failed in life he curses "you."

One more thing: Bernard speaks of the eclipse on page 286: "How then does light return to the world after the eclipse of the sun? Miraculously." My question: what metaphor does the eclipse of the sun represent?

[Linda]

Going back to page one, I know, I know, that's a long ways behind us, This strikes me as Virginia, again, imposing herself into the story.

"Behind it, too, the sky cleared as if the white sediment there had sunk, or as if the arm of a woman couched beneath the horizon had raised a lamp and flat bars of white, green and yellow, spread across the sky like the blades of a fan. Then she raised her lamp higher and the air seemed to become fibrous and to tear away from the green surface flickering and flaming in red and yellow fibres like the smoky fire that roars from a bonfire." By the way, these very colors are the ones Bernard describes in his eclipse of the sun in the passage I spoke of in the above post. Continuing... "Slowly the arm that held the lamp raised it higher and then higher until a broad flame became visible; an arc of fire burnt on the rim of the horizon, and all round it the sea blazed gold." Sounds a lot like Bernard's eclipse, doesn't it?

[Ashley]

Linda wrote: " In part one, Bernard takes Susan on an imaginary journey to Elvdon where they see (through Bernard's imagination) men sweeping, a willow tree, and a woman sitting in a window writing. I wondered then if Virginia Woolf didn't write herself into this story. There she is, creating characters as she goes and one of them, Bernard, gets too close to her world. Maybe even too close for her comfort. Maybe Bernard was becoming too real to life. Bernard intuits this. "Run!" he says. We shall be shot..."

I like your interpretation, Linda!

Erika wrote: "I agree that something changes in the later chapters. Do you think the shift coincides with the death of Percival? "

You know, I hadn't thought of the timing, but it does seem like it may coincide with Percival's death. I think it's possible that they are connected in some way.

[Rachel]

I fell in love with this book, and as soon as I was finished, I wanted to read it again and to grab everyone I saw and tell them to read it too, so I guess the unusual form did work for me! Given that it is a densely packed, 300-page prose poem that I had to read really, really slowly, I was a little surprised how much pure pleasure I felt in reading it, not just admiration for its technical virtuosity.

Ashley wrote: Erika wrote: "I agree that something changes in the later chapters. Do you think the shift coincides with the death of Percival? "

"You know, I hadn't thought of the timing, but it does seem like it may coincide with Percival's death. I think it's possible that they are connected in some way."

Oh interesting. Maybe as the shadow of death separates them from their youth, the sunnier, simpler soliloquies get harder edges in maturity? Or maybe I shouldn't say "them" because...

Jim wrote: "The six characters are supposed to be one." Well, then. There's that.

I agree with Whitney that this does seem to diminish the power of some of the themes. If this is what Woolf said, I find it especially peculiar (as I think was discussed way back when) that ALL the males are writers, while the females are a passionate fire, a loving/hating maternal and earthbound figure, and then the watery Rhoda, who is given an often beautiful and complex inner life, but a fearful and limited outer one. What gives, Virginia????

But then, as Linda points out, there is the recurring image of the writing woman and the lamp-raising woman, which cannot be coincidental!

[Jim]

Rachel wrote: "I fell in love with this book, and as soon as I was finished, I wanted to read it again and to grab everyone I saw and tell them to read it too, so I guess the unusual form did work for me! Given t..."

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Not as well known as Mrs. Dalloway, but an excellent book worth recommending to others.

BTW, just because Woolf conceived the six characters as facets of a single personality doesn't mean she succeeded in accomplishing/communicating her original idea.

All kidding aside, Woolf did struggle with various mental health problems and maybe these facets represented her perception of her personality. For me, I just didn't see it that way...

[Erika]

Jim wrote: "All kidding aside, Woolf did struggle with various mental health problems and maybe these facets represented her perception of her personality. For me, I just didn't see it that way..."

I was thinking about this too. In a way the book becomes then--and especially in relation to the quote--a very personal effort to attain continuity of self.

It's fascinating to think that maybe she wasn't effective in accomplishing her original idea (because of its highly personal nature perhaps?), but at the same time to think that she accomplished a great deal and the book is still potent and beautiful and successful. The book is not at all quotidian in the manner she criticizes in the "Women & Fiction" quote. The whole concept of the waves, and Woolf's manner of expression, is, for me, a profound attempt to address "the wider questions which the poet tries to solve – of our destiny and the meaning of life."

[William]

For me, the book still works better with the 6 being aspects of a mind, not always working together, or simultaneously. I don't think gender separations within the 6 are relevant for precisely that reason, the feminine within the male, or the masculine within the female. It reminds me more of Ying and Yang in the Chinese Taiji symbol than something relevant to the changing face of Feminism.

And anyway, no artist can be expected to always successfully carry the flag bearing their image across the field of battle. That isn't their goal, and they're not only human, but perhaps in a manner of speaking even more endearingly human than most of us.

Confusing the issue is the suggestion that the characters represent some aspects or imitation of real people, as many suggest, with suggestions that Bernard was E.M. Forster and Louis, T.S. Eliot....well, I didn't know E.M. Forster (although I wish I did) so I have no idea about that.

But as was pointed out at the beginning, she wrote in her diary that "I shall be fifty next year, and I come to feel more and more how difficult it is to collect oneself into one Virginia". Which is something I'm sure any of us over say, 25 have probably felt any number of times. As an artist myself I often feel the tug of one aspect of myself against another, competing desires and values, all equally valid (as judged against whatever central reckoning of our morals and ethics in the courtroom of the magistrate of our souls). I don't think I'd give them names, however. I'd be the next Sybil.

I'm also fascinated that she thought that instead of a novel, this could be considered a "playpoem". Thoughts about that?

[Nancy]

Will wrote: "The idea of the six being facets or potential facets of a single mind made the book far more understandable to me, before I had read that the six characters seemed hard to distinguish for me, feeli..."

My thoughts exactly.

[Nancy]

Whitney wrote: "By the time they were adults, though, I started finding the character’s self-absorption annoying."

Me too. I found myself zoning out more as the soliloquies grew longer. It seemed that all they could do was whine about themselves. I had to re-listen several times (I'm doing the audiobook version) as the book went on.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy The Waves. Quite the opposite, actually. I liked the style of story telling and it brought up a lot of interesting observations of the self.

[Nancy]

Traveller wrote: "Anyway, so to me the structure of the novel is like six pebbles that have been tossed into a pond, and the waves of the ripples weaves a story, or forms a certain pattern."

Erika wrote: "I love your image!"

I really liked this comment as well. It gave me a wonderful image in my mind of six pebbles thrown in teh water, initially making six individual circular waves that gradually bump into each other and roll over each other, forming new shapes as they blend together, and finally passing each other as they grow bigger and then fade away. Absolutely lovely!

[Traveller]

Nancy wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Erika wrote: "I love your image!"

I really liked this comment as well. It gave me a wonderful image in my mind of six pebbles thrown in teh water, initially ..."

Thank you, Erika and Nancy! :)

Regarding the 6 characters as one characters, just a few thoughts:
I thought it was a given that Bernard was to some extent based on
E. M. Forster, Louis on T. S. Eliot, and Neville on Lytton Strachey.

But then there is the excerpt from the letter that Jim mentioned, where Woolf declares the 6 to be one.

Well, obviously, physically speaking in the novel they are six separate people.

However, all people have opposing aspects in their personalities, some people just integrate these better than others. (In a well-integrated person, choice might be harder, for instance; -your conservative side might be saying "better not do this!" while you daredevil side might be saying" "do it already!"

So all of us, at times, have opposing parts that "talk" to each other in our heads, and this is notably when we are wavering about some decision.

Also, we do absorb some aspects of people around us, maybe more so when they are writers, Virginia did mention in a letter she wrote, that E.M Forster's work had to some extent influenced her own.

Maybe the six people in The Waves are, while 3 of them are based on separate real-life people, an attempt by Woolf to have different aspects of her personality function together in one environment.

Maybe it was harder for her to do the male character's inner monologues, which is why she partly based them on real-life characters.

I have often thought about how I would have a male act or think if he was my protagonist. Since I am female, it would indeed be harder in some aspects to "imagine" myself into the mind of a male than a female, and perhaps Virginia was thinking: "How would Tom react in these circumstances, what would Morgan (EM Forster) have been thinking?"

Anyway, I haven't had time to read the essay that includes the following quote, but I'm going to give it a bash as soon as I have the time: Quoted from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi... : "In a letter to Ethel Smyth on 21 Sept. 1930, Virginia Woolf spoke of her friend Morgan Forster as "E. M. Forster the novelist, whose books once influenced mine, and are very good, I think, though impeded, shrivelled and immature" (Letters 4: 218). In earlier letters Woolf had often alluded to Forster's influence, even insisting on one occasion that "I always feel that nobody, except perhaps Morgan Forster, lays hold of the thing I have done" (14 June 1925; Letters 3: 188). By 1930 this literary friendship had continued for more than two decades and was characterized by the kind of edginess that often marks the relationships of highly competitive artists. During the same year, Forster recorded his own anxieties about Woolf in a note that we find in his Commonplace Book: "Visit to Virginia, prospects of, not wholly pleasurable. I shall watch her curiosity and flattery exhaust themselves in turn. Nor does it do to rally the Pythoness" (54). These comments, written when both writers were well launched as established novelists and public figures, give some indication of the complex literary friendship that goaded and nourished both writers. In this essay we shall explore how that relationship manifests itself in two of their best-known novels, Howards End and The Waves, through significant parallels in their thematics, narrative voice, and imagery'"

[Traveller]

Mmmm... aren't the characters in The Waves also actually the Bloombury group? They were a unit in the sense that they were a group that had similar ideas or goals: ok, sure, there weren't 3 girls, but Virginia probably did feel fragmented enough to make up 2 or three people? :P

I know JM Keynes and some other people were also part of Bloomsbury, but maybe Virginia felt that there was a group within a group that more tightly influenced one another.

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "Mmmm... aren't the characters in The Waves also actually the Bloombury group? They were a unit in the sense that they were a group that had similar ideas or goals: ok, sure, there weren't 3 girls,..."

All excellent questions! The EM Forster material is especially interesting. I suppose a bit of extra research would be needed to match up characters to people, and of course, there is likely cross-over and fabrication involved since it's fiction. I think you're right about using specific males she knew to help her form those characters.

There is a Blooomsbury group where it might be interesting to pose some of these questions and see what comes up:

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/5...

I wish I had some free time to read the Hermione Lee biography , and her journals, and letters, and call her on my Ouija board, etc...

[Traveller]

Jim wrote: "I wish I had some free time to read the Hermione Lee biography..."

Ugh, I know, Jim. I have it lying on my shelf next to my desk and it's so thick..

Listen, I know I should probably look for a more appropriate thread to ask this, but could we do Mrs Dalloway sometime once we've done a few other authors for balance?

[Ellen]

Compared to The Waves, Mrs. Dalloway (which I happen to love) is kind of Dick and Jane.

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "Listen, I know I should probably look for a more appropriate thread to ask this, but could we do Mrs Dalloway sometime once we've done a few other authors for balance?"

Seems appropriate to ask here...

I was thinking about choosing another Woolf book, but was leaning towards the experimental side, maybe Orlando or Jacob's Room. However, if folks would like to read Mrs. Dalloway, we could certainly do that.

Any takers for Mrs. Dalloway?

[Traveller]

Ellie wrote: "Compared to The Waves, Mrs. Dalloway (which I happen to love) is kind of Dick and Jane."

I know. I'll openly admit that my reasons are selfish. I've never even read Mrs Dalloway, but besides that I had it on my "to-read" short list anyway, I also have it as a set work for a lit. course this year. And I really like this group, so it would really be nice to do it with you guys. I'd also love to do a Faulkner novel with you guys, either As I Lay Dying or The Sound and the Fury.

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "I know. I'll openly admit that my reasons are selfish. I've never even read Mrs Dalloway, but besides that I had it on my "to-read" short list anyway, I also have it as a set work for a lit. course this year. And I really like this group, so it would really be nice to do it with you guys. I'd also love to do a Faulkner novel with you guys, either As I Lay Dying or The Sound and the Fury. "

What most groups do is set up "Buddy Reads" in parallel with the main group reads. We can easily do that here. Gather a few buddies for Mrs. D., and it's a go!

Coincidentally, we will be reading some Faulkner this spring. I haven't announced it yet, but The Sound and the Fury will be a part of a themed read - called a "Cluster Headache" in the parlance of BP - which will begin mid-April. TS&TF will start in May.

[Traveller]

Jim wrote: "What most groups do is set up "Buddy Reads" in parallel with the main group reads. We can easily do that here. Gather a few buddies for Mrs. D., and it's a go!..."

Thanks Jim!

Jim wrote: "Coincidentally, we will be reading some Faulkner this spring. I haven't announced it yet, but The Sound and the Fury will be a part of a themed read - called a "Cluster Headache" in the parlance of BP - which will begin mid-April. TS&TF will start in May.
."
Whoopie! That's very good news, will be keeping my eyes glued, thanks so much! :D

EDIT: Oh boo, I've just realized that this will fall in my exam-time. The book-reads I want to participate in on GR always seem to fall into difficult time-frames for me.

I've really been wanting to do TS&TF in a group, so I'll just have to see if I can find a workaround.

[Rachel]

Thank you, Will and Traveller, for bringing up the parallels between the characters in The Waves and the Bloomsbury group. That does add another dimension to these questions of intent and ultimate message. Also, Jim, considering Woolf's particular personality adds an interesting slant as well.

I think that this book, perhaps more than most texts, is not well served by a single, strict interpretation. I still like to read it as both a beautiful portrayal of negotiating the selves contained within one ("When I say Bernard, who comes?") and the development of an individual identity in concert with outside relationships. Woolf has powerful and poignant things to say about each, and I think the fluidity of the overarching sea metaphor can easily accommodate both themes.

Will wrote: "For me, the book still works better with the 6 being aspects of a mind, not always working together, or simultaneously. I don't think gender separations within the 6 are relevant for precisely that reason, the feminine within the male, or the masculine within the female. It reminds me more of Ying and Yang in the Chinese Taiji symbol than something relevant to the changing face of Feminism. "

Nice points! I'm not a fan of rigid, binary interpretations of gender, and can definitely appreciate one self containing elements of "masculine" and "feminine." But thinking about a reading in which the six characters represent parts of one personality, and that, perhaps, even of Virginia Woolf, I'm still troubled by the gender division among the selves. This book has clearly been wrought so carefully; I don't think the characters' traits were assigned at random, irrespective of gender. For an author -- particularly one who gave considerable thought to what it meant to be a woman writing during this time -- to place the acts of creative writing and story telling so firmly in the "masculine" camp just doesn't sit well with me, somehow.

I'd be interested to hear more about your idea that this could be a "play poem."

P.S. I'd be so excited to read The Sound and the Fury! I've read Mrs. Dalloway a few times, but would be interested in reading it again, after having read this book. I agree with Ellie: Mrs. D. seems quite straightforward in comparison!

[Traveller]

Yes, I've also been troubled from the start about the fact that she assigns the writing aspect to the male gender in the book, and not one of the females have literary aspirations. That does cast doubt, doesn't it, on the idea that the characters in the novel are separate people.

It might be, that Woolf saw in her own yin/yang aspects, the writer in herself as part of her 'male' side.

For instance, I see some of my own interests (the love of strategy video games, for example) as "more masculine", and other aspects (my nurturing aspect, for instance,) as more feminine.

This is just a shot in the dark.

You're making me want to read that article I linked to now. Who knows, it might shed some light. I'll report back on it if I get through it.

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "Yes, I've also been troubled from the start about the fact that she assigns the writing aspect to the male gender in the book, and not one of the females have literary aspirations. That does cast d..."

From the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition I'm reading:

In its early stages, Woolf conceived of The Waves as the representation of 'A mind thinking'; not a sexless, or androgynous mind, but the mind of a woman: 'But who is she? I am very anxious that she should have no name. I don't want a Livinia or a Penelope: I want "She"'. Immediately she qualified herself:'But that becomes arty, Liberty, greenery yallery somehow: symbolic in loose robes'. If even the anonymous, mystical figure of a woman cannot exist for Woolf without bringing with her various cultural associations which cling to her very pronoun, it is unsurprising that direct reference to her gender is submerged.

(Woolf quotes from The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. III, 28 May 1929, pg.230)

And so making the male characters the writers might just be a simple foil in anticipation of those who would point to one of the female characters and say "that one represents Woolf".

[Traveller]

I think it would be of interest to read a bit of background on the extraordinary dynamic that existed between Woolf and Forster. From http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi... : >>>For instance, four years after focusing so heavily in To the Lighthouse on the Freudian family drama, Woolf presents seven characters in The Waves, none of whom appears to have siblings. Similarly, allusions to parents, spouses, or children in The Waves tend to be fleeting and mostly insignificant. We hear early in the novel, for instance, that Bernard is engaged, but it is not until his final monologue that he tells us in passing that he has fathered children. In a strange response to Forster's criticism that she did not give "life" to her characters, Woolf denies the characters in The Waves almost all forms of "connection," ironically inverting a judgment she makes in her diary that Forster himself was "aloof" (3: 152). Whereas Forster portrays the extraordinary power of family bonds in Howards End, Woolf seems intent in The Waves upon ignoring the extensive, indeed determinative powers of the family.

In fact, the awareness of separateness and difference - the movement out of a prelapsarian oneness - marks the first apprehensions of the characters in The Waves and remains a driving force throughout the narrative: in his final monologue, Bernard remembers that, as children, "We suffered terribly as we became separate bodies" (241). That experience of separateness does not, however, acknowledge separation from the mother, since the family scarcely exists in The Waves. And while Woolf avoids certain inscriptions of traditional family elements, she does include, as the first break in the novel, the British compulsion to separate the sexes during adolescence. The characters' destinies are henceforth marked by gender, and the schools they attend are differently endowed. Authority, history, and fellowship compensate for some of the less positive aspects of the boys' boarding-school experience. By contrast, the boarding school of the three girls is like a holding cell: sterile, confining, regimented. One is reminded of the descriptions in A Room of One's Own of the differences between male and female Oxbridge colleges, particularly their dinner tables. The boys in The Waves are inspired by the speakers at chapel; they become poets on the river banks, lounging in friendship amid the luxury of metaphysical speculations. Woolf clearly envied and idealized the Cambridge experiences of her brothers and their friends, which she felt had been denied to her. Moreover, she grants none of the female characters a destiny she would have desired for herself (although she does write aspects of herself into each): Susan the housemother/earthmother; Rhoda the psychological misfit; Jinny the narcissist. Although Woolf severs her characters from oppressive Victorian/Edwardian family structures, she does not incorporate positive plot options into their adult lives.

This does not mean she treats all characters with strict evenhandedness. Although unhappy, Neville has his poetry, and Louis is one of those powerful men who make the world run. Percival experiences the fate of an athlete dying young, embalmed forever in the amber of Victorian masculinity. And Bernard, whose voice increasingly comes to dominate the novel, completely filling the last 20 percent of it, comes to be a spokesperson for the author. But his ironic, worldly, and somewhat exhausted wisdom seems finally based less on Woolf herself and more on her friend Morgan, in persona, age, and physique, "a rather heavy, elderly man, grey at the temples" (238). (Forster was in his early 50s when The Waves was published.(7)) What does this reliance on Bernard's voice suggest? Is Woolf invoking Forster's voice, consciously or unconsciously, to represent a kind of authority? If so, does she, through this displacement, express envy for the kind of narratorial authority possible only to a male voice of the dominant culture? Or is Woolf trying to show us, through Bernard, the failure of a life lived through the point of view of someone like Forster?

<<<


..and so forth. Interesting stuff.

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "I think it would be of interest to read a bit of background on the extraordinary dynamic that existed between Woolf and Forster. From http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi......"

Good article, but the writers' scholarship is questionable based on this statement:

We hear early in the novel, for instance, that Bernard is engaged, but it is not until his final monologue that he tells us in passing that he has fathered children.

Au contraire, Hoffman and Haar. In Section 5, Bernard is tormented by the conflicting emotions he is feeling about the birth of his son and the news of Percival's death... just sayin'...

[Traveller]

Jim wrote: "Good article, but the writers' scholarship is questionable based on this statement:

We hear early in the novel, for instance, that Bernard is engaged, but it is not until his final monologue that he tells us in passing that he has fathered children.
."

Hmm, ok. But a lot of the points are pretty interesting, and helps to put a lot of things in context for me. Especially, for instance the bit about how Virginia had more freedom to write about homosexuality, whereas Forster had more freedom to espouse feminism.

It seems like if you were a woman, you'd lose your credibility if you wrote in a feminist manner, and if you were homosexual, you dare not let it show.

So they had to almost, so as to speak, "help each other out", and jealously look over the other's shoulder regarding the freedoms they themselves lacked.

I've thought of the whole feminist (and of course the same thing goes for homosexuality) "quest for freedom/equality" as being locked in a cage which you yourself have not been given the key to.
If you're inside the cage, you need someone outside it to unlock it for you. If you're a woman, you need to get men on your side first in order to be let out of the cage.

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "Hmm, ok. But a lot of the points are pretty interesting, and helps to put a lot of things in context for me..."

Absolutely, but the error weakens their thesis a bit. Louis mentions his father umpteen times, which clearly recognizes the determinative powers of the family., not to mention Susan's extensive mention of her father and her children. One of the pitfalls of internet "scholarship" is the lack of peer review and/or editorial review before publication.

Just sayin'...

[Traveller]

Although, may I posit, that what they actually meant was that family, although mentioned by the characters, never play an active role.

I mean, I myself was struck by (and rather puzzled by) the lack of family in The Waves, especially in the opening parts of the novel, where you would expect children (even in Britian) to at least to some extent to be close to a family.

..but the absence of family is actually emphasised, I thought, by the fact that we know that these people have mothers and fathers and family, since they're being mentioned (and often by other characters, not themselves) but the family members never really feature in the action, (except for Susan) and you never really see them functioning as a family in a family context.

..and although Bernard is a father, he doesn't really seem happy with the procreative duties of humanity.

[Traveller]

Oh, and they do mention Susan as an exception; being a symbol of the earth mother.

..and isn't the reason that Louis mentions so often that his father is a banker in Brisbane, rather to emphasise Louis's pre-occupation with his outsidership, and his acute awareness of the importance of class, nationality and belonging?

To me, it also really really emphasises how distant his father really is - far away in foreign country in a continent on the other side of the world.

[Erika]

Jim wrote: "In its early stages, Woolf conceived of The Waves as the representation of 'A mind thinking'; not a sexless, or androgynous mind, but the mind of a woman: 'But who is she? ..."

This fits in quite well with Linda's theories of Woolf writing herself in as creator/writer in the window.

[Erika]

By the by, I would be happy to re-read Mrs. Dalloway and would love to re-read Jacob's Room. I haven't read Orlando :/, so that would be fun too. Faulkner would also be great, esp. The Sound & The Fury!!

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "Although, may I posit, that what they actually meant was that family, although mentioned by the characters, never play an active role.

I mean, I myself was struck by (and rather puzzled by) the ..."

If you consider that The Waves is an experimental novel whose focus is on the relationships between these six characters and their perceptions of their individual selves, I can't see why they would be comparing it to Howard's End, a traditional novel whose focus is on families and class struggle - like comparing apples to orangutans, no?

Anyway, I don't want to belabor the point. The article has its merits, but their thesis is suspect, at best.

[Ashley]

Rachel wrote: "I'm not a fan of rigid, binary interpretations of gender, and can definitely appreciate one self containing elements of "masculine" and "feminine." But thinking about a reading in which the six characters represent parts of one personality, and that, perhaps, even of Virginia Woolf, I'm still troubled by the gender division among the selves..."

I'm a believer of Butler's gender performativity theory--a non-essentialist view of gender--so I also appreciate the notion of self as containing both traditionally "masculine" and "feminine" elements. The gender divide of the characters also troubled me, particularly the men as authors, as has been mentioned. I couldn't quite figure out what she was attempting to say with that. Perhaps it was meant to make a statement about gender roles, but I didn't feel that it was very clear.

P.S. I'd be in for a Mrs. Dalloway discussion! I've never read it, but I actually bought it a couple of weeks ago. And I'm excited for The Sound and the Fury as well :)

[Traveller]

Oh, goody, it looks like we might have enough takers for Mrs Dalloway after all! How many do we need, Jim?

I'm not in a hurry, around late June, early July would be good for me, what does everyone else think? Does Jim put the book on the to-read shelf if there are enough takers, or how does it work?

[Erika]

Anytime in June suits me.

[Jim]

Traveller wrote: "Oh, goody, it looks like we might have enough takers for Mrs Dalloway after all! How many do we need, Jim?

I'm not in a hurry, around late June, early July would be good for me, what does everyo..."

Only takes two to have a discussion - LOL!

Let's pencil in Monday, June 25th as a start date. We can revisit the topic mid-May and confirm dates, etc.

Does anyone have a copy? How many pages is Mrs. D.? Would 4 weeks be long enough? let me know...

[Erika]

As I recall it's quite short. I'll go check my copy (which is pretty old!!).

*roughly 200 pp (my old HBJ version is 194) and I think it's one long piece without chapters.

[Lindsay]

I'm also one that found it a little difficult to get into this book which kind of surprised me, something like this is usually right up my alley. I loved the idea that the book was nothing but exploring the minds of the characters. And I really did like the way the book was written and I felt there was at least enough in the story to paint quite a good picture of the surroundings.

I did have a hard time distinguishing each character from each other. So when I read that all six characters are supposed to be one, I thought that maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, heh.

[Traveller]

Jim wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Oh, goody, it looks like we might have enough takers for Mrs Dalloway after all! How many do we need, Jim?

I'm not in a hurry, around late June, early July would be good for me..."

That date sounds perfect for me, I hope it suits everyone. Thanks so much! :)

Lindsay wrote: "I did have a hard time distinguishing each character from each other. So when I read that all six characters are supposed to be one, I thought that maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, heh...."

Hmm. Though I do think that one must look at it on a kind of layered level. On one level, in the purely physical world, I think there are supposed to be 6 different people. Another would be that they represent aspects of Virginia's mind or personality. On another level, one may see it from a universalist point of view in that all is one, and one is all.

[Jim]

Lindsay wrote: "I'm also one that found it a little difficult to get into this book which kind of surprised me, something like this is usually right up my alley. I loved the idea that the book was nothing but expl..."

There's the "right book, wrong time" phenomenon that all readers experience from time to time. The first time I read it (early 80's) I was pretty much "meh". This time, much more enjoyable and engaging. Put it on your future re-read list...

@Traveller On another level, one may see it from a universalist point of view in that all is one, and one is all.

Kind of like a Buddhist perspective, we are all part of one cosmic consciousness. I can see that.

[Lindsay]

Hmm. Though I do think that one must look at it on a kind of layered level. On one level, in the purely physical world, I think there are supposed to be 6 different people. Another would be that they represent aspects of Virginia's mind or personality. On another level, one may see it from a universalist point of view in that all is one, and one is all.


I thought of that after, that perhaps they could represent different aspect's of Virginia's mind. I think I will have to re-read this at some point as Jim mentioned, it very well could have been that I just read this at the wrong time and I do know for me, I typically discover much more about a book and get a better understanding for whether or not I like it once I re-read it.

[Filipe]

We are all matter. Matter has several minds, hasn't it?
Matters are better understood through complementarity, in my humble opinion. Enjoyed reading yours too.

[Laurel]

Traveller wrote: "Nancy wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Erika wrote:

This sounds familiar. Oh, yes, The Waves!

[Jim]

Laurele wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Nancy wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Erika wrote:

This sounds familiar. Oh, yes, The Waves!"

Good one!