The Eternal Renewal

"Yes, this is the eternal renewal, the incessant rise and fall and fall and rise again."
- Virginia Woolf, The Waves

I've read several of Woolf's books. I've loved them all: Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Jacob's Room, A Room of One's Own, Orlando. But I think I loved this one the most. I'm not sure. But the book is swelling in me tonight. It makes me travel back to the night when with my wife's grandfather and uncles, as I ritually dressed my wife's father for burial. It makes me think of all those moments in my life that Virginia's words and phrases could make make alive and make poetic. She could catch the fire of life (and death) and could etch its several meanings on a leaf, or on a wave, or in the stars.

The book is experimental, but also rather simple. It is a narrative with six voices (Bernard, Louis, Neville, Jinny, Susan, and Rhoda) with the silent presence of their dead friend Percival. It is a story about narrative, life, growing old, death, friendship. It is a choir of six, singing a song we ALL sing. It is lovely. My wife isn't a fan of Virginia Woolf. She isn't her cup of tea. My wife prefers Toni Morrison. But I, I prefer Virginia Woolf. I don't mind the abstractions. I feel the weight. I float up and down in her prose. I like recognizing T.S Eliot (perhaps in Louis) or E.M Forster (Bernard?) or Lytton Strachey (Neville). I like seeing these men and women as pieces of Virginia Woolf. I love how she folds them into her book. How she folds them into herself.

15 people found this helpful

Not an easy read but worth it

A must if one wants to get a full sense of Virginia Woolf, but not an easy book in any sense. Beautifully written, beautifully read, very personal portrait of characters as they develop through life, yet a portrait on the author herself in all her facets. One of those books that stay with the reader whether they want it or not.

22 people found this helpful

Brilliant

This is with a doubt the most beautiful novel I have both read and listened to. Frances Jeater's performance was magnificent. And as for Woolf's novel? Without a doubt, one of the best books ever written. I gasped as Jeater read the last line, she delivered it so beautifully.

7 people found this helpful

Poor plot and disliked the performance

Didn't finish the book. I couldn't get used to the narrator inflections and style. I found the plot boring and uninteresting. Prose was inspired and poetic but that's the only good thing I found about this book.

2 people found this helpful

Not interesting

Did not finish listening to this book. I found it dry and boring. I fell asleep.

2 people found this helpful

Excellent to fall asleep to.

Sometimes you simply need that.
At 2am I listened; not thinking, just letting the words wash over me.

1 person found this helpful

Enthralling

Beautifully read to capture the cadence and imagery of Virginia Woolf’s lyrical and eloquent writing. Magical and transformative. The reader bobs on the surface and dives deeply into the prose and interwoven stories

Reads like a dream

Consciousness intertwining in "playpoem" ...Wow, what a command Wolfe had of language! So lyrical, I felt as if I was in a trance.

human innermost feelings.

Profoundly sensitive, so much that one can see one's reflection on it. Echoes of a person's common concerns and afflictions. Provocative in a way that it makes us confront life and death in our very existence.