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The Waves  By  cover art

The Waves

By: Virginia Woolf
Narrated by: Frances Jeater
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Publisher's summary

The Waves traces the lives of six friends from childhood to old age. It was written when Virginia Woolf was at the height of her experimental powers, and she allows each character to tell their own story, through powerful, poetic monologues. By listening to these voices struggling to impose order and meaning on their lives, we are drawn into a literary journey that stunningly reproduces the complex, confusing, and contradictory nature of human experience. It is read with affection and skill by Frances Jeater.

Public Domain (P)2014 Naxos AudioBooks

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What listeners say about The Waves

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  • Overall
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    4 out of 5 stars

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.

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22 people found this helpful

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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.

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20 people found this helpful

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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.

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7 people found this helpful

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Excellent to fall asleep to.

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

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2 people found this helpful

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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.

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2 people found this helpful

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Not interesting

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

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2 people found this helpful

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Exquisite

I have become a Virginia Woolf fan, and this work does not disappoint. If there is a bit of a downer, it’s the way that the weariness of life comes through late in the book. Otherwise, Woolf’s intimate and detailed descriptions of moment by moment reveal the profundity of her perception. Perhaps her premature demise was due to her absolute intensity of being. Maybe it was too much. At any rate, one must be grateful that she left the world what she did. The narrator of this volume, Frances Jeater, is a true artist, and brings Woolf to life in the here and now.

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1 person found this helpful

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Inferiority

Six internal worlds intersect; no plot necessary. Subjectivity takes priority over world events. Does anyone probe internal life better than Virginia Woolf?

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1 person found this helpful

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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

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The unique writing style

It’s one of the most hardest books i’ve read in a long time due to the writing style! But i love it so much

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