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The Waves
- Narrated by: Julia Franklin
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Classics
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Summary
Six children - Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny and Louis - meet in a garden close to the sea, their voices sounding over the constant echo of the waves that roll back and forth from the shore.
The book follows them as they develop from childhood tao maturity and follow different passions and ambitions; their voices are interspersed with interludes from the timeless and unifying chorus of nature.
Critic reviews
"Full of sensuous touches...the sounds of her words can be velvet on the page" ( Daily Telegraph)
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What listeners say about The Waves
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Md Lachlan
- 27-01-15
Much better to listen to than to read
What made the experience of listening to The Waves the most enjoyable?
I had struggled with this book before. However, listening to it while walking the dog allows its beauty and strangeness to grasp you. Wonderful.
7 people found this helpful
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- DT
- 24-03-16
“So strange is the contact of one with another.”
What made the experience of listening to The Waves the most enjoyable?
Being carried on from one monologue to another.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
How different it is from a Virginia Woolf novel that I like much better - "To the Lighthouse".
Which character – as performed by Julia Franklin – was your favourite?
Bernard.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No.
Any additional comments?
I expect to re-read “The Waves” (1931), in part because its (Modernist) difficulty is likely to release new meanings, rather than confirm assumptions or provide reassurance, but also because as its six characters get older and, in their interspersed monologues, contemplate death so they seem to matter more and move beyond their very irritating youthful characters.
Even after one reading, though, I would say that while “The Waves” is acute on time, it relegates the social and historical insights that occur from time to time, and, to my surprise, at least, emerge much more unerringly in “Mrs Dalloway” (1925) and “To the Lighthouse” (1927). Possibly, this is because Virginia Woolf sticks, mostly, to the perspectives (and the narrowness of political outlook) of Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis; but, equally, it could be because of Woolf’s allegiance to the values of nature announced in the title and pursued doggedly, as well as through the unnamed third-person narrator who follows the rhythm of one day even as the six named characters go through to middle-age. This allegiance to nature or natural reality is quite deliberate on Woolf’s part and distinguishes “The Waves” from “To the Lighthouse”, which, in some respects, it resembles. Whereas in “To the Lighthouse”, for all its Modernist interest in consciousness, there is a concern with how people inter-relate in society, in “The Waves” “the contact of with one another” is “strange” for the characters. Almost in spite of her metaphysical interests, though, there are so many wonderful passages in “The Waves” when society – and particularly London society -- presses upon the more worldly of the six characters that there is an even greater novel shadowing the novel that Virginia Woolf has written.
6 people found this helpful
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- sarah
- 13-03-15
A very acquired taste
Would you ever listen to anything by Virginia Woolf again?
No
Any additional comments?
I thought I ought to listen to something slightly more upbrow, but found this deadly dull and uninspiring. Despite it being set more than 50 years ago, I can't believe that children and teenagers ever spoke to, and about each other like this in prose that sounded more like they were 60 year olds, and rather pompous ones at that, I managed about half of the book, before abandoning it having found that I was listening to it and not taking any of it in, so much so that I regret spending money on it. Not sure who would find this book appealing.
3 people found this helpful
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- None
- 20-03-19
Of what it’s like to be human
I have three audible versions of The Waves: Davies’ dramatized production, which is abridged and semi-inaccurate, possibly for creative reasons; the unabridged narration by Frances Jeater, which is gentle and stream-of-consciousness sounding (pleasantly hypnotic if you are a Woolf fan); and this, narrated by Julia Franklin. All are excellent, but recommend this narration if you are new to Woolf and plan on finishing The Waves, as Franklin does an excellent job clarifying the nuances and complexities of this beautiful novel. The abridged dramatized version produced and directed by Davies is also well worth listening to, whether you are new to Woolf, or a seasoned votary.
5 people found this helpful
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- KRJ
- 18-10-16
Acquired, but worth it.
Where does The Waves rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Highly. It was difficult to get through, but, as with ALL Woolf novels, everything - every last word - is all tied together at the end. The entire journey is meant for the last few pages.
Who was your favorite character and why?
This book has a host of characters. There isn't necessarily a favorite. The whole cast of characters is the character.
What does Julia Franklin bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Julia's performance is spot on and brings the characters to life perfectly. She reads it as though she discussed the performance with Woolf herself.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It is an extremely abstract book. There will be several times when you have no idea what's happening. But then strings will suddenly snap together. Every word is there to build a road that you aren't necessarily aware you're travelling on. You experience life with every character and it is as absolutely touching, confusing, and realistic as reality. There are several things that happen at the end that made me not only reread, but tear up.
Any additional comments?
Woolf is one of the best writers we've ever had. And she always - always - sticks her endings.
3 people found this helpful
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- W Perry Hall
- 17-12-17
*Into your heart I'll beat again*
'Who's got their claws in you my friend?
Into your heart I'll beat again.'
D.J. Matthews, 12/96
Six classmates (three girls and three boys) go through seven stages of life via a sequence of interior monologues, sprinkled with allusions to the Earth's relation to the Sun and to the moon's gravitational pull on the ocean--the tides--as time passes.
This is my favorite Woolf novel; it's such a beautiful composition and an incredible feat to create the feel and sense that the characters are flowing and breaking into one another like waves on the shore.
She rejected plot and character conventions in favor of a narrative driven solely by voices to show, I think, that human existence, like waves, means constantly experiencing fluidity and regeneration.
1 person found this helpful