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The Waves

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The Waves

By: Virginia Woolf
Narrated by: Frances Jeater
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About this listen

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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

Public Domain (P)2014 Naxos AudioBooks Classics
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I approached an audiobook of ‘The Waves’ with some trepidation. After all, Virginia Woolf described it as ‘the most difficult and complex’ of her books and the six voices that make up the novel as a ‘playpoem’. Frances Jeater’s reading is the perfect way to encounter the novel: she beautifully captures the complex rhythms of Woolf’s sentences and brilliantly conveys the shifting moods and perspectives of the characters. I sometimes laughed out loud; at other times, I was moved to tears. Most of all, I was arrested throughout by her mastery of the sudden shifts of pace and tone in the characters’ soliloquies.

Very occasionally, I would quibble with her pronunciation (to be fair: I had the text open in front of me throughout and noticed only three times!). But this takes nothing at all away from the beauty and brilliance of her reading, which does full justice to Woolf’s rich and strange book.

Brilliant reading of a rich and complex novel

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I loved this so much and the reader was so perfectly suited to the text it seemed her own

Beautiful book

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The narrator is too refined, over-affective and extremely irritating to listen to for long periods.

Irritating narration

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This wonderful, complex book is beautifully read, though with the occasional misreadings and mispronunciations that seem to affect all talking books these days. “Groove” for “grove”, for example - and “inchoate” pronounced (with two syllables) as “in-chote”. It’s not the fault of readers that mistakes slip through - reading entire books is exhausting - but there should be editors listening with a keenly attentive ear, ready to put things right. I would be happy to do the job myself!

Wonderful, complex book, but…

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What a beautiful book this is. I am truly lost for words. This is my first book from Virginia Wolf and I was impressed by her beautiful writing style. The book is like one long poem, with some of the most detailed, dreamy descriptions I’ve ever read. The scene descriptions truly take you there, you can feel the tension, smell, see everything. Frances Jeater’s performance is absolutely magnificent - you feel the anguish in her voice and each character’s internal monologue. She understands the characters and the narration is absolutely spot on (although a bit fast for me, but setting speed to 0.9x sorted things out).

The book jumps a lot from character to character and is written in first person so I found it a bit hard to keep up with who’s monologue we’re listening to each time. It’s seeping with sadness throughout. Sadness and tenderness for the daemons that each character carries with them and a lot of us will associate with. Sadness at the beauty of life and the inevitability of death, it’s simplicity and complexity, our choices and paths. Without giving any answers it explores so many aspects of life and growing up (from school to old age). I often found myself weeping uncontrollably when listening to this book that I had to avoid crowds when out and about. Not because of anything in particular, it’s just so beautifully and tenderly written that it touches some sensitive notes that I guess I’m not even fully aware of. So...be mindful of listening to it outdoors in front of people! ;)

I definitely feel I need to read it again as it is so dense with descriptions, allegories and meaning that I’m certain I’ve missed a few bits. Definitely not the lightest read out there but an incredibly beautiful, poetic, dreamy, melancholic, honest and satisfying read. Highly recommended!

A poetic, naked, beautiful account of life

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