FIRST ASCENT

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

"Now," said Neville, "my tree flowers. My heart rises. All oppression is relieved. All impediment is removed. the reign of chaos is over. He has imposed order. Knives cut again."

Great literature is replete with contrasts. Tone and Mood, Character and Setting, and nearly all successful use of analogy and metaphor employ this device. A well-stocked library and a well-read mind also reflect the technique of juxtaposition of two differing elements in such a way as to stimulate interest, ideas, and understanding, avoiding the concretization that may result from a fixed and singular approach. By way of extreme contrast to the wide-ranging, free flowing ideation of "Infinite Jest," our first ascent rides on the genius of modernist, stream-of-consciousness narrative presented by Virginia Woolf.

Like Wallace, Woolf took her own life after reaching the apex of her art. The body of work she left behind allows us to inhabit a mind uniquely shaped to understand the deeper nature of our species. This nature, told through the never-still inner voice that fills both our waking and sleeping hours, divines "The Waves" as an omnipresent narrative metaphor unlike any other novel Woolf attempted.

Like Hamlet in the extreme, all six of the speaking characters in the novel use soliloquy to articulate their innermost selves. So complete is Woolf’s use of the form that on a quick read, the six voices blend into one central consciousness, the exploration of which seemed to be the author’s purpose in this highly experimental work.

Woolf hooks the reader through the use of a powerful metaphor, that of ocean waves at sunrise, beginning far out to sea and running to the shore, where they break in a moment of existential fulfillment. This poetic image, reflected in the language, a poetic-prose, represents the lives of the characters, and indeed, of all living things.

There are no boundaries to mark the beginning of one monologue and the start of the next. The plot is loose, hanging together on the tragedy of a seventh character whose death halfway through forms the basis of much reflection on the part of the survivors.

Themes of consciousness, identity, self and others, and the unity of collective thought all travel the depths of this relatively short, compared to "Infinite Jest," novel.

A close reader meets six distinctive personalities as they navigate the journey from early childhood to full adult life, bound by tragedy and the world they inhabit, yet each enjoying or suffering an independent existence.

Woolf, who was a contemporary of Joyce, leads us up the mountain toward the summit in a novel whose contrasts with "Infinite Jest" might merit a wholly separate course of study.

This course is the second in a series we call The Himalayas of Literature. Woolf, who was a contemporary of Joyce, leads us up the mountain toward the summit in a novel whose contrasts with Infinite Jest might merit a wholly separate course of study.