Paidika

“Let us now crawl,” said Bernard, “under the canopy of the currant leaves, and tell stories. Let us inhabit the underworld. Let us take possession of our secret territory, which is lit by pendant currants like candelabra, shining red on one side, black on the other…This is our world, lit with…

I’m intrigued, although I’m not sure I agree that The Waves presents a truer, as you say, depiction of people than does To the Lighthouse. My feeling when I read it—three years ago now, so I should go back to it and have another go—was actually rather the opposite. I felt that The Waves had a more daring use of language and style, but what one lost in the particular form of the characters describing themselves and their actions is the frequent moment of unbidden, unrealized thought that seems to come on characters so frequently in Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, which Woolf’s stream of consciousness writing in those two works represents so well. Somehow one loses the sense that there is, underneath the characters’ thoughts, some knowing curator—Woolf herself—who is guiding one here to listen to now Cam, now Mr. Carmichael, now Lily Briscoe, such that from the text unbroken by the monologues of The Waves one gains some insight into all these various people and their connections. On the other hand, to me it seemed that The Waves was silent on just this point—that is to say, it does not feel as if some curator is guiding you through the text, presenting you some unified vision. All you have are six perspectives on seven lives. The way things actually are, separate from anyone’s particular viewpoint—so to speak—goes unrepresented. That silence is telling, of course, but I’m not sure that it tells more than the equivalent lack of it in To the Lighthouse. But this is all in the realm of intuitions and personal impressions, so you must have gone about it differently. I’d love to hear or read your thoughts.