The Waves

[KEV67]

This came No# 16 in the BBC's 100 greatest British novels poll in 2016. It was the only book in the top 20 I had not read. It is as bad as I feared. An example of the writing style:

 

'I see the beetle,' said Susan. 'It is black, I see; it is green, I see; I am tied down with single words. But you wander off; you slip away; you rise up higher, with words and words in phrases.'

 

I have another 157 pages of this.

[Madeleine]

Good luck, at least it's a short book!

[KEV67]

I have reached page 71. I would have a hard time telling you what it is about. There's a Bernard and a Louis and a Neville and a Jinny and a Susan. There are probably some I missed out. I think they were at school but now they have left. They seem a bit older than they were.

[KEV67]

Mrs Dalloway was a stream of consciousness book. There was much head hopping from one character to another, but it all took place in one day.

To the Lighthouse was about a family and some friends who go to a house for a holiday and again after the war. 

The Waves is a head hopping book like Mrs Dalloway only not as frequent, and it is also a passage of time book like To the Lighthouse.

 

That insight has got to be worth at least a C+ 

 

 

[KEV67]

I read another ten pages today, or I might have re-read the ten pages I read yesterday. Some of the phrases were familiar. 

[KEV67]

This is the only book I have read that calls buses 'omnibuses'. Previously the only time I have heard the word 'omnibus' to mean 'bus' is the 'Clapham omnibus', which apparently is something a pompous judge a hundred years ago might say in his summing up. Omnibus is already plural, so what is the plural of omnibus? Perhaps it should be omnibusibus. 

Edited July 24, 2024 by KEV67

[Madeleine]

I got curious about omnibus, so I looked it up and the plural part actually means that it can carry a large number of people, likewise an omnibus book edition contains several volumes eg all 3 books in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (I have one of these and it's huge).  

[KEV67]

The phrase was 'The man on the Clapham omnibus.' I expect omnibuses is the correct plural in English and Latin. 

The word 'bus' is used in computer technology. There is the data bus and the address bus. They are a collection of very thin wires carrying either the address of an item of data or the item of data itself. I wonder if it has the same etymological roots.

Etymology is the study or words and not insects, isn't it. There was a good joke in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer about that.

[Madeleine]

I always get etymology confused with the insect one as well,can't remember what the insect "ology" is though.

[KEV67]

Finished The Waves. Not my cup of tea. Maybe I am just prejudiced against Virginia Woolf. According to the BBC 2015 poll conducted among foreign academics and journalists, the top 20 British novels were 

1 Middlemarch

2 Mrs Dalloway

3 To the Lighthouse

4 Great Expectations

5 Jane Eyre

6 Bleak House

7 Wuthering Heights

8 David Copperfield 

9 Frankenstein

10 Vanity Fair

11 Pride and Prejudice 

12 Nineteen Eighty-Four 

13 The Good Soldier

14 Clarissa

15 Atonement

16 The Waves

17 Howards End

18 Remains of the Day

19 Emma 

20 Persuasion

 

I do not know why Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse or The Waves are so highly rated. They are experiments in literature so far as I can see. I did not like The Good Soldier either. My favourite out of that lot was Great Expectations. I also thought Middlemarch, Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Clarissa were great. The others were good (except the Virginia Woolf's novels and The Good Soldier). The next one on the list that I have not read is Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy at 23, but I swore not to read that after watching the film. It was a good film, but I did not like what Hardy did to the innocents.

Edited August 8, 2024 by KEV67

[itsmeagain]

Wuthering Heights at 7 and 9? 

[Madeleine]

On 7/26/2024 at 11:50 AM, KEV67 said:

Finished The Waves. Not my cup of tea. Maybe I am just prejudiced against Virginia Woolf. According to the BBC 2015 poll conducted among foreign academics and journalists, the top 20 British novels were 

1 Middlemarch

2 Mrs Dalloway

3 To the Lighthouse

4 Great Expectations

5 Jane Eyre

6 Bleak House

7 Wuthering Heights

8 David Copperfield 

9 Wuthering Heights

10 Vanity Fair

11 Pride and Prejudice 

12 Nineteen Eighty-Four 

13 The Good Soldier

14 Clarissa

15 Atonement

16 The Waves

17 Howards End

18 Remains of the Day

19 Emma 

20 Persuasion

 

I do not know why Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse or The Waves are so highly rated. They are experiments in literature so far as I can see. I did not like The Good Soldier either. My favourite out of that lot was Great Expectations. I also thought Middlemarch, Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Clarissa were great. The others were good (except the Virginia Woolf's novels and The Good Soldier). The next one on the list that I have not read is Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy at 23, but I swore not to read that after watching the film. It was a good film, but I did not like what Hardy did to the innocents.

Just as well you haven't read the book, it's even more traumatic, although the actions are explained more, but it caused such a reaction at the time that Hardy never wrote another novel, he stuck to poetry.

[KEV67]

On 8/5/2024 at 8:50 PM, itsmeagain said:

Wuthering Heights at 7 and 9? 

Oops, Frankenstein is as 9.

[KEV67]

On 8/5/2024 at 10:37 PM, Madeleine said:

Just as well you haven't read the book, it's even more traumatic, although the actions are explained more, but it caused such a reaction at the time that Hardy never wrote another novel, he stuck to poetry.

Apart from writing poetry he re-edited his old novels. Some of the editions make quite a big difference. I am thinking of Tess of the d'Urbervilles in particular. 

[Madeleine]

Interesting.  There are so many different editions available now.