The Waves

Born into a distinguished intellectual family in 1882, Virginia Woolf became a leading member of the 'Bloomsbury Group', writers who eschewed Victorian formality and sought the re-birth of the novel by rejecting conventional norms and concentrating instead on what Woolf termed "the innermost flame" - a deeply psychological perspective highlighting the mind's attempts to translate experience into language and meaning. The Waves is Woolf's most ambitious and experimental novel, focusing on how our personalities are moulded by our contact with others. Divided into nine sections, each symbolised by the passage of the sun on a single day, it follows the lives of six friends - all very different personalities - who themselves may stand for the several 'voices' present in our own minds. The untimely death of one of the friends forces the survivors to take stock of their own lives and the reality of death. In dream-like, lyrical prose, Woolf gives the reader a window into the thoughts and passions of these six friends, and the manner in which each gradually comes to terms with the mystery of existence.