Ocean Waves

The Waves

The Waves, published in 1931, was written during the height of Woolf's creative career. This poetic experiment lacks a strict narrative, more like a musical work constructed from nine movements: each introduction is a delicate prose poem, evoking the rise and fall of life through the ebb and flow of the sun and waves; each is followed by a fleeting monologue from six nameless, highly stylized characters at a corresponding stage in their lives—from childhood, school days, youth, middle age, and finally old age. The introductions and the main text mirror each other, opening up unprecedented and nuanced access for the reader's senses, bringing them ever closer to the essence of life, time, consciousness, and feeling.
This is a work that occupies an important position in the hall of modern literature. Even today, it still stirs our souls with its exquisite text structure and poetic style.
A little less and it would lose its poetic quality; a little more and it would fall into the abyss of the palace of art, becoming dull and pretentious. —EM Forster "The Waves" is practically a long poem. Is it a poem? More accurately, it is an oratorio. Six soloists take turns reciting ornate monologues, singing out their ideas about time and death. —Maurois

2023-04-01

上海译文出版社

395

9787532793006