The waves - Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf wanted to write about the vast unknown uncertain
continent that is the world and us in it' Jeanette Winterson, from her
introduction to The Waves


The Waves is an
astonishingly beautiful and poetic novel. It begins with six children playing
in a garden by the sea and follows their lives as they grow up and experience
friendship, love and grief at the death of their beloved friend
Percival.


Weaving together soliloquies from the novel's six characters, Woolf
delicately and expertly explores universal concepts such as individuality,
the self, and community. A novel still as poignant today as it was when
written.


Regarded by many as her greatest work, The Waves
is also seen as Virginia Woolf's response to the loss of her brother Thoby,
who died when he was twenty-six.