Considered by many who should know (e.g., E. M. Forester)to be Woolf's most brilliant work of genius, The Waves is a challenging book to read for many reasons, not the least of which is the style she has adopted. More like an extended Greek chorus than anything else, the six characters, whose "voices" sound identical to one another, speak their life stories in short, alternating monologues. Although the writing is very poetic, it is also very dense and very distancing. We never really warm up to any of the characters or get involved in their stories.

I had to read this book for a class and, though I'm glad I made it through to the end, it was difficult going and I know I never would have finished it (or even gotten through ten pages of it) if I hadn't had the carrot of a grade hanging over it. We had to read the whole thing in a week which is really not a good way to tackle this book. Best read in small segments, leisurely, absorbing each moment Woolf choses to highlight. Definitely not a plane or beach book!

If you haven't read Woolf before, this is not the book to start with. Mrs. Dalloway is, in my opinion, the best and most accessible of Woolf's experimental fictions and a good starting place for access into this great 20th century author's works. Then, if your brave, move onto "To the Lighthouse" and then, shudder, "The Waves."

Our book club in Cancun read it for April. We can be a critical group, but this one received nothing but praise from those of us who actually FINISHED it. Through the night the message was "It's well worth it! Stick with it!" It is confusing at the beginning for those of us who've been reading best sellers awhile, and it was hard to learn to pace your reading. (Some advice: don't tackle it for less than 30 minutes at a time, and do some biographical research on Woolf before or while you read it).
I'd love to give some of our group's analyses, but that might ruin it for some of you. I'll limit that to just saying that we had a very fine conversation that night, full of thoughtful speculation. And many of us have been commenting that meeting for days afterward. We're a very small community here, and culture is hard to come by. Woolf brought it to us on the waves (sorry). The Waves is prose; it's a work of art. What a pleasure! You can expect conversation about this novel to be of a higher literary level. It's a great book club read because it creates lots of thoughts to share.

English speakers everywhere should thank whatever higher power allowed for Virginia Woolf to write in their native tongue. They should, at the same time, thank her for gracing the world with books like "The Waves." Difficult? Of course, but so is existence, and no one, in any tradition, has been better at expressing the tumultuous inner space of being. This book, told as a series of interior monologues told by six characters, broken into chapters by brief descriptions of a beach at different times of day, is not an easy read, there is no doubt about that, but it is not obscure or pedantic. Its difficultness lies in its idiosyncrasies, in its subjective view toward reality, in its fragmentation, in its personality: its difficulty lies in how well it parallels individual experience and existence. By allowing each character to speak exclusively from its own private and self-serving platform, it makes a noble attempt at rectifying the artificiality of the text with the unknowableness of life, even if it fails to truly rectify the rift (which is impossible anyway). Perhaps, however, it would be better appreciated if other works are used as an introduction to Woolf's style; not to say that To the Lighthouse or Mrs. Dalloway are easy books, but they are easier for the novice to Woolf's style to warp her/his mind around. Reading it requires concentration and effort, but like trying to truly know a person, all the travail is worth it at the end. Immerse yourself in the book, and feel how great literature truly can be.

A good read if you understand Virginia Woolf writing style. I found it introspective and thought provoking to get into the heads of the characters as Ms Woolf is way ahead of her time for using psychological and personality issues to convy thoughts and ideas of her characters. The book is one of her shortest so it gives the reader the chance to enjoy her style without commiting to a 600+ page book. She is not for everyone, but I am one of her following.

If I was forced to choose the most poetic and beautiful book
ever written, The Waves would be a prime candidate.
It far exceeds any other book by Virginia Woolf in terms of
sheer ecstatic poetic writing. Want to know the secret of
how to really enjoy this book? Pretend that it's the voice
of God...expressed sometimes through character extensions, other
times through utter sparkling transcendence...but The Waves
is clearly the voice of God, more so than even Walt Whitman's
work. In short, this is a brilliant book...for evolved readers.