Virginia Woolf

~ Swapna Kishore

This book is very different from the normal books I read. As a reader who gulps books by the dozen, I typically gun for dialogs and action, flipping through descriptions just long enough to get the general idea of a setting or a person.

The Waves showed me that descriptions can be a story. The book is poetry in the form of prose. It develops six characters and leads us through their lives - starting from childhood, through youth and to an age when death does not seem far - all through describing the world as seen by each of them. The differences in the characters are gently shown by depicting the same world, settings and incidents through different perspectives. 

I have read the book, or parts of it, several times, but when I try to re-read it to capture a couple of sentences to show why I liked it I'm caught again in its magic. The similes and metaphors that fill every page spin an imagery that amazes even if you open the book at a random page.

According to the blurbs on the cover, this is considered by many as Virginia Woolf's greatest achievement - and I agree. Read the book if you want to see how keenly the world can be observed and described. Read it also, if you have never really enjoyed descriptions- you are likely to find an exception.