The Waves by Virginia Woolf

I kind of think they could go a better cover than this. Mine at least has a painting of the ocean with waves.

I bought The Waves in Ecuador in 1997 for 47,000 Sucres. Now they have the dollar, no more Sucres in Ecuador. I think I'm going to have to read it closer between readings to get a sense of the 6 voices, the 7 characters, but maybe the Wikipedia info will help me.

According to the BBC in 2015, it is #16 in the greatest British novels list. I have only read 35 of the 100, so I can't really quibble about the list, though there are some things on there that I don't think they should be. Middlemarch is #1.

I'm rereading it because I wasn't liking Childhood's End. Maybe it gets better. So Wikipedia has ideas about who all the voices are in The Waves:

Bernard is a story-teller, always seeking some elusive and apt phrase. Some critics see Woolf's friend E. M. Forster as an inspiration for him.

Louis is an outsider who seeks acceptance and success. Some critics see in him aspects of T. S. Eliot, whom Woolf knew well.

Neville, who may be partly based on another of Woolf's friends, Lytton Strachey, seeks out a series of men, each of whom becomes the present object of his transcendent love.

Jinny is a socialite whose world view corresponds to her physical, corporeal beauty. There is evidence that she is based on Woolf's friend Mary Hutchinson.

Susan flees the city, preferring the countryside, where she grapples with the thrills and doubts of motherhood. Some aspects of Susan recall Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell.

Rhoda is riddled with self-doubt, anxiety and depression, always rejecting and indicting human compromise, always seeking out solitude. She echoes Shelley's poem "The Question" (paraphrased: I shall gather my flowers and present them — O! to whom?). Rhoda resembles Virginia Woolf in some respects.

Percival, partly based on Woolf's brother, Thoby Stephen, is the Miraculous but morally flawed hero of the other six. He dies midway through the novel, while engaged on an imperialist quest in India. Percival never speaks on his own in The Waves, but readers learn about him in detail as the other six characters repeatedly describe and reflect on him.