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smoke rings and bubbles – we have scarcely broken into our hoard

katharinetowers.blog · 1,075 words · saved by 1 readers

Thoughts are round like bubbles, or at least certain thoughts in The Waves are. The thoughts that go into this shape are the ones where something is knowingly being put into words. This might sound an odd thing to say – surely the whole novel is people doing just that? What I mean is that there are particular characters who cannot notice something without wanting to turn it into a literary artefact to be kept safe in a notebook. Early in the novel there’s a scene where the children are looking around the garden in the morning and reporting what they see using the most extraordinary images (leaves like pointed ears etc.). These observations are the spontaneous and ‘naturally’ poetic outpourings of children – not sought after and unlikely to be remembered. I don’t think this is an example of bubbles. What I am thinking of are the moments where finding the right words is an altogether more conscious (even literary) event. Bernard is the character who most ardently and assiduously want

Thoughts are round like bubbles, or at least certain thoughts in The Waves are. The thoughts that go into this shape are the ones where something is knowingly being put into words . This might sound an odd thing to say – surely the whole novel is people doing just that? What I mean is that there are particular characters who cannot notice something without wanting to turn it into a literary artefact to be kept safe in a notebook. Early in the novel there’s a scene where the children are looking around the garden in the morning and reporting what they see using the most extraordinary images (le

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