THE "MODERNIST HEADACHE" IS REAL
Okay, let's be honest for a second. I love Virginia Woolf. I teach Mrs. Dalloway. I have a mug with her face on it. But The Waves? On paper, this book is a nightmare.
I tried reading the physical copy back in grad school and I think I cried. Not because it was sad, but because my brain couldn't track who was talking. It's six characters—Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, Louis—monologuing in a stream-of-consciousness soup, interrupted by descriptions of the sun moving across the sky. It's dense. It's confusing. It's the kind of book that makes my AP English students consider a career in welding instead of literature.
So when I saw the audiobook, I was skeptical. Was I just signing up for nine hours of confused napping? (My mom falls asleep to Faulkner; I didn't want to follow in her footsteps quite yet.)
THE VOICE THAT SORTS THE CHAOS
Here's the discovery I made about twenty minutes in, while walking the dog along Lake Michigan: This book wasn't meant to be read with your eyes. It was meant to be heard.
Julia Franklin narrates this, and while I couldn't find a ton of background info on her online, her performance is the key that unlocks the door. On the page, the text is a wall. In your ears, Franklin acts as a traffic controller. She gives each of the six characters a distinct emotional weight.
She has this very refined, classic British delivery. You know the type—clear, crisp, the kind of voice that makes you sit up straighter. Some listener reviews I skimmed called her "over-affective" or too posh, and I get that. If you want a gritty, modern performance, this isn't it. But for Woolf? It's perfect. The prose is high-concept poetry. It needs a narrator who treats every syllable like it's made of glass.
(And let's be real, if a narrator mumbled through Virginia Woolf, I'd have thrown my phone into the lake.)
WHEN THE RHYTHM FINALLY CLICKS
The magic happens when you stop trying to follow the "plot"—because there isn't one, really—and just let the rhythm hit you.
Franklin handles the transitions between the characters' internal monologues and the "interludes" (the nature descriptions) with this subtle shift in tone. I found myself actually understanding the aging process of these characters. You hear the anxiety in Rhoda, the ambition in Louis. Things that looked like gibberish on the page suddenly sounded like... well, like life.
It reminds me of what I tell my students about Shakespeare: it's agonizing to read silently, but the second you hear it spoken, the meaning lands. That same revelation hit me with Romeo and Juliet—suddenly all those iambic pentameter headaches made sense when I just listened. Franklin understands that the pause is punctuation. She slows down when the imagery gets heavy. She lets the words breathe.
WHO'S GOING TO LOVE THIS (AND WHO SHOULD RUN)
If you've always wanted to "get" Virginia Woolf but felt too intimidated by the text, this is the way in. It turns a literary puzzle into a piece of music.
But if you need plot, action, or anything resembling a traditional story structure? Skip it. My wife Denise listened to five minutes in the car and asked if we were being punished. Fair enough.
CLASS DISMISSED
This is a slow burn. A very slow burn. There were moments in the middle—around the fourth hour—where I zoned out during a long description of waves crashing (ironic, considering the title) and had to rewind. It can be soporific. If you listen while driving late at night, you might end up in a ditch.
But for the Woolf-curious, the modernism-intimidated, the people who've always felt like they *should* appreciate this stuff but couldn't crack the code? Franklin's narration is your skeleton key. Just maybe drink an espresso before you hit play.
