"Now I pretend again to read"

Here I must admit that, in reading The Waves thus far, I have developed many inhibitions concerning my ability to say anything of value about the book; the narrative quite simply overwhelms me in the best and most violent of ways. When reading, I feel as if I were a mere, passive object, pushed forward by some literary peristalsis that Woolf masterfully employs, and, when finally coming to at the end of each section, I hesitate to say anything that might reduce or decimate the bizarre powers of enchantment the book possesses.

But I also know that such notions as seen above could just as well be mere romantic hogwash, an excuse to shirk the responsibilities of the critical, academic reader, and I guess I should try to engage somehow in the dark waters of discussion, floorless as they may be.

Our six characters necessitate the discussion of how we could/should consider them--as both particulars and as a composite one, as universals and as individuals? Is it either/or, and/both? Perhaps with misguided effort I am tempted to compare Woolf's work to Hegel's triadic notion of how the universal and the individual give way to the particular person, a particular that is inextricably sculpted by and the sculptor of society. But on that comparison I want to hold off for a bit, as it seems o'er hasty, at least without the book's finish, to attempt to ascribe any philosophical system to the novel. However, something that I would want to say about the nature of the narrative, as it switches and cycles through the characters, is that it notably contains constant  , definitive individuation. We can attempt to group the characters in many different ways and connect dots from one to the other, but we cannot blur the aspects or dispositions of each character--the individual portraits we receive through their reflections on themselves and on each other remain separate, and it is only by other means, such as their actions and concerns, that they can be considered to come together to form a stained-glass window of sorts.
What is beyond the window?...Oh, I don't know what I'm saying really. Back to the beginning.