Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf is her third novel and the first in which she begins to develop her classic Woolf style. Published in 1922, readers of her two previous and more conventional novels, The Voyage Out and Night and Day, weren’t quite prepared for where Woolf went with novel number three. Evidence? Take a gander at what the Guradian had to say about it. “Unconventional,” the reviewer calls it, “a sort of phantasmagoria.” The reviewer acknowledges Woolf to be a “considerable writer,” but concludes,
And one must admire a gesture that would dismiss a bourgeois reading public. Perhaps she will yet convince us that this is the way to write novels or one of the ways. One would like to read another book of hers when she has returned to convention.
Meow.
I suspect, however that the reviewer hated James Joyce’s Ulysses too, also published in 1922. I guess the Moderns got off to a rocky start with the general reading public. Thus, historically, I have a bit of an advantage. Time and experience have given me the opportunity to read a variety of modernist literature as well as the even wackier postmodern writers. Therefore what was considered experimental in 1922 seems to me in 2013, nothing out of the ordinary. Now, I’m not saying Jacob’s Room was as easy as a stroll through the park, only that the shock of its originality is now longer possible.
I think in many ways though that this is good. Instead of being thrown off by the style and spending all my time trying to figure out how I am supposed to read this book, I can simply read it and marvel at Woolf’s skill and the beauty of her prose. Also, I have the added pleasure of knowing how her style develops and evolves. So reading Jacob’s Room is kind of like looking at the teenage photos of friends or a significant other you only know as an adult. You can see a certain awkwardness, a stretching and striving, a yearning ambition. So perhaps it is only appropriate that Jacob’s Room is a coming of age novel.
The story is about Jacob Flanders from childhood to adulthood. The book begins pre-WWI and ends with Jacob’s death in the war. This is not a spoiler because from the very start of the book the war looms over Jacob. No one in the book knows this but the reader does. That sounds like a plot, doesn’t it? Except it isn’t. There is no story per se. Woolf later becomes famous for stream of consciousness, but this is more a novel of associations. As Woolf was working out the style of Jacob’s Room she wrote about it in her diary:
Suppose one thing should open out of another–as in An Unwritten Novel–only not for 10 pages but 200 or so–doesn’t that give the looseness and lightness I want; doesn’t that get closer and yet keep form and speed, and enclose everything, everything?
And so we leap from character to character, scene to scene, time to time, forwards and backwards. We mostly learn about Jacob not from Jacob himself but from the perspective of other characters, mostly women. This left me feeling like I did and didn’t know Jacob. But I think in some ways that was the point.
Jacob dies when he is twenty-six before he has fully figured out for himself who he is and what he wants to do with his life. It seems only appropriate that the reader doesn’t really “know” him since he doesn’t fully know himself. Woolf’s narrative style also emphasizes the point, I think. How can one write a conventional novel about the life of someone who never really had a chance to develop that life? It is easy to look back at the end of a long life and pick out a line that points from A to B to C all the way to Z as though life were linear and cause and effect, whims and reasoned decisions, successes and failures all lead to this final point in time and being. Life is not a coherent narrative, even less so when one dies young.
But why call the book Jacob’s Room? As I read I kept wondering about it. Nothing really ever happens in Jacob’s room until the last two pages of the book and at this point Jacob is dead. His room is infused with his absence. Jacob’s friend, Bonamy is helping Jacob’s mother go through his belongings,
‘He left everything just as it was,’ Bonamy marvelled. ‘Nothing arranged. All his letters strewn about for any one to read. What did he expect? Did he think he would come back?’ he mused, standing in the middle of Jacob’s room.
“Did he think he would come back?” Yes. And the fact that his room looks as though he just stepped out and will be back at any moment makes the knowledge that he will never be back even more heartbreaking. And then when Jacob’s mother holds up a pair of Jacob’s old shoes and asks Bonamy what she is supposed to do with them, their emptiness amplifies Jacob’s absence and his mother’s and Bonamy’s grief.
As I was poking around the internet, I came across a quote by Frances Marshall, a friend of Woolf’s that provides a bit of insight into Jacob’s room and especially his shoes:
The only other remark I remember from that afternoon was when she was talking about the mystery of ‘missing’ someone. When Leonard went away, she said, she didn’t miss him at all. Then suddenly she caught sight of a pair of his empty shoes, which had kept the position and shape of his feet- and was ready to dissolve into tears instantly.*
Of course there were lots of empty shoes at the end of WWI. I think on a small and intimate scale in a book that hardly says anything about the war itself, Woolf manages to speak volumes.
Unlike the writer of that Guardian review, I am glad Woolf did not return to convention. Her vision, her talent, her eye for the telling detail would have languished there and literature would be the poorer for it.
I read this book along with Danielle so be sure to see what she had to say.
*Recollections of Virginia Woolf, ed. Joan Russell Noble (London: Peter Owen, 1972)
I guess coming so closely after those Victorians this must have been something of a shocker, though really with the modern movement not just in literature but also art and music it might not have been all that surprising. I find this era really fascinating for all the changes in style and what the ‘artist’ was trying to do–find a new voice/language to express themselves. That said I think I am not savvy enough (yet?) with Virginia Woolf’s work to be able to read it as confidently as you can–I was still trying to figure out just what was going on/how to read it and see where she was going with it all. 🙂 But after reading your post I think maybe I didn’t do so awfully after all–I also felt a certain disjointedness when it came to knowing just who Jacob was. I never got a strong sense of his personality though I can tell you lots of little things about him. Did I miss something in the text–but I can’t see him joining up to fight in the war–I suspect there were clues along the way. The story felt very elusive but maybe on another read now that I have it under my belt so to speak, it might be a little more clear. Great post! I especially like that last quote you found–I wish I had read it now with a book of criticism in hand (I wonder if Nabokov wrote/lectured about this?). Thanks so much for reading along with me–it helped keep me on task and moving through the book (rather than letting it languish–not a good book to leave to languish). I am glad, too, that she didn’t go back to conventional writing–and want very much to read more of her work!
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Danielle, I do enjoy a good modern novel. I think in many ways it is my favorite time period. I’d like to read a sort of biography of the period sometime. There was so much going on in all the arts it must have been rather exciting. I know it is a period you like to read in, have you come across any especially good period overviews?
There is nothing in the book about Jacob joining up to fight. He is there one minute and the next he is dead. When the war starts there is a short paragraph about a British submarine being sunk. Nabokov wrote/lectured on To the Lighthouse I think. I have his book, I will try and remember to check.
Thank you for the readalong too. I enjoyed it. You helped me stay on track too otherwise I know I’d still be in the middle of the book no matter how much I was enjoying it. I’d like to reread To the Lighthouse sometime. I last read it 20 years ago when I wasn’t so familiar with her work. Maybe I will try and peg that in for later this year or plan to read it next year.
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I am not a fan of Woolf, but this…
‘He left everything just as it was,’ Bonamy marvelled. ‘Nothing arranged. All his letters strewn about for any one to read. What did he expect? Did he think he would come back?’ he mused, standing in the middle of Jacob’s room.
This is so beautiful and sad.
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I suppose the review shows us what an impossible job reviewing novels on the hoof has always been! I haven’t read Jacob’s Room but your excellent post certainly makes the book sound very interesting.
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Ian, heh, yeah. I wonder what novels being written today that are panned will turn out to be considered important in 60-100 year’s time? Glad you enjoyed the post. Jacob’s Room is a really interesting book. Style gets in the way sometimes but it is fascinating to read a book about a person who isn’t in it most of the time. How did Woolf do that and still make me want to keep reading?
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Nish, isn’t it so very sad? Woolf can be a difficult writer to like, but I tend to love her all the more for it mostly because of beautiful moments like that one.
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this is why I keep saying : you inspire me! Right after reading this post, i went and bought a couple of Virginia Woolfe. Though God knows and you are aware, after Orlando, i dread reading her!
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cirtnecce, oh you are so kind! I do hope you have success with the Woolf books you bought. You know, when I read her fiction, at the very start I always have a few pages where I struggle as my brain tries to force the book into what it thinks a narrative should be. But then I give up and let go and just go with it and inevitably things get better. Am I able to follow everything? No, and I don’t let it worry me. Good luck!
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Sounds intriguing and powerful in a quiet way, and quite cinematic too, isn’t it… esp. the back and forth, stream of consciousness style, its quite the hip way of doing movies nowadays it seems, the indies at least. 😉
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Arti, yes, a quiet but powerful book. Cinematic? Very! I had not thought of it that way. It would be interesting to see this as a movie.
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I always have difficulty wit Woolf’s novels although I love all her non-fiction writing. I have read ‘Jacob’s Room’ but many years ago and I don’t really have any recollections of it. I suspect that part of my problem is that I read too quickly and I ought to be prepared to give more time and space to the language and to allow what Woolf is doing to work on me.
By the way, Frances Marshall (who became Frances Partridge) might have liked to think of herself as a friend but you should read some of the things Woolf has to say about her!
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Alex, Woolf’s novels aren’t easy, especially her later ones. I had to read Mrs. Dalloway twice before I could even figure out what was going on! Not until the third read could I really and truly enjoy it and since I count it among my favorite books I guess I thought it worth all the effort. Woolf does require slow and careful reading and, I find, it helps to read in long stretches. It just doesn’t do to read five pages here and there.
You cleared up a mystery for me. I was trying to figure out who Frances Marshall was as the name didn’t ring any bells, but Frances Partridge, now that name is familiar! Woolf nasty things about almost everyone she knew it seemed. It’s a wonder she had anyone who would consider themselves her friend!
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It’s like I said to Danielle, Woolf makes my head hurt. But you both make the book sound so darn worthwhile, I will give it a go later in the year…during the longer evenings of autumn. If that one doesn’t “take,” I’ll just chalk Woolf up to one of those writers I just don’t get…like Joyce.
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Grad, Woolf is definitely not easy reading, at least her fiction isn’t it. But I do find the effort rewarding, others I know not so much. I tried to get a book group to read Mrs. Dalloway once and every single person rebelled after starting the book and we hastily chose a short and easy book to replace it. I was disappointed but everyone else was so much happier. Maybe she’s an acquired taste? 🙂
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A wonderful review. Thank you!
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Chad, thanks!
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