Don’t Look at Jacob
Jacob’s Room is a strange novel. By the time that you have finished reading this Virginia Woolf masterpiece, you’re left baffled and puzzled, desperately trying to grasp its significance, its meaning, or even a strong semblance of plot. You wonder why Jacob Flanders’ affectionate relationship with Clara Durrant fades away before it even really starts, or why nothing ever happens with Sandra Williams. Even the narrator wonders:
“It was not to count his notes that he took out a wad of papers and read a long flowing letter which Sandra had written … with his book before her and in her mind the memory of something said or attempted, some moment in the dark on the road to the Acropolis which … mattered forever” (192)
Something should have happened between Jacob and Sandra, but it did not, and there is no rhyme or reason why. It just did not happen, the attempt was never made. Perhaps the first line from the last chapter is the most probative:
“He left everything just as it was” (200)
Our discontent upon finishing the novel stems from this insight. All about Jacob, we’re reading a book that leaves everything just as it was. The secret of Jacob’s Room is that it meanders around Jacob without producing any result or outcome. When we start the book Jacob comes into our minds. When he commits suicide at the end of the book he leaves us. All that is left behind is a vague impression the story.
If we assume that Jacob is the main character and focus our attention on him, we only expose the frailty of the entire book. Jacob is just a transient phantom which draws our attention and wisps away. That’s why I feel lost at the end of the book—because I was following Jacob the whole way. To successfully read Jacob’s Room and extract something at all, one needs to focus on the background around Jacob Flanders.
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 13th, 2005 at 5:40 pm and is tagged with jacob jacobs, sandra williams, affectionate relationship, vague impression, durrant, wisps, frailty, virginia woolf, reading a book, acropolis, semblance, flanders, discontent, fades, wad, narrator, rhyme, masterpiece, left behind, phantom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.