Jacob's Room

Rating:
Summary: Stitched Seams of Color, Subjectless, and Brilliant
Review: From Woolf's innumerable unfinished sentences and unaccounted for colors, we begin to see that there are no traditional themes or plots, and she has not set down to cement a story from the point of view of her subject. At the beginning of the novel, and throughout, everyone is looking for Jacob, and he cannot be found. We learn little or nothing about his life except what seems like scattered thoughts and phrases, and learn more about who he is from where he is not than where he is. By not being tied down to one theme or the traditional explanation and nature of having this fixed subject, Woolf is then able to attack, from outside-in, the hollowness and darkness she sees before her. She sees the fractioning and diverging "chasm in the continuity of our ways", and wonders what it would be to let go of this driving thing that makes it necessary to fix her narrative on one subject in her book. By bringing in endless new characters, and then leaving them, she tries to approach the manner by which we know our subjects of observation. "The young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us - why indeed? For the moment after, we know nothing about him." This is how we float through our lives, seeing these subjects of people andn pathways, moving around countries and eras in our internal time, without a fixed linearity. Since Woolf has seen that assumed "core" of linearity in the traditional Victorian novel crumble into dissolution, she looks at that darkness and tries to find what is real about it. What ends up glittering in her flashlight of exploration is this possibility of pathways, and a realization of what is real. She wants to start catching reality the way we live it. She doesn't want a letter, a posted and fixed choice of how things "are" that doesn't reflect the inside of the room or life that creates it, she doesn't want to structure another hollow linearity, but instead she wishes, in all her seemingly incoherent, circular, and rambling images and phrases, to chart the motion of the reality that drives us. This reality is made real here: "They say that the novelists never catch it; that it goes hurtling through their nets and leaves them torn to ribbons. This, they say, is what we live by - this unseizable force." What Woolf has created with Jacob's room is not an easy read - at times it will leave you crying, screaming, or just pensive, but it is, in my opinion, her best and most complex book. Naturally, it is also her most rewarding.

Rating:
Summary: Much Thanks
Review: I would like to express my gratitude to "a reader from us" and "a reader from Soweto." You both succesfully ruined the book for my entire class. I had to change my lesson plans because of your insensitivity. Much thanks!

Rating:
Summary: Anyone know a good support group?
Review: I'm not a casual reader. I have voraciously studied literature extensively during my life and I'm the only person I know that has read The Canterbury Tales for fun. I have been trying for a month now to read this little volume and I'm having a very difficult time maintaining interest. I wish I had read it during a college class to have the guidance of a professor enamored with Ms. Woolfe and the discussion of an interested class to give the novel perspective. I have enjoyed many of Ms. Woolfe's works long before the recent film notoriety, Orlando being a favorite, but I can't seem to immerse myself in the world of Jacob Flanders and have it make any sense at all.

Rating:
Summary: Anyone know a good support group?
Review: I'm not a casual reader. I have voraciously studied literature extensively during my life and I'm the only person I know that has read The Canterbury Tales for fun. I have been trying for a month now to read this little volume and I'm having a very difficult time maintaining interest. I wish I had read it during a college class to have the guidance of a professor enamored with Ms. Woolfe and the discussion of an interested class to give the novel perspective. I have enjoyed many of Ms. Woolfe's works long before the recent film notoriety, Orlando being a favorite, but I can't seem to immerse myself in the world of Jacob Flanders and have it make any sense at all.

Rating:
Summary: Main focus on projection and repetition of colours
Review: It is a truly marvellous novel and I really cried illustriously oh my heart out when Jacob died. The imagery use of Bennet can obviously be seen as put to use in this novel in which instance it contradicts her essay modern fiction in a great way. The parts that were not written in a drug induced state were really enjoyable...as for the character of Jacob which had me profusely confused she succeeded in confusing me even more with the lack of subjective titles aS to guide me as the reader in to the story's understanding uninterpretable chaotic surealism and shlock.

Rating:
Summary: Virginia Woolf's stylistic devices in Jacob's Room
Review: Jacob's Room is an impressionistic novel in which there is no defined plot; rather, random circumstances in the central character's life, Jacob Flanders, are portrayed as observations of the people who come in contact with him. Jacob's Room marks the beginning of Woolf's experimental literary techniques, stream-of-consciousness and interior monologue. Also, this novel defies the traditional style of time sequence by moving from the present to the future and back to the past. Contradicting Woolf's strong femininistic beliefs, the characters in Jacob's Room are adrogynous in that they do not take on superior male or female roles. The sentences are long and involved mimicking the thought processes of her characters. My favorite quote in this novel is an example of Woolf's poetic writing style: "Each had his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart; and his friends could only read the title" (70).

Rating:
Summary: a room of one's own
Review: Some say that as we grow up,
we become different people at different ages.
but I don¡¯t believe this.
I think we remain the same throughout,
merely passing in these years from one room to another,
but always in the same house.
If we unlock the rooms of the far past,
We can look in and see ourselves
Beginning to become you and me.
Do you know where you were born? Yes, most probably in a room. Do you remember where you were brought up? Uh-huh, in most cases, in a room. Do you have any idea where you are going to die? Of course, most people would wish to be in a room. Dust we are, to dust we shall return (Gen. 3.19). Once dusty us get the passport of landing on this planet, the majority of our fellow earth citizens march to our another biological inevitability under the shelter of different rooms, like the snails. Fortunately, most of us will not realize this human bondage; besides, we take it for granted that freedom is something tangible like the apples in a tree. We can get it as long as we try and retry. Unfortunately, some of us are sensible enough to feel the invisible bars, so they resort to literature and presume that they could be set free in another world. Most unfortunately, they merely step from one cage to another. I am not saying the authors are evil-intentioned. Far from it. They just unconsciously lead us to a special room of their own.
Here are two examples to give the readers a vague idea what these rooms are like. Entering Dicken¡¯s room, one would be at once fascinated by the kaleidoscopic scenes in it. The tiniest turn would present the readers with a fabulous show on our life stage. Here we see happy smiles, weeping faces, regretful looks and clenching fists. No matter how dark the room might be sometimes, we would always see four big letters on the walls---HOPE. Isn¡¯t that what we live on and live for?
Then, in a hopeful mood, we gracefully knock open Woolf¡¯ Jacob¡¯s Room. All of a sudden, we find ourselves in the strangest place we have ever stepped in. EMPTY. That is the impression we get at the first sight. Where is Woolf? She has disappeared from the door silently. When our eyes get used to the light in the room, we only figure out some dim stuff on the walls. ¡°Listless is the air in an empty room¡±(Woolf 37). Some people leave the room at once in a rage: ¡°What is it all about!¡± Some of them linger for a while. Finally they shout exultantly: ¡° I see, I see. There IS a portrait of a gentleman on the wall. Some women surround him. Wow! What a romantic painting!!¡± Satisfied, they go out. Only a few left at this moment. They have been standing there for a long time in the same pose as if they had been frozen. Their eyes are glued on the walls and their gaze conveys a shocked and frightened meaning. What do they see? A monster? An accident? Or a turbulence? No, but more than that. They see life---AS WHAT IT IS. Where is Woolf? She is silently smiling behind the door.
What should they do? Run out of this room to another? No use. The next-door room is similar. Keep running? No way. This sort of room design is a fashion on this floor. A moment later, someone hear a terrible cry from the rooftop. Someone has chosen to meet his dusty ending earlier. Is ignorance really a bliss? Should we ignore what is real just because it is cruel and painful? Is that an escapist¡¯s motive? Not really. In one of Harry Potter¡¯s adventures---The Socerer¡¯s Stone, there is a magic tree. Once one falls in its tangled branches, no matter how hard he struggles, he will never be able to get out. The only way of getting rid of its hold is to---relax. If one relaxes his whole body as if nothing were around him, he will be set free at once. Those who did not go in Jacob¡¯s room do not need to regret for what they have lost, because they might regret more if they had. Those who went but saw nothing special are lucky, because they have spared themselves a later sting. As for those who did see what Woolf intended to show, frankly speaking, they have fallen into those messy branches then and there. To relax or not to relax? That is the question. Relaxation seems impossible and ridiculous at such a confusing, painful and struggling moment. How can we possible forget what we have seen and felt? However, the harder we fight with the branches, the faster we will sink. Therefore, better stop thinking further before being devoured. The human bondage is merely invisible. If we spare the trouble of reminding ourselves of its existence 365 times a year, we will be as happy as one could possible be. Down with those rooms! After all, there is only one room we wish to guard and cherish with our life---the chamber of our hearts.
Where is Woolf now? She has gone back to a room or her own, leaving us a room with a view.

Rating:
Summary: a room of one's own
Review: Some say that as we grow up,
we become different people at different ages.
but I don¡¯t believe this.
I think we remain the same throughout,
merely passing in these years from one room to another,
but always in the same house.
If we unlock the rooms of the far past,
We can look in and see ourselves
Beginning to become you and me.
Do you know where you were born? Yes, most probably in a room. Do you remember where you were brought up? Uh-huh, in most cases, in a room. Do you have any idea where you are going to die? Of course, most people would wish to be in a room. Dust we are, to dust we shall return (Gen. 3.19). Once dusty us get the passport of landing on this planet, the majority of our fellow earth citizens march to our another biological inevitability under the shelter of different rooms, like the snails. Fortunately, most of us will not realize this human bondage; besides, we take it for granted that freedom is something tangible like the apples in a tree. We can get it as long as we try and retry. Unfortunately, some of us are sensible enough to feel the invisible bars, so they resort to literature and presume that they could be set free in another world. Most unfortunately, they merely step from one cage to another. I am not saying the authors are evil-intentioned. Far from it. They just unconsciously lead us to a special room of their own.
Here are two examples to give the readers a vague idea what these rooms are like. Entering Dicken¡¯s room, one would be at once fascinated by the kaleidoscopic scenes in it. The tiniest turn would present the readers with a fabulous show on our life stage. Here we see happy smiles, weeping faces, regretful looks and clenching fists. No matter how dark the room might be sometimes, we would always see four big letters on the walls---HOPE. Isn¡¯t that what we live on and live for?
Then, in a hopeful mood, we gracefully knock open Woolf¡¯ Jacob¡¯s Room. All of a sudden, we find ourselves in the strangest place we have ever stepped in. EMPTY. That is the impression we get at the first sight. Where is Woolf? She has disappeared from the door silently. When our eyes get used to the light in the room, we only figure out some dim stuff on the walls. ¡°Listless is the air in an empty room¡±(Woolf 37). Some people leave the room at once in a rage: ¡°What is it all about!¡± Some of them linger for a while. Finally they shout exultantly: ¡° I see, I see. There IS a portrait of a gentleman on the wall. Some women surround him. Wow! What a romantic painting!!¡± Satisfied, they go out. Only a few left at this moment. They have been standing there for a long time in the same pose as if they had been frozen. Their eyes are glued on the walls and their gaze conveys a shocked and frightened meaning. What do they see? A monster? An accident? Or a turbulence? No, but more than that. They see life---AS WHAT IT IS. Where is Woolf? She is silently smiling behind the door.
What should they do? Run out of this room to another? No use. The next-door room is similar. Keep running? No way. This sort of room design is a fashion on this floor. A moment later, someone hear a terrible cry from the rooftop. Someone has chosen to meet his dusty ending earlier. Is ignorance really a bliss? Should we ignore what is real just because it is cruel and painful? Is that an escapist¡¯s motive? Not really. In one of Harry Potter¡¯s adventures---The Socerer¡¯s Stone, there is a magic tree. Once one falls in its tangled branches, no matter how hard he struggles, he will never be able to get out. The only way of getting rid of its hold is to---relax. If one relaxes his whole body as if nothing were around him, he will be set free at once. Those who did not go in Jacob¡¯s room do not need to regret for what they have lost, because they might regret more if they had. Those who went but saw nothing special are lucky, because they have spared themselves a later sting. As for those who did see what Woolf intended to show, frankly speaking, they have fallen into those messy branches then and there. To relax or not to relax? That is the question. Relaxation seems impossible and ridiculous at such a confusing, painful and struggling moment. How can we possible forget what we have seen and felt? However, the harder we fight with the branches, the faster we will sink. Therefore, better stop thinking further before being devoured. The human bondage is merely invisible. If we spare the trouble of reminding ourselves of its existence 365 times a year, we will be as happy as one could possible be. Down with those rooms! After all, there is only one room we wish to guard and cherish with our life---the chamber of our hearts.
Where is Woolf now? She has gone back to a room or her own, leaving us a room with a view.

Rating:
Summary: thank you very much
Review: thanks a lot "reader from soweto" for telling everyone that the character dies in the end. your supposed to help us, not ruin it for us?

Rating:
Summary: Who Do You Really Know?
Review: The reader is introduced to Jacob as a child and sees glimpses of his life as he grows into a young man. Woolf accomplishes this by portraying Jacob as seen by those around him - his mother, friends from school, strangers on the street, and the women who adore him - as well as by intimating the reader with Jacob through brief moments inside Jacob's own mind. The result is a forceful novel that speaks boldly against the evils of war and on the superficiality of perception, love, and life.