Caractacus Jacob's Room (Modern Classics)

Woolf Finds Her Feet (Only To Lose Them In The Ouse)

Review

Virginia Woolf's first stream of consciousness novel in which we meet Jacob.

No stream of consciousness novel is ever easy, but this has an even stranger tack as Woolf only ever looks at Jacob through other peoples eyes. We meet him at various stages of his life through the eyes of his mother, his friends etc. While this would push Woolf on to greater things, I came from the novel with a curious sense of emptiness. Jacob was as unknown to me at the end as at the beginning. Of course, this is the point and technically the novel is a tour de force, Brechtian in its dis-establishment and disconnect from its main character.

But why read the novel then, apart from appreciation of some excellent prose? It is no less difficult than Patrick White's writing, White being the direct opposite and burying his novels with character work.

Ultimately Jacob is an acquaintance to whom you can bid goodbye at the end of the book. He is not a friend who will stay with you.

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