Haven't actually finished the book but I'm just reading it for the sake of reading it and mostly have no idea what's going on because I can't concentrate. Not an insult to the book, I'm sure it's great but it just so happens to not be what I'm into at the moment!

Stunning!

Second time reading it and fell asleep half the time I picked it up. I really enjoy Woolf. To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway are great. This, to me, is not. And of course it needs to be in my last chapter.

I have to admit that most of the time I was reading this, I was just kind of sighing impatiently and going, "WTF, another POV shift? Get on with it, Virginia." And then the end happened, and all those irritating perspective changes turned out to be a skillfully arranged series of triggers leading, like falling dominoes, to a mostly off-the-page explosion.

And it is righteous!

The novel is really a series of vignettes, connected by several recurring characters. It is one of the strangest character studies in literature, but the technique employed by Woolf--revealing the protagonist through the perceptions of others--does double duty in characterizing both Jacob and his era. If you can follow the domino chain, and Woolf doesn't make it easy, the ending is quietly devastating.

Definitely a book to reread.

I was so interested to read this book but after reading to page 100 TWICE ..... I truly have no clue what this book is about - completely baffled. I set it adrift. But definitely will read another V. Woolf book in the future

Worth it, worth it, worth spending time with -- not an easy book per se but a delicious one, with at least fifty moments that will break your heart if you let them. Read a little about it first, and you'll start to appreciate what she's doing here -- read her story "An Unwritten Novel" and it'll pave the way. Decades ahead of its time -- I can't believe, in a way, that it hasn't been made into some fine understated French film.

Read this for a class I’m taking all about Woolf, and I just adored this. Absolutely beautiful.

A so persistently disjointed book that I didn’t begin to have a grasp on the characters until he was in Greece at the very end. Long enough to think oh! Now I’ve got it! And then be faced with an ending that completely obliterated that sense of understanding. Reading the blurb after (which I’d avoided previous to picking it up) was confirmation of my experience and the intent or style here. If you’re in the mood to read something that you don’t have to get attached to and feels more like static, pleasant narration, background noise, descriptions of people and places you don’t have to give a damn about or think about beyond the next moment, then this is the book for you. Honestly, there are times I know I feel that way especially with the chaos of our present, so here you go. Virginia Woolf as background noise.