Laughing All The Way To The Wank

A comedy novel about eroticism? That’s what Booker winner Howard Jacobson attempts with his latest opus. Just don’t tell him it reminds you of 50 Shades of Grey. He’s likely to turn 50 shades of red

Anne Sexton, 02 Oct 2012

If author Howard Jacobson could be said to have a mission it would be to change attitudes towards the comic novel. His new book Zoo Time is very funny indeed, but the author notes that comedy is all too often seen as less accomplished than more serious works of literature.

“I am energised on the subject. It has always been a beef of mine. People say things like, ‘This is a comic novel but it’s also serious.’ That makes me want to pull my hair out!”

Jacobson is charming, articulate and great company. He is also more than a little miffed about the way comedy is written about.

“There is nothing unserious about comedy. Comedy is not the opposite of serious. It’s the opposite of solemn. Not among readers, but amongst the solemn men, the reviewers, the editors of literary magazines, there is a real thing that if you laugh, you’re betraying literature. Where does this come from? Comedy makes us question everything.”

Jacobson is best known for, yes, comic novels, such as The Act Of Love and Peeping Tom. For years he was seen as something as an underappreciated literary superstar until his last book, The Finkler Question, won the 2010 Man Booker prize.

“People were saying ‘At last a comic novel won the Booker prize.’ The Finkler Question is not a comic novel. I never thought I was writing a comic novel, I thought I was writing an angry, tragic and even political novel that had some comedy in it.”

Whereas The Finkler Question explored the relationship between three men, Zoo Time is a meta-fictional hall of mirrors. His anti-hero Guy Ableman is a writer who is writing about a writer, and who believes that literature, and the industry that supports it, is slowly but surely going the way of the dodo.

“They are heightened versions of my own feelings. The whole novel is turned up a notch. It’s not farce, but it’s ratcheted up, not beyond the likely, but beyond the actual. I wouldn’t have bothered with Guy Ableman and given him so much time if his views weren’t versions of mine. He is preposterous, but a lot of the things he says are right, or about to be right or right enough.”

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