Howard Jacobson's Blog, page 4

April might be the cruellest month to some; to my mind August is far crueller. But I can’t quite bring myself to say good riddance to it. Put August behind you and you’ve as good as kissed goodbye to the year. For me, also, it means brutally ticking off another birthday – it was last Monday, incidentally, but no presents, please – and that’s what makes it so cruel. I dread it coming and I dread it going – the ageing month.

It was a night made for eating out. The sun still hot but the glare from the Mediterranean no longer angry, the Promenade des Anglais given over to people perambulating rather than exercising, remembering that their bodies are primarily sites of pleasure, not denial. No more early-morning joggers ruining the golden hour before breakfast with their strenuous example. Now, all was well with the world again, and my only thought a bottle of Bandol. Then I saw her.

My 13th novel was published on Thursday. Throw in non-fiction and that’s 18 publication days. You’d think I’d be relaxed about the whole business by now. Ho-hum, another bloody book... what’s for lunch.

Here’s the bad news – we are sitting down too much. It would seem that if we want to get to 100 in any state to enjoy it, we have to do so standing up. Since I earn my living sitting down, this is especially unwelcome news. I happened to be standing up when my wife broke it to me. “You’d better sit down for this,” she said.

If there is one thing theocracies and their variants have difficulty with, it’s laughter. If there’s another, it’s women. Put the two together and the foundations of their states begin to crumble. When the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister made his speech about “moral corruption” last week, calling for women to be vigilant of their chastity, not to be “inviting” in their demeanour and, above all, not to laugh in public, he was invoking an ancient neurosis.

“Howard Jacobson is a knob.” This pithy reflection on my character apparently appeared where pithy reflections on people’s characters routinely do. It was passed on to me by a “friend” and I am so enamoured of its pithiness that I pass it on to you. It will, I hope, prevent others from going to the trouble of posting something similar when they read what I have to say today. In particular, members of the teaching profession delighted to see the back of Michael Gove. I have no desire to pick a fight with teachers for whom, in general, I have the highest respect. No job is more important or more frustrating, and few are so miserably rewarded. We are with teachers all the way in this column. So it isn’t to spite them that I say I was all the way with Michael Gove too. People you respect can be wrong sometimes. That doesn’t make them knobs.

Of bicyclists and buffoons I sing. I don’t yoke the two by violence together. They yoke themselves.

Of the pleasures incident to the literary life, one of the most innocent is being able to say – not boastfully, just with quiet satisfaction – that you’ve read everything a writer has written.

May I, in good faith, make a suggestion. I have no idea whether it’s a good suggestion or not. Indeed, it’s integral to the spirit of the suggestion that I shouldn’t know if it’s good or not, since that’s what my suggestion is: that we try saying we don’t know. But what if we do know? What if we know to a certainty what we think? Then my suggestion is that we pretend we don’t.

May I, in good faith, make a suggestion. I have no idea whether it’s a good suggestion or not. Indeed, it’s integral to the spirit of the suggestion that I shouldn’t know if it’s good or not, since that’s what my suggestion is: that we try saying we don’t know. But what if we do know? What if we know to a certainty what we think? Then my suggestion is that we pretend we don’t.