Howard Jacobson



Profile:


Full name: Howard Jacobson

Area of interest: Society, values, cultural issues (esp. Jewish culture, class identity)

Journals: The Independent

Email: [mailto:h.jacobson@independent.co.uk h.jacobson@independent.co.uk]

Website: The Independent / Howard Jacobson

Blog:

Agent: Curtis Brown

Networks:



Biography:
Education: Stand Grammar School, Whitefield; Downing College, Cambridge (studied under F.R. Leavis)

Career: Worked as an academic before becoming a successful author and commentator

"An acerbic cultural critic with a passion for literature and art, he is known for his ebullient wit as well as his unique take on the Jewish experience in Britain." (source: The Independent) Current position/role: Commentator
 * Contemporarywriters.com: biography (British Council)


 * also writes/written for:

Other roles: Novelist, Broadcaster

Other activities:

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight: Contemporarywriters.com: critical perspective (British Council)
 * “...Our funniest, most overlooked, most furious living writer”, profile by Allison Pearson, The Daily Telegraph, 27th April 2003
 * Something Jewish.co: Interview by Elizabeth Manus for Nextbook.org
 * Open2.net: interview for Ian McMillan's Writing Lab (BBC - Open University) (AUDIO/mp3/text)
 * Jewish Book week: Howard Jacobson in conversation with Peter Florence, 2007 (AUDIO/podcast)
 * The Clive James show: Howard Jacobson, writer, interview (VIDEO)

TV/Radio:
 * BBC2: 'Arena' television documentary on Howard Jacobson, 'My Son the Novelist', 1985
 * ITV: 'South Bank Show' edition about The Mighty Walzer, 1999
 * Non-fiction books 'Roots Schmoots: Journeys among the Jews' and 'Seriously funny: from the ridiculous to the sublime' have inspired related television series
 * Channel 4: 'Howard Jacobson Takes on the Turner', 2000
 * ITV: 'South Bank Show' special 'Why the Novel Matters', 2002

Controversy/Criticism:
 * Extract from following article (1): 'I wonder if I might take robust issue with an article my fellow columnist Johann Hari wrote last week, in which he complained about a “campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people”'
 * 1) Howard Jacobson: If there really is a smear campaign to try to silence the critics of Israel, it isn't working - Call those who disagree with you ‘witch-hunters’ often enough and they will see you as one in turn - 10th May 2008
 * 2) Johann Hari's article: Israel is suppressing a secret it must face - How did a Jewish state founded 60 years ago end up throwing filth at cowering Palestinians? - The Independent, 28th April 2008
 * 3) see also Melanie Phillips comments: Whoops, what a giveaway Spectator.co, 8th May 2008

Awards/Honours:
 * Booker Prize winner 2010, appreciation here by Boyd Tonkin
 * Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic writing, 1999 for 'The Mighty Walzer'; Wingate Literary Prize, 2005, 2006, 2007 for 'Kalooki Nights'

Scoops:

Other:



Books & Debate:
Fiction:
 * Coming From Behind (1983) OCLC 10017578
 * Peeping Tom (1984) OCLC 11624058
 * Redback (1986) OCLC 29004273
 * The Very Model of a Man (1992) OCLC 30816297
 * No More Mister Nice Guy (1998) OCLC 39223348
 * The Mighty Walzer (1999) OCLC 59402448
 * Who's Sorry Now (2002) OCLC 48753912
 * The Making of Henry (2004) OCLC 55502757
 * Kalooki Nights (2006) OCLC 73503418

Non-fiction:
 * Shakespeare's Magnanimity: Four Tragic Heroes, Their Friends and Families (1978) OCLC 3845150 (co-author Wilbur Sanders)
 * In the Land of Oz (1987) OCLC 15660854
 * Roots Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews (1994) OCLC 59846508
 * Seriously Funny: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime (1997) OCLC 36780833

Latest work: The Finkler question OCLC 619924695, Man Booker nominated novel, Bloomsbury, 2010, reviewed in The Sunday Times by Adam Lively here

Speaking/Appearances:

Current debate: 
 * Intelligence Squared debate: America has lost its moral authority (with: Matthew Parris, Will Self, Professor John Gray, Simon Schama, Martin Amis), 29th April 2008

The Independent:
Column remit: Society, values, cultural issues (esp. Jewish culture, class identity)

Section:

Role: Commentator

Pen-name:

Email: [mailto:h.jacobson@independent.co.uk h.jacobson@independent.co.uk]

Website: The Independent / Howard Jacobson

Commissioning editor:

Day published: Saturday

Regularity: Weekly

Column format:

Average length: 1100 words



Articles: 2011

 * love-hate affair with the ordinary bloke'' - We can be prejudiced and aware of limits: we can be pigs and still see that we have gone too far - 29th January
 * dark side is closer than we think'' - Exhilaration can turn to ashes in the beat of a heart - 22nd January
 * is for sin time cannot wipe'' - 'Will these hands ne'er be clean?' cries Lady Macbeth in horror. And the terrible answer is no - 15th January
 * for self-contempt to love darts'' - Lose at darts and you compound ingloriousness with disgrace - 8th January
 * them one day and boo them the next'' - It used to take a while for a hero to become a villain or vice versa - 1st January



Articles: 2010

 * never catch me going on a march'' - The moment people throw billiard balls at police, their argument is invalidated - 11th December
 * better you don't know my secrets'' - Apparently Wikileaks is responsible for leaking 251,287 US embassy secrets - 4th December 2010
 * the Ashes starts, I go to pieces'' - The first ball is bowled and my heart is dancing, but not for joy, not joy - 27th November
 * I'm damned if I'll bleed a radiator'' - A poll has been conducted in which men who want a quiet life admit to not being able to bleed a radiator - 20th November
 * can inspire great art'' - The cliché has it that happiness gives the writer little to work with - 13th November
 * worry is the least of my concerns'' - If the terror threat is lowered, that’s because we’ve lowered it. Worry is part of our genetic inheritance - 6th November
 * about your dignity, Ann?'' - This coming week, if rumours are to be believed, she will be led into Strictly on a horse. Lady Godiva? We shall see - 30th October
 * Rooney I see Coriolanus, engine of war'' - Rooney looks like a man who doesn't know what his grievances are because he has lost the point of himself - 23rd October
 * Booker week'' - I owed it to Uncle Gerry to rejoice in the thing itself. And hope for nothing further - 16th October
 * don't discuss prizes in this column. We try to stay above the fray'' - His relationship with the Man Booker has not always been so cordial, as this Independent article from 2005 reveals... - 14th October
 * end of the pier is too big a loss to bear'' - A pier never feels entirely English. Isn’t that what we love – its foreignness? - 9th October
 * have gone against nature'' - Ed might be just what the country needs. But the country isn’t everything - 2nd October
 * and alone amid the rubble'' - Atheist, me? I can think of a few atheists who'd have words to say about that - 11th September
 * English sound of Hindu bagpipes'' - This music reflected the spirituality of India via the emotionalism of Scotland - 4th September
 * theorists lack imagination'' - So what is it with those who see a conspiracy in the fall of every sparrow? - 28th August
 * rage against educational defeatism'' - 'Edexcel' is itself a barbarism to anyone for whom language has dignity - 21st August
 * that time of the year again, again'' - The return of football is even crueller this year, because it never went away - 14th August
 * use Wagner to test your marriage'' - My wife is motionless in her seat, barely breathing. It’s at this point that I believe she has begun to judge me as an artist - 7th August
 * loved him for the calm he exuded'' - My wife's uncle died. Her only uncle, which made him special, though he was important to us in other ways too - 31st July
 * want retribution, not rehabilitation'' - We no sooner let offenders out than they offend again. I propose a simple solution: keep them in - 24th July
 * and losers in the game of stupidity'' - Now that the World Cup is over, here's a little quiz to keep your competitive juices flowing until the next test or tournament comes along - 17th July
 * life. Choose a job. Choose the future'' - You descend into old age wondering what your life might have been - 10th July
 * and books don't go together'' - Will somebody please explain to me what 'Holiday Reading' is? I'm not asking for recommendations - 3rd July
 * Fawlty Towers experience lives on'' - It confirmed my belief that every hotel in England was a Fawlty Towers at heart - 26th June
 * the culture in our football?'' - I make this prophetic pronouncement with great sadness. We are not going to win the World Cup - 19th June
 * is not always believing'' - Reflections - 12th June
 * doesn't hurt if the sun is out'' - If you have to say the party’s over, you don’t want to be doing it in winter - 29th May
 * human rights are plain wrong'' - The culture of the inviolability of the individual has found a congenial resting place in our schools - 22nd May
 * why the 'elite' are in charge'' - They have power because there aren’t enough people educationally equipped to seize it from them - 15th May
 * days of sorrow and joy – of a sort'' - I voted not to put A in but to keep B out. Was this why men risked their lives? - 8th May
 * morality play for these muddled times'' - 'Bigotblundergate' I've called it. It's a one-act tragical-farcical two-hander - 1st May
 * one-eyed giant nearly stopped me getting home'' - Having a column to write, I went in search of other Englishmen as anxious to escape as I was - 24th April
 * power has left teachers humiliated'' - Teaching has been turned upside down. Ignorance is the arbiter of knowledge - 10th April
 * Israel is being treated like a grown-up'' - Anti-Zionism of the sort that peppers letters pages has much to answer for - 3rd April
 * pillars of our civilisation tumble'' - Money was a temptation for New Labour. What else did the ‘New’ stand for? - 27th March
 * salty tale of the Cornish fishermen'' - Boscastle had three pubs for its 800 souls, with singing in every one - 20th March
 * could learn about TV from the US'' - It seemed dire at first. I would channel hop and get only ads, interminable ads - 13th March
 * to an American university and be instantly promoted to professor'' - Their courteousness can get in the way of your knowing what they think - 6th March
 * civilised, courteous but lifeless place'' - Washington is given over in spirit to the tedium of archiving and administration - 27th February
 * that free enterprise doesn't work'' - Individualism is a fine ideal; it’s only a shame individuals suck -20th February
 * in snowy Washington'' - Queues stretch into the street. It’s not just us who go to pieces in extremity - 13th February
 * may have shown bad judgement...'' - ...but it doesn't make him a liar - 6th February
 * do have their uses'' - I wanted to express my gratitude to someone whose comic gifts I admired - 30th January
 * don't dare to criticise 'real people' – just those in the twittersphere'' - People adore, or ele they abhor - 23rd January
 * liberties or civil protection – which is the more important?'' - When freedom becomes ideological it invariably ends up our jailer - 16th January
 * is more precious than freedom'' - Those who offer to act in freedom’s name should not take that name in vain - 9th January
 * males of 22 should be on a list.'' -If you're a man you don't fly before you're 30, is my proposal - 2nd January



Articles: 2009

 * of contentment don't materialise'' - I fancied one day I’d be sipping Claret while reading Tolstoy in the original - 26th December
 * debase relationships with 'love you''' - It conceals what we truly (madly, deeply) feel, especially from ourselves - 19th December
 * don't believe in the joy of giving'' - This year i'm giving up giving. Whether anyone will notice is another matter - 12th December
 * prejudice be servant to the facts, and not the other way round'' - I am wary of accepting someone is an ‘ardent’ Zionist on the say-so of someone who isn’t - 5th December
 * the Coens were going back to their Jewish roots, they must have lost their way'' - They are now the quintessential unfeeling geniuses of our time - 28th November
 * Griffin looks as if he'd be light on his feet...'' - ... So here's what to do with him - 14th November
 * me laugh but don't be so smug'' - Self-satisfaction is unpardonable. Hence the need to keep a straight face - 31st October
 * standing up for minorities is nothing if it's merely special pleading'' - Can we censure people for saying hateful things in language that is itself hateful? - 24th October
 * only one thing a sense of humour will get you – and that's into trouble'' - As long as you keep making jokes you don’t have to listen to anybody else - 17th October
 * don't need poverty for art to thrive'' - ...but too much privilege could be a bad thing - 10th October
 * is nothing petty about this crime'' - This brutality is the consequence of our failure to teach mutuality and respect - 3rd October
 * doesn't matter if there's a recession or not, because Armageddon is on its way'' - It’s business as before. Only this time with a hint of maniacal defiance- 26th September
 * day of reckoning is getting closer'' - Time is running out - this relaunch may be Mr Brown's last - 5th September
 * won the Ashes, but lost an old enemy'' - Ponting’s puckish Irish banter is the last cry of anti-colonial grievance - 29th August
 * the distant angels sing, plucking a tune on just four strings'' - We laugh at the heroic in away that would be impossible if we did not venerate it - 22nd August
 * pedant's duty to keep battling on'' - What the unlettered populace does with words today the rest of us do tomorrow - 15th August
 * tea with terrorists...'' - It’s the new chitti-chattiness I’m worried about. It isn't always good to talk - 8th August
 * hand-washing won't help'' - My swine flu buddy rings the helpline - they say it sounds like swine flu to them - 1st August
 * could all do with Johnson's chicken feed'' - That throwaway line is fatuous, distasteful, contemptuous and cruel - 18th July
 * never did see my function as supplier of the wherewithal to feed women's neuroses'' - The dull truth is that women like men too much to forgo them - 11th July
 * in search of a new Messiah'' - We seem to be in need of big emotion. Joy or grief, it doesn’t matter - 4th July
 * inch high heels are not erotic'' - I spent my first term’s student grant on stilettos for the girl I loved - 27th June
 * fast, die young – or spend your old age playing canasta with the ladies'' - The latest figures showing that men are 100 times more likely to die of everything than women – and at a quarter of their age, and in double the agony – are all I need - 20th June
 * can't forgive Sugar's appointment'' - In the dismal gloaming, he fantasised about prancing airily like Tony - 13th June
 * is nobility in opting out'' - I walked out of Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal last week - 6th June
 * not the uneducated we should blame for our national philistinism'' - Denial of seriousness is the scandal - 30th May
 * food is wonderful eaten in England'' - Regional food is almost invariably peasant food and I am not a peasant - 23rd May
 * a healthy dose of intelligence, sex is just a mechanical process'' - A bit of rough is a fantasy only in the minds of the well educated - 16th May
 * money men were bound to win, but Melvyn showed us how good TV can be'' - Our writer admires how his friend kept the South Bank Show's bean-counters at bay - 10th May
 * letter to an anti-Semite who isn't'' - You give succour to fanaticism. Yours is the sleep of reason - 9th May
 * power of old Austrian-Slavic legends'' - The phrase "Austrian legend of Slavic origin" makes me want to slit my wrists - 2nd May
 * Boyle shouldn't have to curry favour'' - Oh God, she dreamed the dream. She had to, didn't she - 25th April
 * zingers are juicy nightmares'' - One point stands out: lime juice stings a cut finger beyond endurance - 11th April
 * scorn shown to Jacqui Smith's husband is proof of people's hypocrisy'' - I don’t watch blue movies. But then I’ve watched too many to be any longer curious - 4th April
 * a final stand for humankind'' - Those who say we misplace the threat of terror are committing us all to suicide - 28th March
 * is the joy and purpose of art.'' - The novel proper has been losing ground to real life improper for years - 21st March
 * do you do if you've got too much time on your hands? Start a fight'' - The boredom of existence explains our going astray in nine cases out of 10 - 14th March
 * bankers could learn a thing or two from the Victorians – namely honour'' - They had the moral refinement to do away with themselves when the game was up - 7th March
 * has nothing to do with education'' - There is nothing new about hating a clever clogs. We always have - 28th February
 * to the opera and a man with a bald head is always blocking the view'' - Just blown two hundred smackers staring into the back of someone’s head - 21st February
 * see the ‘criticism’ of Israel for what it really is'' - The air has been charred not with devastation but with hatred - 18th February
 * it comes to art and the human condition, keep morality out of it'' - The larger your imagination the fewer feelings you don't understand - 7th February
 * can have too much money'' - Society will always be unjust. But how great can we bear the disparity to be - 31st January
 * your tailoring right, and you can set out to solve the world's problems'' - Too much attention to exterior show a man is trivial; too little and he is a fanatic - 24th January
 * silly lad is not a murderous racist'' - The palace is still no place to acquaint a boy with the ironic locutions of the street - 17th January
 * didn't get Pinter – until it was too late'' - An observer would have picked us for master and acolyte - 10th January
 * Palestinians might be winning the propaganda war, but at what cost?'' - Israel could not have done other than it is doing, but that does not make it right - 3rd January



Articles: 2008

 * does Old Testament love and loss'' - Can you see where the singer got his taste for the eroticism of betrayal? - 27th December 2008
 * never easy buying for a man.'' - I don't doubt it's the question keeping you awake at night. - 20th December 2008
 * talk costs lives'' - So how bad is it going to get? Don't spare me, doctor. I need to know - 13th December 2008
 * terrorism, more blame games'' - To argue Palestine fuelled the massacre in Mumbai is preposterous - 6th December 2008
 * to Cohen I now see the light'' - It’s like a reprimand to people of my temperament. Is he be singing to me? - 29th November 2008
 * lesson of Hitler's deformity'' - So Hitler actually did have only one ball. I call that a pity for history - 22nd November 2008
 * gets the public's fickle nature'' - The judges came to a conclusion cynics and nihilists reached years ago - 15th November 2008
 * cool could become political substance'' - The President-elect manages to link good citizenship to street cred - 8th November 2008
 * Brand winked at me once. And when he winks at you, you stay winked'' - Ross has made a little go a long way. Brand has made a lot go almost nowhere - 1st November 2008
 * God 'probably' doesn't exist. Don't these atheists have any conviction?'' - This is a cowardly opposition to religious sentiment - 25th October 2008
 * like a mirthster, but smart-arsery is not funny'' - Nothing is sacred but not every act of satirical disrespect is funny - 11th October 2008
 * to banking's own circle of hell'' - Make your fortune. Just don’t forget the materials out of which it came - 4th October 2008
 * to be a working man again – if only for the full English breakfast'' - 27th September 2008
 * what is the legacy of the banker's greed? A cynical society – and bad art'' - It has become inconceivable that a person might inhabit a moral or intellectual position for its own sake - 20th September 2008
 * choose between the mind and the flesh? In Italy, you can have both'' - For four days, Mantova is given over to inordinately elegant women who go nowhere without a book - 13th September 2008
 * you reach a certain age, Confucius makes perfect sense'' - Among this philosophy's attractive elements is its insistence that respect be shown to elderly men - 6th September 2008
 * are malevolent, while athletes are obsessed only with themselves'' - Paula Radcliffe is the most boring person in the country. When you ask her how she is, she tells you - 30th August 2008
 * Autumn is coming and I've got the wrong trousers. Giorgio to the rescue'' - 23rd August 2008
 * calm comedy of Simon Gray was all the company you ever needed'' - 16th August 2008 (playwright Simon Gray died 6th August 2008)
 * much to be said for the old ways of teaching. At least they worked'' - How bad is it? Five million of us are leaving school without having mastered basic literacy - 9th August 2008
 * Sitting on a bench in Eastbourne, where else would one want to be? - The English like to moderate life's pleasures, which is why their coastal resorts suit them so well - 2nd August 2008
 * We get the war criminals we deserve - Far worse than Karadzic himself are those who blindly followed him - 26th July 2008
 * Military service, crocheting and ping-pong – that will separate the men from the boys - The findings of the British Crime Survey were published last week. And it's good news - 19th July 2008
 * You can keep your good health and long life. Just give me back my pasta - Better to live a brief life without fear than live to 100 and afraid of every pea that rolls on to our plate - 12th July 2008
 * Stop running. Slow down. And take a good long look – you'll get far more out of art - I find nothing tiresome about standing rapt before a painting and thinking long about what we see - 5th July 2008
 * Watch baggage handlers at work and you too can succumb to luggage rage - I watched someone clearing bags manhandling them as if they had done him a personal injury - 28th June 2008
 * What makes everyone believe that they have an inalienable right to be 'worth it'? - It's possible that I feel squeamish about talent contests because I never won one - 21st June 2008
 * It's the end of civil liberties as we know it – or that's how some people prefer to think - What's been done to us to make us dread every new CCTV camera as we dread a nightmare? - 14th June 2008
 * When ordering a salt beef sandwich, beware the moral minefield that awaits - It's a contradiction of Jewish law: the more you eat kosher, the more of a pig you make yourself look - 7th June 2008
 * If what we watch or read can move us to compassion, it can move us to sadism too - There is an unwillingness to believe that our times are morally or intellectually inferior to any other - 31st May 2008
 * The first step on the road to wisdom is admitting that you don't know anything - It is beyond us to balance fairly the rights of an unborn child against those of the mother - 24th May 2008
 * Rebel too strongly against seriousness and what do you end up with? Boris Johnson - He reminds me of a baby. He has the same wet, pouting lip, the same incorrigible naughtiness - 17th May 2008
 * If there really is a smear campaign to try to silence the critics of Israel, it isn't working - Call those who disagree with you ‘witch-hunters’ often enough and they will see you as one in turn - 10th May 2008
 * No need to be surprised when a house of horrors turns up on a quiet provincial street - The degree to which this story fascinates us proves we know the dungeon is never far away - 3rd May 2008
 * I lay on my sun bed and enjoyed the most perfect reading experience you can imagine - It's so hot out there that if I quit the shade for more than 10 seconds I will grow a melanoma - 26th April 2008
 * Which is more depraved: Nazi role-playing in sex games or the horrors of motor sport? - Better to have had Mr Mosley in his striped pyjamas being flogged outside my window - 5th April 2008
 * If you say you want a revolution, it's obvious you're sitting uncomfortably in economy - So what does that say about those of us who were not swept up by the universal hysteria of 1968? - 29th March 2008
 * The heart has its allegiances, to places as well as people. And a country is both - I think the recent suggestions about introducing oaths of fealty are fatuous, but then again I don't - 22nd March 2008
 * So much more could have been done to liberate people from the confines of class - A funny thing happens to working classes when they read – they stop being working class - 15th March 2008
 * Many are the ways we might feel frightened, embarrassed – or just not at home - Study is meant to make you feel at sea. The self is not a precious entity to be soothed at every turn - 8th March 2008
 * If you think that Prozac works, then it doesn't really matter what the experts say - What scientists never understand is that human beings aren't governed by science - 1st March 2008
 * Why mock the expectation of beauty in art? It is laudable that we want to be impressed - 23rd February 2008
 * Our woefully uncultured leaders no longer have any idea what schools should be doing - Mental torture I call it, making a man use a word like 'creative' when he doesn’t know what it means - 16th February 2008
 * You won't find young people complaining about CCTV – they love being on camera - As we're free, the thing we dread is not invasion of our privacy but its opposite – obscurity - 9th February 2008
 * I don't believe that if Eton was closed down then every school beneath it would improve - Does the fault lie in the social attitudes of those who administer and teach at comprehensives? - 2nd February 2008
 * I go and see a film and can't understand what anyone's saying. And I don't think I am alone - I date the demise of verbal communication to our our rejection of Received Pronunciation - 26th January 2008
 * It's not done to say it, but a book that's 'a good read' is seldom worth reading - 19th January 2008
 * Few human beings can resist the sight of a woman's tears – crocodile or otherwise - Hillary knows what works, and anyone who mistrusts such calculation is too naive to be allowed to vote - 12th January 2008
 * No wonder the public is deranged when the people paid to serve us do such a bad job - Some men take pistols into banks to get what they want. I take my voice. But only once a year - 5th January 2008



Links:

 * Wikipedia bio