Books, and Howard Jacobson

The main problem I have with Howard Jacobson is that he doesn't make me laugh, even when his books are endorsed all over with words like "hilarious" "wit" and plain "funny". This is not problem for him because lots of people find him amusing, but it is for me because I love to laugh and I feel sad about missing the joke.

 

I think it is because there is a male sense of humour that I have no access to; a snorty sort of humour based on a feeling of power and superiority, and I have never had that. Anyway, at present I am reading the collection of his column in the Independent and I knew I liked that - I like his writing. One feels he showcases his skill in the newspaper.

I am particularly taken by a column about books. What to do about one's possessions is a problem that perplexes me. If your possessions are just for you to enjoy right now, you shouldn't worry, but if you are thinking of some future time when you will enjoy your possessions you are probably barking up the wrong tree because many of your things will have deteriorated in condition - the yellowed, fading postcards or pictures, for example, and if you are thinking someone else, in future, will enjoy your possessions when you decide to pass them on, you are also barking up the wrong tree because that other person will not share your taste and will probably only take a mild and passing interest in the things you treasure so much. I am thinking about this particularly in the case of books, because of having to dispose of my mother's possessions and this included a long period of re-reading her books to see if I should keep those by a certain author, and because, although I said that my collection of books would get no bigger and I have imposed a limit, which is the number of bookshelves I already have, I have just authorized the building of three more shelves. The thing is: I have a Kindle. I do not need to buy books unless there is no electronic equivalent and by the way, I have joined The Open Library which is a library online where you can get books that are way out of date, of the kind which previously I had to order through the public library system. One does not need to go out anymore!!

So Jacobson starts by pondering a Montreux prize for a television programme displaying the strongest "human values". He wonders what these are and whether "Getting em off in Ibiza" does not show even more human values? Then he wonders if perhaps we are trying to dignify ourselves but we actually mean something more like spiritual values, or God, even. But if we say spiritual values the words are too light to actually mean anything.

So he's pondering on this while packing up his books; he's moving house. Ah, but his actual words are "relocating his library". That's how many books he has - a library, and he started collecting them from second-hand book stalls when a mere slip of a boy. And people say to you - as his father said to him "How many of those have you read?" They always say that. I remember showing someone who asked me that question a couple of books that I hadn't read. But really I was mystified by the question because I have read more books that I possess, far more. Howard says:

"How do you explain to somebody who doesn't understand that you don't build a library to read. A library is a resource. Something you go to for reference, as and when. But also somethings you simply look at, because it gives you succour, answers to some idea of who you are, or more to the point, who you would like to be, who you will be once you own every book you need to own."

That's neat, it covers the accusation of being pretentious.

He says: "... books worth owning speak to us of our humanity as vexedly as the drunk returning to his own vomit in Ibiza. [OK this is a bit stupid as no-one ever returns to their own vomit, only dogs, in the proverb. But give him some poetic licence.] It's trouble, being human. It's bad for us."

Then he says "books made a bastard out of me, as they are meant to."

Very puzzled about this as it doesn't sound like much of a claim for literature. This very much depends on the books you choose. I know Howard J loves Middlemarch but I can't really see how reading Middlemarch can make a bastard out of anyone. I will have to think about it. However, literature is full of everything you need to know, or think about, and I didn't know that for a very long time, but I was able to tell a young friend of mine, who loved literature but was thinking of studying History and Politics, - don't. Because I did exactly that. The part of politics you love is probably Political Theory and if you study Politics you have to do Comparative Government and things like that which are as boring as can be - leave it to the lawyers - and everything you want to know about is covered in Literature. So she went to the University of Durham and did well in Literature and now she is working in publishing in London. Which was my dream when I was young. So I feel my experience was not in vain.

I think where Howard went wrong is that he didn't try to name the values that he thinks are meant by "human values". The ones I believe form a bridge between man and God are courage, compassion, honesty and humility. These didn't just come into my head. They came from studying art in art galleries. If you get them all in roughly equal quantities you have an awe-inspiring piece of art. But they are not all four displayed together, usually one quality is pre-eminent. But of human values, these, I believe, are the most important.

Dad was himself

Dad was himself. Even old, he was naturally inclined to hope for good things. Now confused, he cried when he found he couldn't go home. He could never go home again; he couldn't climb the stairs, two flights; how could he have climbed them a few weeks ago, after his last hospital stay? But he had, on his bandaged feet, on his legs that were losing their skin, he had done it through dogged determination. But a week later, was carried back again to hospital.

He and Sue lived two floors us in a flat where everything fitted together like a nest of oddments, collapsed together in a general impression of browns, smelling of cigarette smoke, the papers on the desk never moving, the books on the shelves never moving, just a small area of kitchen still a workspace, just a small current flowing through the still, dark pool of age.

So Mrs T thinks of her father, about to die, and about packing up her mother's flat - all the bedroom first, then on to the bathroom - chuck - chuck - chuck - she would put the toiletries in the sack - but the clothes go to Help the Aged, where they give her a Gift Aid number.

One morning she has a John Lennon song in her head - "I'm only Sleeping" so seductively beautiful -

"But he was depressed" Mrs T thinks. "He didn't want to get up, or think, or make a plan. He could hardly even finish the song - it just repeated itself and lasted only three minutes."

Sleeping too much was a sign of depression, as surely as sleeping too little. And sleep was a foretaste of death, too much sleep a flirtation with death.

Mrs T has wanted to say these things to her father, agonised on the brink:

"Death is but a sleep and a forgetting". "Our little lives are ended with a sleep."

She had not had the opportunity to say these things. And he would have mocked her anyway because he wasn't ready to "sleep". Mrs T had wanted to help, but everybody has to die by themselves and there is nothing to say, in many cases, nothing at all that will help.

Mrs T carried "I'm Only Sleeping" around in her head and its unhappiness hurt her. She found it on YouTube and then went on to other recordings of John Lennon, and there was the cure; it turned out to be - Early Lennon. "It won't be long Yeah! " "This Boy" "I call Your Name". It was a roughness about his voice that did it - a fierceness to his nature - he sounded like a friend to Mrs T.