Howard Jacobson

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the writer Howard Jacobson. He is English, Jewish, funny, provocative, and angry, although not necessarily in that order, and perhaps less angry these days. After many years swiping at literary prizes, last October he walked off with the biggest one going, the Man

Presenter0:53

As a child growing up in post war Manchester, he knew he wanted to write, but he was nearly forty before he got on with it.

Presenter1:00

I was trying to write like Henry James, he says. It took me a long time to realize my material could be the world that I'd grown up in. So, Howard Jacobson, it was, I think, the twelfth of October. You were the favourite to win the Mann Booker Prize with uh the Finkler question, and you had managed to convince yourself that you were not going to win. Is that right?

Howard Jacobson1:20

Well if I was the favourite, this is the first I've heard of it. I thought I was the long shot. But anyway, I'd certainly decided I was a long shot. And my mother had told me I was a long shot. Because she said the book was, what, too Jewish? She said it was too Jewish. But she's also always been telling me I'm the long shot because she wants to save me from disappointment. She's always been a very protective mother in this way. She wants me to feel that um not to hope for too much. She wasn't with you at the awards ceremony, but she was she watching on television?

Presenter1:27

Right.

Howard Jacobson1:48

She did watch on television, though she did say she wasn't going to watch on television. She wasn't going to watch on television because I wasn't going to win. And when I rang her to say I'd won, she said, no, I know, I've been watching television. But one thing she said, they interrupted your speech. The Chilean miners had just come out. Ah yes. And she said they interrupted your speech for the Chilean miners. She said the Chilean miners had been down there for six months. Would ten more minutes really make some

Presenter2:12

Ever the Jewish mother, that seems to me quite a sort of Jewish mother approach to things.

Howard Jacobson2:16

And a good Jewish joke too, yes.

Presenter2:18

Yes, a very good joke. Um it it fifty thousand pounds, of course, so that's nice. But but but beyond that, how much did it matter to you to win?

Howard Jacobson2:25

Well, it's huge because it's good how you feel about yourself. For a writer my age, it of necessity casts a light back on the other work, even though your other work's got nothing to do with it. So your other work comes alive again, and I somehow was able to decide it's a kind of reward for that too. It does matter for a writer to be read, and in our times it's quite hard to be read, and been getting harder to be read if you're a serious writer.

Presenter2:48

Given then that it's a book of yours that's received the most attention worldwide, do you think that in a way is a pity? Are there other books of yours that you would have thought actually I'd much rather people were reading that? Because I think it was

Howard Jacobson2:57

No, but I'd also like them to have been reading that. People said to me, Don't you think the Mighty Waltz should have won the Booker Prize? Don't you think Kaluki Knight should have won the Book a Prize? To which I always answer, Yes, indeed, I should have won the Book a Prize three times, but I'll settle for how it happened.

Presenter3:11

And do you feel part of the establishment now more than ever? Do you feel as though in a way yes, you've arrived.

Howard Jacobson3:18

I feel I've arrived. Um, whether I've arrived into the establishment, I don't know. I can't quite believe I'll ever be part of the establishment, because.

Howard Jacobson3:26

My sense of myself and certainly my sense my sense of myself as a writer has always been being on the outside, on the outside looking in, on the outside as a Jew looking into Gentile England, but also, you know, on the outside of Jewishness too. I've always felt myself to be on the outside of everything.

Presenter3:44

Let's get to the music then. First of all, today what are we

Howard Jacobson3:47

Gonna hear.

Presenter3:47

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson3:47

We're going to hear Dame Janet Baker singing Schlumet Ein from Isch Haber Genoog. It is one of the most exquisite pieces of music sung exquisitely.

Howard Jacobson3:58

Crying is very important to me. I used to cry a lot, and I cry a lot now when I hear.

Presenter4:01

Tram music.

Howard Jacobson4:06

music and I use music for crying. The minute this begins I am I am gone. And I think on a desert island uh I would be crying a lot anyway and I'd like to feel that there is good reason other than self pity for me to be crying and it's really art. It's really art I'm crying about.

Speaker 44:34

And that sounds like so true and time.

Speaker 45:02

An earth sounds saved.

Presenter5:15

Dame Janet Baker, singing part of Bach's cantata No. eighty two, Schlummert ein Iermaten Augen, Close in Sleep, O Weary Eyelids, with the Bath Festival Orchestra conducted by Yehudi Menuen. Um Howard Jacobson, you said that you would you would be doing a lot of crying on this island. What what would you be crying for?

Presenter5:33

I'd be crying for company.

Howard Jacobson5:36

I'd be crying because I'd be missing my friends.

Howard Jacobson5:41

My s my son, my grandchild, my mother, my brother, my sister, my wife, of course my wife.

Howard Jacobson5:49

Er Soho.

Howard Jacobson5:51

Restaurants, wine, all the things I I love. I'm not a person that w copes well in isolation. I go to pieces in isolation. I lose all sense of who I am.

Presenter6:03

You you are somebody uh who said that you need to be married, you like to be married. You're married for the third time now. What is it about marriage that you need and like?

Howard Jacobson6:08

B

Howard Jacobson6:13

I need the company, obviously. I need the support. I think I need to be looked at with love to be certain I'm there. Maybe I need to see myself in the beloved's eyes to see a nicer version of myself than is either actually the case or than I fear might be the case.

Presenter6:33

So it's that idea that if if there's somebody that that you regard and think is a good person regarding you well, then you can't be all bad. Absolutely, absolutely that.

Howard Jacobson6:41

Um it's as though I can't trust my own version of myself.

Presenter6:45

Is she somebody that you you turn to when you're writing as well? Do you need her to to to ponder on your work and and give her her impression and her critic of that?

Howard Jacobson6:53

Yes, my novels I don't show her until they're fini I can't bet anybody to see what I'm writing.

Howard Jacobson7:00

until I think it's finished. I hand her the manuscript and the house goes quiet for three days and I listen in at her room to hear if she's if she's crying where she should be crying, if she's laughing where she she should be laughing. And if I don't hear anything I get very, very anxious. And then what I hope that is after three days she will come running to me with her arms out and go, Darling, it's another masterpiece. It isn't always like that. Once or twice it's been

Howard Jacobson7:26

I don't know how to tell you this, and then I know, you know, it's it's serious. What did you do then when she said that uh this doesn't work?

Presenter7:32

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson7:33

If there's someone you trust thinks there's a problem, you listen. I mean, you want the work to be right, and if you've got someone you trust, you absolutely have to trust them.

Presenter7:41

I is it true that uh you don't like to hear the sound of laughter coming from a room of of your wife reading somebody else's books and enjoying them?

Howard Jacobson7:47

Lessons boot exit.

Howard Jacobson7:49

Come back.

Presenter7:49

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson7:49

Er well, that's a joke. Yeah. I mean, I've always said that a woman laughing at a man's jokes is quite a sexual thing. If you can make a woman laugh and throw her head back and show you her throat, it's a sexual act all on its own. So you're not all that keen on, you know.

Howard Jacobson8:03

on women you love doing that with other people's jokes or indeed with other people's books. But um no I'm I mean no I'm no I'm I'm a tolerant husband. My wife is allowed to read and laugh at what she likes. She can have a Philip Roth novel on the go. I don't like it if she laughs too hard because then I will measure it against her laughter that I get. So if she's laughing louder at Philip Roth than she's laughing at one of my novels, that's hard for me. It's pretty hard for her too.

Presenter8:29

Let's have some more music covers. What are we gonna hear?

Howard Jacobson8:31

Mario Lanza, who was my hero when I was a boy. I can't remember a time when I did not listen to Mario Lanza. I adored Mario Lanza, and I particularly liked him singing Neapolitan songs. And this again is for me heartbreak.

Speaker 48:51

The coloury

Speaker 48:53

The book just

Speaker 49:25

Qadari the Qadare Kevin of Egypt.

Speaker 49:36

Ah can me as possible

Presenter9:45

That was Mariolanza and Corengrato, Ungrateful Heart. Would you be offended if I said there was a fair scoop of schmaltz in that?

Howard Jacobson9:53

There's quite a bit of schmeltz in that. You should hear my version of it.

Presenter9:57

You sing it, do you?

Howard Jacobson9:57

Uh well, I'm not going to sing it now, but I used to sing it as a young man my voice was stronger as a as a as a young man at parties, I did Mario Lanza.

Howard Jacobson10:06

Imitations. I mean, I I can't tell you how mad I was on I mean completely mad on Mario Lanza. And although it's easy to say he schmaltzi, never let it be forgotten that both uh Pavarotti and Domingo said they owed their singing careers to Mario Lanza. He had a great voice, he wasted it, but he had a great

Presenter10:21

It's interesting that you're unafraid of that sort of choice, of course, because those raw emotions are not very British, are they? I mean, they are very Italian, but they're you know, we we keep things nice and buttoned up. And and it's the same with, you know, great books as they're thought of, that, you know, to have humour in them is somehow not quite the thing, whereas you you're entirely unafraid of that. You you think it's important that we uh that we laugh a lot.

Howard Jacobson10:45

Yes, I think it's absolutely important and I think if you don't I think certainly if a writer doesn't make you laugh a writer is not doing all that a writer can do and I've always wanted to do that as a writer. The balance between laughter and tragedy for me is really w you know what I'm about, taking laughter as close as I can to what's sad and then taking what's sorrowful as far as I can. But to keep them in balance is for me the great you know the great challenge of writing.

Presenter11:11

So you were born in Manchester, nineteen forty-two, I think it was. You you said with the bombs dropping around you. Really? You you have memories of that, do you?

Howard Jacobson11:18

Well, you know what it's like. I think I have memories of that.

Howard Jacobson11:21

And my mother assures me that there were, you know, that that she could hear them going off in in in far away Manchester as I was being born. I was like another, you know, explosion. And you were lavished with attention.

Presenter11:25

And we can

Howard Jacobson11:33

I had a paradisal four years. It could be that I love all this music about, you know, about heart break, because maybe my heart broke. I had a paradisal four years. My father was in the army. I had my mother, I had her sister, I had my mother's mother looking after me.

Howard Jacobson11:49

Clapping when I had danced and sang, thinking I was the most brilliant thing that ever there was, showering me with attention, for four years. Then my dad came back. I have no complaints about that. He was a loving dad. But he came back. That was another. Then a brother was born. Then a sister was born. And the world which had been mine alone was no longer mine alone. They took it from me.

Presenter12:09

So much to talk about, Howard Jacobson, but we must fit in the discs, as you know. So let's go to disc number three. What have we got?

Howard Jacobson12:15

Well, I mentioned my brother, and this is a record that my brother made. My brother belonged to a group called the Whirlwinds. It disbanded the way the group's doing. Some of them went on to become Ten C. C. Some very good very good musicians. My brother went off to become a painter. They would play in our house. I told them they didn't have a chance.

Howard Jacobson12:32

They all had ambitions. I said, you don't have a chance. Forget it. Wrong again. This is a record that the whirlwinds make.

Speaker 412:40

Hey hey, look at me and tell me

Speaker 412:43

What's gonna happen to you?

Speaker 412:46

When you've broken too many people's hearts You can't find anyone who Say say look at me and tell me

Speaker 412:56

About that twinkle in your eye Is that twinkle in your eye meant for beef or melt for some other guy?

Presenter13:07

That was the whirlwinds, and look at me. Howard Jacobson, you say that the Manchester you grew up in was both Jewish and entirely non-religious. Tell me more about that.

Howard Jacobson13:17

It was a terrific time, I think. Certainly my mother and father were very keen that I go to an English university, that I do English things. On the other hand, they wanted us to, you know, be aware of our Jewishness. There were certain things you didn't do. You didn't eat a bacon sandwich in the house. You didn't do that. But, you know, we were poor. We had to work on Saturdays, so that one went by the board. We were embarrassed when we went into the synagogue, but nonetheless, I had a bar mitzvah.

Presenter13:42

Was it the case that your father said he wouldn't go to your brother's wedding because he was not marrying a Jewish girl?

Howard Jacobson13:48

Yes.

Howard Jacobson13:49

Yes, my father got upset because my brother was marrying a non Jewish girl. Very happy marriage. They're still happily married. This is ages ago. My father was a children's magician. My brother was very upset that my dad had said, I can't go to the wedding. My sister had said, Why don't you ask him to do some tricks at your wedding?

Howard Jacobson14:05

Of course he couldn't say no to that. I mean, that's how deep that's how deep the faith went. And I really loved that. I loved it then and I like it now that, you know, we had those principles, but, you know, doing a trick came first.

Presenter14:17

And your your father at one point in his working life, did he run a market stall or he he he was in the market?

Howard Jacobson14:23

Did he ever run a market store? The markets were our life. For years and years and years, he sold swag. I've written about this with great zest. For a writer, I am so blessed to have had a mother who read books, who introduced me to poetry and was a reader, and a father who read nothing, couldn't read at all, but had immense vitality and life and wanted to entertain people. And he ran this market stall. The markets in those days were, you know, he was what was called a picture. Lady over here, lady over there, mock auction. And I was used, I was the, you know, age 10 and very shy and stuck up. I was the person at the front who, you know, the front of the van who had to go out and take the stuff into the crowd and hated doing it and things. And we sold fancy goods which we called swag, which was this wonderful, awful stuff. I went to Cambridge with a set of suitcases, swag suitcases, from my father's stall. We sold them as a nest. Why does anybody want a nest of cases? We sold a nest of cases which were made of cardboard, tartan cardboard, with the locks already rusting. And if it rained on them, they just dissolved. We fell in love with the swag. We would look at the swag and think, how would anybody buy this? And then gradually it would come into the house. I still remember now a figurine of a bare-breasted maiden holding a torch from which a fountain sprayed. You could plug this into the phone. When the phone rang, the fountain changed colour and water spray and music sprayed. I want one.

Howard Jacobson15:46

I'll see if I can get my mother to part to part with hers.

Presenter15:48

And was there a point at which you actually started to to enjoy you say as a ten-year-old you were quite sort of stuck up and maybe a bit judgmental about being sent out into the crowd. As you became

Presenter15:58

A teenager, I'm actually wondering, as you started to get interested in girls, that's a bit like being the guy who sort of spins the waltzers, isn't it? There's a sort of there's a little bit of showmanship in that. Did was there a time when you started to enjoy it?

Howard Jacobson16:07

I wish I I wish I could say yes. I mean, I can see those guys who spin those things. I was not one of those. No. It was only later that I was able to see, you know, how

Howard Jacobson16:18

The vitality of that work. My dad didn't really know how to do it. My mother had to write the spiel for him. So, you know, lady over here, a lady over here, I'm not going to charge you 19 and 6, I'm not going to charge you 15 bucks. My mum wrote it and he kind of learnt that script. And then he became very good. Can it be true that your father once landed a punch on Oswald Mosley? Yeah, we saw it on television. You asked me about our Jewishness. Our Jewishness was not located in Belief or the synagogue, but it was a keen sense of any kind of anti-Semitism, you know. We were out there fighting it. And he was a strong man, very short, but very wide man, as wide as he was high, my father. And he didn't come home when we thought he would come home. We got very, very anxious about him. And then we watched the news and pretty well certain that we saw my dad lean forward and aim a punch. Whether it landed on Oswald Mosley, I'd like to think it knocked Oswald Mosley clean out. I think it may have missed. But anyway, he was arrested and then we had to go and collect him from the police station. He was very pleased with himself for having been tough, a tough Jew.

Presenter17:15

Let's have some more music, then, Howard. What are we going to hear?

Howard Jacobson17:19

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. I came across an LP of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong when I was a teenager and it was music to smooch to. And it was at the age when I was desperate to smooch. I wanted girlfriends. This was the music I imagined smooching to. Probably two years afterwards I did find someone to smooch to. One of my friends' house was vacant, his parents were away in Blackpool. And we met a couple of girls at the Mugambo Coffee Bar. Finally got to seriously smooch. And when it was all over and the girls had gone, I discovered that she'd stolen my wallet.

Speaker 417:52

We

Speaker 417:54

We lived our little drama

Speaker 417:59

We kissed in a field of white

Speaker 418:07

And stars fell on Alabama.

Speaker 418:14

Last night

Speaker 418:22

I can't forget the glamour.

Speaker 418:29

Your eyes held a tender light.

Speaker 418:35

You and Stars fell on Alabama.

Speaker 418:43

Last night.

Speaker 418:46

Oh bad design

Presenter18:49

That was Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, and stars fell on Alabama and memories there, Howard Jacobson, of your smooching days. Can it be true that as a little boy I mean you sit here today, very articulate, a great story teller you were crippled by shyness?

Howard Jacobson19:04

Crippled by shyness, yes, and it went on until I was about 14 or 15. I needed to do this smooching to get me out of it because I'd hated being hated being shy. And members of the family would use horrible expressions like, you know, isn't your boy out of his shell yet? And I thought, oh god, I'm a thing in a shell, I'm a mollusk, I'm a turtle, I'm something you know, disgusting. So I was really horrified by being shy, as well as being shy. And then I got rid of it and I thought, this is great. And then I went to Cambridge and it all came back. And I spent three years at Cambridge scarlet.

Presenter19:27

As well as

Presenter19:35

Right. Why did it come? Well, you say you've never understood. You must have really had a good think about that.

Howard Jacobson19:37

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson19:39

I've had a good think about it and

Presenter19:39

Uh

Howard Jacobson19:41

What I remember is that all of us were shy, while elsewhere, in other parts of Cambridge, they were having made balls and dancing and getting up to pranks and

Presenter19:50

This would have been the the early sixties then.

Howard Jacobson19:52

Uh

Presenter19:52

What what?

Howard Jacobson19:52

Yeah, I think it's a very good idea.

Presenter19:56

And how did you look?

Presenter19:58

What what was your get-up? What was your hair like? What were your clothes?

Howard Jacobson20:00

My hair was long. I had a little beard, which was scantier than it is now, because I pulled it out. I was like a parrot.

Presenter20:07

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson20:08

We might yes. You know you know how if a parrot's been in a cage too long they pluck their hair out. I behaved a little bit like a parrot in a cage, really, like that. It didn't suit me to be a young man. I didn't know how to handle it at all. And how did your studies go?

Presenter20:10

In a case to

Howard Jacobson20:22

Terrible.

Howard Jacobson20:23

Terrible. What I was looking for in Cambridge when I got there was a little girlfriend. I'd been looking for a little girlfriend.

Howard Jacobson20:29

to sing Mario Lanza songs to, to smooch to, from a very early age. I think probably from the moment when all my all my girlfriends were taken from me by my dad coming back and siblings. And ever since probably four I'd been searching for new little girl friends to replace all those big girl friends that I'd had.

Presenter20:47

So you're talking now about your aunts and your mother and your aunts.

Howard Jacobson20:49

Yes, my answer must be.

Presenter20:50

Mother yeah. Uh

Howard Jacobson20:51

Sorry, um there isn't some story I've been concealing from yeah, I mean but suddenly there was my my my dad wanted his supper and he had jokes to make too and he had tricks to do so they had to clap him and then there were new babies to be attended to and I wasn't the centre of attention. And so I think I did spend the first quarter of my life trying to get the attention back that I had lost from women.

Presenter20:52

Yeah, so

Presenter20:53

Shigeru.

Presenter21:13

And what about the last couple of quarters? How have they gone?

Presenter21:17

Not still trying to get that attention.

Howard Jacobson21:17

Still trying to get that together. Writing has done the trick. At least now I'm able to make fun of myself in writing at least.

Presenter21:20

I mean

Presenter21:22

Alright, at least

Presenter21:25

Let's have some more music, Howard. What's next?

Howard Jacobson21:28

Putting my mind to where all what you were sweet enough to call Schmaltz, and I was talking about heartbreak, comes from, it occurs to me that a lot of this actually grows out of Jewish cantorial music. I say I didn't go to the synagogue much, but when I did go to the synagogue, where I felt lost and frightened, I would also feel if we had a good cantor, when the cantor began, that with all that Jewish heartbreak in which the Jews apologize for all their sins and God shows compassion to them. And it just occurs to me that perhaps I fell in love with that kind of music first hearing cantors. And this is Rosenblatt, one of the great Jewish cantors singing about God's compassion. And it might remind you of Mario Lanza a bit.

Speaker 422:17

Only nobody can.

Speaker 422:24

We know about Kevin, no.

Speaker 422:27

Mister La Cebre.

Speaker 422:31

Miss Rasse Mim, Miss Faye Ber Smahnuen.

Speaker 422:39

Houston Rossi.

Speaker 422:43

We inspire you.

Speaker 422:47

Lesoirueni, Lesoirueni, Lesoirueni ki ye yinoisai.

Howard Jacobson22:51

Yeah.

Presenter23:12

That was the cantor Jussale Rosenblatt and Ms. Ratze Berkamim. So, Howard Jacobson, let's talk then a little bit about the nature of Jewishness. And you yourself have said that you've talked about and written about your own what you call exaggerated sense of Jewishness, which is its own form of anti-Semitism. Now, if ever there was an intriguing phrase, that's it. Tell us more.

Howard Jacobson23:37

Well, I'm aware that

Howard Jacobson23:39

I was brought up to lie low.

Howard Jacobson23:41

I remember my dad had an expression, stum.

Howard Jacobson23:45

Don't draw too much attention to yourself. I did grow up with the feeling that maybe I shouldn't talk about being Jewish. That's what it is really. It's is it a good idea to be talking about being Jewish?

Presenter23:56

And is it a good idea to be writing about being Jewish? You've said that the first time you you wrote the phrase as a Jew blah blah blah blah blah and you got a i i in in your own way you felt shocked by that.

Howard Jacobson23:59

Uh

Howard Jacobson24:07

Yes, because I wondered. A, it surprised me to discover I was going to write about anything Jewish at all, because I never thought I would. Insofar as I had a kind of breakthrough as a writer, which simply meant I finally began to write, it finally needed for me to write that sentence, being Jewish, as if that was being Jewish, comma, was the clue to it all, the clue to why I hadn't, the clue to who I was, being Jewish in England, where being Jewish was this strange, slightly fearful thing. If I've accused myself of being anti-Semitic, I suppose I mean that. Why am I so fearful of? And why, if I see a well-known Jewish person on television or anything smoking a cigar or talking about money, do I feel you mustn't do that, you mustn't do that? And you know, my wife will say that's a terrible thing to say, that's an anti-Semitic thing to say. You know, why shouldn't a Jew behave like anybody else? And I know that is the answer. Why shouldn't an English Jew behave like anybody else? But still, somewhere at the very bottom of it all, I have this residual anxiety that maybe we have to take precautions that nobody else has to take.

Presenter25:11

Yeah. Let's talk for a moment about that period of your life then when you were lecturing for around about 15 years. You were not writing. And there was a point at which you had been living in Australia. Your marriage broke down. It sounds to me like a time of great turmoil, that you hadn't found your voice as a writer. You left your first wife and child to live on their own. You moved to another continent. Was it a time of turmoil, a time of pain? Yes, yes.

Howard Jacobson25:39

Yes, yes, huge turmoil turmoil. I had a wonderful period after immediately after Cambridge when I went to Australia and fell in love with lecturing at Sydney University English Department. I adored I adored it. All my shyness went away. I lectured in front of seven hundred people. I loved it. I read lots of books.

Presenter25:46

Yeah.

Presenter25:49

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson25:57

And I had a whole Australian life, really. That bit was good, but when I came back from Sydney, as I did after about three years, feeling I have to be in England, really, England is my life. I was and then I didn't get a good job for many, many. In fact, I never really got a good job thereafter. And I was very bitter about it. I see photographs of myself at that period, and I can barely bear to look at them. Very unhappy, no good as a husband, bad as a father. I wasn't fit to be. I truly was not fit to be a husband or a father. I was too unfulfilled. I wasn't nice to my friends. I wasn't nice to my parents. I wasn't nice to my son. I wasn't nice to my then wife. I wasn't nice to anybody.

Presenter26:18

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson26:35

And by that time I'd ended up in Wolverhampton and was feeling even more miserable than ever teaching at a polytechnic which in my unpleasant snobbish way I thought was beneath me, truly, truly a mess. And such a mess that I thought I finally see the novel I have to write. I have to write a splenetic comic novel about what a mess I am.

Presenter26:56

So, in a way, it was your own misery that propelled you into what you should have done.

Howard Jacobson26:59

It absolutely was. That was a novel written in desperation. I was moving through my thirties. I was almost forty when that novel was published. And what would have happened to me, A, had I not written it, and B had it not been published, I don't know. I don't know. I can't bear to think. I can't imagine what life I would have had that would have been at all tolerable had I not done that.

Presenter27:19

Let's have some music then.

Howard Jacobson27:21

What are we gonna hear, Howard?

Howard Jacobson27:22

Some Mozart.

Howard Jacobson27:24

Don Giovanni, L'Acci darem la mana. Here is this exquisite, exquisite love song in which you feel you're hearing people, you know, singing from their hearts. And as you've noticed, most of my music is is is a love song of one sort, or another a hello or a goodbye.

Speaker 427:40

I'm not afraid of it.

Speaker 427:43

Praise the Prince to live in the world.

Speaker 427:54

I'm a joyful baby.

Speaker 428:07

Are you jumping?

Speaker 328:08

Come on, love.

Speaker 428:15

I love

Speaker 428:19

One time.

Speaker 428:21

A jump young

Speaker 428:24

Let me know this for the turn of the world.

Presenter28:31

Graziella Schutti and Eberhard Wachter singing the duet L'Achi dare em la mano Give Me Thy Hands from Mozart's Don Giovanni, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giolini.

Presenter28:43

So, Howard Jacobson, I mentioned in the introduction that you're known for well, you talked there about the splenetic first novel that you wrote, and you are you're known and celebrated for your anger. You're somebody who quite likes to get things off his chest.

Presenter28:56

Is that fair?

Howard Jacobson28:57

Yes, I suppose it is. I feel a lot less angry now. You know, sometimes you worry, if you are happy, I am happy. I am, you know, domestically happy. I am a happily married man, Jewish man. If you want to get yourself a good husband, get a 60-year-old Jewish man. A 60-year-old Jewish man is, you know, is perfect. He just wants to sit around a bit. He wants company. He loves the woman he is with. He's grateful that he's got a woman to be with him. I said there was a period in my life in which I wasn't worth knowing. I'm not going to say I am now worth knowing, but I am a lot more worth knowing.

Presenter29:28

And you said at that stage when everything was was breaking down and coming to nothing that you were not a good father. Are you a good father now?

Howard Jacobson29:35

Well, I get on very well with with my son and his wife, and he's had a child recently, Ziva. I'm a grandfather. I never thought I'd be able to cope with being a grandfather. I really never did. And I think this goes back to

Howard Jacobson29:48

You know, that early period I put everything back to that early period. I feel I was, you know, ripped untimely from the state of being a child. I've gone on being a child longer than I ought to have gone on being a child. And if you're going on being a child, it's very hard for you to be a father, let alone a husband.

Presenter30:04

And so you repa how did you repair that relationship then with your son?

Howard Jacobson30:07

Well, we had one of those, you know, one of those wonderful conversations that you read about.

Howard Jacobson30:12

I never lost contact with him. I well you know, we saw each other, but his mother married again and so someone else brought him up with great affection actually and and love.

Howard Jacobson30:21

And then, you know, he w he he came and knocked on my door and we had the conversation, you know, what was all that about and then

Presenter30:28

He literally turned up and knocked on the door, did he?

Howard Jacobson30:30

Well, he told me he was coming. But nonetheless, I like that I I like that idea that knock, knock, knock and I heard the knock and ah, my s my son has come and we talked and we've been, you know, very good friends, very, very good friends ever since.

Presenter30:31

Pretty totally.

Presenter30:42

Let's have some music. What are you gonna hear now, Howard Jacobson?

Howard Jacobson30:46

Schubert, I adore Schubert. This is piano trio in B-flat major. It's a very important piece of music to me, A, because it's exquisite, and B, because it was a piece of music I listened to with a very dear Australian friend, Terry Collitz, who died last year. And he was one of three friends who died when I was finishing the Finkler Question, to whom the Finkler Question is dedicated. It's hard being this age if you're a man, you know. You worry about your health, and the men are not making a very good job of living as long as women are. But Terry Collitz was a desperately close friend, and this was music that we listened to together in Australia.

Presenter32:21

Alfred Corteau, Jacques Thibault, and Pablo Casals playing the opening of the second movement of Schubert's piano trio in B-flat major. There is a a brilliant chapter in your book that won the Booker Prize, the Finkler question, about Sam Finkler being one of the central characters. And he is invited on to Desert Island Discs, and he's castigated by his wife for his performance, for his choices. Do you think your wife will look kindly upon your choices and your conversation today? God, I.

Howard Jacobson32:52

Uh

Presenter32:52

I hope so.

Howard Jacobson32:52

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson32:53

I mean, I've talked about some things I never expected to be talking about. Um, so I hope she'll be okay.

Presenter32:59

And on this island you will, as you said, you'll miss the restaurants of Soho where you live, you'll miss the company of people, you'll miss the wine, you'll miss Will there be anything about the loneliness that will sort of feed you? Do you think will you be writing in your head, will you be imagining your next great novel?

Howard Jacobson33:13

I'll be writing in my head and listening to this music and and and sobbing, sobbing a lot. I'll be doing a lot of sobbing. But no, I will make an extremely bad job of this. I won't know how to eat. I won't know how to uh shelter myself. I very much doubt I'll survive, to tell you the truth. I doubt I'll survive to get to hear these eight ricks.

Presenter33:30

But when you sob, and I'm not talking about on the island, I'm talking now in life, do do you sob alone? Are you somebody who cries quietly to themselves or?

Howard Jacobson33:38

Yeah.

Presenter33:38

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson33:38

When I play music, yes. Yes, yes. When I was choosing the the the the um the music for this and I played them and um yes, I sobbed over half of them. Um and sometimes if I'm caught I'm embarrassed. My wife caught me. She thought I'd just heard some terrible news.

Presenter33:40

Yeah.

Howard Jacobson33:56

Bad news of

Howard Jacobson33:57

The death of I'm not very good with death. I don't know if anybody is good with death, but I've worried about it and I've worried about my own and can't find any way of consoling myself in the face of it. And when somebody I love dies, I just, you know, there's nothing I can say not only to, you know, to to to his or her family, but to myself that makes me feel alright. I just feel as though something's been scooped out. There's a great hole in life. For all my misery, I must love the world a lot because I so dread leaving it.

Presenter34:28

Let's finish then with uh some almost finish with some music then. Your your final disc is what, Harold Jacobson?

Howard Jacobson34:34

Al Boley, You're a Sweetheart. This is to my wife, Jenny, and it was a... We got married five and a half years ago and we had a band playing at our wedding that had to play, I had to make sure before we had the band that they knew this and could play this in the right spirit. You'll hear why.

Speaker 434:53

I've without you.

Speaker 434:57

Was an incomplete dream.

Speaker 435:02

You are every sweet dream come true.

Speaker 335:06

Sweet dreams come true, dear.

Speaker 435:09

My search was such a blind one.

Speaker 435:14

And I was all at sea, I never thought I'd find one quite so perfect.

Speaker 435:23

Call me love me.

Speaker 335:24

We love

Speaker 435:27

You're a sweet heart.

Speaker 435:31

If there ever was one, if there ever was one, it's you.

Presenter35:41

That was Lou Stone and his band with Al Boley and You're a Sweetheart played for your wife Howard Jacobson and played Indeed at your wedding. So now the books The Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare and your book is going to be what?

Howard Jacobson35:54

Er the Oxford Book of English Verse. I have to have some poetry there and since, you know, I can't have a volume of Donne and a volume of Keats and a volume of Wordsworth, so that way I will get a little bit of all the ones.

Presenter36:06

Right, that's yours. And a luxury too, of course.

Howard Jacobson36:11

What what I actually want is shirts. I love shirts. I am a shirt person. I want to be I don't I couldn't do beach bump thing on this. I want to look I want to have pleated trousers and I want to have shirts which are kind of somehow or other miraculously ironed for me so that when the rescue party comes, which I hope will be very, very quickly, I'll be looking smart for you.

Presenter36:13

Are you sure?

Presenter36:18

Yeah.

Presenter36:20

Yeah.

Presenter36:31

Yes, that's yours then, a never-ending supply of crisp shirts and pressed trousers. That's fantastic. It's yours. And if you.

Howard Jacobson36:36

If you can't fix that for me, not on the island.

Presenter36:38

I'm afraid not. No, just on the island. And if you had to save just one of these eight discs from the waves, which one would it be?

Howard Jacobson36:39

Uh

Howard Jacobson36:45

Oh God, that's tough. It would be between Janet Baker and um Al Boley and the Janet Baker which is r how to res resign oneself beautifully to death. Er probably would be too morbid for me in the end. So Al Boli for for love and for life and for the future.

Presenter37:04

It's yours. Howard Jacobson, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Howard Jacobson37:08

Thank you. I've enjoyed being on the island.

Presenter37:56

You've been listening to a download from the BBC.

Presenter37:59

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk/radio4.