Blog: Howard Jacobson and incoming literary news

Britain’s ‘funniest living writer’ heads to Manchester, plus three other literary events on the horizon

Howard Jacobson heads to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation tomorrow night (Thursday) for the Manchester launch of his novel, The Finkler Question. ‘He normally puts on a good show and this novel is up for the Booker,’ says the Foundation’s Will Carr, ‘so it should be a worthwhile evening.’

And so it should. Literary readings can be patchy, ranging from the disappointing (such as a rambling Louis de Bernières, speaking at the University a few years back) to the wryly cerebral (step forward Will Self). Readings with Jacobson, however, are reliably entertaining – this particular writer is as playful in the flesh as his fiction is on the page. He has described Cervantes and Rabelais as ‘wild’, reckons George Eliot’s attempts at humour are ‘elephantine’, says Salmon Rushdie can’t do comedy (‘but at least he tries’) and calls Jane Austen ‘appalling’.

Jacobson is a Manchester lad (born in Prestwich, with several novels set here) and although almost all of his work is comic, he does have his serious side. The Finkler Question, for example, touches on death, loss, identity and ageing – and it’s this dark undertone that may explain why Jacobson has finally got within sniffing distance of his first ‘serious’ literary award (the novel has been longlisted for the Booker).

Whether Jacobson gets his award or not matters little: tomorrow night is a chance to listen to one of our most entertaining authors, a writer who loves language almost as much as he does humour.

If Jacobson isn’t your thing (or you like more than 24 hours’ notice of events), a few other literary happenings are incoming: Manchester Literature Festival kicks off on 1 October, Dave Haslam has persuaded Jonathan Franzen to read at the Whitworth (3 October) and, fresh in my in-box, comes news of a new self-publishing fair and ‘zine fest’, also scheduled for 3 October. More news on all of these events in the coming weeks.

Howard Jacobson reads at The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Engine House, Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge Street M1 5BY. Thurs 2 September. £3 (redeemable against a copy of the book). In association with Bloomsbury. Image: courtesy The Piccadilly Self Publishing Fair and Exhibition/Lucy Vann. Words: Susie Stubbs.

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