WEB EXCLUSIVE: Howard Jacobson discusses his novel ‘The Act of Love’ with Peter Florence

No Jews. No hint of Jewishness anywhere. That was Howard Jacobson’s instruction to himself when he sat down to write his new novel, The Act of Love. ‘I took the restriction very seriously,’ he told Peter Florence in a discussion for Intelligence Squared on 22nd October. ‘I nearly set about writing the book without using any word containing the letter “J”. Then I realised that “Howard Jacobson” would appear on the cover.’ Jewishness defines Jacobson. It provokes, exhilarates and exasperates him but he can’t escape it. ‘I failed anyway,’ he shrugs with ironic pride. ‘Someone pointed out that the phrase “the sound of bells ringing in a Christian village” was unequivocally Jewish since only a Jew would describe a village as “Christian.”’ Asked about the novel’s main theme Jacobson replied, ‘The novelist never knows,’ then contradicted himself. ‘It’s about obsessional jealousy.’ One phrase captures its essence. ‘No man has ever loved a woman and not imagined her in the arms of someone else.’ He happily admitted that the reviews had been mixed. ‘A lot of critics enjoyed it, some hated it, roughly in the proportions of 7:3.’ The negative reviewers had been unanimous in rejecting as false the idea that men desire sexual betrayal. Jacobson ascribed this to shame. No one wants to admit to feeling jealous, let alone to enjoying the sensations jealousy brings. ‘But look at the male characters in Shakespeare, they’re fiendishly jealous, they adore their jealousy, it ruins their lives, it destroys them but they get high on it.’ Othello, the archetype of sexual torment, cries out, ‘Would that the general camp had tasted her sweet flesh.’ He urged anyone who doubted that jealousy is a mass obsession to look on the internet. ‘Get your spouse’s permission, set aside plenty of time, then type in “cuckold”.