| Damned minutes From Sacher-Masoch to Jane Austen, the novelist selects the novels which best anatomise the 'dark, interior stickiness' of a passion peculiarly well-suited to literatureHoward Jacobson is the author of 10 novels, including The Very Model of a Man, The Mighty Walzer and Kalooki Nights. He has also written studies of Jewishness, Australia and comedy and is a prolific journalist and broadcaster. His most recent novel, The Act of Love, was described by Nicholas Lezard as "an almost frighteningly brilliant achievement".Buy Howard Jacobson books from the Guardian bookshop"The first story I ever wrote described a bout of jealousy I had suffered. Writing about it, first comically, and then not, was the only way I could gain any mastery of it. It was as though the shame associated with jealousy needed to be expiated in prose. "There is a strange affiliation between literature and jealousy. Jealousy is wordy; it gorges on language. It is hyperbolic, growing fatter on every expression of itself. This is delicious for any writer who is not an understater of emotion. I love the dark, interior stickiness of the subject, where torment knows it should not be left to itself, but wants it no other way, and the victim forever haunts the border between the thing he fears and the thing he longs for. This is the subject of The Act of Love."Tales of innocence and wonderment leave me cold. Black obsessiveness is what the novel does best. And jealousy is its natural domain."1. Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy A great crazed story of desire, rage, real or imagined adultery β but why make fancy distinctions? β and murder, set to Beethoven's nerve-strung violin sonata. If you're going to do jealousy, this is the way to do it. In Tolstoy, the madness of jealousy goes all the way back to the madness of the sexual impulse itself.2. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Angel Clare cannot live with the knowledge that Tess has known another man. But the novel's real engine-house is Hardy's not being able to bear it either. Tess is not in the end sacrificed to the malevolent Gods but to the writer's palpitating desire to see her violated by a brute. Every sensitive man's jealous dread.3. Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet Sexual jealousy in all its minute obsessiveness, watching 10 hours for a curtain to twitch. So accurate it's boring. Not so much a book to read, as to know of.4. Ulysses by James Joyce The fact that Leopold Bloom has learnt to live with, and even love, his wife's infidelities, does not exclude this great comic novel from the jealous category. Only a deeply jealous man can make so splendidly complaisant a cuckold.5. Roberte Ce Soir and The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Pierre Klossowski Companion short novels charting the philosophic subtleties of faithless-wife worship, though wrapped around, in the French way, with theory. These novels itch with the husband's desire to see more evidence of infidelity and suffer more jealousy than he ever quite can.6. Persuasion by Jane Austen Sexual jealousy is not normally what we think of as Jane Austen's terrain. But her novels are full of jealousy's tragic potential. If it weren't for her intervention, her heroines would be forever losing men to more moneyed or vivacious rivals. In Persuasion she colludes with her heroine to the extent of throwing the other woman off a sea wall. Almost as murderous in its vengefulness as Tolstoy.7. Herzog by Saul Bellow Bellow's heroes appear to be in charge because they are so dazzlingly smart. But they suffer tortures of jealousy at the hands of women who are bored with their dazzling smartness. Herzog more than most. If you want to write a great comedy make your hero a reflective cuckold who reads a lot. 8. The Eternal Husband by Fyodor Dostoevsky Spooky story of a man who cannot tear himself away from the company of his wife's former lover. Pinteresque in that you never know who's doing what to whom and which character is causing the other the greater sexual discomfort.9. Venus in Furs by Leopold Von Sacher-MasochGleefully deranged study of a man's desire to be his mistress's slave, from which derives the word 'masochism'. The tension comes from waiting for the punishment to culminate in the ultimate jealous pleasure for the sexual masochist β the woman's infidelity.10. Othello by Shakespeare Only not a novel because novels weren't a going form yet. Simultaneously ludicrous and heart-breaking, this is the most convincing of all studies of jealousy's terrifying hold on the imagination, where trifles light as air hound the mind, and dread and desire are so closely intertwined as to deprive you of your reason.FictionBest booksHoward Jacobsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
The Habit of Art: Alan Bennett's debt to Homer Alan Bennett's device of a play-within-a-play has its origins in the IliadOne of the most notable formal features of Alan Bennett's new play for the National Theatre, The Habit of Art, is its play-within-a-play. The action is set within a rehearsal room. Here are the actors, the stage manager, the playwright, the musical director, etc, who are preparing to "run" a play called Caliban's Day, about the relationship between WH Auden and Benjamin Britten.Bennett has written beautifully about the reasons for his adding this play-within-a-play framework to the initial draft of The Habit of Art (an essay, available online at the London Review of Books' site, also appears in the playtext, published by Faber). For the viewer the device is a rich source of jokes β from the absence of actors because they are playing in a Chekhov matinee, to the "playwright" complaining about cuts that the director has made to the text (as Bennett explains in his essay, real excisions that director Nicholas Hytner suggested).But it's also, of course, doing something more meaningful than simply adding comic texture. The ultimate ancestor of this play-within-a-play device is the ekphrasis of classical literature β the extended description, not of a play, but of a work of visual art. The first example is in Homer's Iliad. The ekphrasis here is the virtuosic description of the shield of Achilles - the miraculous shield that Hephaestus forges for the hero in book 18 of the poem. The description of the astonishing scenes carved on the shield occupies nearly 150 lines of Robert Fagles' superb translation of the poem. Homer describes the worlds that the god creates - a wedding feast, an army besieging a city, a vineyard, a field being ploughed, a herd of cattle, the story of the myth of Ariadne and Theseus.The descriptions are given such dense and rich colour that they do things mere carvings could never achieve - the wedding feast is accompanied by "glowing torches" and a choir is raising a wonderful song; in the vineyard a boy plucks his lyre and sings. The astonishing skill of Hephaestus is being conveyed - but also the skill of the poet. The scenes here are so vivid that you forget that you are being asked to imagine a mere shield. The scenes themselves take over; the figures move and breathe. This is actually - self-consciously - about the power of the poet's skill and the reader's imagination. (We might also, coincidentally, recall Auden's poem The Shield of Achilles, which riffs on Homer darkly. No stranger he to the power of the ekphrasis.)To Rome, and Catullus' Poem 64. This does even more with the idea of ekphrasis. At the start of this exquisite miniature epic, you might think you were going to get the story of Jason and the Argonauts. But then it veers off on to a tangent - the story of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. And then the poem goes off-topic again: it starts to describe an elaborately embroidered coverlet on the bridal bed, stitched with scenes from the story of Ariadne and Theseus. But the ekphrasis completely takes over the poem, so that the Peleus and Thetis stuff seems to disappear and becomes a mere frame. The reader is invited to forget that this is supposed to be a coverlet at all - except at the moments when Catullus self-consciously, slyly, reminds you that it is a coverlet (and indeed a poem describing a coverlet).The Habit of Art, then, uses the play within a play in order to draw you in to its real material - which is a meditation on the nature of making artistic work. All the jokes in which actors play actors who can't remember their lines; all the humour when you're suddenly pulled out of the drama of Caliban's Day to revert to the framing drama of the actors in the rehearsal room - all this is subtly nudging us to remember that this is artificial, this is a creation. (I particularly enjoy the fact that we are not necessarily expected to admire Caliban's Day - it has some hilarious passages that I won't ruin for the uninitiated.) You might find this tricksy or dry. I find it rather moving. It reminds me somewhat of Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes (another work, of course, that features an artwork-within-an-artwork, and which takes as its characters members of a theatrical company). Bennett's work is utterly attentive to the joy, hardship, loneliness, comradeship, bitterness and solid, habitual drive to make work, whether that's music, poetry, or drama: the habit of art.TheatreAlan BennettClassicsClassicsCharlotte Higginsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Holiday Books: Notable Crime Books of 2009 A look back at the best mysteries reviewed this year feeds.nytimes.com |
Dan Brown sees off celebs in battle for Christmas books number one The Lost Symbol gives author second Christmas number one in five years, as celebrity memoirs sinkDan Brown and his debonair professor of "symbology" Robert Langdon have broken the stranglehold that celebrity autobiographies have held over December book sales in recent years to take the Christmas number one slot.A last minute sales rush propelled Brown's long-awaited novel The Lost Symbol β in which Langdon takes on the Freemasons β to the top of the charts, giving the author his second UK Christmas number one in five years after The Da Vinci Code was the Christmas bestseller in 2004.Brown just pipped the second-placed Guinness World Records β a perennial Christmas bestseller β to the post with such gems as "'Actually, Katherine, it's not gibberish.' His eyes brightened again with the thrill of discovery. 'It's ... Latin''', and "Is there life after death? Do humans have souls? Incredibly, Katherine had answered all of these questions and more" helping propel him to pole position in the busiest week for book sales.In recent years celebrity memoirs by the likes of Peter Kay, Russell Brand and Dawn French have dominated the Christmas book charts, which are compiled by book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan. But this year only two celebrity autobiographies β a joint memoir by Ant and Dec, and Frankie Boyle's My Shit Life So Far β scraped into the top 10, in ninth and 10th place respectively.The public appetite this Christmas was, instead, for fiction, with two titles from Stephenie Meyer's teen vampire series, a new novel from Jodi Picoult and the first title in late Swedish author Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, all making the top 10 ahead of a host of celebrity autobiographies.Kay's second volume of memoir, Saturday Night Peter, missed out on the top 10 despite high expectations, as did Jo Brand's autobiography. Memoirs from Sheryl Gascoigne, Justin Lee Collins and Leona Lewis failed to even make the top 100, while Ozzy Osbourne and Jack Dee's contributions both trailed in in the late 80s. In 2005, Osbourne's wife Sharon's autobiography Extreme was one of the bestselling books of the year."This year there is very definitely a much stronger end-of-year Christmas fiction market," said AndrΓ© Breedt at Nielsen BookScan. "The autobiography and biography market overall peaked in 2007 [when Brand's My Booky Wook took the number one slot], and ever since then it has been slowing down."Brown began the autumn as William Hill's favourite at 5/2 to top the Christmas charts, just ahead of Saturday Night Peter at 3/1, but slipped back into fourth place behind Meyer, a festive cookbook from Delia Smith and Guinness World Records as the months progressed."We were expecting a victory for Guinness World Records judging on the last couple of weeks of sales," said Jon Howells at Waterstone's. "[But] Dan Brown has broken every record I can think of, and has driven every other book out of its way. [The Lost Symbol] has been a juggernaut of a book. It has taken number one because it's been ubiquitous. People shopping this week and last are the people who are looking for a safe bet, and Dan Brown is a safe bet."William Hill, which took bets on the number one book, said that Brown was "well backed early on" and that it had "lost a small sum" on his win.The Christmas top 10 books1 The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown2 Guinness World Records 20103 Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer4 Twilight by Stephenie Meyer5 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson6 Where's Stig?7 Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult8 Delia's Happy Christmas by Delia Smith9 Ooh! What a Lovely Pair by Ant and Dec10 My Shit Life So Far by Frankie BoyleDan BrownBooksellersAlison Floodguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
McDermid 'gobsmacked' by Diamond Dagger 'I still think of myself as a Young Turk', says bestselling thriller writer, vowing to 'defy' any expectation she will now settle into the EstablishmentVal McDermid, "the queen of the psychological thriller", has won the Cartier Diamond Dagger award, which honours outstanding achievement in the field of crime writing.The award is chosen by her peers, the members of the Crime Writers' Association β and tops off a year in which the Scottish-born author of 27 novels was inducted into the crime-writers' Hall of Fame and elected to an honorary fellowship at St Hilda's College, Oxford. "I'm thrilled and proud but also a bit gobsmacked," said McDermid. "The Diamond Dagger is the jewel in the crown for any crime writer, and this makes me a member of a pretty stellar club. But I still think of myself as a young Turk, and it's hard not to see this honour as placing me firmly in the Establishment. I guess I'll just have to regard it as something to defy as well as to embrace!"McDermid has a good track record in defying the establishment, despite her many awards and conventional early academic career β she attended the same school as the prime minister and went on to study English at Oxford. McDermid's novels, especially her three ongoing series, featuring journalist-sleuth Lindsay Gordon, Manchester private investigator Kate Brannigan and criminal profiler and detective Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, are all infused with a keen sense of political engagement and sexual politics. While her tautly plotted thrillers are also extremely violent in parts, McDermid consistently resists the notion that the violence is gratuitous. She hit the headlines a couple of years ago when Ian Rankin commented that "the people writing the most graphic novels are women", and added that "they are mostly lesbians as well, which I find interesting". "Arrant nonsense" was McDermid's response. She was also stung by an assertion by the feminist writer Joan Smith that McDermid's books were full of dead bodies and unnecessary violence towards women. According to interviewer Julie Bindel, McDermid ploughed through her back catalogue, counting up the corpses and noted that "At that point I had killed 12 men, 12 women and one transsexual. You can't get more equal opportunities than that." McDermid's books are acclaimed by critics and have won numerous awards but they also sell in their millions. For Margaret Murphy, chair of the Crime Writers' Association, the entertainment value of McDermid's work is the defining factor in her Dagger win. "Val McDermid is a worthy winner whose work has entertained and thrilled millions of readers as well as many more who have enjoyed the TV adaptations her books have inspired," she said.Crime booksAwards and prizesMichelle Pauliguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |