The Act of Love
by Howard Jacobson (Jonathan Cape, £17.99)
Felix Quinn, the narrator of Howard Jacobson’s new novel, is “afflicted” by love. He is a connoisseur of its “agonies,” a veteran of “sexual insult.” The Act of Love is irrigated by Felix’s obsession with “that category of classic novel… whose subject is humiliation.”
This is familiar territory for Jacobson. Writing in Prospect earlier this year, he warned that “you can’t mess around with sex, in life or literature. It is never not serious.” Especially not in literature, you can imagine him wanting to add—and certainly not in his own fiction, which combines extravagant comic energy with a distinctive kind of erotic gravitas. Sex is a serious business for the characters in all Jacobson’s novels—or all of the male characters, at least. They pursue their affairs sedulously, even grimly, and their virility is frequently put in the service of their rage or despair.
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