Linda Morris, Sydney Morning Herald, May 19, 2011
Photo - James Brickwood - SMH
ON AN autumn day, under a clear sky, the British author Howard Jacobson made a ''pilgrimage of the heart'' to the quiet laneways of McMahons Point.
It was here, 45 years ago, the newly married replacement for Germaine Greer in the English department of the University of Sydney rented a flat overlooking Lavender Bay.
From the small balcony he marked student essays and gazed at the ferries criss-crossing the harbour, the bridge and the grinning face of Luna Park.
It was here, 45 years ago, the newly married replacement for Germaine Greer in the English department of the University of Sydney rented a flat overlooking Lavender Bay.
From the small balcony he marked student essays and gazed at the ferries criss-crossing the harbour, the bridge and the grinning face of Luna Park.
''I watched the Sydney Opera House [being] built and saw this innocent, sweet, country town poised on transformation into a world city with a world consciousness.''
Jacobson, who once described himself as a ''besotted outsider'', has revisited Australia many times since. He wrote Redback, a novel he would rather forget, and a more affectionate travelogue of his antipodean experiences, In the Land of Oz, which is soon to be reissued.
But never before has Jacobson returned to Sydney such a star of the international literary establishment, a Booker Prize warm in his pocket. At the age of 68, Jacobson cracked the coveted prize with The Finkler Question, an exploration of love, loss and Jewish identity. His book is generally regarded as the first genuinely serious comic novel to win in the prize's 62-year history.
''I am read now in unimaginable numbers,'' Jacobson said. ''Finkler became the number one bestseller in Pakistan, the number one bestselling book in India, and it's sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Serious novelists like me sell tens of thousands of copies if we are doing well.''
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/writer-takes-a-stroll-down-memory-lane-20110518-1et4m.html#ixzz1MkOrudL6
Jacobson, who once described himself as a ''besotted outsider'', has revisited Australia many times since. He wrote Redback, a novel he would rather forget, and a more affectionate travelogue of his antipodean experiences, In the Land of Oz, which is soon to be reissued.
But never before has Jacobson returned to Sydney such a star of the international literary establishment, a Booker Prize warm in his pocket. At the age of 68, Jacobson cracked the coveted prize with The Finkler Question, an exploration of love, loss and Jewish identity. His book is generally regarded as the first genuinely serious comic novel to win in the prize's 62-year history.
''I am read now in unimaginable numbers,'' Jacobson said. ''Finkler became the number one bestseller in Pakistan, the number one bestselling book in India, and it's sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Serious novelists like me sell tens of thousands of copies if we are doing well.''
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/writer-takes-a-stroll-down-memory-lane-20110518-1et4m.html#ixzz1MkOrudL6
Howard Jacobson talks to the writer and Man Booker International judge Rick Gekoski about The Finkler Question at the Sydney Writers' Festival tonight, 6 o'clock, at the City Recital Hall, Angel Place.
The Bookman will be there.
The Bookman will be there.
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