"J" by Howard Jacobson

      “J” by Howard Jacobson was shortlisted for the Booker prize, but was beaten by the Flanagan novel.

      John Burnside’s review in The Guardian suggests that this is THE dystopian novel of the 21^st Century, comparable to ‘Brave New World’ and ‘1984.’ This prompted me to look closely at the definition of ‘dystopia.’

      

       The OED defines ‘dystopia’ as “An imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible.” In other words, the opposite of ‘utopia.’ American dictionaries define it differently. Random House, for example, has “a society characterized by human misery, squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.” American Heritage uses the same definition but adds ‘deprivation’ and ‘terror.’

       

       The society described in Howard Jacobson’s novel does not, in fact, fit either of these definitions of dystopia. People are not uniformly miserable: they are not hungry: life goes on in what seems to be a somewhat depressed society: and most of the joys of art, music, literature, and of the life of the imagination have disappeared. And in a sort of Stasi way, people are often under observation, and we eventually discover that the two principal characters, Ailinn and Keverne Cohen, have been deliberately brought together and closely observed by some strange agency. It is their weird love story that forms the core of the narration. Chapters are interleaved with brief descriptions of what seem to be historical atrocities.

       I have got my draft and John Burnside’s review a bit mixed up in my cutting and copying. The following paragraph is mostly John Burnside’s—I think—although I believe I added to it.

      

        Undesirable art, music, and books, for example, are "not banned, nothing was banned exactly, simply not played. Encouraged to fall into desuetude, like the word desuetude. Popular taste did what edict and proscription could never have done, and just as, when it came to books, the people chose rags-to-riches memoirs, cookbooks and romances." Jazz has disappeared, because improvisation has "fallen out of fashion"--ballads are the main music; family histories have been erased and all names changed to odd Celtic-Jewish amalgams as a result of Operation Ishmael (from Moby Dick--“Call me Ishmael,”). Entertainment is left to those of Caribbean origin: plumbing is the realm of the Poles. You can only have one landline phone: no mobiles. Book groups have to be licensed.

       

        A slow, careful reading only gradually reveals that a major atrocity occurred in the seemingly distant past, perhaps two or three generations ago. It is always mentioned, in capitals, as WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED: there are clearly some atrocity deniers.    It is a difficult read, needing close attention, as you have to give a lot of thought about exactly what has happened (IF it happened) and what is actually happening to the two main protagonists: who are watching them, and why. And what is Keverne Cohen's problem?

       And just to be clear--this is the UK, where even the place names have been changed. St. Michael's Mount is now St. Mordechai's Mount. And the setting of the novel is in Port Reuben--a name substituted for an old celtic name.

        A must read.