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Howard Jacobson's top 10 novels of sexual jealousy

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Nov 04, 2009

Summary

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 literature

Howard 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 l

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