What will survive of us

Howard Jacobson’s new novel: Light, bright and somewhat slight – reviewed by Anne Sarzin
The title of Howard Jacobson’s latest novel, What will survive of us, is not a question but rather an open-ended statement he explores in this paean of praise to love in its shape-shifting forms.

The title, rather pointedly, is an incomplete version of a line from Philip Larkin’s poem ‘An Arundel tomb’, which states, ‘What will survive of us is love’. Wisely, Jacobson leaves off those final two words and, instead, leaves the reader to await his particular resolution of life’s conundrums.

The plot revolves around the adulterous affair of two artistic individuals living in London. Lily is a successful documentary film-maker and Quaid is a celebrated ‘wunderkind’ playwright. Lilly lives with her partner Hal in a secure and comfortable arrangement characterised by affection, respect, caring and friendship; while Quaid is burdened by his conventional marriage to Selena and his conscience. The book begins with the word ‘Kerpow!’, an exclamation one would think more suited to comic books than a Jacobson novel, but this word recurs strategically, at intervals, throughout the book, underlining the explosive nature of their union.

Jacobson is a fine wordsmith and, despite the passing years—he is now a venerable 82—has lost none of his deft touch and mastery of his craft. In this novel, his eighteenth work of fiction, he veers strongly towards the literary and poetic and references that are perfectly attuned to the artistic realms within which his characters work and thrive. D.H. Lawrence hovers like a patron saint over the action, triggering the characters’ immersion in physicality and sensuality–both Lilly and Quaid have read Lawrence’s Mornings in Mexico—and Lawrence’s unashamed exploration and advocacy of human sexuality triggers their consensual forays into its multiple manifestations. They depart from the straight and narrow and take less travelled paths to the dungeons of bondage and sado-masochism in seedy London suburbs and travel abroad to explore dark and dangerous dens of depravity. All this is complicated by their jealousy of each other, an occasion for Jacobson’s recourse to James Joyce’s apposite description of living in ‘wounding doubt’.

All these shadows belie the promise of the novel’s colourful and exuberant cover that seems to promise a traditional romance, something bright, light and slight, which this novel is and isn’t. In fact, it is a thoughtful work that scrutinises a couple’s search for love, their accommodation to each other’s disparate needs, the enactment of their fantasies, their mutual understanding, their hopes for a blissful union and dreams of an enduring future. As the author points out, however, ‘You dread the future if you are an adulterer, you don’t plan for it. The future is for ruby weddings and children’s birthdays.’

Jacobson mounts an eloquent defence of adultery as an engrossing and salutary adventure in many ways but contrasts this with the substantial rewards of marriage, ‘There is an argument that some people are too in love to marry. Too engrossed in the minutiae of each other, too fascinated by the chemical phenomenon of themselves—the correspondences and correlations, the freak affinities and benign incompatibilities—too indifferent to the side benefits which some look to marriage to provide: law, legitimacy, security, progeny, position in society’.
For me, Jacobson falters when he strays into medical territory. That’s where he lost this reader. But he’s a storyteller and what seems a potential medical error to me serves his narrative well. A better specialist than his Dr Umlaut might have given the plot a different twist, one with less doom and gloom. It’s a minor quibble in this octogenarian’s dalliance and dance with love. A few mis-steps here and there fail to mar his overall choreography that pulses with lust and life. This novel will certainly please some and, equally, offend the sensitivities of others. With scholarly and poetic literary allusions sprinkled throughout the text, the novelist answers in his own inimitable way the enigma of life as he sees it.

While Lilly and Quaid are no Beatrice and Dante, they are adventurous and brave in their own ways. They and their author provide a literary souffle with a light texture for holiday appetites.

What will survive of us
Howard Jacobson
Penguin Random House UK, 2024