Howard Jacobson Interview

The Great Novelist Talks About The Craft of Writing.

Yesterday I had the terrific pleasure of talking to my old friend and colleague Howard Jacobson. A Booker prize winner, we could have spent an age talking about his wonderful books, but instead, I confined him to a relatively brief chat (25 minutes) about the craft of writing. It was fascinating - as I expected.

Howard isn’t at all sure that writing can be taught - only reading can be taught, and by learning to read properly you can begin to hear the ‘music’ that informs the novelist’s imagination. Plot, Howard believes, is not crucial - the music, or voice, is what carries a book. His love of classic literature - particularly Jane Austen, George Eliot and Charles Dickens - shone through the interview. It was a thrill to talk to him. We had some problems with the sound as Howard’s Internet connection kept dropping out, but it’s mostly intact.

You can listen to the interview here if you are a paying subscriber: