What do you think?
Rate this book
Zoo Time
Novelist Guy Ableman is in thrall to his vivacious wife Vanessa, a strikingly beautiful red-head, contrary, highly strung and blazingly angry. The trouble is, he is no less in thrall to her alluring mother, Poppy. More like sisters than mother and daughter, they come as a pair, a blistering presence that destroys Guy's peace of mind, suggesting the wildest stories but making it impossible for him to concentrate long enough to write any of them. Not that anyone reads Guy, anyway. Not that anyone is reading anything. Reading, Guy fears, is finished. His publisher, fearing the same, has committed suicide. His agent, like all agents, is in hiding. Vanessa, in the meantime, is writing a novel of her own. Guy doesn't expect her to finish it, or even start it, but he dreads the consequences if she does. In flight from personal disappointment and universal despair, Guy wonders if it's time to take his love for Poppy to another level. Fiction might be dead, but desire isn't. And out of that desire he imagines squeezing one more great book. By turns angry, elegiac and rude, Zoo Time is a novel about love - love of women, love of literature, love of laughter. It shows our funniest writer at his brilliant best.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published August 30, 2012
62 people are currently reading
675 people want to read
About the author
Howard Jacobson
72books377followersHoward Jacobson was born in Manchester, England, and educated at Cambridge. His many novels include The Mighty Walzer (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Who’s Sorry Now? and Kalooki Nights (both longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), and, most recently, The Act of Love. Jacobson is also a respected critic and broadcaster, and writes a weekly column for the Independent. He lives in London.
in The New York Times.
“The book's appeal to Jewish readers is obvious, but like all great Jewish art � the paintings of Marc Chagall, the books of Saul Bellow, the films of Woody Allen � it is Jacobson's use of the Jewish experience to explain the greater human one that sets it apart. Who among us is so certain of our identity? Who hasn't been asked, "What's your background" and hesitated, even for a split second, to answer their inquisitor? Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question forces us to ask that of ourselves, and that's why it's a must read, no matter what your background.”�-David Sax, NPR.
in The New York Times.
“The book's appeal to Jewish readers is obvious, but like all great Jewish art � the paintings of Marc Chagall, the books of Saul Bellow, the films of Woody Allen � it is Jacobson's use of the Jewish experience to explain the greater human one that sets it apart. Who among us is so certain of our identity? Who hasn't been asked, "What's your background" and hesitated, even for a split second, to answer their inquisitor? Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question forces us to ask that of ourselves, and that's why it's a must read, no matter what your background.”�-David Sax, NPR.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 145 reviews
September 23, 2012
Are you a suicidal novelist clinging to the hope the power of your debut novel will knock the socks off people who have read it all before, know nothing new has been written post-1980, and will reap you enough profit to quit that grinding office job you haven’t got yet because it’s a recession and no one works anywhere doing anything? Then boy howdy, is this not the novel for you! A scathing satire on the state of contemporary publishing, Jacobson is brutally honest about the futility of it all, and also reassuringly humorous about our slow sad slump into suicide at the same time. Panacea for those quiet nights sobbing into your laptop.
June 12, 2018
Ένας εκνευριστικός πολυλογάς άνευ λόγου και αιτίας ο πρωταγωνιστής του συγκεκριμμένου βιβλίου.
Δεν ντρέπομαι να το πω, βαρέθηκα...
Δεν ντρέπομαι να το πω, βαρέθηκα...
December 9, 2015
The ongoing conundrum for the reader of this highly postmodern, self-reflexive, and meta-textual novel is whether to love it or hate it. ZOO TIME is, quite frankly, stone-in-your-shoe irritating throughout, yet its occasional moments of startling humor and razor-sharp wit leave the reader on constantly shifting ground. Is it really as mean-spirited, whiny and shallow as it appears, or does it have hidden depths - very well-hidden depths?
This is a novel about the loves of Guy Abelman's life: his writing and his women, which are prioritized in that order, although he has enough passion to honor both, at least in his own mind. Naturally enough, these two entities are never kept separate but nourish each other. Like the traditionalist male author he is, Guy tends to place women on pedestals, and marries Vanessa not so much for love but for his awe of her flaming-haired, melodramatic charisma and his certainty that their tempestuous relationship will provide ample grist for his authorial mill. Plus, marriage to Vanessa brings the added bonus of Poppy as his lawfully wedded mother-in-law. Poppy looks and acts more like Vanessa's twin sister than her mother, so his foray into holy matrimony has secured a smug Guy Abelman two beautiful, boisterous, and beguiling women for the price of one. His writerly cup runneth over.
There is only one problem with this: While Guy says that Vanessa and Poppy "strutted their stuff together. They were forces, and you couldn't tell which of them energized the other," I found both female characters, but particularly Vanessa, to be completely vapid, soulless, and exasperating enough that I could have cheerfully throttled them. Maybe that's the point, but to have to endure them for an entire book is a toilsome, tiresome way to arrive at it. Male and female roles in Guy's world seem generally to be reversed, a condition I would normally thoroughly approve of, but in this case, it serves only to present women as bullies, airheads, or drama queens and men, particularly Guy himself, as cringing, impotent, and aimless.
As Guy freely admits, Vanessa has always been more the man of the family than he has - the "wife stroke husband." Like an inordinately large number of things in his life, this is something that Guy both loves and hates, just as he simultaneously hates and craves the approval of everyone: "his" women, readers, children. Guy's excuse is that it is so hard to be a man because men are not allowed to be scurrilous and libidinous over women anymore. Our main protagonist in ZOO TIME, dear reader, is a man who is saved from a bout of depression by his own father's funeral.
Guy is not an easy character to like, for so many reasons. Above all, it is not easy for a reader to warm to a character who calls the greater part of the reading community the "malignantly illiterate ... the wordless walking brain-dead." Not only does he despise the reader, he sees anyone who is not a writer as similarly dead. In fact, if he thought about it for long enough, he could probably come up with a zombie-apocalypse novel that his agent would love. Writers and publishers, says Guy, are up against "the man-haters and the word-haters."
And this is where the sacred distinction between the author and the protagonist comes into serious question. Often a difficult distinction for a reader to hold onto, ZOO TIME may be one of the few novels in which it can be legitimately abandoned altogether, at least in the parts of the book that refer to the woes of the twenty-first-century publishing industry. These are at the same time the most vibrant and the most morose, but above all, the most interesting passages of the book, and the belief that it is not Guy's voice but Jacobson's we are hearing here is virtually irresistible.
Despite the prickly hostility and generally irritating antagonism of ZOO TIME, I am more than happy to make some positive concessions, the main one being that when "Jacobson qua Guy" is at his most passionate - which almost always means when he is talking about writing or publishing - he displays a rapid-fire, dangerously sharp wit that is, on occasion, breathtaking. This is most amply demonstrated quite early in the novel, when Guy has lunch with his old-fashioned and thus despairing publisher, Merton Flack. We soon come to realize that the publishing industry is caught not just in a catch-22 but something more like a catch-88, at least. Agents like Flack can't keep pace with all the "twits" and "blags" (tweets and blogs), and Flack's assertion that the novel is dead "not because no one knows how to write one but because no one knows how to read one" is a sobering thought indeed. Gen Y wants to know what a novel is about, what point it is making, when really it's not ABOUT anything, it's just the author's attempt to find his (stroke her) way toward meaning.
It seems likely that this explains the weak, meandering plot and maddeningly self-obsessed characters of ZOO TIME. The book does have redeeming features, but they are few and far between. The glimpses of brilliant wit that appear in some of the novel's rants on the "death of the book" are one such, and there are a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments, such as Guy's encounter with an American travel magazine "fat checker" and his assertion that the greatest problem facing the modern writer is constipation (literally, not figuratively). And there is one character in the book who is a genuinely intriguing and memorable man of mystery: the hobo writer, "Ernest Hemingway, the ghost of serious writing," who turns up whenever Guy is at his most maudlin about the future of publishing. Thanks to this ghost of great authors past, the final few pages of ZOO TIME are the best, and considering what has come before, the book does have a surprisingly poignant ending.
Overall, however, I cannot pretend that it is easy to find anything very cheerful about being trapped in ZOO TIME's web of cynical witticisms, self-cancelling statements and ironic nihilism. But then, according to Guy Abelman, I fail "the Tolkien test," though I pass "the Tolstoy test," so who am I to judge? And I have to admit that Guy did get far enough under my skin to make me briefly consider giving ZOO TIME the five-star Amazon review I know "Mr Abelman stroke Jacobson" would hate. But I only considered it very briefly.
This is a novel about the loves of Guy Abelman's life: his writing and his women, which are prioritized in that order, although he has enough passion to honor both, at least in his own mind. Naturally enough, these two entities are never kept separate but nourish each other. Like the traditionalist male author he is, Guy tends to place women on pedestals, and marries Vanessa not so much for love but for his awe of her flaming-haired, melodramatic charisma and his certainty that their tempestuous relationship will provide ample grist for his authorial mill. Plus, marriage to Vanessa brings the added bonus of Poppy as his lawfully wedded mother-in-law. Poppy looks and acts more like Vanessa's twin sister than her mother, so his foray into holy matrimony has secured a smug Guy Abelman two beautiful, boisterous, and beguiling women for the price of one. His writerly cup runneth over.
There is only one problem with this: While Guy says that Vanessa and Poppy "strutted their stuff together. They were forces, and you couldn't tell which of them energized the other," I found both female characters, but particularly Vanessa, to be completely vapid, soulless, and exasperating enough that I could have cheerfully throttled them. Maybe that's the point, but to have to endure them for an entire book is a toilsome, tiresome way to arrive at it. Male and female roles in Guy's world seem generally to be reversed, a condition I would normally thoroughly approve of, but in this case, it serves only to present women as bullies, airheads, or drama queens and men, particularly Guy himself, as cringing, impotent, and aimless.
As Guy freely admits, Vanessa has always been more the man of the family than he has - the "wife stroke husband." Like an inordinately large number of things in his life, this is something that Guy both loves and hates, just as he simultaneously hates and craves the approval of everyone: "his" women, readers, children. Guy's excuse is that it is so hard to be a man because men are not allowed to be scurrilous and libidinous over women anymore. Our main protagonist in ZOO TIME, dear reader, is a man who is saved from a bout of depression by his own father's funeral.
Guy is not an easy character to like, for so many reasons. Above all, it is not easy for a reader to warm to a character who calls the greater part of the reading community the "malignantly illiterate ... the wordless walking brain-dead." Not only does he despise the reader, he sees anyone who is not a writer as similarly dead. In fact, if he thought about it for long enough, he could probably come up with a zombie-apocalypse novel that his agent would love. Writers and publishers, says Guy, are up against "the man-haters and the word-haters."
And this is where the sacred distinction between the author and the protagonist comes into serious question. Often a difficult distinction for a reader to hold onto, ZOO TIME may be one of the few novels in which it can be legitimately abandoned altogether, at least in the parts of the book that refer to the woes of the twenty-first-century publishing industry. These are at the same time the most vibrant and the most morose, but above all, the most interesting passages of the book, and the belief that it is not Guy's voice but Jacobson's we are hearing here is virtually irresistible.
Despite the prickly hostility and generally irritating antagonism of ZOO TIME, I am more than happy to make some positive concessions, the main one being that when "Jacobson qua Guy" is at his most passionate - which almost always means when he is talking about writing or publishing - he displays a rapid-fire, dangerously sharp wit that is, on occasion, breathtaking. This is most amply demonstrated quite early in the novel, when Guy has lunch with his old-fashioned and thus despairing publisher, Merton Flack. We soon come to realize that the publishing industry is caught not just in a catch-22 but something more like a catch-88, at least. Agents like Flack can't keep pace with all the "twits" and "blags" (tweets and blogs), and Flack's assertion that the novel is dead "not because no one knows how to write one but because no one knows how to read one" is a sobering thought indeed. Gen Y wants to know what a novel is about, what point it is making, when really it's not ABOUT anything, it's just the author's attempt to find his (stroke her) way toward meaning.
It seems likely that this explains the weak, meandering plot and maddeningly self-obsessed characters of ZOO TIME. The book does have redeeming features, but they are few and far between. The glimpses of brilliant wit that appear in some of the novel's rants on the "death of the book" are one such, and there are a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments, such as Guy's encounter with an American travel magazine "fat checker" and his assertion that the greatest problem facing the modern writer is constipation (literally, not figuratively). And there is one character in the book who is a genuinely intriguing and memorable man of mystery: the hobo writer, "Ernest Hemingway, the ghost of serious writing," who turns up whenever Guy is at his most maudlin about the future of publishing. Thanks to this ghost of great authors past, the final few pages of ZOO TIME are the best, and considering what has come before, the book does have a surprisingly poignant ending.
Overall, however, I cannot pretend that it is easy to find anything very cheerful about being trapped in ZOO TIME's web of cynical witticisms, self-cancelling statements and ironic nihilism. But then, according to Guy Abelman, I fail "the Tolkien test," though I pass "the Tolstoy test," so who am I to judge? And I have to admit that Guy did get far enough under my skin to make me briefly consider giving ZOO TIME the five-star Amazon review I know "Mr Abelman stroke Jacobson" would hate. But I only considered it very briefly.
May 9, 2015
If you'd asked me what I thought of this book at the 150-page mark,I'd have declared it as one of the best I'dread in the recent past and would have given it a 5/5 rating. After the 220-page mark, the rating would have slipped down to 4; after 300-page mark it would have slid to 3/5 and finally, after the entire run of 375 pages, it has dwindled down to a 2/5. Maybe 2.5. Here we have for us a classic case of book that tried to be written beyond its capacity and beyond the author's capability. Maybe he doesn't overtly try to, but Jacobson seems to want to colour himself with shades of Philip Roth and make his Guy Ableman an Alexander Portnoy, but fails miserably in the process. The first half of this novel has some brilliant passages mirroring Jacobson's own theory on the interlinked processes of reading and writing and these make for a compelling read, but from thereon in it is an exercise in futility as much as Guy Ableman's own literary endeavours.
It is not say that I dislike novels with a particular fixed plot/story which shows meaningful displacement from point A to point B, it's actually contrarywise. But Jacobson's turn of prose, brilliant in flashes, deserts him halfway through the novel and he cuts as sorry and frustrated a figure as his character, a spent figure with barely anything to show for his initial genius.
Still, I do think this book needs to be read, not for its plot, not for the characters but for the author himself who exemplifies an almost Adam-and-Eve-esque fall from grace, becoming more mortal with each further page he writes, leaving behind the immortality he clamours for, which shall forever remain for him just that much out of reach. In this, Guy Ableman becomes the Everyman, the truly tragic figure in this increasingly pathetic book.
It is not say that I dislike novels with a particular fixed plot/story which shows meaningful displacement from point A to point B, it's actually contrarywise. But Jacobson's turn of prose, brilliant in flashes, deserts him halfway through the novel and he cuts as sorry and frustrated a figure as his character, a spent figure with barely anything to show for his initial genius.
Still, I do think this book needs to be read, not for its plot, not for the characters but for the author himself who exemplifies an almost Adam-and-Eve-esque fall from grace, becoming more mortal with each further page he writes, leaving behind the immortality he clamours for, which shall forever remain for him just that much out of reach. In this, Guy Ableman becomes the Everyman, the truly tragic figure in this increasingly pathetic book.
October 1, 2012
A worthy nominee for worst book of 2012.
The English Philip Roth? Only in his own mind.
I've read all of Jacobson's prior works. Generally, they've gotten worse over time. Here, he has reached his literary nadir. Self-indulgent. Cute, in an artificial-sweetener kind of way.
No doubt, it will be short-listed for this and that, because he's now An Important Author.
It should be short-listed for the remainder table at The Strand.
The English Philip Roth? Only in his own mind.
I've read all of Jacobson's prior works. Generally, they've gotten worse over time. Here, he has reached his literary nadir. Self-indulgent. Cute, in an artificial-sweetener kind of way.
No doubt, it will be short-listed for this and that, because he's now An Important Author.
It should be short-listed for the remainder table at The Strand.
November 23, 2016
I fully understand that Zoo Time is a satirical work - hey, I'm all for satire - but something about it just tries far too hard. I didn't enjoy Jacobson's prose style (something which several people have told me about other works of his), and the protagonist is, let's face it, an egotistical dick. I didn't enjoy this at first, but I persevered to page fifty, and then wondered why I'd bothered, as the end result was the same: to Oxfam goes this book.
August 27, 2012
Guy Abelman is an everyman. If you have any doubt, just deconstruct his name: “Guy� and “Abel�. In Howard Jacobson’s new book, this everyman has plenty of problems: he wants to sleep with his mother-in-law and he also is determined to ensure that the priapic novel continues to reign.
In short, Everyman is narcissistically obsessed by phallic matters. Decades ago, when Philip Roth focused on man and his phallic preoccupation, the world sat up and took notice. Today most readers are far quicker to recognize that phallus preoccupation is typically a metaphor for self-preoccupation.
And so it is with our Everyman. He is self-absorbed: “A writer such as I am feels he’s been away from the first person for too long if a third-person narrative goes on for more than two paragraphs, never mind a chapter He, him, his…Why bother when such words as I, me, mine exist?�
The problem with a narcissistic character is he can easily become tiresome. Abelman is not an “able man�; rather, he’s in the throes of forces bigger than himself. The pleasure of reading books such as he writes is disappearing; now, an app called “Unbooks� lets time-pressed readers breeze through an entire book at a bus stop and readers challenge him at readings (that is, if they show up).
Is Zoo Time (named, in part, because of Abelman’s first novel, Who Gives a Monkey’s?) witty? For this reader, there was a certain pretentiousness in the prose that made it hard for me to break through and relate. Sure, there were beautifully-phrased insights that made me want to keep going � harbingers of what this book might have been � but not quite enough for me to want to have spent so many hours in Abelman’s navel-picking world.
I couldn’t help but compare Zoo Time to Smut, by Alan Bennett. Although the comparison isn’t true apples to apples, Bennett tackled phallic topics with a light and deft hand. Humor, of course, is in the eye of the beholder and others may take to it more kindly.
In short, Everyman is narcissistically obsessed by phallic matters. Decades ago, when Philip Roth focused on man and his phallic preoccupation, the world sat up and took notice. Today most readers are far quicker to recognize that phallus preoccupation is typically a metaphor for self-preoccupation.
And so it is with our Everyman. He is self-absorbed: “A writer such as I am feels he’s been away from the first person for too long if a third-person narrative goes on for more than two paragraphs, never mind a chapter He, him, his…Why bother when such words as I, me, mine exist?�
The problem with a narcissistic character is he can easily become tiresome. Abelman is not an “able man�; rather, he’s in the throes of forces bigger than himself. The pleasure of reading books such as he writes is disappearing; now, an app called “Unbooks� lets time-pressed readers breeze through an entire book at a bus stop and readers challenge him at readings (that is, if they show up).
Is Zoo Time (named, in part, because of Abelman’s first novel, Who Gives a Monkey’s?) witty? For this reader, there was a certain pretentiousness in the prose that made it hard for me to break through and relate. Sure, there were beautifully-phrased insights that made me want to keep going � harbingers of what this book might have been � but not quite enough for me to want to have spent so many hours in Abelman’s navel-picking world.
I couldn’t help but compare Zoo Time to Smut, by Alan Bennett. Although the comparison isn’t true apples to apples, Bennett tackled phallic topics with a light and deft hand. Humor, of course, is in the eye of the beholder and others may take to it more kindly.
April 10, 2015
Howard Jacobson's follow-up to his Booker Prize-winning The Finkler Question is a pitch-black, razor-sharp critique of the publishing industry that will earn lots of chuckles from book nerds.
Middle-aged UK author Guy Ableman is stuck in literary limbo. His readership has dwindled, bookstores are going bankrupt and his despairing publisher just committed suicide. What's more, Guy's begun to fantasize about sleeping with his wife's mother, possibly as inspiration for his next novel.
As Guy deals with a new publisher who wants literature reduced to 10-minute smartphone reads, Jacobson flashes back and ahead to pretentious literary festivals, angry reading groups and politically correct symposia.
The book could use a bit of a trim, especially in the first third, where some of Guy's rants feel repetitive. And the plot and characterizations are intentionally, gloriously broad.
But the novel succeeds because of its chatty, lively tone. Jacobson obviously still loves the world he skewers.
Originally published in
Here's my related with Jacobson
Middle-aged UK author Guy Ableman is stuck in literary limbo. His readership has dwindled, bookstores are going bankrupt and his despairing publisher just committed suicide. What's more, Guy's begun to fantasize about sleeping with his wife's mother, possibly as inspiration for his next novel.
As Guy deals with a new publisher who wants literature reduced to 10-minute smartphone reads, Jacobson flashes back and ahead to pretentious literary festivals, angry reading groups and politically correct symposia.
The book could use a bit of a trim, especially in the first third, where some of Guy's rants feel repetitive. And the plot and characterizations are intentionally, gloriously broad.
But the novel succeeds because of its chatty, lively tone. Jacobson obviously still loves the world he skewers.
Originally published in
Here's my related with Jacobson
September 18, 2022
Εξαιρετικό και μάλλον υποτιμημένο μυθιστόρημα απο τον Τζέικομπσον. Ήταν το πρώτο που έγραψε μετά το Booker Prize που απέσπασε το 2010. Θεωρώντας ότι απέκτησε κάποιο δικαίωμα στο να παραμείνει στο απυρόβλητο φανέρωσε κάθε κρυφή πτυχή του συγγραφικής τέχνης και της εκδοτικής επιχειρηματικότητας με γλώσσα καυστική και ύφος καταγγελτικό. Με περισσό θράσος, σαρκασμό και ... δηλητήριο καταφέρεται εναντίον μεγάλων ονομάτων της συγγραφής μερικές φορές στα όρια της εμμονικής ψυχοπαθολογίας. Πέρα απ' αυτό το εξόχως αμφιλεγόμενο σημείο στο βιβλίο αυτό αναδεικνύεται όλη η τέχνη του Τζέικομπσον. Κεντρικός ήρωας είναι ένας συγγραφέας που γράφει για τον εαυτό του με δικό του κεντρικό ήρωα το alter ego του που είναι και πάλι ο Τζέικομπσον με ψευδώνυμο που υποτίθεται του έχει προσάψει η αληθινή σύζυγός του! Μπορεί ν' ακούγεται κάπως tricky όλο αυτό αλλά πρόκειται για μια απολαυστική γραμμική αφήγηση που εξυφαίνεται πάνω στον καμβά της αστικής μυθοπλασίας. Μέσα στα φετίχ γύρω απο τη συγγραφή που ανέλαβε να καταρρίψει είναι κι αυτό της αθυροστομίας. Ως αποτέλεσμα αυτού είναι να χρησιμοποιεί την αργκό βωμολοχία σε βαθμό ... κακουργήματος. Φυσικά δε μένει μόνο στην αφήγηση μιας ενδιαφέρουσας και σκαμπρόζικης ιστορίας. Μας δίνει πολλά για τη βάσανο του συγγραφέα μέχρι να ολοκληρώσει το πόνημά του, εκφράζει την άποψή του για τις σχέσεις των ανθρώπων στη σύγχρονη εποχή και γενικά σπάνια θα βρείτε βιβλίο που να λέει τόσα πολλά στο συγκείμενο. Είναι ένα βιβλίο που θα διαβαστεί διαφορετικά απ' τον βιβλιόφιλο αναγνώστη, διαφορετικά απ' τον ομότεχνό του και διαφορετικά απ' τον υποψιασμένο του εκδοτικού "κυκλώματος".
June 23, 2023
3.5 stars. A humorous, witty, sometimes clever, occasionally compassionate novel about Guy Ableman, a reasonably successful novelist who has been married for around fifteen years to vivacious Vanessa, a beautiful red head who is contrary and highly strung. He wants to have an affair with Vanessa’s mother, Poppy, who is in her sixties and looks glamorous and sexy. Vanessa and Poppy have an interesting mother, daughter relationship.
A novel about the love of women and literature.
The plot is okay. The strength of the novel is the humour throughout the book. There are many funny scenarios and interesting characters. The author writes amusingly about the writing profession, including what modern readers want, publishing issues , competition between authors, authors communicating with book critics and book conventions.
Howard Jacobson fans should find this book an amusing read. Readers new to Jacobson should firstly read ‘The Finkler Question� (winner of the Booker Prize).
This book was first published in 2012.
A novel about the love of women and literature.
The plot is okay. The strength of the novel is the humour throughout the book. There are many funny scenarios and interesting characters. The author writes amusingly about the writing profession, including what modern readers want, publishing issues , competition between authors, authors communicating with book critics and book conventions.
Howard Jacobson fans should find this book an amusing read. Readers new to Jacobson should firstly read ‘The Finkler Question� (winner of the Booker Prize).
This book was first published in 2012.
November 4, 2012
The protagonist (and antagonist?) of Howard Jacobson’s newest novel Zoo Time is a writer. For Guy Abelman, art is life and life is art, the distinction � or lack thereof � Abelman’s greatest inducement and his most enduring curse. A self-described victim of everyone and everything from his readers � or lack thereof � , his parents and brother, his agent, publisher, reviewers, the very state of the contemporary book industry to his sniping and aspiring-writer wife and her mother, Abelman is nevertheless in love with all of the above as well. Without them, he has no sense of himself as a man or as a writer and, literally, no characters for the raving sexual fantasies he imagines to be the last gasping remnants of the literary tradition begun by such author-heroes as Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence. With his satiric (and sometimes laugh-out-loud) style, his brilliant dialogue and raw-though-often-completely-unreliable personal reflections, Jacobson has written a novel about writing and love (are they any different?) that captures the state of both in perfect desperation while, at the same time, reserving the right to hope for ... something even if it is just a good laugh about it all.
June 11, 2017
I should have realised that I would hate this book when the protagonist's misogyny was pointed out on the first page. The worst kind of misogynist, he claims to love women and proceeds to paint them all as exactly the same. Having persevered through the book out of sheer stubbornness (no, it doesn't get better), I immediately went in search of answers and themes, assuming I just wasn't intellectual enough to understand its underlying poetry. So far, I'm none the wiser and no longer sure I care. I'm left feeling that Jacobson wrote this novel to test his readers' tenacity, not their intelligence. It was exhausting and not at all worth my time. The status of the writing world really can't be that bad when books like this have been published.
January 13, 2013
Yeah, it's full of the same old Howard Jacobsen Players--the seductive harridans, horrible harridans, and the roguish author who can't keep his thoughts, his hands, or his dick to himself. But still, no one can hairpin the mood of a heavy sentence like Howard Jacobsen. Also, it's a very good satire of various POVs about the demise of the publishing industry.
August 27, 2016
As a character, Guy Ableman is inherently annoying. Of course, it's no prerequisite for a novelistic hero to be likeable, but it sure helps if you plan to read 384 pages about the guy.
I stuck it out to the end, but it was a most unsatisfying journey.
I stuck it out to the end, but it was a most unsatisfying journey.
July 27, 2013
A really bad attempt to be funny in that very annoying self-absorbed late Woody Allen style. Enough said.
April 6, 2020
What I needed right now was humor and Zoo Time provided that. It felt like a more stylized and well written Nick Horny novel sometimes though. And that's not a complaint.
Guy Ableman is a writer and a tortured soul. The whole industry is reeling, with fewer readers and self publishing. And Guy Ableman has a wife Vanessa who is trying to be a writer. Throw in the fact that Guy is in love with his mother-in-law Poppy and the many moral conflicts (he seems to have fewer than most) and complications that come with it. An utterly fun read. You're in good hands with Howard Jacobson.
Guy Ableman is a writer and a tortured soul. The whole industry is reeling, with fewer readers and self publishing. And Guy Ableman has a wife Vanessa who is trying to be a writer. Throw in the fact that Guy is in love with his mother-in-law Poppy and the many moral conflicts (he seems to have fewer than most) and complications that come with it. An utterly fun read. You're in good hands with Howard Jacobson.
August 21, 2019
4.5 stars - review to come
February 4, 2020
What a dire read - dear me - absolutely terrible!!!
The writer may have received several awards but I’m sorry to say stay well clear of this book.
The writer may have received several awards but I’m sorry to say stay well clear of this book.
September 25, 2022
Φλύαρο και κουραστικό με απεγνωσμένες προσπάθειες για χιούμορ και αδιάφορα αυτοβιογραφικά στοιχεία. Μακριά.
January 2, 2013
Novelist Guy Ableman's life and career are in crisis. Between books, aware that he has lost much of his traditional readership, and casting around for new subject matter that will make him relevant again, he is awakening rather rudely into the cultural reality of the 21st century. Reading is in decline and poorly written books that pander to popular taste are being hailed as masterpieces and held up as exemplars of the kind he should be striving for. The industry, it seems, has been invaded by shallow 20-something philistines prepared to wield their considerable economic clout to get what they want. In despair his publisher has committed suicide, and his agent is knuckling under to the pressures of a competitive marketplace where everyone is desperately trying to sniff out the next big thing. Guy is married to Vanessa, a beautiful, stately, tempermental redhead. Their relationship is fiery and volatile, its flames fed by Guy's wayward libido and Vanessa's conviction that it is she, not her husband, who is the real writer in the family (though she has not written anything beyond an opening sentence of a novel). Normally an inspiring if maddening stimulant to Guy's creative juices, Vanessa cannot help Guy out of his current crisis because Guy is lusting after (gasp!) his mother-in-law, Poppy, another beautiful stately redhead. Howard Jacobson's novel Zoo Time follows the adventures of Guy Ableman, novelist and husband, as he tries to salvage his career while steering a course through the minefield of his personal life and negotiating a cultural wasteland that neither values nor respects serious writers. Much of the narrative is an acerbic rant against the declining standards of the mass-market world of publishing and the reduction in readership that genuine literary artists face. But Jacobson, a sly and witty writer who recalls Philip Roth at his most irreverent and outrageous, manages to fill Guy's story with enough memorable comic moments and quotable one-line zingers to counter suspicions that we are reading the equivalent of a literary temper tantrum. The novel loses some steam toward the end (when a debate regarding Jewish-ness is given more space than necessary and Guy switches gears and cynically uses the market to his advantage), but until then is thoroughly entertaining and often howlingly funny. The bitterness of a once successful writer who in a shifting cultural landscape must struggle to make his voice heard is hard to ignore, but Howard Jacobson provides enough laughs that we almost forget that bitterness is at the heart of this tale.
June 9, 2013
When we meet author Guy Ableman he has been battered by a reading group - indeed he is feeling generally put upon and discouraged by the state of publishing and, in reality, this is a brave novel about a subject that readers and writers seem to discuss endlessly. The arrival of the ebook, what sells (there is a scene where Guy feels he should write a novel with either Tudors or vampires in it which is funny only because it is true), YA fiction, the despair of the publishing industry, reviews on Amazon and agents avoiding authors in case they are offered a book they have to place are all covered, within the general story of Guy and his marriage to Vanessa.
Vanessa is a gorgeous, vibrant and talented woman who has an equally beautiful mother, Poppy Eisenhower. When they walk into the boutique that Guy runs, they seem to come as a pair - both with flaming red hair and almost like sisters. In the age of the Great Decline, when "the age of sparing a writers feelings was past", Guy has problems with his publisher, his agent, his parents, his brother and his wife. So he decides to write a novel about his desire for his mother in law, despite advice to the contrary. This leads to a re-telling of his relationship with daughter and mother-in-law, encompassing various book events and Vanessa's own desire to be an author.
This novel is a satire and so much of what Howard Jacobson writes about readers and the world of writers, is tongue in cheek. That is not to say that he does not deride things people hold as sacred, but much of the most biting comments are aimed at himself and it is authors he savages most ('me, me, me'). Guy's own dispair is always tempered by his wish to add experiences to his life as a writer, so he often misunderstands events in his own life and that of those closest to him. Of course, to attack things that are precious to people always causes a backlash, but I am brave enough to face his ire and give this novel the five star review it deserves. This is a funny, and often moving, novel - but it has a lot of truth in it and some important things to say about the changing way we are all reading. However, I prefer to be positive and say that more of us are reading than ever and so authors have much to look forward to, even if publishers are struggling to come to terms with the changes.
Vanessa is a gorgeous, vibrant and talented woman who has an equally beautiful mother, Poppy Eisenhower. When they walk into the boutique that Guy runs, they seem to come as a pair - both with flaming red hair and almost like sisters. In the age of the Great Decline, when "the age of sparing a writers feelings was past", Guy has problems with his publisher, his agent, his parents, his brother and his wife. So he decides to write a novel about his desire for his mother in law, despite advice to the contrary. This leads to a re-telling of his relationship with daughter and mother-in-law, encompassing various book events and Vanessa's own desire to be an author.
This novel is a satire and so much of what Howard Jacobson writes about readers and the world of writers, is tongue in cheek. That is not to say that he does not deride things people hold as sacred, but much of the most biting comments are aimed at himself and it is authors he savages most ('me, me, me'). Guy's own dispair is always tempered by his wish to add experiences to his life as a writer, so he often misunderstands events in his own life and that of those closest to him. Of course, to attack things that are precious to people always causes a backlash, but I am brave enough to face his ire and give this novel the five star review it deserves. This is a funny, and often moving, novel - but it has a lot of truth in it and some important things to say about the changing way we are all reading. However, I prefer to be positive and say that more of us are reading than ever and so authors have much to look forward to, even if publishers are struggling to come to terms with the changes.
July 15, 2016
I'll Huff and Puff and Blow My Own House Down
British writers are supremely accomplished at creating characters who are appalling and unsympathetic, yet so compelling that you keep reading their narratives. I've decided that their shear awfulness is balanced by their sense of the absurd and by their ability to engage in self-lacerating humor and to embrace their awfulness even as they proclaim their innocence and victimhood.
This book is all Guy Ableman, ("me, me, me"), and we get to follow him as he self-destructs and deconstructs himself through the literary/publishing world. The signature aspect of Guy is that he is not a dry and arid little intellectual wisp. In the tradition noted above, (didn't Kingsley Amis' hero Maurice in the "The Green Man" spend the entire book trying to get his wife and her best friend into bed at the same time?), Guy is bawdy, randy, irreverent, insightful, rueful, inconsistent, impotently outraged, and very funny in just about all the ways there are for a fictional character to be funny, (blowhard rants, sly little digs, satirical descriptions, mockery, cheerfully vain or disingenuous confessions, mock outrage, misplaced outrage, and withering putdowns - all make their appearance.)
Since Ableman's most biting comments are directed at himself and since his most withering observations are aimed at the authorial class I didn't see this book as an indulgent rant by the author. Amateur reviewers and vampire book lovers are just collateral damage in the battle Ableman declares against himself.
I guess the bottom line is that if you are willing to go along with a book that has no actual sustained storyline or plot and no "likeable" characters, but is an extended meditation by an author hiding behind an intentional parody of a self possessed and unsympathetic author, then this is a fine choice. I liked it, but mainly because I preferred this approach to the earnest, tedious and condescending hectoring I'm getting from so many others in the current crop of "serious" literary fiction authors.
Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.
British writers are supremely accomplished at creating characters who are appalling and unsympathetic, yet so compelling that you keep reading their narratives. I've decided that their shear awfulness is balanced by their sense of the absurd and by their ability to engage in self-lacerating humor and to embrace their awfulness even as they proclaim their innocence and victimhood.
This book is all Guy Ableman, ("me, me, me"), and we get to follow him as he self-destructs and deconstructs himself through the literary/publishing world. The signature aspect of Guy is that he is not a dry and arid little intellectual wisp. In the tradition noted above, (didn't Kingsley Amis' hero Maurice in the "The Green Man" spend the entire book trying to get his wife and her best friend into bed at the same time?), Guy is bawdy, randy, irreverent, insightful, rueful, inconsistent, impotently outraged, and very funny in just about all the ways there are for a fictional character to be funny, (blowhard rants, sly little digs, satirical descriptions, mockery, cheerfully vain or disingenuous confessions, mock outrage, misplaced outrage, and withering putdowns - all make their appearance.)
Since Ableman's most biting comments are directed at himself and since his most withering observations are aimed at the authorial class I didn't see this book as an indulgent rant by the author. Amateur reviewers and vampire book lovers are just collateral damage in the battle Ableman declares against himself.
I guess the bottom line is that if you are willing to go along with a book that has no actual sustained storyline or plot and no "likeable" characters, but is an extended meditation by an author hiding behind an intentional parody of a self possessed and unsympathetic author, then this is a fine choice. I liked it, but mainly because I preferred this approach to the earnest, tedious and condescending hectoring I'm getting from so many others in the current crop of "serious" literary fiction authors.
Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.
April 10, 2015
Zoo Time
Howard Jacobson (Author)
With its study of love, literature, laughter, technology and family, Zoo Time is very much a book of its time. Guy Ableman is a failing writer who has not lived up to his early potential, but feels that he has one more great book within him, even if reader's are more interested in other distractions these days. He is married to Vanessa, but also has strong feelings for her mother, Poppy. Zoo Time is a series of embarrassing vignettes, from the encounter in a charity shop, where he buys a copy of his own book, to the reading group meeting where more is made of the political incorrectness of the work, than the plot of the novel the meeting is about. Howard Jacobson wields his pen like a scalpel; the same wit, humour and warmth that we have come to expect from this talented writer is all present and correct in this novel, which looks at deep subjects, in a way that lifts the work of the page. There is much for a reading group to discuss in this work, as there was in Jacobson's previous prize winning work, The Finkler Question.
Howard Jacobson (Author)
With its study of love, literature, laughter, technology and family, Zoo Time is very much a book of its time. Guy Ableman is a failing writer who has not lived up to his early potential, but feels that he has one more great book within him, even if reader's are more interested in other distractions these days. He is married to Vanessa, but also has strong feelings for her mother, Poppy. Zoo Time is a series of embarrassing vignettes, from the encounter in a charity shop, where he buys a copy of his own book, to the reading group meeting where more is made of the political incorrectness of the work, than the plot of the novel the meeting is about. Howard Jacobson wields his pen like a scalpel; the same wit, humour and warmth that we have come to expect from this talented writer is all present and correct in this novel, which looks at deep subjects, in a way that lifts the work of the page. There is much for a reading group to discuss in this work, as there was in Jacobson's previous prize winning work, The Finkler Question.
April 18, 2013
I've read only one other of Jacobson's books - The Finkler Question. I found it far too self-absorbed and rather boring. But Zoo Time was wonderful, and I'll certainly try some other of Jacobson's works now.
Jacobson is an intellectual and in this book explores the mind of a fiction writer of "message" books. It is narrated by the writer, who clearly loves books, but is fearful of the demise of readership. It is a serious story told in a hilarious way - I laughed out loud every 2-3 pages. The dialogues he has with his wife (Vanessa) are among the cleverest ever written.
The plot is inconsequential - just a device to hang out there a whole bunch of ideas and observations about publishing, books, marriage, families, friendships, love/lust. The prose is very good in itself but laden as it is with a heavy load of smart humour makes reading this book a great pleasure.
Jacobson is an intellectual and in this book explores the mind of a fiction writer of "message" books. It is narrated by the writer, who clearly loves books, but is fearful of the demise of readership. It is a serious story told in a hilarious way - I laughed out loud every 2-3 pages. The dialogues he has with his wife (Vanessa) are among the cleverest ever written.
The plot is inconsequential - just a device to hang out there a whole bunch of ideas and observations about publishing, books, marriage, families, friendships, love/lust. The prose is very good in itself but laden as it is with a heavy load of smart humour makes reading this book a great pleasure.
August 25, 2013
Stream of consciousness narrative. I usually like English humor. It's more verbal than American humor but this was just empty word salad. The narrator/protagonist is narcissistic, detached and says and experiences nothing to draw you in. I couldn't get past the first 30 pages. There didn't seem to be any story. You feel like you're living in someone's head where everything is filtered through this snarky, narcissistic filter and nothing is very real or matters much. Maybe I didn't do it justice by not reading further but it wasn't clever or funny in any way and there was no story. You can do a lot of things in a narrative, just don't bore the reader.
September 20, 2012
The loss of Henry Miller-esque writing is in large part the comic impetus of "Zoo Time." Jacobson plows familiar ground with those of his other works, but it seems his heart has softened a little bit and I almost daresay there is some contentment in this work. The death of publishing or at least the maddening restructuring of the written world is fodder for some very funny misanthropic (misbibliopic?) rants. But whoever is saying this is simply Jacobson ranting and taking pot shots at publishing, didn't read to The End.
February 6, 2022
DNF �. I struggled for almost 100 pages before coming to my senses and realising that life is too short to waste any more time on it. There’s nothing to like about this book: it lacks humour, warmth, humanity and it is populated with wooden caricatures. Nothing remotely of interest. It’s as if the author is writing about himself - trying really hard to persuade readers that there is something important in a book that is totally lacking in substance.
August 9, 2015
Loved the first sentence but it was downhill from there. Hated the pretentiousness and could not like, admire or empathise with any of the characters. I persevered because that is what I do. If I start a book I must finish it in the hope that salvation will occur somewhere along the way. No salvation here just lugubrious diatribe.
January 8, 2013
Boring and a bit pointless. The first few pages show potential with great writing style, but the story doesn't seem to go anywhere and in the end I gave up. A pity such potentially funny and good writing couldn't have been applied to a more interesting story.
July 15, 2014
i have tried to read it when it was first published, and just could not get into it. this year my library put audio version of the book on it's shelves. narration by Simon Shatzberger gave this book so much life. golden voice microphone award is decided for me this year.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 145 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.