Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook420 pages6 hours
Zoo Time
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Reading is over. Writing is finished. Publishing is dead. Embittered author Guy Ableman knows this, as does his desperate editor; as does the sad whole of doomed literary London. But Guy is dedicated to his dying art, and continues to write for an audience that doesn't exist, loathed by the few readers he does have - feminists who charge him with misogyny, mothers who accuse him of hating children.
His vivacious wife Vanessa, a strikingly beautiful red-head, contrary, highly strung and often blazingly angry, is another source of pain, as is her alluring mother Poppy. More like sisters than mother and daughter, they come as a pair, a blistering presence. And Guy is, from the off, as captivated by his mother-in-law as he is by his wife...
Against a backdrop of disappointment, failure and loss, in a world in which food and fashion have long since trampled fiction into the ground, Guy is consumed with the temptation of an illicit affair. It distorts every thought in his head, and becomes his next great novel. Fantasy blurs with reality in this furious, hilarious novel about love, loss, mothers and daughters. Frank, poignant and moving, Zoo Time is our funniest writer at his brilliant best.
His vivacious wife Vanessa, a strikingly beautiful red-head, contrary, highly strung and often blazingly angry, is another source of pain, as is her alluring mother Poppy. More like sisters than mother and daughter, they come as a pair, a blistering presence. And Guy is, from the off, as captivated by his mother-in-law as he is by his wife...
Against a backdrop of disappointment, failure and loss, in a world in which food and fashion have long since trampled fiction into the ground, Guy is consumed with the temptation of an illicit affair. It distorts every thought in his head, and becomes his next great novel. Fantasy blurs with reality in this furious, hilarious novel about love, loss, mothers and daughters. Frank, poignant and moving, Zoo Time is our funniest writer at his brilliant best.
Unavailable
Author
Howard Jacobson
Howard Jacobson
Read more from Howard Jacobson
Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Finkler Question: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Roots Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKalooki Nights: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Whatever It Is, I Don't Like It: The Best of Howard Jacobson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Act of Love: A Novel Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5In the Land of Oz Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Who's Sorry Now?: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Novel Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5
Related to Zoo Time
Related ebooks
Prelude to Poison: Maggie's Murder Mysteries, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Hard Can It Be? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder in Siena: A gripping instalment in T.A.Williams' bestselling cozy crime mystery series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Forgotten Sister: A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Killin Machine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrime Scenes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPistol's Promise: The Brethren MC, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Muslin Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Quest for Clemency Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Tale from the Blackwater River Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Grin of the Doll Who Ate his Mother's Face in the Dark and Other Dreadful Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Martins Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpring Days Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeadly Secrets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMuslin (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Travelling Hornplayer: a novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJane Carver of Waar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Traveling Left of Center Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNight's Master Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lassos & Lace Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mr. Right: A Smartass Parafeminist Psycho-Erotic Thriller Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Herring-Seller's Apprentice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGlobalocity: The Adventures of Raymond Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWolf Moon Magic: Full Moon Games, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShort Story Collection #01: Short Story Collections, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnfashioned Creatures Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPayback Wife: An MC Romance: Venom Brothers MC, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSome Service to the State Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Madwoman Upstairs: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Glory Over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything's Fine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Sister's Keeper: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anonymous Sex Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5
Related categories
Reviews for Zoo Time
Rating: 2.926470635294118 out of 5 stars
3/5
34 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is my first book by Howard Jacobson. The book is written in the first person by a writer of novels (not unlike the Howard Jacobson), who has had moderate success writing satirical novels. The novel follows his journey trying to find and new inspirations for a new novel. He tries to write about a husband, wife and mother-in-law love triangle but discards it. He then tries to write about a rich playboy with brain tumor but ends with discarding it. He finally writes about a mother daughter duo who are bound together by the love of a mentally retarded brother.The novel is full of moody wife, sexy mother-in-law, neurotic agent, bi-sexual brother, dementic parents and suicidal publishers. It's funny if you like that kind of funny.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Novelist 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 shrinking audience 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jacobson delivers again with a fun romp around Cheshire and London poking fun at the literary world and modern living in general. Misogynistic? Perhaps, hilarious? Definitely.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Maybe this was just me, but I didn't find anything in this book terribly engaging. It's a book about an author and the apparent dichotomy of there being many authors and fewer people actually reading anything. He can't bear the thought of his non-existent readers not reading his next big book, so this book is spent mostly following him trying to come up with a story. He gets a bit obsessed about his wife's mother - who sounds a bit like mutton dressed as lamb, she dresses and looks more like a sister than a mother. And it's all a bit crude, pretentious, repetitive and the fictional hero/antihero deserves a good slap for being a complete self centered arse. No, I didn't like him, them, the book, the language (too many f**k & c**ts littered about for my taste - having been brought up to believe an expletive is what you use when you can't express yourself properly in the English language) or anything about it. Why I listened to the entire thing, I'm not sure - I suppose I expected it to get better... Disappointing.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Howard Jacobson writes a novel about a writer who is writing a book about a writer in current day London. The protagonist in both books is utterly unlikable in every aspect except that he makes acute, hilarious and smack-dab smart observations about reading/readers, literature, art and the publishing world. He also hilariously hits nearly every single single self-absorbed narcissistic thought that every writer/artist has ever had about himself/herself and their craft, but wishes they hadn't, which makes reading it sometimes painful. Jacobson hilariously dives into the shadow of living as a writer. Not liking someone has never been so thought-provoking and laugh-out-loud funny. The ending is tremendously surprising and hopefully without adding a spoiler, the protagonist seems to (possibly) be growing as a feeling and ethical human being, or at least is considering it. It's dirty. Some say for the sake of being dirty, I say, it's essential to what he's trying to accomplish in exposing the underbelly of being an artist, because most art is highly self-absorbed, and his protagonist's literary heroes were overtly sexual males as well. It is splendidly twisted.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I chose to read this because I had just finished a very intense novel and needed something light and/or funny for a change of pace.
This book is amusing at times, thoughtful at times, and narcissistic throughout. The story reminded me of what happens when you stand between two mirrors facing each other; your reflection inside itself into infinity. I understand that the narcissism of the main character was the vehicle for most of the humor. It just became very repetitive.
I will definitely give this author another try in the hope of finding something that I get.