Howard Jacobson: 'I write fiction. The others write crap'

[direstraits]

Go to: Howard Jacobson: "I hate the phrase 'literary fiction'. I write fiction. The others write crap' | Books | The Observer.

I'm contemptuous of genre things... You go into a good bookshop like Foyles and see a kind of "vampire room". I was sitting in the American Embassy a while back, trying to get a visa, and every woman in the room was reading the vampire series – you know, the one with the black cover and the bit of blood. Now people are reading soft porn! What happened to the fun of reading a good book? There are people who, when they say they prefer Henry James to Fifty Shades of Grey, they do actually mean that.

 

[Hugh]

Should I find the occaison to be in the same room with the venerable Howard Jacobson - I will raise my foot and fart. Then waft it with my James Patterson novel. Ha.

 

[Peder]

I knew a Howard Jacobson once. I didn't care for him much, and he didn't care much for me. Maybe I knew Howard Jacobson once.