Celebrated novelist and academic Howard Jacobson has been awarded an honorary degree for his life\u2019s work and contribution to British literature \u2013 reinventing the comic novel for the modern age.<\/p>\n
The Manchester-born academic was made a Doctor of The Open University at one of its degree ceremonies \u2013 this one in the city\u2019s Bridgewater Hall recently.<\/p>\n
The formal beginnings of his writing career started as an English Literature student at the University of Cambridge, followed by a teaching role at the University of Sydney before returning to Cambridge.<\/p>\n
A role, this time at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, was the inspiration for his first novel, \u2018Coming From Behind\u2019. He has since been celebrated for his witty writing that explores themes of masculinity, sexuality, ageing and what it means to be Jewish.<\/p>\n
He twice went on to win the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comedic Writing. In the awards\u2019 inaugural year, he won for his book \u2018The Mighty Waltzer\u2019, beating off competition from Helen Fielding (\u2018The Edge of Reason\u2019) and Sue Townsend (\u2018Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years\u2019).<\/p>\n
More successes followed but he is perhaps best known for \u2018The Finkler Question\u2019, which is an account of grief, friendship and identity. His latest novel is \u2018What Will Survive Of Us Is Love\u2019.<\/p>\n
Howard, who was a columnist for the Independent, and occasionally writes for The Guardian, The Times and Tablet Magazine, said that as a teacher you never know whether you\u2019ve accomplished anything worthwhile. \u201cYou can only hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cIf teachers work in the dark never knowing for sure what good they\u2019re doing, the same is true of writers. We hope, that\u2019s all.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that in the questioning, ironic, and often comic exuberance of literature, readers will find a language in tune with the subtleties of the human mind and the generosity of the human heart.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cArt does not confirm what we think already but it shows how we might find our own way into unfamiliar worlds of thought and feeling. A good university such as this is will do the same.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He said writers and teachers are alike in being sceptical of absolutes and quoted the poet John Donne\u2019s words \u2018On a huge hill truth stands.\u2019 And he followed that with:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe equip our pupils and our readers for a hard ascent, but we don\u2019t tell them which hill they have to climb.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
His last words to the audience were:<\/p>\n
\u201cI again thank the OU for honouring me for all we have in common.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Celebrated novelist and academic Howard Jacobson has been awarded an honorary degree for his life\u2019s work and contribution to British literature \u2013 reinventing the comic novel for the modern age. The Manchester-born academic was made a Doctor of The Open University at one of its degree ceremonies \u2013 this one in the city\u2019s Bridgewater Hall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":25238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,9],"tags":[1093,1361,1525,1640],"class_list":["post-25237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-literature-music","category-honorary-graduate","tag-honorary-doctorate","tag-manchester","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}