The inventory

by Gabriel Josipovici

, 157 pages, printed by Northumberland Press Limited

Genres: Fiction

157 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1968

About the author

Gabriel Josipovici was born in Nice in 1940 of Russo-Italian, Romano-Levantine parents. He lived in Egypt from 1945 to 1956, when he came to Britain. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with a First in 1961. From 1963 to 1998 he taught at the University of Sussex. He is the author of seventeen novels, three volumes of short stories, eight critical works, and numerous stage and radio plays, and is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement. His plays have been performed throughout Britain and on radio in Britain, France and Germany, and his work has been translated into the major European languages and Arabic. In 2001 he published A Life, a biographical memoir of his mother, the translator and poet Sacha Rabinovitch (London Magazine editions). His most recent works are Two Novels: 'After' and 'Making Mistakes' (Carcanet), What Ever Happened to Modernism? (Yale University Press), Heart's Wings (Carcanet, 2010) and Infinity (Carcanet, 2012).

Reviews

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book because it was signed by the man himself! 😊 It was about $14…. I thought that was a pretty good deal. He sure has good penmanship…. well at least he had good penmanship 53 years ago. It was inscribed: ‘for Del – with admiration and affection. From Gabriel. 12.xi.1968

And I think I got a bonus…at the bottom of the dust jacket was further writing in pen and ink: ‘Inventory: a catalogue of effects, or a repository of inventions?’ Although maybe that was writing by Del. If so, he or she had good penmanship too. 😊

The dust jacket was not price-clipped either. 25s net.

This was Josipovici’s first novel. As with many of his subsequent novels, this novel consists mostly of dialogue between different protagonists in the story. I liked this book, but I enjoyed some of his later novels much more. I’m not sure I ever “got” the ending of any of his novels...he seemed to enjoy leaving people up in the air. At least that is my assessment from reading his oeuvre…not fully understanding what I just read, but not really caring, because for the most part I either enjoyed it (Infinity: The Story of a Moment [Carcanet Press Ltd. 2012]; Conversations in Another Room [Methuen Publishing Ltd. 1984]; Goldberg: Variations [Carcanet Press Ltd. 2002]) or really enjoyed it (The Cemetery in Barnes [Carcanet Press March 2018]; Only Joking [CB Editions 2010]; Contre-Jour: A Triptych after Pierre Bonnard [Carcanet Press 1986]; Everything Passes [Carcanet Press Ltd. 2002]; Hotel Andromeda [Carcanet Press June 2014]).

Throughout ‘The Inventory’ are lists of objects/things that the main protagonist, Joe, is inventorying from a house as part of his duties as a lawyer...perhaps settling the estate of the old man who died in the house. The old man’s name is mentioned once as far as I can tell, Uncle David. He might have had a son, Sam, although that is not entirely clear because we learn about the old man and Sam from a source, Susan, who may be unreliable. She keeps on changing her story as to what happened to Sam, and even at the end of the novel I don’t know what became of Sam.

Here is a description of the story taken from the inner sleeve of the dust jacket:
• "Invent. Inventory. The title is ambiguously suggestive, pointing both inwards to the world of imagination and memory, and outwards to the everyday world of material objects.
What happened in those few months Susan spent in the flat with Sam and the old man? Her compulsive monologues, groping for the answer amid the neutral surfaces of the objects once in their possession and now to be inventoried, trying out then discarding one explanation after another, slowly uncover the clichés by which each of us tries to master experience and to give meaning to his life.
Other characters include the mysterious Brown, the overwrought Gill Clemm and her three offspring, Mick, Brigid, and Baby Choo. Oscar has a non-speaking part, and the incidents range from a brawl in a pub to a late-night encounter with the police.
Gabriel Josipovici's short novel combines formal elegance with verbal wit. The book develops out of three intertwining time-schemes. The description and narration which form the bulk of most novels has been replaced by a sharp and swiftly-moving dialogue that brings the characters immediately to life. It is in fact a very uncomplicated book, haunting and at times extremely funny." -

It is not really a dated work. I am not sure why Carcanet that has published many of his other works did not try and publish this, unless they could not secure the rights to re-issue it. It was originally published by Michael Joseph of London. Michael Joseph is now an imprint of Penguin Publishing: https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/pub...

I found this on a website in which Josipovici commented on his book:
• My first novel is called The Inventory. There I tried to explore the curious fact that men gather possessions round them all their lives but that in the end these avail them nothing. They die as naked as when they came into the world. The things we pick up in the course of our lives remain to provide our descendants with the traces of what we had once been. They are perhaps no more than triggers for memory and imagination.

Review:
Get out a magnifying glass for this one (although it is good): http://www.readysteadybook.com/BookRe...

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A man has died and an estate lawyer, hired by the family, is making an inventory of the contents of his apartment. While he struggles to complete this work, the dead man's niece and her cousin are cleaning the apartment. The one woman's children run rampant through the place leading to endless interruptions. As the days pass, the woman without children draws the lawyer into the story of the man and his son who lived alone together in the apartment with their cat Oscar. The woman, who had an ambiguous relationship with the son, repeats herself as she goes, adding in more detail with each telling, as the lawyer grows increasingly frustrated and enraptured. Cut in with this are other scenes of the lawyer interacting with various strangers in bars, all of whom seem eager to speak with him despite his reluctance to engage with them. Written in Josipovici's 'story through conversation' style, The Inventory is a brief, fast-paced novel that signaled the compelling start of this under-read (on GR, at least) writer's career. (3.5)

[Victoria]

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