Jubb

by Keith Waterhouse

C. L. Jubb is thirty-six, married, gainfully employed, and active in his community, both in local government and as a volunteer youth leader working with disadvantaged boys. But as he narrates the story of his downfall, we begin to see that he is other things as a voyeur, a fetishist, a racist, an admirer of Mussolini, and above all, a man obsessed by his sexual fantasies. With its unforgettable protagonist - odious yet pitiable, vile yet oddly sympathetic - Keith Waterhouse's third novel is both a gripping case study of a social and sexual misfit and an unsettling but wickedly funny social satire.Jubb (1963) was a departure from Waterhouse's first two novels, the classic of childhood There is a Happy Land and the comic masterpiece Billy Liar , but like those works it was widely acclaimed by critics, who compared it favorably with Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita . This edition, the first in decades, features a new introduction by Alice Ferrebe and a reproduction of the original dust jacket art.'Magnificent ... an achievement that puts Mr. Waterhouse above all his contemporary novelists.' - Washington D.C. Star'An important book and one of the finest in months ... a fascinating novel.' - Cleveland Plain Dealer'[A]dmirable . . . indeed a very funny book.' - New York Times

Genres: Fiction

246 pages, Hardcover

First published July 24, 1986

About the author

Keith Spencer Waterhouse CBE, was a novelist, newspaper columnist, and the writer of many television series.

Reviews

[Mark Desrosiers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This long out-of-print novel was pressed into my hand many weeks ago by a groovy, demented Nabokov obsessive who hangs about my workplace all day. This is the guy I'm always trying to strongarm into reading some Kingsley Amis or A.L. Kennedy -- decent comic novelists -- but he will only read funny books which Nabokov approved. Which means Jubb by Keith Waterhouse, apparently mentioned in an obscure Vlad interview. I checked the book out the library, and let it gather some dust for a few weeks before grabbing it to take on the bus about a month ago. The opening pages were quite funny -- an obsessive skirt-chaser staring at gurls while solemnly recounting his own serene marriage. Then something odd happened: I got to work I read on the internets that Keith Waterhouse died that very same night. As if his glowering heavenly countenance commanded me to start reading his obscure Billy Liar followup. As far as I could tell, I was the only person on the entire planet reading Jubb on that day, not a very positive trait, as Jubb is one of the most dire, unlikeable literary creations in recent memory.

Cyril Jubb, age 36, is a sober rent collector, amateur photographer, luster after women. His wife is on some sort of vacation, though Jubb helpfully reveals her actual whereabouts later on. He is obsessed with Ruth, a childhood friend who seems to have been collaborator in his only spontaneous sexual experience ever, when they were both teens. He is also intent on forming a youth Photography club: you can probably guess where that's going. And he wanders far and wide at night, staring into windows where women might be undressing.

And yes, just as his window-peeping and Kodak Brownie fiddling seem to be heading somewhere, things start to collapse. A clumsy sex-coercion attempt instigated by his perceived authority as a rent collector casts him into the abyss (so we think). He circles the drain in the novel's last half -- attempts to join the local Fascist party branch (but they won't have him), then gets beat up by a bunch of schoolboys who pants him and spit on his bare crotch. Though Jubb has obviously engineered his own Kaskaesque circumstance, with dried spittle on his cock and his trusses in disarray, he never hits bottom. Just keeps plodding on, drinking milk and trying to make obscene phone calls. In the last pages, Jubb moves it forward (or rather, eastward), an existential triumph for one of the saddest bastards ever. A genuinely funny novel where you cheer the demolition of the creepy narrator, but it never actually happens.

[Neale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sexual intercourse began, according to Philip Larkin, in 1963 - between the lifting of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles' first LP. It was also the year, appropriately enough, when 'Jubb', Keith Waterhouse's follow-up to 'Billy Liar', was published.

Jubb is a highly Larkinesque character, with his obsessive interest in naked women, his physical self-loathing, his belief (well-justified) that the world of sex has passed him by. The book is remarkably frank for its era: it takes place at that moment in time when the old world was fading, but the new world had not yet taken over - the moment just before England started to 'swing'. It is a grotesque and funny document of that time.

Jubb is thoroughly mired in the old world, but obsessed with the grubby delights of the new, which he can only ogle from a furtive distance He is not an engaging character - he has none of the charm of his similarly enmired predecessor, Billy Liar - but this makes the book a rather stronger statement, if a less enjoyable read.

[Christopher Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I had passed the halfway point, and the ante on the nightly peepshow had been upped from seeing a woman about to undress in her window to he sees her but it's far away, but she's definitely naked, but he gets interrupted by a prudish neighbor... I started skimming.
The humor just approaches funny for me, and just made me want to read more of the Enderby series. For a story about the downfall of a sometimes-relatable antihero, Studs Lonigan isn't going to be topped. This books feels like a longer read than Studs, and it's less than 1/4 of its length. The asides in Jubb bring everything to a crawl for me.
I literally had more fun reading the R Graphics Cookbook that showed up the day I finished Jubb. Maybe that says more about me than the writing style, maybe it doesn't.

[Garry Nixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite what it says on the cover of the early edition paperback, this ain't no Lolita, though a comparative study might be interesting. It was a first to read a novel in which one naturally sympathised with the narrator until a moment came when one thought, "ugh".

[Janet Bird · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read it yonks ago as he's a favourite author but the subject matter is dire. I'm still trying to forget it all these decades later. Agh. I need to go shower...