Vac

by Paul Ableman

'This book seems to be about us. Within a day or two of starting it I devised a title: VAC... The subtle idea was to fuse the suggestion of holiday or vacation with that of vacuum...'

Paul Ableman's third novel, first published in 1968, is - through the voice of its narrator Billy Soodernim, libidinous and regretful by turns - a meditation on love and carnality, monogamy and promiscuity, childbirth, separation and indeed the whole of the fraught relations between the sexes: 'male and female, citizens with distinct personalities, flesh inwraught in flesh.'

'Paul Ableman's novels were praised for their inventive language, bawdy high spirits, and originality of form by Anthony Burgess, Philip Toynbee, Robert Nye and other friends of the avant-garde. They are witty, original, and full of good humour, and I am delighted Faber Finds are reissuing them.' Margaret Drabble

Genres: Fiction, Novella

158 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Paul Ableman was an English playwright and novelist. He wrote an eclectic mix of literary novels, erotic fiction, television novelizations, and non-fiction.

Ableman was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, into a Jewish family, and brought up mainly in New York. He later settled in Hampstead, London. His father was a tailor and his mother was a small-time actress.

Ableman was married twice, first to Tina Carrs-Brown in 1958; then to Sheila Hutton-Fox in 1978 until his death in 2006.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 1968 Gollancz blurb attempts to frame the novel as a “scrapbook compiled in great chronological diversity”, which helps the reader to imagine a shape on what is a chaotic, comedic, and thoughtful gambol through a series of set-pieces involving the narrator’s friends, lovers, and wife, narrated in staccato prose where each phrase is melodious and unique, reading like a stylised internal monologue (although the novel switches between first, second, and third person modes, uprooting each attempt to pin down this sneaky text). In between these scenes are what appear to be excerpts from other books, such as ‘Mother and Whore’, outlining the theory that wives are first whores then mothers, and “one must return to mother to live.” The “scrapbook” frame posits the probable notion that this novel is a novel about writing a novel (something Francis Booth has asserted about Ableman’s 1969 book The Twilight of the Vilp), so in the tradition of all writers-as-narrators, nothing here is to be trusted. The opening and closing sections differ in tone, providing a sincere if less dazzling rumination on marriage and parenthood, what this novel seems to be “about”, if we must reach for something as tiresome as a concrete meaning. A terrific work that demands to be read. Tomorrow (or now).

[may · Rating 4 out of 5]

A relationship hopping narrative fuelled by the underlying barrage of emotions that comes with reminiscing and adapting to the changes of a lost love and family.

The bulk of the book deals with the breakdown of a marriage and the aftermath, which is punctuated with clippings from (presumably) the book(s) our narrator is writing or reading, thoughts from our narrator, those scattered memories you always recall about the time spent together (the ones that kick out all the boring or bad parts, so it seems like years were only weeks), and the times visiting friends or going out to take your mind away from it all.

You can see the Joyce influence in structure but feels much more akin to the 60s/70s Brit Drama teevee-theatre-things. Comparable to a mellowed-out Joyce/Gaddis/Kitchen Sink Realism mix, and highly recommended. A short read to bring the mood down to a calm flow, allowing you to really take in the text.

I did like this: “We stood on the dunes and watched coasting ships. I thought: England is modalities of sky. They talk of Greek light and Italian light but these merely illuminate life on the earth. In England we live in the sky.”

[Wilfried · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book! With a good meaning and instructive meaning that was released during reading. I enjoyed it.