The Very Model of a Man

As he has proved in previous books (Coming from Behind, etc.), British writer Jacobson is nothing if not daring; he is not afraid to take on the canons of social respectability and religious doctrine. His fifth novel proves characteristically iconoclastic in outlook but stylistically too mannered by half. Here Cain relates his troubles from the fall of man to the tower of Babel, and at first the narrative is arresting, as Cain mutters asides about God, a spiteful, lecherous tyrant who has ``an unerring instinct for divisiveness'' and about his parents, portrayed in unlovely physical detail (reminding the reader of Lucien Freud paintings). But Cain's voice eventually becomes tiresome and the story inert. Intellectually arrogant and mocking, Cain is also a virulent misogynist, directing his surly behavior mainly against his girlfriend, Zilpah. His abusive language is part of the laundry-list description that comes to typify the storytelling. Because Cain's perspective is unremittingly narcissistic, the other characters-Eve, Adam, Abel and Zilpah-are cardboard extensions of his self-absorption. Clearly Jacobson can write, for there are many good literary moments that stand out against the pedantic litany of much of the book. But the novel remains crashingly dull, not to mention relentlessly unfunny. (Oct.)