A Terminal Resurrection

0/5 ( ratings)

Jacobson is dying of an obscure brain disorder; that much is certain. The tests are definitive. As he feels perfectly well, however, he uses the imminence of his demise as an opportunity to start over, however briefly. He leaves his grammar school teaching position, his home in the London suburbs and his car. He also leaves his wife, a former student of his, now a philosopher who keeps herself going by engaging in litigation with her competitors, real and imagined. Jacobson takes up residence in an old mill in a dying Cornish coastal village, where he spends his days walking, reading and writing. In a short time, he finds himself looking after a dog named Molloy who particularly likes listening to New Testament stories, and his neighbour, herself a teacher, soon becomes considerably more than a neighbour. Months pass and Jacobson’s new life continues, augmented by threats, real and imagined, from secret religious organisations, property developers, relatives, former students, and the prospect of his becoming all too attached to what can only be a temporary arrangement.
'A Terminal Resurrection' is a compact first-person narrative. Though Jacobson is unable to escape the growing web of themes and symbols that seem to appear everywhere, the narrator’s amusement at his own situation usually succeeds in keeping him from feeling too oppressed by them. Biblical allusions, the Green Man, Kant’s Categorical Imperative, the National Health Service, all make appearances, but each gives way to the other in turn, just as one life has made way for another - or so Jacobson would like to think.
The book is likely to appeal to a thoughtful, relatively educated audience who understand that a carefully cultivated sense of humour is the only possible antidote to life, as well as to death.