The Finkler Question

Oct 04, 2012 Rajat Ubhaykar rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had no clue what I was signing up for when I began reading this. The author began by making a very big deal about the pain of being a Jew in the modern world and ended the book with an impassioned plea to see Jews for what they really are, half right and half wronged, like the rest of us. I appreciate that unambiguously. Nobody should be singled out for persecution, I agree. What I don't appreciate is being bombarded with the words 'Jew', 'Ju', 'Julian' with freakish consistency on every page....more I had no clue what I was signing up for when I began reading this. The author began by making a very big deal about the pain of being a Jew in the modern world and ended the book with an impassioned plea to see Jews for what they really are, half right and half wronged, like the rest of us. I appreciate that unambiguously. Nobody should be singled out for persecution, I agree. What I don't appreciate is being bombarded with the words 'Jew', 'Ju', 'Julian' with freakish consistency on every page. Now, mind you, this isn't because I'm an anti-Semite. Because I'm not. In my culture, anti-Semitism is merely something other people do to other people, or nothing at all. We have other people to hate. Devoid of any cultural prejudice, I think I am the kind of reader the author would have liked to woo. Did he succeed?

He did succeed in convincing me that anti-Semitism, like all other prejudices, is an irrational phenomenon, a bandwagon for haters. The word it seems has a ring to it, the kind of ring that makes people want to be an anti-Semite, a secret dirty ring, something like

'Hey man you an anti-Semite?'

'Yeah I just started. Isn't it empowering? It helped me focus my dislike for humanity into a hatred for the Jews. I feel so much better already. Here, let me show you the swastika I had to tattoo on my ass as part of the initiation.'

'Hoo Haa! Let's go maim some money-grubbing, manipulative, motherfucking Jews after that!'

Through Julian Treslove, the neurotic protagonist whose life is a farce, the author tries to explore the essential quality of Jewishness, to find out what separates them from the rest as a culture. Treslove, crazy cat that he is, wants to learn the knack of thinking Jewishly. He essentially wants to be a Jew because he finds their ease with the ways of the world in contrast to his own chronic sentimentality and unease.

His best friend, Sam Finkler is an ambitious, self-centred Jew who hates being stereotyped as a Jew even though he fits the bill better than any one. In fact, he is ashamed of being a Jew as is evident by the ludicrous association of ASHamed Jews that he is part of. Except that it's not really shame. Nobody parades around shame since normally, it's too shameful a matter to do that. In Sam Finkler's case, it's more like pomposity. Julian decides to call all Jews Finklers since that's how he's got to know them. Hence, The Finkler Question. Yay! Though I have a sneaking suspicion he did that just to reduce the Jew word count.

I found the narrative similar to The God Of Small Things, where the plot revolves in time and space around a single event of life-changing proportions. I just hope the Booker Prize isn't going formulaic. The event in this case is also a farce, like much of Julian's life, a life-changing farce. A woman accosts him, proceeds to slam his face into a glass window, relieves him of all his valuables before he can react and whispers in his ear "You Jew". LOL. After this, he goes down a spiral of rabbis and Bar Mitzvahs and other weird Jewish names. He's overwhelmed by all the Jewishness, us even more so. He meets a Jewish woman next and promptly begins to obsesses about his uncircumcised penis, reads ancient Jewish religious texts to get a deeper understanding of being Jewish and of having an uncircumcised penis. Whoa. Give me a break.

The book is funny in places but I maintain that the best part about it is that it's crystal clear about what it propounds. There is no ambiguity of subject matter, no secret center which the reader finds himself looking for. If someone asks me what this book was about, I now have the shortest answer I've ever had for this question. Jews. Here, let me say it a few more times, I think the author would appreciate it. Jews. Jews. Jews. Everything else is there just for it to not seem like that. Talking about being Jewish has to be the most Jewish trait of all, no Mr. Jacobson?(less)

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Jan 01, 2012 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nobel, british, funny, race, tragicomic

I am still to read Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha but, to date, I've read more than half of the Man Booker winning novels. None of those made me laugh out loud as much as this book, Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question. Twice at least not counting the grins and the smiles that came in between.

Funny and refreshing. Most of the half of those books that I've read were downright depressing including the last winner, Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending. So, this book by Jacobson that won in 2...more I am still to read Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha but, to date, I've read more than half of the Man Booker winning novels. None of those made me laugh out loud as much as this book, Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question. Twice at least not counting the grins and the smiles that came in between.

Funny and refreshing. Most of the half of those books that I've read were downright depressing including the last winner, Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending. So, this book by Jacobson that won in 2010 really came as a surprise. I did not know that the Man Booker jurors also have funny bones in them.

Who would not laugh at something like this:

"She looked too amazed by life to be English. Her curls were too curly. Her lips were too big. Her teeth too white and even, like one big arc of tooth with regular vertical markings. And her breasts had too much elevation and attack in them to be English. Had Jane Austen's heroines had breasts like these they would not have worried about ending up without a husband."

I almost fell on the floor while reading this inside our hotel room in Cebu last week. The images of Lizzie, Eleonor, Marianne and Emma (those 3 novels I've read) immediately came into my mind and I thought that oh well Jacobson made a good point! Although it is of course hard to judge because of the way these ladies dressed up during Austen's time, i.e., with their bosoms fully covered up to their necks but considering then silicon implants were not discovered by science yet.

However, I would imagine that Jacobson's propensity to quote other authors, books and British stuff can also turn other readers off. That is if they are not familiar with Jane Austen (I know, I know but I have voraciously reading friends here in Goodreads who are still to read any of Austen's works) and any of those other references. Of course, they would not get the joke and they would say that the book is not funny and rate this with less than 3 stars. In fact, had I read this in 2010, I think I would have given this only 3 stars.

Aside from the reason already mentioned, Jacobson writes in wild abandon. If Julian Barnes writes in a subtle controlled manner, Jacobson writes and writes everything what probably goes inside his mind up to the extent that what he is writing is too detailed to be interesting or up to the brink of being misunderstood or worse, up to the point of him getting hatred from his reader. One of this book's primary theme is people's prejudices against Jews. That, I guess, is an extremely sensitive matter especially in Europe and the US (I admittedly don't feel it to be that sensitive here in Asia since I have not met a Jew myself). With that sensitive theme, Jacobson took the risk and I would say that it was a big scary risk. Here is another example of his writing. This time, serious:

"But what if the foetor Judaicus was not hellish in origin at all? What if the smell of medieval Christians sniffed on the horned and hairy bodies of Jews was simply the smell of fear?

If so - if there are people who will murder you because they are aroused by the odour of your fear - is the concept of anti-Semitism itself an aphrodisiac, an erotic spur to loathing?

Could be. She loathed the word itself. Anti-Semitism. It had a medicinal, antiseptic, ring to it. It was something you kept locked away in your bathroom cabinet. She had long ago made a vow never to open the cupboard. If you can help it, don't see the thing: if you can avoid it, don't use the word. Anti-Semite., anti-Semitic, anti-Semite - its unmusicality pained her ear, its triteness degraded her."

This interesting concoction of funny and serious undertones plus the wild writing make this novel a very interesting read. A splashy way of opening my "new" whole reading experience for 2012. I hope to read more novel novels and Jacobson showed me a sample of how his dish could be a totally different fare from may be not just with the other Man Booker winners but other contemporary still alive novelists.

The other theme of the book is also very interesting: male friendship. The three main protagonists:Julian Treslove, the 40+ Gentile who suspect himself to be a Jew, Sam Finkler, his competitor-friend, also fortyish but a Jew writing philosophy books and Libor the aging recently-widowed man who showed "the way" to his two younger friends.

What a way to open the year! What a way! (less)

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Dec 24, 2010 A.J. Howard rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-prize, finished-in-2010

I don't like the idea that literature is written "for" or "not for" any people. Sure, you might be able to appreciate War and Peace better if you are a member of the 19th century Russian intelligentsia. But you're a fool if you let a smaller share of comparative appreciation get in your way. I mean, I can't let the fact that I'm middle class and white distract me from the fact that I enjoy listening to Public Enemy. I'm not comfortable with the idea that anything is beyond my empathy. What I'm s...more I don't like the idea that literature is written "for" or "not for" any people. Sure, you might be able to appreciate War and Peace better if you are a member of the 19th century Russian intelligentsia. But you're a fool if you let a smaller share of comparative appreciation get in your way. I mean, I can't let the fact that I'm middle class and white distract me from the fact that I enjoy listening to Public Enemy. I'm not comfortable with the idea that anything is beyond my empathy. What I'm saying here, however inelegantly, is that I don't want my background fucking with the way I react to novels or movies or music. I say all this because, although I enjoyed The Finkler Question, my background totally kept getting in the way and kept me from giving it a higher recommendation.

Let's start here. The Finkler Question is about three friends. Two are middle aged, one is elderly. Two are Jewish, one is a gentile who is obsessed with Jewishness / convinced of his Jewishness / attempting to transcend Jewishness and become some sort of uber-Jew. Two are recently widowed, the other aspires to widowerhood. All three are Londoners. I was aware of most of this going in, as I am similarly aware that some of this might not absolutely resonate with me, a 20-something, single, American, Irish-Catholic agnostic. Although, like Treslove (the gentile) I sometimes feel like certain tastes, beliefs and idiosyncrasies could be better explained if there were some trace Semitic branches in my family tree. Nobody wants to just interact with fictional characters exactly like themselves. But you do want some relatable sentiment. For me, through no fault of Howard Jacobson, there was a lack of this. And there are certainly parts of the novel that I throughly enjoyed. But a lot of it left me feeling like a witness to an engaging debate whose interference would be unwelcome. The best way I can put it is this: the table next to you at a restaurant is having a intriguing but non-obtrusive family argument. Even if you want to put your two-cents in, it would be wildly inappropriate, and it's likely they could give a shit about your two cents. While this argument of strangers may be engaging, you still can't really relate to it.

As of now, there aren't a ton of reviews on this site, so let me go into greater details gist-wise, if anybody's interested.
- There isn't really a plot to speak of, and the elements of plot present don't matter.
- The novel is mainly concerned with the relationship its characters have with Judaism and "Jewishness."The novel explores what it means to belong to a group, what obligations you have to this group, and what obligations this group has to you. A lot of this can be implied to anything, such as country, religion, family ect.
- Jacobson is very talented, and often funny. He deals with serious issues but never loses grasp of his sense of humor.
- I'm from the South, where all forms of bigotry and prejudice haven't exactly been eradicated. However, I was somewhat shocked at this novel's depiction of London's contemporary anti-Semitism. I mean, I know it's not extinct or even close to it, but I had no idea it was as prevalent as Jacobson depicts it.
- Israel is almost the MacGuffin of the novel. Jacobson gives an interesting cross-section of how the policies of Israel both unite and divide the Jewish community.

I'm not wildly enthused, with this review, it's not particularly well-thought out, and I've feel like I've spent too much time worrying about, to steal a joke from Always Sunny. dropping the "hard J." but I've spent too much time on the damn thing to scrap it. Let me try to somehow tidily sum up what I'm basically saying. It's not that you have to be Jewish & English & middle aged & widowed to enjoy this novel. I'm none of those things, and I did enjoy it on many levels. However, this book actively seeks a certain intellectual engagement that can only come through fully with a sense of relation. Therefore, any lack of relatable feelings might compromise your enjoyment of this book.

Ugh, look don't take my word for it. I don't regret spending time on this and it has giving me a good share of things to ponder on. Maybe you guys should figure this one out for yourself.
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Jan 01, 2013 Elaine rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

I kept wanting to quit this unlikeable cramped book, but I didn't, because I kept waiting to see what the Booker Prize committee saw in it. I never did. I'm not sure if this book's unpleasantness says anything valid about British society or British Jewry, but I tend to think the solipsistic paranoia is all the author's. None of the characters are more than a sketched idea. For example, despite the all too minutely detailed fear of anti-Jewish violence in 21st century London(!?), and the constant...more

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Apr 15, 2011 planetkimi rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish, fiction, tournament-of-books-2011

According to the reviews on the back cover, The Finkler Question is hilarious. The front cover proclaims that it won the 2010 Man Booker Prize. A reviewer from the London Times asks "How is it possible to read Howard Jacobson and not lose oneself in admiration for the music of his language, the power of his characterization and the penetration of this insight?"

I dunno how exactly, but I did not lose myself in admiration of Jacobson while reading The Finkler Question.

Two friends of Julian Treslov...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Iris Asllani rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wish I could find a review that contained some insight into this book that I apparently missed, and that could justify it getting the Booker prize. The best description I can come up with on my own is "preposterous", as in asinine, ludicrous, and all the way to plain stupid. And that's just for the story, which seems to have started as an essay on "the Jewish question" and modern anti-semitism and apparently morphed into an absurd story (The Washington Post qualified it as "Chekhovian touch of...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Ian Mapp rated it 1 of 5 stars

Man Booker Prize Winner for 2010.

Look at the back of the book. Everyone (other writers, newspapers etc) say how wonderful this book is. How he is the funniest writer alive. Blah Blah Blah.

Maybe I am not the demographic for a Jewish crisis of existence book but it did not make me laugh once, nothing really happended and it was as dull as dish water.

Repition of themes, events, sayings, jokes, characteristics cannot be expected to carry a novel over 370 pages. And I imagine that the J E and W keys...more

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Dec 22, 2010 Marialyce rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: december-reads-2010

What is it like to be a Jew in modern day England in the question that this book covers. Told through the eyes, behavior, and words of three men it explores the concept of what makes a Jewish person a Jew. It was oftentimes quite funny although the topic one of seriousness. Julian, the Jewish wannabee, wanders around the story looking for his Jewishness. He is pretty much of a loser so one thinks that through his fervor for his Jewishness he will become a better person. He is convinced that he h...more

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Dec 03, 2010 Liz rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this book laborious and slow moving. The parameters were too constrained to comfortably contain Julian, the main character's obsession with Jews and his wishful wondering if, by any quirk of fate, he could have something in his ancestry that would allow him to lay claim to being partly Jewish.

This tiresome obsession was sparked by an incident in which he was mugged by someone who, he believed, mistook him for a Jew. From then on Julian's thoughts are dominated by ways of being Jewish. H...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Drew rated it 1 of 5 stars

I've always been suspicious of the Booker Prize: a solid, stick-in-the-mud reward to literary doggedness and middlebrow worthiness that guarantees reading matter for the leafy home counties if nothing else. As a Nobel Prize lite it tends to award writers for what they mean rather than what they write.

Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question has a central question that falls perfectly in the Booker court: what is Jewishness? And what does it mean to be Jewish in England today? It's a question that...more I've always been suspicious of the Booker Prize: a solid, stick-in-the-mud reward to literary doggedness and middlebrow worthiness that guarantees reading matter for the leafy home counties if nothing else. As a Nobel Prize lite it tends to award writers for what they mean rather than what they write.

Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question has a central question that falls perfectly in the Booker court: what is Jewishness? And what does it mean to be Jewish in England today? It's a question that it signally fails to answer.

Jacobson's method in posing this question is to tell the story of three men and the women who orbit them (my language here merely reflects the novel's sexism rather than my own - I'm a new man , to quote Roots Manuva).
The men in question are: Julian Treslove, professional double; Sam Finkler, media philosopher; and Libor Sevcik, a Czech emigre and schoolteacher turned gossip columnist.

And that's where the problems start. These people are completely implausible, and live in a world that seems to exist at best in parallel to the real one, at worst not at all. Libor lives in a grand "apartment" looking out over Regent's Park (but who in England says apartment when "flat" will do?). Likewise Julian Treslove's "apartment" is not in Hampstead, but rather in a place that people merely claim to be Hampstead. Very funny to people who live in Hampstead maybe, but for people who couldn't even afford a terraced house in any of London's grottiest boroughs (i.e. most of us) the humour is pretty much academic.
Yes, in this book we are in the charmed circle of the do-nothing, loll-about arty-farty rich - people who for no good reason have large "apartments" in St. John's Wood, take on and drop BBC jobs at a whim and for whom money is no object and no concern.

Added to that, Howard Jacobson's powers of description at no point ruffle the slick surface of the verbiage. It's all talk. I longed for a brief passage of description, and curt, indicative sentence that telegraphically summarized a feeling, a state of mind, the overall tilt of the narrative. But there's nothing of the sort. It's all anecdote after anecdote. In fact I have to wonder whether it's a novel at all.

The result is a storyline that meanders like a slow-moving river without the slightest danger of penury, dearth or excitement. We are in a world of talkers, or tale tellers, of babblers, whose telltale babbleologies are meant to make us laugh, make us cry, but leave us feeling rather…bored. Yes, Howard Jacobson has managed to take one of the most interesting and controversial questions of our time (the Jewish one that is) and make it dull. I suppose that that is also an achievement of sorts.
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Mar 30, 2013 Richard Hartzell rated it 2 of 5 stars

It's been said that Neil Simon's plays explain the Jews to non-Jews and that A.R. Gurney's plays do the opposite -- or at least explain WASPs to everyone who isn't one. So where does that place Howard Jacobson? I've read that he describes himself as "the Jewish Jane Austen", which is an intriguing self-conception. But having willed myself through The Finkler Question -- a novel that tackles head-on the issue of Jewish identity in general and Jewish identity in the UK in particular -- I confess I...more It's been said that Neil Simon's plays explain the Jews to non-Jews and that A.R. Gurney's plays do the opposite -- or at least explain WASPs to everyone who isn't one. So where does that place Howard Jacobson? I've read that he describes himself as "the Jewish Jane Austen", which is an intriguing self-conception. But having willed myself through The Finkler Question -- a novel that tackles head-on the issue of Jewish identity in general and Jewish identity in the UK in particular -- I confess I found it by turns absorbing and tedious.

I should begin by admitting that I'm not Jewish, so a Jewish reader may come away with an entirely different impression. I did find the leading non-Jewish character in the book, Julian Treslove, to be in some ways the least believable; he's nearly 50 and has no career (I couldn't decide whether his one regular gig, working for an agency that supplies celebrity lookalikes to social events -- where apparently his generically handsome face makes him suitable to impersonate any number of famous actors -- was Jacobson's sly statement that non-Jews tend to look alike), has fathered two children out of wedlock to women who seem to despise him, and spends most of his time in the novel contemplating whether he himself is actually Jewish or longing, I'm guessing ironically in Jacobson's eyes, for the luxuriant trappings of Jewish identity. In other words, as a non-Jew his British identity is elliptical and steeped in a cold, depleted emotional austerity, while he views Jewish identity as warm, vibrant, joyous, colorful -- everything that Old Blighty's non-Jewish majority seems incapable of embracing.

I've always been interested in the problem of a person who regards himself as an outsider in his own culture, maybe because that's the way I often feel myself. But I'm well aware that yearning to be Jewish when you aren't, or, for that matter, yearning not to be Jewish when you are (this trait is ascribed to the novel's title character, Samuel Finkler), can be an unwise impulse. Jacobson spends time in the novel satirizing this impulse, and at times I felt inured to the satire and annoyed by the attempt. For instance, there's literally more discussion of circumcision in The Finkler Question than I've personally engaged in in my entire life. And perhaps because despite my not being Jewish I'm also not uncircumcised I found it silly, adolescent, and uninteresting. It's a matter of supreme unimportance to me that the uncircumcised penis is supposedly more sensitive than the circumcised one, or that there are supposedly circumcised Jews who wish fervently that they weren't circumcised, or that one or the other is preferred by women whether they're Jewish or not. I might as well wish I didn't have enormous bunions, which I do, or that in Summer I could catch a glorious dark tan, which I can't. I'm not thrilled by my physiognomy but it's the one I've been dealt and I've learned to live with it. If the circumcision question is one that fires the imagination of Jewish readers ... well, the next time I meet a Jewish friend I'll ask him. It didn't fire mine.

Then, too, Jacobson devotes plenty of space to Israel -- a subject I freely admit as a non-Jew I've given up on as a violent and impenetrable Hatfield-McCoy impasse. In that respect I'm probably lucky not to be Jewish, because I'm not embroiled in the perpetual open question about what Israel means, does, or says about core issues of Jewish identity. But I don't want to delve into this subject because I'm well aware that it's a powder keg. Suffice it to say that when the novel entered Israeli territory I quickly lost interest. Again, Jewish readers may react quite differently.

Still, The Finkler Question is anything but sentimental about what it means to be a Jew, so inevitably his major non-Jewish character, Julian Treslove, will eventually crash against the limits of his devotion to Jewish identity. And that limit is explored, not surprisingly, in the themes of anti-Semitism. Jacobson explores acts of anti-Semitism repeatedly and not without a sense of humor or irony; it's clearly the omnipresent white noise in the background of Jewish life, and if one wants to become a Jew (and, as it happens, one character, Finkler's wife, has done just that -- she converted to Judaism) it's noise one will have to become accustomed to. In the end Treslove has predictable difficulties making the adjustment.

So I suppose my perpetual problem with the book was not knowing how to react to its observations. In many ways its writing is deft, eloquent, and deeply enlightening about all things Jewish. I read it on my Kindle Fire and was perpetually using both the onboard dictionary and the Fire's capability to search Wikipedia and Google to demystify Jacobson's erudition and, of course, his occasional Yiddish. In going over my highlights and notes I came across this passage that I'd flagged as "At last -- the crux of the novel". Speaking is the novel's other major character, an octogenarian Czech Jew emigré named Libor Sevcik:

'The fall, the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Last Judgement, Masada, Auschwitz -- see a Jew and you think of Armageddon,' he said. 'We tell good creation stories but we do destruction better. We're at the beginning and the end of everything. And everyone's after a piece of the action. Those who can't wait to pitchfork us into the flames, want to go down screaming by our side. It's one or the other.'

It's a provocative idea, elegantly stated. Ultimately, though, I grew tired of disquisitions like these. They wore me down, then wore me out. In a weird way they're somehow more important than the characters who utter them. Which may be another way of saying that everyone in the novel -- perhaps everything in the novel -- is defined by the presence or absence of Jewishness. Did I fall victim to my status as an incorrigible goy? It's a distinct possibility.
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May 15, 2011 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Yes, witty, sometimes funny, but not really very comic. For me, at the level of humor, it was like reading Lucky Jim: that book wasn't funny either. I'm missing the funny bone, or British put-down humor about human failures is off the mark. And I suspect that many American readers may tire of the intense interiority of the characters, who spend a great deal of time having opinions and then doubting them, so much so that you might feel nothing really happens except in the memory and irritations o...more Yes, witty, sometimes funny, but not really very comic. For me, at the level of humor, it was like reading Lucky Jim: that book wasn't funny either. I'm missing the funny bone, or British put-down humor about human failures is off the mark. And I suspect that many American readers may tire of the intense interiority of the characters, who spend a great deal of time having opinions and then doubting them, so much so that you might feel nothing really happens except in the memory and irritations of the characters.

Treslove, the Gentile who wants to be a Jew (in some sense) is a sad and unattractive middle-aged man who is a complete loser in every way. Hilarious! Awfully funny! Well, sometimes it is. One woman with whom he has sex will not look at him; she fondles him with her back turned. Treslove's endless analysis of possible meanings of a phrase is perhaps a joke that will go around once, but if so, it's not the kind of thing that sustains my laughter or even my interest. The nutty Jew who wants to reverse his circumcision by hanging weights on the skin of his penis in hopes of stretching it--well, that might be good for a smile or even, who knows, a laugh, if presented in a paragraph; but the circumcision argument runs on for pages, funny in principle, but not in the repetition. Skin is short, but art is long.

Some people say this book is about anti-Semitism. Some say it is about Jewish identity. Anti-Semitism is part of Jewish identity, of course, but the two topics are different. I side with those who emphasize the theme of Jewish identity, although there are incidents of casual and overt anti-Semitism throughout. I suppose if you identify strongly with a group, the "identity" question is very large indeed, but for me, a non-Jew (I think), anti-Semitism seems much more significant, and it distreses me-- as the question of Jewish identity does not.

A Booker prize winner. How interesting it would be if the Booker committee had to write judicial opinions explaining why they chose any given book. Even more so if the Nobel committee had to. (less)

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Nov 11, 2010 Noah Dropkin rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is an interesting book but not sure it is as great as the Man Booker Committee think. Imagine Philip Roth Jewish angst merged with Gary Shteyngart absurdity and then toned down to account for the drier British sense of humor. That pretty much summarizes the writing style.

As for the plot, it's about three lifelong friends who each go through a type of Jewish identity crisis. The absurd part is that one of the three is not Jewish.

Pretty typical topics involving anti-semitism, views toward Is...more

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Dec 27, 2010 Ainsley kerr rated it 5 of 5 stars

Really really really great. hard to put down. touching and funny. unexpectedly challenging. presents a difficult topic in a hitting and fearless fashion. empowered me with a nuanced perspective and vocabulary with which to challenge prevailing or simplistic notions of the Jewish identity. every time I put it down I had a strange yearning to call my grandmother, to remember and to be close.

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Aug 08, 2011 Charlotte added it

“The Finkler Question” won the Booker Prize, and so many people have raved about it—most importantly, my sister, whose wonderful taste influences me—but I resisted this book and I’m not sure why. Is it because the book has a very British point of view and I have an American bias? Is it because I tend to be—dare I say it—pro-Palestinian and this book feels, at the very least, ambivalent?

Stepping aside from the central Jewish question for a moment, I think what bugs me is the feeling that this is...more

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Richard Hartzell You make a good point about The Finkler Question being a man's book -- though as a man I didn't find that reality helped me enjoy it much more than yo...more
Jan 09, 2012 12:31pm

Charlotte No, you're not wrong! I do think I bring a lot of my own baggage to my reading of Finkler, and even I find it a little odd that I can't even pretend o...more
Jan 10, 2012 07:17am

Apr 14, 2013 Al Bità rated it 2 of 5 stars

Try as I might, this novel failed to impress me — perhaps I was expecting ‘too much’ after reading the quotes from reviews included on the dust jacket… On re-reading them I wondered if the reviewers are talking about the same book! Words such as ‘masterpiece’, ‘wonderful’, ambitious’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘exhilaration’, together with the fact that the book won the Man Booker Prize in 2010 all created expectations which were not met, in my opinion, by the actual work itself.

It starts off promisingly...more Try as I might, this novel failed to impress me — perhaps I was expecting ‘too much’ after reading the quotes from reviews included on the dust jacket… On re-reading them I wondered if the reviewers are talking about the same book! Words such as ‘masterpiece’, ‘wonderful’, ambitious’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘exhilaration’, together with the fact that the book won the Man Booker Prize in 2010 all created expectations which were not met, in my opinion, by the actual work itself.

It starts off promisingly enough: we have some clever, amusing writing in the first few chapters, but after that, it seems that all one gets is repetition ad nauseam of the same themes and jokes, all presented with an almost ferocious relentlessness that tests the readers’ patience to breaking point. This is complex writing on a minimalist theme, but repeated to the point of torture, much like the classic Chinese Water torture…

We have three main protagonists: the ninetyish Livor Sevcik, a Czech Jew, more or less complacent with his life. He used to be the teacher of the other two fortyish protagonists: Samuel Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality (he is a Jew who hates Jews — at least the more extremist ones) and his long time schoolfriend Julian Treslove, an ex-BBC radio producer, who wants to become a Jew. All three live in proximity to each other in a small area in central London, and meet often together, usually in Livor’s apartment, where they dine and converse. The subject is almost always ‘Jewishness’ and what it might or might not mean. Livor and Finkler have both recently lost their wives. Treslove has never married (he seems unable to maintain a proper relationship, yet he has two sons, each by a different woman, and all four of whom consider Treslove a bit of a fool: he can’t stand his children, and has little in common with them; they, however, seem to get on quite well with their mothers and each other). Finkler also has children (two sons and a daughter) all with his wife Tyler, but they do not seem to be that significant (Tyler is more relevant, as far as both Finkler and Treslove are concerned, and the only other female who plays a larger role in the process of the book is Livor’s distant niece Hepzibah, with whom Treslove tries to live as a Jew).

All the above makes it all sound much more interesting than it really is; and most of what has been summarised above is gained in the first few chapters. Everything after that is the same, basically. Nothing really changes. Finkler’s hatred of the ‘jews’ makes him join up with a group of ASHamed (sic) Jews, of which he eventually becomes ashamed of; but his attitude, apparently can only be taken up by him (when at a public meeting a non-Jewish woman tries to argue a case essentially backing Finkler, he turns on her ruthlessly (how dare she exhibit such antisemitism! — only Jews are permitted to be antisemitic!). Treslove’s trying to make himself ‘jewish’ proceeds more or less in the same vein as his futile relationships with women. Even Livor’s ultimate destiny is presaged on page 14 of the book — though this is by Treslove. And that is the point, I suppose, of this type of novel: the repetition, but with slight differences, but the repetition nevertheless of the issue this small parochial group of characters seems to obsess about to the point of being some kind of group autistic obsessive compulsive disorder…

Some people might consider a book such as this agreeable, and if the above stimulates, perhaps they can derive some enjoyment from it. Personally this is one of those book which, by the end, made me feel I had wasted my time reading it.(less)

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Apr 08, 2013 Robert Slaven rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: booker-prize

“The Finkler Question” earns fairly poor Amazon reviews and I can see why. The book is more than a bit heavy for American tastes; its prose is complex and at times difficult to unwind. That said, for the determined reader it not only has a statement to make but is an education in and of itself.

Per my long-standing tradition I picked up “The Finkler Question” while doggedly avoiding any back-cover reading that might have hinted at what I was about to read. So the first and obvious interrogative i...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Andie rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was picked for my book club because it won the 2010 Booker Prize. I can only ask why since it read like a novelization of a very bad Woody Allen movie. Julian Treslove is an educated loser who has been fired by the BBC & now makes his living as a celebrity "look-alike" and decides, based on being mugged by an angry woman, that he's been mistaken for a Jew. His school friend, Sam Finkler, is a secular Jew who has become enormously successful writing self-help books based on philosop...more

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Jan 11, 2013 Harry Maier rated it 3 of 5 stars

Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, the Finkler Question explores questions of Jewish identity and anti-Semitism in the 21st Century, especially in the light of Israeli policies toward Palestine and Palestinians. The three chief characters in the book typify 3 primary responses to modern Israel and Judaism. The title is taken from one of them, Finkler, who rejects Judaism, and, though Jewish, disassociates himself Israel. The "Finkler Question" is in fact a code for "the Jewish Question." Whi...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Lachlan rated it 2 of 5 stars

The excerpts from the glittering reviews that festoon the cover and occupy the first three pages of this book lead the reader to expect an amusing, even funny book. This winner of the 2010 Booker Prize didn't make me laugh once, however. It's the story of three friends, two of them Jewish, the other a Gentile ('the real McGoy'). The Gentile is fascinated by his proximity to Jewish life and religion, and fantasizes that he is Jewish; yet his daily experience is that he remains subtly different, e...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Rob rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Oh no, am I meant to empathise with this Treslove guy? Straight away this looks like a chunk of soppish maleness of the last century, he's this dual manchild/pillock and probable misogynist, there're all these conquests he and his friends have made and I find it unbelievably tedious. And of course we're meant to cotton on to the fact Treslove is a tosser, but then, count the number of non-sexualised women in the book.

Treslove is the worst person ever, then these horrendously contrived things hap...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Philip rated it 4 of 5 stars

Howard Jacobson’s novel The Finkler Question is a book of two halves. Initially, the reader is often bounced along across the wave-tops of a near farce, blown by wit and sit-com. A feeling almost akin to “Last Of The Summer Wine” pervades as these men - not all old - reminisce, compete, suffer traumas and tantrums, argue and laugh. Part Two, however, tries to delve deeper into the lives, the identities, to identify motives, associations, beliefs, loyalties and above all religion in the shape of...more Howard Jacobson’s novel The Finkler Question is a book of two halves. Initially, the reader is often bounced along across the wave-tops of a near farce, blown by wit and sit-com. A feeling almost akin to “Last Of The Summer Wine” pervades as these men - not all old - reminisce, compete, suffer traumas and tantrums, argue and laugh. Part Two, however, tries to delve deeper into the lives, the identities, to identify motives, associations, beliefs, loyalties and above all religion in the shape of their shared - but not totally shared - Jewishness. In Part One we almost live inside these characters as life throws at them what it chooses. In Part Two, we probably start to feel excluded, observing them and their concerns from outside their world. As a paradigm, however, this may reflect what happens to Treslove, the book’s principal character.

At the start, we meet Treslove on his way home from and evening in conversation with his two mates, Libor and Finkler. Treslove suffers from and ailment that does not afflict most of the other characters in the novel in that he is a gentile. He has multiple associations with Judaism, however. For a start his two friends are both Jewish and he himself is flirting with those aspects of the faith that seem to endow identity and purpose. His own life, it seems, has lacked both. We learn little, as the novel progresses, of Treslove’s background or family. We know him only as an as yet to be formed adult of mature years. On his way home from an evening out, Treslove is mugged, held up against the window of a violin shop, his cheek pressed against the glass as the thief nicks his wallet, watch and other bits. The ignominy is iced by his being called a Jew. Or was he?

The two friends, Libor and Finkler, seem quite different from Treslove. Libor is Czech and has never lost his thick accent that refers to Beachy Head as Bitchy Ead. He is very much the central European intellectual, existential enough in his Judaism to have stood atop said cliff with his wife some years before to consider their joint existence. When he married Malkie, she could have become a concert pianist, but she preferred the prospect of life with him.

Finkler, the other member of the book’s initially farcical trio, is a different type. An author, TV personality and habitual muck-stirrer, is no stranger either to controversy or the public eye. As the book progresses, Finkler becomes Treslove’s euphemism for Jew, the character’s outspokenness and willingness to stand apart becoming perhaps a metaphor for religion, race and nation. Finkler is married to Tyler. Both wives, Malkie and Tyler, are recently dead. At least the bereaved men have this in common. Treslove certainly had an affair with Tyler, and was pretty warm towards Malkie at times. Another commonality…

The Finkler Question has one central and over-arching theme, that of Judaism, its associations, responsibilities and shortcomings. But there are others. The author’s love-hate relationship with the BBC is clear with the pendulum currently heaving towards the hate end of the scale. Similarly, constancy and faithfulness, both via faith and contract, also feature. Treslove is almost the epitome of inconstancy. A man constantly on the prowl for sexual adventure, he enters relationships like they were swing doors. He has fathered two children, comically named Rudolpho and Alfredo in honour of his mild interest in opera, by two different mothers, neither of whom now have the time of day for Treslove. Overtly, he yearns for a constancy his very identity cannot deliver and imagines he can achieve it by becoming a Jew. He enters a relationship with Hephzibah, a Jewess who, like everyone else, does not like having the ‘ess’ attached and seems to shun the orthodoxy that the drifting Treslove hopes will stabilise him.

A group called Ashamed Jews, or ASH, begins to figure. It allows those of the faith with a conscience to meet others of similar ilk, presumably to wail their criticisms in common. A character notes the irony of Jews who do not want to keep the company of other Jews forming a society where they can meet others of similar persuasion.

While Part One of the novel presents much such ironies and jokes, The Finkler Question can be read almost as sit-com or farce. The fundamental questions are addressed by the principal characters but, especially in Treslove’s case, we feel that he can only be partly serious. In Part Two, however, though farce is never lost, these people start to consider the substance of their beliefs with an analytical precision that sometimes pushes the narrative aside. We feel, perhaps, that the author has embarked on his own personal examination of faith and identity. The people thus seem to recede and we begin to see them as if through distancing binoculars. By the end, we feel somewhat alienated from their world and their concerns. Perhaps that is the point. They are still Jews, and the Jewish Question remains to be answered, but now in a world where the label itself has become hard to mention.
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Dec 23, 2012 Frank Parker rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Finkler Question : 2010 Man-Booker Prize Winner Reviewed

Howard Jacbson’s eleventh novel is a major prize winner because of the quality of the writing. But does it provide a satisfactory experience for the reader?

The Finkler Question is Howard Jacobson’s eleventh novel. Its principle protagonist is called Treslove. He has been friends, since they met at school, with a man called Finkler. Finkler is a Jew. In Treslove’s mind all Jews are referred to as “Finklers”. So, for “The Finkler Question...more The Finkler Question : 2010 Man-Booker Prize Winner Reviewed

Howard Jacbson’s eleventh novel is a major prize winner because of the quality of the writing. But does it provide a satisfactory experience for the reader?

The Finkler Question is Howard Jacobson’s eleventh novel. Its principle protagonist is called Treslove. He has been friends, since they met at school, with a man called Finkler. Finkler is a Jew. In Treslove’s mind all Jews are referred to as “Finklers”. So, for “The Finkler Question” we readers should understand that Jacobson is referring to the “Jewish question” with all the overtones that phrase implies.

The book is set in a relatively narrow and exclusive milieu; that of North London, mostly Jewish, academics and intellectuals. Treslove does not quite fit into this milieu but dearly wishes he could. Indeed, he fervently wants to be a Jew. When he is mugged late one night he comes to believe it is because he has been mistakenly identified as a Jew.

From the point of view of a writer it is impossible not to be full of admiration for the consummate skill with which it has been executed. Jacobson’s handling of his characters’ internal monologues and the ease with which these are segued into remembered conversations is a joy. The restraint and compassion he shows in his evocations of grief is magnificent.

The problems for the ordinary reader are twofold. Firstly, that milieu is one that will be unfamiliar to many and it is sometimes difficult to determine whether what is being described is realistic or deliberately exaggerated as a form of satire. This is especially relevant as Jacobson is as well known for his wit, displayed weekly in his column in The Independent, as he is for his trenchant views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Secondly, the whole work is a vehicle through which Jacobson explores the nature of Jewishness and of victimhood. Every conceivable version of the argument between Zionism on the one hand and anti-Semitism on the other is explored in depth, as is every shade of opinion between the two. Written in the context of widespread international condemnation of Israel’s attacks on Gaza in the first weeks of 2009, attitudes to Israel are subjected to forensic examination.

This is a prize winner because of the quality of the writing which cannot be faulted. The reading experience is wonderful for anyone who appreciates the craftsmanship of a master wordsmith. There is a delightful symmetry in the storyline which ends, as it began, with an injury to the principle protagonist. Much of what happens between these two events is little more than an extended, albeit witty, polemic about attitudes to Israel and its people wherever they are to be found.

Jacobson, Howard. The Finkler Question, Bloomsbury Publishing plc 2010. ISBN 978 I 4088 0887 0 (Hardback); ISBN 978 I 4088 0910 5 10 9 (Trade paperback)

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Aug 24, 2012 Jon Gilbert rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Finkler Question was critically acclaimed on its release and of course won the Man Booker Prize in 2010. Whether it justifies the hyperbole showered on it is something quite different.

As a non-practising Jew who nonetheless grew up in a reasonably orthodox family, I relate, perhaps, more closely to Jacobson's novel than other reviewers. The almost anti-semitic Jew Sam Finkler is actually a sad but but accurate stereotype whilst the rather pathetic Treslove acting as a wannabee Jew is also a...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Catherine Chapman rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was attracted to this book when a friend of mine who'd read one of my books reported that he was reading it, saying, 'This is another book with a bunch of people obsessing about their relationships.' How could I resist?

I enjoyed 'The Finkler Question'. To the extent that it explores Jewish identity and politics, it's an interesting read, but at its core is the friendship between two men: Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler.

I found the book strangely soothing to read, which is odd as it's quite an...more I was attracted to this book when a friend of mine who'd read one of my books reported that he was reading it, saying, 'This is another book with a bunch of people obsessing about their relationships.' How could I resist?

I enjoyed 'The Finkler Question'. To the extent that it explores Jewish identity and politics, it's an interesting read, but at its core is the friendship between two men: Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler.

I found the book strangely soothing to read, which is odd as it's quite an unsettling story, neither Treslove nor Finkler being particularly likeable or sympathetic characters. Treslove's many failings include letting down those closest to him and Finkler's calculating ambition can be excruciating (as exemplified by the Desert Island Discs episode). It is perhaps their mutual friend, Libor, an older and wiser influence, who brings elements of warmth and serenity to what is an otherwise cool and often chaotic atmosphere throughout the narrative.

This felt to me like a very masculine read. There are no really significant or vivid female characters in the book. It reminded me of some of Iris Murdoch's darker novels ('An Accidental Man' and 'The Time of the Angels'), in the dominance of what I consider to be a rather bleak male perspective on life prevailing throughout the story. I also felt that Treslove and Finkler seemed rather 'old' fifty-year-olds by today's standards - they seemed pretty world-weary. But this was also what made the book engaging - along with the humour. The flawed nature of Treslove and Finkler's friendship (they don't really seem to like one another - they never seem to have really liked one another) rings true; there are friends we feel we chose no more than we chose family.

Overall, I liked the fact that the writing was direct and the plot was well-paced. Towards the end of the book I felt a much stronger emotional engagement with the characters than I had done earlier.

If you enjoy intelligent novels about relationships, with an equal balance of wit and conflict, 'The Finkler Question' is probably one for you. Don't expect an easy read or a conclusion that leaves you feeling comforted or optimistic, but this is definitely worth the effort.(less)

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Jun 10, 2012 Booklăr rated it 5 of 5 stars

Cu ce să încep mai întâi? A fost o carte diferită, de aceea și această recenzie va fi diferită față de celelalte.
Am fost impresionat, în primul rând, de claritatea cu care autorul prezintă acțiunea și întâmplările. Descrierile sunt plasate strategic, fără să te facă să te plictisești. Spre deosebire de alte opere, în aceasta personajele au personalitate. Dacă unuia îi place ceva, iar altuia nu, acesta nu se teme să-și dezvăluie puntul de vedere. Iar de aici pornesc tot felul de discuții și contr...more Cu ce să încep mai întâi? A fost o carte diferită, de aceea și această recenzie va fi diferită față de celelalte.
Am fost impresionat, în primul rând, de claritatea cu care autorul prezintă acțiunea și întâmplările. Descrierile sunt plasate strategic, fără să te facă să te plictisești. Spre deosebire de alte opere, în aceasta personajele au personalitate. Dacă unuia îi place ceva, iar altuia nu, acesta nu se teme să-și dezvăluie puntul de vedere. Iar de aici pornesc tot felul de discuții și contraziceri amuzante între personaje.
Nu prea îmi place mie să trăiesc în trecut, pentru că vreau să fiu cât mai concentrat pe prezent și viitor, dar după ce am citit această carte mi-am pus întrebarea: Dar dacă nu mai ai de ce să-ți dorești să trăiești în prezent, iar viitorul să-l percepi ca pe un lucru de domeniul fanteziei?
În asta persistă autorul. Cele trei personaje principale, masculine, nu mai găsesc motivația pentru a trăi în prezent, deoarece sunt puternic afectați de decesul soțiilor lor. În timp ce unuia îi e greu să se atașeze de o altă femeie, altuia nici nu-i mai pasă de acest subiect.
Deși cei trei suferă după pierderea consoartelor lor, totul se derulează cu un umor subtil, datorită multitudinii de situații și întâmplări care se pot strecura în viața unui om. Aceste evenimente prezentate ca la carte, pot să fie de un amuzament plăcut.
O parte din carte am citit-o în parc. La un moment-dat am ajuns la un paragraf pe care l-am citit de vreo trei ori, ca să fiu sigur că ceea ce citesc este adevărat, apoi m-am abținut să nu râd. Nu m-am abținut pentru că nu aș fi vrut să râd, dar sunt mai mult ca sigur că oamenii s-ar fi uitat la mine foarte ciudat.
Cât despre acțiunea cărții, nu vă pot spune foarte multe. Mă rezum doar la faptul că nu este o carte în care personajele să alerge, să se zbată sau să treacă prin cine știe ce lucruri fantastice și nemaivăzute. Nici vorbă. Este o carte serioasă, amuzantă (știu că cele două cuvinte se resping, dar mi-este imposibil să o cataloghez altfel), cu niște personaje mai întâi istețe, apoi sentimentale și în cele din urmă, aproape reale.
Recunosc că mai am multe de spus, dar cred că trebuie să citiți cartea pentru a descoperii chiar tot misterul din jurul celor trei personaje. Și ca să vă mai spun încă un secret, titlul are dublu înțeles – Chestiunea Finkler (Chestiunea Evreiască). Este o carte foarte bine gândită, cu standarde ridicate, deci are multe chichițe care se leagă de-abia la finele cărții.
Mie chiar mi-a făcut plăcere lectura cărții. A fost o ocazie pentru a mă detașa de multitudinea de cărți fantastice, supranaturale care ne-au invadat în ultimul timp. Sper că cei de la Editura Rao să ne aducă și mai multe cărți de acest gen.

http://books4friends.wordpress.com/20...(less)

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May 16, 2012 Angela rated it 3 of 5 stars

At the outset I knew nothing about The Finkler Question except that it had won the Booker Prize. How surprising, then, to encounter a novel about modern Judaism and Jewish identity that was half Phillip Roth, half....something else. This is the story of three men in London: Treslove (the only non-Jew of the bunch), Libor, and the eponymous Finkler.

At first I was unsettled by Treslove's apparent anti-Semitism and stereotyping, especially of his friends; he refers to all Jews as Finklers and obse...more

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May 07, 2012 Lisa Walker rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Finkler Question is Howard Jacobsen’s eleventh novel and was the winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize. The Finkler Question is said to be the first humorous winner of the Booker, which usually goes to ‘worthy’ works. Despite this, I didn’t find the novel funny as such, although it was certainly chock-a-block with irony. Jacobsen is noted for his exploration of Jewish life in England and this book is no exception.
The story is primarily about the relationship between three men, Treslove, Libor...more The Finkler Question is Howard Jacobsen’s eleventh novel and was the winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize. The Finkler Question is said to be the first humorous winner of the Booker, which usually goes to ‘worthy’ works. Despite this, I didn’t find the novel funny as such, although it was certainly chock-a-block with irony. Jacobsen is noted for his exploration of Jewish life in England and this book is no exception.
The story is primarily about the relationship between three men, Treslove, Libor and Finkler. Finkler and Libor are both widowers and their different ways of dealing with the grief of lost relationships flavours the story. In comparison, Treslove has no women in his life. A man who falls in love too often and too easily, he imagines the woman he loves dying in his arms. ‘He made love... desperately, ceaselessly, as though to wear down and drive away whichever spirits of malevolence had designs upon the woman in his arms. Embraced by Treslove, a woman could consider herself for ever immune from harm. Dog-tired, but safe.’
Treslove is a blandly good looking man who impersonates celebrities for a job. He is unsure who he is, and begins to envy the identity given by the religion of his two Jewish friends. Libor is a former celebrity journalist and Finkler a famous pop philosopher.
Lacking meaning in his life, Treslove comes to believe he is Jewish due to a muttered insult during a mugging. He tackles his new project with enthusiasm, learning Yiddish and obtaining a Jewish girlfriend. ‘Finkler’ becomes Treslove’s code word for Jewish. Hence the title of the book which is apt, given that it tackles the difficult ‘Jewish Question’ in relation to the occupation of Palestine.
Despite all the critical acclaim, I have to confess myself slightly underwhelmed with The Finkler Question. While reading it, I found my attention wandering with several pages going by at a time without much happening. I thought it was just me, until I came across someone else who said exactly the same thing.
The strength of the book is its ironic take on what it means to be Jewish. There is no political rant or polemic, with each character finding their own way through issues and identity. Ultimately, however, I found it difficult to engage with either the characters or their dilemmas.
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Feb 26, 2012 Courtney H. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookers

Having just compared The Finkler Question to The Old Devils (and I believe the Finkler Question is the first comic novel since The Old Devils to win the Booker, thank god, which means I'm off the hook for awhile), I figured I'd review it next and re-jump-start my review of Bookers.

So, a lot of people don't like the Finkler Question. I was steeled to not like it but in the end, I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, it still falls fairly low on my list, but it was much better than I expected.

The Fi...more Having just compared The Finkler Question to The Old Devils (and I believe the Finkler Question is the first comic novel since The Old Devils to win the Booker, thank god, which means I'm off the hook for awhile), I figured I'd review it next and re-jump-start my review of Bookers.

So, a lot of people don't like the Finkler Question. I was steeled to not like it but in the end, I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, it still falls fairly low on my list, but it was much better than I expected.

The Finkler Question gets a lot of attention for being a book that interrogates Jewishness in England, and the comedy plays out in the large sense (this is not, I don't think, often a line-by-line laugh-aloud comedy, or else if it does, it missed the mark or I missed the jokes) because the interrogation happens through the eyes of an extremely Gentile middle-age/aging man who becomes convinced that he's actually Jewish. But on the other hand, it also -- and here is where I think it succeeds the most -- is about men, not entirely satisfied with how their lives went (and who are flawed to the point of being fairly unlikeable), aging, some more gracefully or sadly than others. Often these narratives are uncomfortable; the good ones -- and this one definitely had its moments of good -- really get in the crevices of aging and the fact of age when one reaches and is starting to surpass middle age (White Teeth actually does this quite well). And I must say, Libor's arc is quite touching and beautiful and in the end, shockingly powerful. Thinking back, I realized how much this book succeeded in that balance of odd, uncomfortable comedy and sudden depth; and how much The Old Devils failed (mostly because I cared about Libor et al, and never figured out why I am supposed to care about Alun et al from The Old Devils).

Much like the Siege of Krishnapur (which I'll review next, I guess),
the comedy is being drawn from a really ineffectual main character that you don't really like, but who you kind of want to survive even if you don't think he really deserves to thrive because he's so annoying. It walks that fine line: the comedy is focused on a navel-gazing, self-absorbed person; you risk the book seeming too navel-gazing and
self-absorbed, intsead of just using that self-absorption/angst as a
foil. And I think the writer is a bit-self-absorbed, of course; people
keep comparing him to Philip Roth, which may be apt (don't love Roth
too much either, but didn't immediately hit on that comparison--its
been awhile since I've read anything by Roth, so maybe I'm just
forgetting); it seems like Woody Allen is the better comparison.
Sometimes its angst is what makes his movies funny; and sometimes it
is why they bomb in the box office.

And of course, Jacobson takes risks by drawing on stereotypes in order to poke holes in them, or show the individuality that survives stereotypes: if he's not hypervigilant, he forgets and starts letting the stereotypes do too much of the work, which means it stops being comical and starts because earnest, which is bad for readers--either they don't recognize the stereotype and so buy it; or they recognize it and if the comedy isn't good enough, they rightfully get annoyed. And sometimes I think he's guilty of those slips.

In the end, I wasn't blown away by Jacobson's genius, but I also found a lot to appreciate in the book. (less)

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Feb 24, 2012 Yordan Eftimov rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Най-честото го определят като книга за „любовта, загубата и мъжкото приятелство". А приятелските разговори са между трима овдовели интелектуалци - Самюъл Финклер, Джулиан Треслъв и Либор Севчик. Първите двама - около 40-те, третият - на 90.
Но кой е Финклер? Финклер е преподавател по философия в Оксфорд. Също така автор на философски книги за самопомощ, които го правят богат като Крез - Екзистенциализъм в кухнята и Малък домакински наръчник на стика. Водещ на предавания за това „как Шопенхауер мо...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Not impressed by Finkler	17	139	Apr 04, 2013 04:59pm
Jewish readers: did you relate and like this book?	5	23	Mar 30, 2013 08:49am
Interview with Harold Jacobson at Toronto Public Library	1	24	Apr 07, 2011 08:00am
Howard Jacobson answering questions on Classic FM's Facebook Page this Sunday	1	12	Nov 25, 2010 08:47am

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