The Finkler Question

by Howard Jacobson

Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular and disappointed BBC worker, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevcik, a Czechoslovakian always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results. Now, both Libor and Finkler are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor's grand, central London apartment. It's a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. Better, perhaps, to go through life without knowing happiness at all because that way you had less to mourn? Treslove finds he has tears enough for the unbearable sadness of both his friends' losses. And it's that very evening, at exactly 11:30pm, as Treslove hesitates a moment outside the window of the oldest violin dealer in the country as he walks home, that he is attacked. After this, his whole sense of who and what he is will slowly and ineluctably change.

Genres: Fiction, Book Club, Jewish, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Literature, British Literature

307 pages, Hardcover

First published August 2, 2010

About the author

Howard Jacobson was born in Manchester, England, and educated at Cambridge. His many novels include The Mighty Walzer (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Who’s Sorry Now? and Kalooki Nights (both longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), and, most recently, The Act of Love. Jacobson is also a respected critic and broadcaster, and writes a weekly column for the Independent. He lives in London.

Profile of Howard Jacobson in The New York Times.

“The book's appeal to Jewish readers is obvious, but like all great Jewish art — the paintings of Marc Chagall, the books of Saul Bellow, the films of Woody Allen — it is Jacobson's use of the Jewish experience to explain the greater human one that sets it apart. Who among us is so certain of our identity? Who hasn't been asked, "What's your background" and hesitated, even for a split second, to answer their inquisitor? Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question forces us to ask that of ourselves, and that's why it's a must read, no matter what your background.”—-David Sax, NPR.

Reviews

[planetkimi · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 Treslove have both lost their wives. Julian daydreams about losing his, but first he would need to get one. (Most of his girlfriends leave him because he's "morbid." That's perfectly understandable if he's waiting around for them to die tragically in his arms, which he is, in his fantasies.) His two friends are Jews, and quite a bit of what I read deals with Julian's percieved differences between himself and his friends. Which I found to be neither interesting nor witty. I just didn't get it.

I made it a third of the way through the book and finally accepted that I am unable to sympathize at all with the incredibly neurotic Treslove and I am not sufficiently intrigued by what happened in the first 112 pages to finish the book and find out what happens.

[Drew · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Guille · Rating 2 out of 5]

El autor me encandiló con la inteligencia y el sentido del humor que desplegó en “Un acto de amor” , novela perturbadora donde las haya. Después me aburrió con esta otra novela, sobre todo en la segunda parte. En ella, la naturaleza FinKler (la naturaleza judía) se come a todos los demás temas —relaciones de pareja, de amistad, la muerte, la soledad, la necesidad de pertenencia a un grupo— que en la primera mitad acompañaban al principal en un tono de humor muy woodyalleniano que prácticamente desaparece en la segunda parte. Una pena.

[A.J. Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Elaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

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, lacking realistic grounding. For example, despite the all too minutely detailed fear of anti-Jewish violence in 21st century London(!?), and the constant harking back to the Holocaust that entails, we never learn what Libor, the 90 year Czech refugee who is one of the book's triumvirate of main characters, went through during Nazism, or even whether he was in the UK or Czechoslovakia then.

This is typical of the book, characters are not in any way rooted in the accoutrements of real life. It is a novel of ideas, and only ideas, and only a few unlikeable ideas at that. (Hepzibah, the novel's only living female character, is similarly sketchy. She is supposed to be quite young when we first meet her, yet her character is then depicted as an enormous earthy traditional Jewish-cooking mother figure, randomly twice divorced).

I won't get into how repugnant the "message" of the book is, as that's playing Jacobson's game. Suffice it to say that I wouldn't want to meet any of his characters, and they bear no resemblance to any thing I recognize as part of Jewish life, thankfully.

[Rajat Ubhaykar · Rating 2 out of 5]

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?

[Paul Sánchez Keighley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Holocaust had become negotiable. She had recently run into her ex-husband and had listened to him spin a hellish tale about his sleeping with a Holocaust denier and negotiating numbers in return for favours. He’d come down a million if she’d do this to him, but would want to put a million back in return for doing that to her.

You know what they say about black humour: it’s like a pair of legs. Some people don’t have it. The humour in this book is as dark and pungent as the mold you’d find at the back of an old fridge. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Jewish, secular, a Gentile, a convert, a Judeophile, an anti-Semite, a Zionist or a BDS supporter, you’re more than likely going to be offended by some passage in this book.

I know I was.

And that’s a good thing!

This is the kind of book that invites the reader to self-criticism. I’ll read a remark that will irk me, digest that outrage for a few seconds, then ultimately laugh at how my personal convictions made me bristle so.

So I’m sorry, Goodreads, but I’m going to have to disagree with this book’s ridiculously low average star-rating. This is a good book.

In a nutshell, it’s a book about anti-Semitism. I’m actually surprised so many reviewers have said it’s a book about being Jewish. That’s entirely missing the point; the reason the word Jew is repeated ad nauseum is because the three protagonists themselves are all obsessed with Jews, be it Libor’s Jewish pride, Finkler’s Jewish shame or Treslove’s benign but offensive fascination with their otherness. They are all portrayals of how anti-Semitism, despite seeming anachronistic in nature, manages to live on today, not as a call for genocide, sure, but as an apparently harmless yet troubling cloud of negative ideas. More often than not, though not exclusively, these ideas are channelled through holding Jews anywhere accountable for the actions of the state of Israel, and every now and then they end in actual violent incidents. 'It’s no Kristallnacht,' as one of the characters says, but it’s there, and this book is here to analyse this phenomenon.

And given that there is something - not everything, but something - inherently absurd about both anti-Semitism and the fear of anti-Semitism today, we’re going to have a few laughs along the way. It should go without saying that if you don’t agree with the last sentence, you should either avoid this book to spare your feelings... or read it and maybe expand your horizons.

'You're an anti-Semite.'
'Me?'
'Don't sound so astonished. You're not alone. We're all anti-Semites. We have no choice. You. Me. Everyone.'

A lot of people complain that nothing happens in the book, that it’s boring. Yes, that’s right; this is a psychological novel. Maybe about 5% of the book is stuff happening and the other 95% is spent inside the characters’ heads, mulling over said stuff, taking it apart, turning it inside out, ruminating the implications, the consequences thereof, etc. And these little catalystic events take the characters along some fascinating arcs, leaving them all by the end of the book on very different points of the Judeophilia/anti-Semitism spectrum from the ones where they started. That there is great writing.

But be warned, all three protagonists are, each in their own way, lowly awful human beings, not only anti-Semitic but often misogynistic, and spending 400 pages inside their minds is frankly taxing. When ¾ of the way through the book we are given a chapter told from level-headed Hephziba’s perspective, it's like a breath of fresh air (even though she’s not entirely without issues either).

I have read better comedies, better dramas, better social commentaries, hell, even better chapters dealing with Passover seders. But what made this book fascinating to me was the balancing act. It was atrocious and grotesque, yet solemn and serious when it had to be. I couldn’t peel my eyes away from what the author was doing, expecting it all to come crashing down upon him at any moment. But somehow it worked. I was often laughing only to then be confronted with a moving chapter on bereavement that left me feeling rather hollow. By the way, mourning and old age are big themes throughout the book, two of the protagonists having been recently widowed (and the third, well, fantasising with having someone to mourn).

So go on ye brave readers looking for a challenge, don’t let the lack of stars dissuade you. This is a clever, challenging book. I’m not saying you’re going to like it, but I think it's worth giving a try.

[Valeriu Gherghel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trei bărbați - doi evrei și un englez (julian Treslove) care și-ar fi dorit să fie și el evreu, dar n-a avut acest noroc - discută, firește, despre ce înseamnă a fi evreu. Discuția este numită de autor „chestiunea Finkler”. Chestiunea nu are un răspuns evident.

Aș observa, în treacăt, că mult agitatul domn Finkler (numele personajului a devenit generic), filosof de meserie, este un evreu care se urăște pe sine. Unii spun că așa ar fi toți evreii. Nu cred...

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I started the Finkler Question, I had images of Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Mel Brooks and Woody Allen floating in my head. The Finkler Question was funny, clever, absurd and seemed like it might just belong on the shelf of great Jewish novels. Unfortunately, this momentum didn't continue. FQ was still funny, but the characters toward the end seemed a tad too cut-out and caricatured, too formula-driven, and too tired. It was looking for Herzog, but in the end found a book that could have been written by Jonathan Safran Foer (not a high compliment). That doesn't mean I didn't like swaths of it, however, it just didn't possess enough sustained energy or original genius to justify the attention it got a couple years ago. A good book, just not a great novel.

https://x.com/alanrmacleod/status/184...

[Elyse Walters · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never reviewed this book after I read it --- (read it ways back when it first came out) --but another GR's friend just brought this book to my attention.
I never understood why it won the Man Booker prize.

Set in London....
Jewish friends discuss the state of Israel - life -and love --anti-Semitism in England -the meaning of Judaism (religion or philosophy)...etc.

Some things were funny -but overall things become tedious and even offensive very quickly.

I never recommend this book!

[Milky Cosmos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book. Don't let the philistines of this pitiful site ruin it for you. I picked it up because I hold Wodehouse in such esteem for his comedic novels (not that I was expecting Wodehouse here, he just introduced me to this category of writing). I had to read something more contemporary and since this won the booker prize I just bought it.

The first thing I must elucidate is that Finkler and the others seem to be more concerned with melancholic satire and the humour may not be too amaze but to more spur the reader.

It does seem to make me smile more often than laugh. That's okay though, I think this story might help me deal with my incapability too feel love at the moment. A sentence in the 4-ish chapter explains "he could not love because he could not weep for them" segments of the novel seem so beautifully idealistic. So poetic and lovely that you have too keep on reading.

I have always been a hopeless romantic and an idealist. If there are more sentences that glorify the emotionally affected or the emotional idealist then I'll keep on reading because I am extremely interested. Sure I have not lost a wife of some 30-60 years but I have been divorced from the woman of my dreams (I can feel a lifelessness in my chest).

I also like the fact these characters are so at odds with work, life... success. These are old men, I can't say I hate my job but I'm sure as hell not great at it. The characters portray the normal man with a life of experience.

I am sick of the glorification of the young in popular culture. Give me more novels about our glorious and estranged elders I dare you.

[Ainsley kerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Ian Mapp · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 on Mr Jacobsons keyboard are worn clean off.

The main character - Julian Treslove - is not jewish but either thinks he is or wants to be and the author makes it that everything that happens to him is part of the Jewish Question. In the nearest we get to comedy, he has fathered two kids by two different women without knowing it and is reunited them in later life. He is failed at the BBC and has a distrust of it.

He grew up with the more successful Finkler - who is indeed Jewish but ashamed of it.

They meet for a meal with their old teacher - a 90 year old jew. The teacher and Finkler have just lost their wives - Treslove wishes he had a wife to lose. Although he does get off with (you guessed it) a jewess in the course of the book.

On the way back from the meal, Treslove is mugged. Is it an anti semitic attack? Why shoud it be? Oh - cause thats what the author wants it to be. He wants to evaluate what it is to be Jewish in Britain today. Relentlessly. As if nothing else matters.

It just goes on and on and on.

So how / why did it win the award?

Look at the reviews on Amazon - Current standing - 23 people have given it 5 stars. 76 gave it 1 star. Its unusual for so many to come out with an emperors got no clothes on - but I am with the 76.

Utter rubbish.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

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. He focuses narrowly on the lives of his friends, Sam Finkler (an ASHamed Jew)and his old professor, Libor Sevcik a Czech-Jewish refugee who fled his country in 1948. He has a clandestine affair with Tyler Finkler, wife of Sam, who converted to Judaism when she married Sam, but he later gets involved with Libor's niece Hephzibah who is the curator of an Anglo-Jewish museum. Both women he sees primarily in terms of their Jewishness, which creates great angst as he feels excluded from the cosy Jewish fold and obsesses over the fact that he just doesn't "get" things the way Jewish people do.

He is actually an unlikeable, insecure, pretty miserable character. This is absolutely fine as it is fiction. What is less bearable is his obsessive mental meanderings, which, for me, became a torturous route to a dead end. I didn't really want to be his escort on that journey - if I hadn't paid so much for the book, and if the novel didn't carry the prestige of the Man Booker Prize for 2010, I would have hopped off the bus long before it reached the terminus.

[Maxwell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't even have much to say about this book. I'm just kind of confused by it? 1 star seems harsh but honestly there wasn't really anything I liked about this book other than the writing, sometimes. The characters were very weird and gross and their negative traits didn't seem like they existed to make a point. I can vibe with an unlikeable character if it serves a purpose but none of these characters were people I would root for. Overall just baffled that this won the Man Booker Prize. Would not recommend.

[Patricia Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It's very different but very interesting. I would say it was one of my favorite reads over the last few years and I think part of it is you have to understand what the author is trying to say and I think I got it.

[Rusalka · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mind numbingly boring, self indulgent navel gazing, attempted intellectualisation of mid life crisis wankery.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

What to make of this? It was a Booker winner in 2010. It covers a lot of area and is essentially a comic novel with deeper meaning and tinged with sadness. There are three main protagonists; Sam Finkler (a journalist and TV pundit), Julian Treslove, an old school friend and former BBC employee (now Brad Pitt lookalike) and Libor Sevcik; a former teacher and friend. Finkler and Treslove are about 50; Finkler and Sevcik are Jewish. Treslove thinks of all Jews as Finklers, hence the title.
The book is about what it is to be Jewish in 21st century Britain, but it is also about the great debates about Israel and the holocaust; not to mention being male and having a mid-life crisis, bereavement and losing a partner, fidelity and betrayal and friendship. Finkler and Libor have recently lost their wives, although Finkler has always had mistresses and continues in this mode. Treslove has a somewhat chequered history with women and cannot work out why women never seem to want to stay with him. The book takes as its starting point a dinner the three have to mark that they are all now alone. On the way home Treslove is mugged by a woman. She says something to him whilst relieving him of his valuables, which sounds to him like “You Ju”. Treslove then becomes obsessed with being Jewish and all it entails.
Although there are moments that are quite funny and Jacobsen does have a mordant wit and a good line in satire and self-deprecation, the whole did not work for me. One of the problems is that sometimes Jacobson does not know when to stop; he stretches an idea out until it is overdone, this is a description of Treslove:
“He was a man who ordinarily woke to a sense of loss. He could not remember a single morning of his life when he had woken to a sense of possession. When there was nothing palpable he could reproach himself for having lost, he found the futility he needed in world affairs or sport. A plane had crashed—it didn’t matter where. An eminent and worthy person had been disgraced—it didn’t matter how. The English cricket team had been trounced—it didn’t matter by whom. Since he didn’t follow or give a fig for sport, it was nothing short of extraordinary that his abiding sense of underachievement should have found a way to associate itself with the national cricket team’s. He did the same with tennis, with footballers, with boxers, with snooker players even. When a fly and twitchy south Londoner called Jimmy White went into the final session of the World Snooker Championship seven frames ahead with eight to play and still managed to end the night a loser, Treslove retired to his bed a beaten man and woke broken-hearted. “
There is a streak of nastiness present as well. The character of Tamara Krausz is a very thinly disguised Jacqueline Rose (a feminist psychoanalyst who is very critical of Zionism, whilst being Jewish herself). This is how she is described;
“never appeared in public looking anything other than an executive of a fashion consultancy, at once businesslike and softly feminine…a woman whose quiet authority commanded respect not only in England but in America and the Middle East, wherever anti-Zionists—Finkler would not have gone so far as to say anti-Semites—were gathered. “
Finkler imagines what would happen if they ended up in bed together;
“He knew what would happen if by some mischance or mutual misunderstanding they ended up in bed together and she screamed the dialectic of her anti-Zionism in his ear—he would come into her six or seven times and then kill her. Slice off her tongue and then slit through her throat. “
I know this is imagination, but it still feels like Patrick Bateman territory.
There are other examples, as when Finkler is out with a mistress, here is a description of her;
“Other than her décolletage, which was bigger than she was, there was little to observe on Ronit Kravitz’s person. Under the table she wore high-heeled shoes with diamantes on them, but these were not visible. And though her hair was a beautiful blue-black, catching light from the chandeliers, it too, like every eye, fell into the boundless golden chasm which she carried before her as a proud disabled person carries an infirmity. The Manawatu Gorge was how Finkler thought of it when he wasn’t in love with her, as he wasn’t in love with her now. “
There was too much of this, to go along with the philosophizing and the debates about what it is to be Jewish today. There is plenty to spark debate;
“How dare you, a non Jew -- and I have to say it impresses me not at all that you grew up in awe of Jewish ethics, if anything your telling me so chills me -- how dare you even think you can tell Jews what sort of country they may live in, when it is you, a European Gentile, who made a separate country for Jews a necessity? ... Only from a world from which Jews believe they have nothing to fear will they consent to learn lessons in humility. Until then, the Jewish state's offer of safety to Jews the world over -- yes, Jews first -- while it might not be equitable cannot sanely be construed as racist”
Jacobson reflects all sides of the debate, but there is a certain irony about reflecting on Anti-Semitism whilst perpetuating stereotypes about gender and disability. This was also too long and the last couple of hundred pages wandered a little. Despite most of the critics raving about this I really didn’t like it.

[Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was worried about this one before I ever picked it up. The GR rating is less than a 3; it may be the lowest rated book, in that regard, that I have read. But the novel reads easily enough from a language and structure perspective, so as I got into it, I was wondering why so many people didn’t like it.

There are three main characters: Libor Sevcik, a 90-year-old Jew, whose wife has recently died; Sam Finkler, a 47-year-old Jew whose wife has also recently died; and Julian Treslove, a Gentile who wants to be a Jew and sometimes thinks he might be a Jew. Libor was first a teacher and then became a successful and well-known journalist. Sam is a philosopher who focuses on self-help books and documentaries; he has been extremely successful. Julian has not been successful from either a career or relationship perspective. He and Sam have been friends since childhood and they both became friends with Libor when they were his students.

Sam’s surname, Finkler, is a stand-in for Jew or Jewish. So, the title of the book is effectively The Jewish Question. This novel focuses on how Jews see themselves, individually, from an ethnic and religious perspective and politically vis-a-vis Israel. Have you ever been speaking with someone different from you and wanted to ask them a question, but didn’t feel it would be appropriate to do so? Well, in this novel Jews talk about what it is like to be a Jew with other Jews and you, whoever you may be, get to listen in. It is introspective. In the physical world, not that much happens, but internally, inside the characters’ heads, there is a lot going on. It is also funny. And sad. I felt I was having to work hard to understand all the points of view.

Without any planning or forethought, I just happened to start this novel at about the same time as the recent Hamas attacks into Israel and the Israeli response. The novel was only published in 2010, so the emotions and issues that surface feel very timely. While I know events impacted my reading experience, I believe I would have been fascinated by this novel regardless. It is not for everyone, as the GR rating shows, but if it sounds intriguing to you, don’t let that rating scare you away.

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

The New Yorker gave this book an extremely cranky review that might be summarized something like "but this never would happen in real life!" which seems like a rational American take on this very British book. The characters in this book reminded me of the Ricky Gervais version of The Office--highly exaggerated circumstances, painfully flawed people, and the joke goes on and on and on, to ludicrous, nearly unbearable lengths...and all of it really, really funny, once you stop being offended. Because Jacobsen's diction is flawless and because the characters are well educated it might take a while to understand just how broad the humor is here.

At that same time that he is being funny, Jacobson explores from every possible angle many tough, non-funny issues, such as Jewish identity, Zionism, Israel, Anti-Semitism...all things we're not supposed to laugh about. The book is an unlikely mix of the subtle with the caustic that took me off my guard. As you read along you get lulled by the lovely language, and then you think: "wait a minute, is this offensive?...Yes! This is offensive!...only, it's funny!" Over and over again you're taken aback as a reader, and all this course-adjusting as you read works, in turn, to get you to think about your own views on some weighty topics, and to reconsider political opinions that you may have held from some time now without thinking too deeply about them.

Then like the most beautiful music Jacobson deepens the themes and draws you slowly into very sad things, exactly when you are most vulnerable, and then leaves you devastated by an unexpected and tragic ending. In a way you as a reader go on a journey with the characters themselves--they too are not taking things as seriously as they should, and are not fully understanding the consequences of many thoughtless actions, until they come face to face with some devastating truths. Masterfully done, by a master story teller.

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

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!

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philip Roth-i ízeket érzek a regényben: ez az intellektuális moralizálás-ironizálás rá emlékeztet, valamint a(z olvasói szempontból praktikus) tudás is, hogy szereplőit képes jól megszerkesztett anekdotákon és történeteken keresztül ábrázolni. Ugyanakkor valahol ez egy inverz Philip Roth-regény, aminek kulcsmomentuma a központi figura, Treslove viszonyulása a zsidósághoz. Treslove ugyanis maga nem zsidó, bár igénye speciel lenne rá. Nehezményezi, hogy az izraeliták kisajátították maguknak a világ neuróziskészletét - Woody Allen, te kis harácsoló! -, következésképpen ha ő meg akar békélni problémáival, valahogy zsidóvá kell válnia. Egyetemi barátja és örök riválisa, Samuel Finkler képviseli mindazt, amivé Treslove válni akar: a sziporkázó okosságot, az életrevalóságot, a nyelvvel ápolt bensőséges viszonyt - mindazt, ami Treslove-ot kiemelné a lanyha keresztény középszerűségből. Más kérdés, hogy Finkler viszont mást sem akar, mint kikeveredni a saját zsidóságából ("finklerségéből", ahogy Treslove mondaná), vagy, másképp megfogalmazva, zsidóságának lényege a zsidósággal mint közösséggel való folyamatos konfrontáció.

Ízig-vérig identitásregény, minden mozgási energiáját abból nyeri, hogy a szereplői gondolnak valamit a zsidókról (vagy a saját zsidóságukról, vagy a máséról), és aszerint cselekszenek. Nehezen kibékíthető igazságok keringőznek benne olyan sebességgel, hogy abba néha az író is beleszédülni látszik, és akkor az olvasóról nem is beszéltünk. Lehet-e támogatni a zsidókat, de elítélni az izraeli politikát? Szánni Palesztinát, de gyűlölni a palesztin terrorizmust? És egyáltalán: lehet egyformán gyűlölni minden agressziót, nem mérlegelve, melyik volt előbb? Lehet nem szeretni egyes zsidókat, és közben nem antiszemitának lenni? Néha mintha Jacobson se tudná, mi a válasz. De végtére is az írónak nem a választ kell tudni, hanem a kérdést. Elég, ha az olvasó mindentudó.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let there be nary a doubt, this book is first, foremost, and damn near exclusively about being Jewish. Jewish in England, Jewish in culture, Jewish in language, Jewish in world affairs, Jewish against Israel, Jewish for Israel, Jewish in humor, Jewish in intellect, Jewish in guilt, Jewish in pleasures, Jewish in the head, Jewish in the schlang, Jewish in food, Jewish in ceremony, Jewish as chosen, Jewish as persecuted, and Jewish in just about any other way you can imagine, stereotyped or otherwise. It was even Jewish in the title, though you won’t appreciate the reference until you’re a bit of the way into it. To be honest, it was downright obsessive. But I liked it well enough, despite its relentlessness. I have an appetite for the whole Semitic scene – a necessity to get through this one.

I wasn’t a big fan of the main character, Julian. He was a Gentile who was about as nondescript as they come. He only ever showed much color or depth when he took on a kind of quasi-Jewish persona. The two friends he hung around with in London were Jews: clever, worldly and in Julian's mind, at least, exclusionary. They had both recently lost their wives, which was a good reason to spend more time with them, for support. One of the friends, Finkler, was a contemporary and a rival of sorts. He was a successful writer, academic, pop-philosopher and TV talk show guest. The other friend, Libor, was much older, Czech-born, wise and urbane. He had at one time been a Hollywood gossip columnist. Julian wanted to join the club and saw Jewishness as his in. This is further proof of my point: even the goy was Jew-obsessed. At least this gave Jacobson a device for framing the culture from an outsider’s point-of-view, and allowed him to belabor his themes as though to the uninitiated.

Parts of this were funny and parts were insightful. At its core, though, it really is all about one thing. If you think that this one thing can sustain you for the length of a book, have at it. It’s a broad topic, at least. I’m giving it 3 stars, but it bordered on 4.

[Sookie · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a dick. What a douche.

You can assign this to either the character or the author. It works either way.

[Sara (sarawithoutanH) · Rating 1 out of 5]

featured vlog: reading the worst books on goodreads

absolutely floored that this won the man booker prize. i wanna know how howard jacobson bribed the judges. i'm convinced they owed him a favor or he threatened their families. that's the only way this could win......

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[Ravi Gangwani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes bitter coffee secretes more flavor on palate especially if we cling to trite routine of sweet one's.
Why there is so much problem in being a loser ? or is it uncoolness to be the secondary character in life. Aren't we confused or perplexed in any stage of life ?
Is that life is always taut. Or is it discursive ?

And this is what this book was.

I loved it book for three reasons :
(1) The honeylike Jewishness squeezing from it.
(2) Hephzibah - The most catchy name I ever heard in life.
(3) The identified emotion with its protagonist Tresolve, a loser, envious, or confused soul.

At some occasions this book seriously titillates in your belly, and somewhere it press the down the ports of your brain on its intellectual understanding.

During my childhood I had a best friend, he still is, to whom with I was always in constant state of jealousy for his rich fortune stacked with multiple layers of his possessed talents. The same was with Tresolve and his Jewish best friend Finkler, to whom Treslove always despised in his secret voice. For being skillful and most of all for his Jewishness. Also they had a Professor - Libor - a mourning widower (Finkler was also a widower but not mournful). The ingredients were mixed with partner infidelities, Palestine, Israel, Gaza, Jewish history, Circumcision (which I found the most funny one), and interminable grief and guilt of unshared life, and last the death which is always present in every Booker porridge- here it was suicide.
Again this book was brilliantly written and little tough at certain places. I am, being from India, very naive with Jewish rituals, so nearly 10-15% book went over my head. But I loved it :)

"Libor and Malkie had wanted to be buried in the same grave, one above the other, but there had been objections to that, as there were objections to everything, in death as in life, though no one was sure whether on religious grounds or simply because the earth was too stony to take a grave deep enough for two. And anyway, Malkie had joked, they would only end up fighting over
who was to be on top. So they lay democratically, side by side, in their decorous Queen-size bed. "



The whole structure of the book goes like :
Page 1-70 : Serious.
70-220: Comedy.
220-307: Rambling, serious, don't know what, grim and chocked up in the end.

I am stripping one mark because this books went awry in last 50-60 pages. It was actually possible to reduce it down by 70-80 pages which I felt little stretchy.

But it was good, and to read this requires little high understanding. And it is not surprise that it went so low in goodreads.

I am definitely going to read 'Kalooki nights' and 'J'.

[Simon Fay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes when I pick up a book I wonder who the author is trying to imitate. In the case of Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question, I suspected he took more than a little inspiration from Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a whole bunch more from Joseph Heller. Sadly, every comparable quality I connected with those mammoths of 20th-century literature fell completely flat. At times, it was difficult to tell if the faux sincerity was Jacobson's attempt to be earnest or sardonic, and the outright attempts at humour basically just entailed the repetition of neurotic absurdities – as if you can save a bad joke by repeating it endlessly.

Well it wasn't terrible. Yes, the characters were dull throughout, but towards the end, the book began to meditate more diligently on the nature of anti-Semitism and offered plenty of insight on a topic I happened to find relevant thanks to the troubling empowerment which hate groups are currently enjoying in certain parts of the world. If Jacobson had cut the story down by 100 pages and didn't frame it as a comedy, there might have been something decent here.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

my 2nd booker prize winner (2010) in about as many days. winning has caused quite a bit a controversy and even before winning lots of ink spilled debating whether this was any good and antisemitism in UK, and self-anti-semitism (a la tony judt The Memory Chalet ) and zionoism/israeliism (a la grossman To the End of the Land ) and racism in general in uk especially (a la malkani Londonstani and barnes Arthur & George ) and passing and friendship and sex and polemics and much more. fun how fiction and stir people up. a very good book and deserves a large readership, but not as good in digging deep into psyche of monsters, greed, racism, obsession, natural goodness, religion as the root of all evil as unsworth's 1992 booker prize winner Sacred Hunger (though i gave them same star rating, which is more a problem of the stars than me, hah).
this jacobson book though does have some humor and bbc spoofing is good. and damn, just what is up with uk antisemitism? though i must say i am more a palestine leaning one myownself.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars.

This was a bit of a difficult book to like, considering its topic. It took me a while to get adjusted. Starting with a 1 or 2-stars, I had to go on until it became better, until I had read nearly a third of the book.

The entire book is narrated using characters' discussions and reminiscences, largely dealing with the Jewish world in general, and in context with its relations to Gentiles; or if one wants to take it, vice-versa, the Gentile world in general, in context with its relations to Jews. I felt Anti-Semitism to be the core topic around which the story mainly revolves, along with other related topics; though I may not be completely correct in this regard.

I should confess, I have not been able to understand everything from the book. Quite a bit of stuff went over my head, mainly due to my lack of understanding with some contexts. My rating for this book does not include this stuff.

This one is not an easy book to comprehend or like. One might need to leave everything else behind and focus properly while reading it, while at the same time possessing at least some knowledge about Israel, the Jews, their life and history, the Jewish suffering, the role they have played, etc., and also if possible, knowing someone of a Jewish identity in person, closely.

With all above in mind, I found it a very-well written book, good humour wherever required. I would not say this book was written with humour in mind. Howard Jacobson is a critic, and that is exactly what he shows here very successfully!!

[Darryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julian Treslove is a 49 year old Gentile living in present day London whose life has been a series of disappointments: he has movie star good looks but can't seem to sustain a relationship with a woman for more than a few months; he was let go from his production job at the BBC for his overly morbid programs on Radio 3, a station known for its solemnity; and he has fathered two boys, who ridicule and despise him. Even worse, he compares poorly to his friend, rival, and former school classmate Sam Finkler, a pop philosopher, radio and television personality, and author of best selling books such as The Existentialist in the Kitchen and John Duns Scotus and Self Esteem: A Manual for the Menstruating, which have made him wealthy and respected, with a beautiful wife and three successful children.

However, the one thing that Julian desires most of all is to become Jewish, like Sam and their mutual friend and former teacher Libor Sevcik, a Czech whose tell all biographies of Hollywood starlets such as Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich have earned him fortune and notoriety. Julian refers to Jews as Finklers, after his friend, and frequently wonders how they think, why they are smarter and more successful than him, and how he can understand and be more like them. The three men engage in frequent discussion about Israel, Palestine, and Jewish life in London; understandably, Julian is always an outsider, despite his desire to become one with his friends.

Libor and Sam are contrasts in character. Libor is pro-Israel yet reasonable in his beliefs, whereas Sam is fervently anti-Zionist, and openly supports the Palestinian cause.

At the beginning of the novel, the three men meet for dinner at Sevcik's lavish apartment in Regent's Park. Their discussion is more somber than usual, as Libor and Sam have recently become widowed, and Julian acts as a honorary third widower. Julian refuses Sam's offer of a ride in his limousine, and decides to walk home. While gazing at violins in a store window he is suddenly attacked and robbed, and he convinces himself that his assailant has mistaken him for a Jew. Other than a broken nose and a loss of pride he isn't badly injured, but the crime and its aftermath lead him to examine who he is (is he Jewish after all?), and his relationships with his friends, women he has dated, and his two sons.

As the crisis in the Middle East worsens, acts of violence against Jews and their establishments in London become more common. Sam is invited to join a group, which he co-opts and renames ASHamed Jews, which engages in verbal warfare against supporters of the state of Israel. Through his close friendships with Libor, Sam and other Jews of various backgrounds and beliefs that he meets, Julian becomes more exposed to their lives, in his fervent attempt to answer "The Finkler Question": what does it mean to be Jewish in the 21st century?

The Finkler Question touches on a number of other vital and compelling topics: men and their relationships to each other; male competition; the insecurity of middle aged men and women; infidelity; and multiculturalism in the modern society. Jacobson deftly weaves these topics throughout this brilliant novel, which is filled with humor and pathos. This is definitely one of my favorite novels of the year, and it replaces The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet as my favorite of the current list of Booker Prize finalists.