Customer Reviews

The Finkler Question (Man Booker Prize)

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(43)
1 star:		(31)

 

 

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.

Julian Treslove is a middle aged former BBC radio producer now working as a professional look alike but quite who he looks like varies. Although never married, he has fathered two sons, neither of whom he sees regularly. Dismissed from the BBC for being too morbid on his late night Radio 3 programme (particularly difficult as Radio 3 is known for it's morbid tone and programming), he is given to depressing levels of self-analysis in his small flat that's not quite in Hampstead, London. What Treslove lacks is a sense of belonging and this, he notes his Jewish friends have in spades, particularly his old school friend and rival, the best-selling philosopher and TV personality, Sam Finkler. Treslove, by contrast, always feels on the outside of life.

When the book starts Treslove is again excluded as Finkler and their mutual friend and former teacher, Libor Sevcik, an elderly Jewish Czech, have both been widowed. Although the two Jewish friends have differing political views on Zionism, Treslove sees them united in their Jewishness and their sense of mutual loss. So much does Treslove want to be like his friend Finkler, a term he uses to describe all Jewish people, and for a range of other amusing reasons, when he is attacked on the way home from Libor's flat one night, he is convinced that it is an anti-Semitic attack and that Treslove is, in fact, a Finkler himself and pursues the task of answering `The Finkler Question': what does it mean to be Jewish in the 21st century?

It's not hard to see why this book has caught the attention of this year's Man Booker judges who have short-listed it for the prize. It touches on a number of compelling subjects including middle age insecurity, male competition and friendship, death, infidelity, multiculturalism and of course religious faith and the implications of this on nation states. On top of that, it is beautifully written and often very funny both in a gentle way and at times in an angry and urgent manner. It reads very much like some of the works of the great American novelist Philip Roth, but with a more British dark humor to it, and that is high praise indeed in my book.

And yet, and yet.....

The problem I had with it is that it's a very difficult book to love because the central characters are so loathsome. The most sympathetic is the wise Libor, although arguably he is the most caricature-like of characters in the book. His story though is sad and wholly believable. Finkler himself is ambitious and craves the limelight to a detestable degree and as for Treslove, you just want to shake him into action. Given Finkler's character, I find it difficult to believe that he would have any truck with the pathetic Treslove who has taken self-analysis to a level of self-paralysis. Far from wanting to find out how his Jewish conversion was progressing, I found myself thinking more along the lines of `oh vey, he's off again. Enough with the navel gazing already'.

There's an inherent contradiction in arguing that you cannot stereotype a faith and then suggesting that this weight of self-analysis is a `Jewish thing'. Finkler himself joins a movement of ASHamed Jews, against Zionism, and yet while this is an important issue, little is made of the UN's judgements on Israel's actions.

I was left in two minds about it as a book. There's no denying the quality of the writing or the urgency of the subject, but for all the humour, the characters themselves are so dark and unlikeable, that it loses force and the net impact is a very dour read for such a book filled with so much genuine humour. How can this be? Well perhaps that's `The Finkler Question' question.

If you love mid-career Woody Allen, you might love this book. You might also love it if you're into angst and want to read many pages about people full of angst, who spend their waking hours worrying about angst, wondering what to do about their angst (or, indeed, whether to do anything at all), asking who's to blame for all that angst, trying (and mostly failing) to find a meaning in angst, even questioning whether their angst is real or whether they're imagining it. All that angst is, of course, finally, about being Jewish (or not). No one, not even Jews, spends 90 percent of his waking hours thinking about being Jewish.

The writing really is very good, and there's genuine humor to be found here. There are also sharp observations of current behavior in some of the peripheral events. However, the characters seem to have been created mostly to represent various "types"--they verge on being stock characters who rarely, if ever, come fully to life. The women are, I think, better drawn, but they exist mostly as foils for the men, who chug through life debating with themselves and occasionally with each other--mostly about angst. Their relationships, even with each other, seem barely skin deep, and I was unable to establish a relationship with any of them.

No one seems to get anywhere--at least nowhere he could explain to himself--and perhaps that's the point. For me, however, it's not a point worth all those pages to make. The only other point seems to be to say that Jews are still whining and kvetching, and that's a point I neither agree with nor approve of.

In many ways, Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler are polar opposites. If you looked up "hapless" in a dictionary, you'd probably find Treslove's photo displayed beside the definition: since his school days he has muddled through relationships and work, and while he has played his part in the birth of two sons, he can't be said to have been much of a father. He yearns after something more -- an identity, a purpose to his life. On the other hand, there's Finkler, his schoolfriend, who has become a popular television philosopher, had a long and reasonably successful marriage, and who remains a presence in the life of his three children. He's got an identity -- even if he seems intent on rejecting part of it by joining a group that dubs itself ASH-amed Jews. Jacobson's masterful and witty novel kicks off when Treslove is mugged after spending an evening condoling with two recent widowers, Finkler and the much-older Libor, a Czech refugee and their former teacher. His mugger mutters something that a distressed Treslove chooses to interpret as meaning she (yes, she!) believed him to be Jewish -- and once it's ensconced in his brain, Treslove can't let go of the idea. Surely, he truly is Jewish; his mugger spotted something about him that indicates he is one of the chosen. And if that is so, then surely self-confidence, identity and success will follow, as that seems to characteristic of all the "Finklers" that he knows?

And so begins Treslove's attempt to join "the Finklers". His bumbling efforts to become more Jewish than his friends and his new girlfriend are simultaneously poignant, hilarious and bizarre. Ultimately, this is a book about relationships -- the envious/admiring tie Treslove feels to Finkler, the links between parents and children, among men, between men and women, etc. It also deals with bigger issues in a way that never interferes with the narrative or the characters -- above all, with questions of identity, whether defined by oneself or by others, and how those impinge on our relationships with other.

This is easily one of the best novels I've read this year, and I'm rooting for it to walk away with the Man Booker Prize. I devoured it in a single day, unable to put it down even to eat meals, and relished Jacobson's deft character portrayals (even the minor characters, like an ex-girlfriend of Libor's from decades ago, are vividly presented and still linger in my mind weeks after I finished reading this) and slyly witty writing. Sure, it's about Jewish men living in London, and I'm a Gentile female living in the US -- but I loved it. Highly recommended.

I'm 75% of the way through this book (according to my Kindle). Every few pages, I keep checking to see how close I'm getting to the end. The book seems to have been written as if the author made a list of every kind of Jew (and there are many kinds) in England and then, deliberately and unimaginatively, dragged them one by one into his novel. I don't care two hoots about any of the characters, what they say or what will become of them. I'm pushing ahead because I'm Jewish (from England!) and I assume that other Jews will want to talk about the book with me. I can't for the life of me understand why this book won the Man Booker Prize - it's certainly not great literature and it's barely a story. And I only laughed, half-heartedly, once. The book will, however, give Jews and anti-semites plenty of material with which to fuel their own particular prejudices. If you want such fuel, read the book. But I can think of many better ways to spend your time.

I am finishing this book strictly and ONLY because it won the Booker award and I've read them all. But I am perplexed. This truly seems a case of the Emperor's new clothes - why was this book chosen? I can only assume it was for political correctness. Thank goodness the writing is fantastic - Jacobson is wry and funny and his eeyore-ish Treslove is half-tolerable only for the humor of his confusion. The humor is helpful but it isn't preventing me being bored stiff. Granted I am a young, female, gentile American, so perhaps I just don't get it. Definitely I don't get it, but I'm not convinced there's much "it" to get. Reading this book feels like reading an angst-ridden teen's diary: endless self-indulgent delving into identity. Who am I? How can I know who I am? Why am I who I am? What does it all mean? What if I'm not really who I think I am? Is it okay to be who I am? Should I try to be someone else?..... are you bored yet? Me too.

The success of The Finkler Question ,for the reader, will depend on how funny you think it is. I found parts of it to be uproariously funny in a Woody Allen sort of way. On the other hand, the lead character can be quite distractingly irritating and the character does go down rabbit holes of self examination.

In a number of opinions I've read there have been comparisons to Philip Roth and it's not a bad comparison. Some aspects of the lead character, Treslove,could compare to Roth's Zuckerman though Treslove is far more ineffectual and annoying.

Treslove is a Gentile who embarks on a journey of discovering his inner Jew.

I really did find this book very funny right from near the beginning where the title, The Finkler Question is explained.

For me, there were long periods of very funny, engaging writing and long periods of boredom.

A slightly mixed review but on the whole, I liked it.

The question of "The Finkler Question" is this: what does it mean to be a Jew in the early twenty-first century, at a time when the ranks of Holocaust survivors become fewer every day, the voices of Holocaust deniers are emboldened, the issue of a Palestinian state lies yet unresolved? Howard Jacobson examines the question through the most unlikely of characters: Julian Treslove, a middle-aged British gentile, unlucky in love and work, whose sole connection to Judaism is his friendship with two widowers, an older Czech refugee named Libor and a school chum named Samuel Finkler.

Julian is a real nebbish, an inconsequential person whose good looks are so generic that people can't decide which famous person he most resembles, a quality that allows Julian to earn money impersonating celebrities and historical figures. This is the set-up, along with a rather unusual mugging, that allows Julian to try to become a Jew himself. For models, he draws on his friends, Libor and Sam, as well as Hephzibah Weizenbaum, who becomes his lover.

Since Julian is a kind of blank canvas as far as Judaism is concerned, he must work hard to master everything from Yiddish phrases to the proper attitude towards Palestinian suffering in Gaza. Thus, the novel moves back and forth between comedy (a wonderfully quirky Seder, bacon-wrapped door handles, a Jewish man blogging about his attempt to restore a certain small part of his anatomy) and tragedy (a child blinded by a terrorist, the revival of certain vile libels against Jews, the perceived absence of God).

The most interesting characters in the novel are the three who, unlike Julian, do possess identities: Libor, Sam, and Hephzibah. To be honest, so vividly are they drawn that it is hard to see why any of them spend time with the ineffectual Julian. It is through them, both directly and as refracted through Julian, that the novel makes clear how complicated and difficult contemporary Jewish life in England can be. They often reminded me of characters in a Phillip Roth novel.

The bland persona of Julian Treslove is quite a clever narrative device for revealing the personalities and thoughts of the other characters, as well as the details of the Judaism he attempts to acquire. Still, it is hard to imagine this novel, so smart, funny, and wise, reaching a wide audience. The Yiddish jokes, the references to events in Israel, such as the controversy over the settlements, and to events in England, such as a boycott of Israeli academics or the Holocaust denials of David Irving, are best appreciated by a reader familiar with this material. This astute and witty novel does not provide an answer to "The Finkler Question," but instead suggests that "the question" must be answered anew in every generation. It is an interesting choice for the Man Booker short list.
M. Feldman

Yes, there are witticisms on almost every page. Jacobson is an observer who makes such persistent fun of Jewish navel-gazing that one feels he is actually a navel-gazer himself. Every Jewish attitude, every Jewish argument, is put through the hoops: Zionism and anti-Zionism; what Jews think non-Jews think and what non-Jews think Jews think; Jews who are ashamed of what fellow-Jews are doing and Jews who defend what fellow-Jews are doing; Jews who are sick of Holocaust talk and Jews who can't stop talking about the Holocaust; Jews who make jokes about Jews and Jews who resent non-Jews making jokes about Jews (often the same Jews); Jews who don't like hearing non-Jews saying that Jews run everything, and Jews who are delighted to notice that Jews run so many things (again often the same Jews); German Jews who look down on Czech Jews; Jews who love music and Jews who are fabulous cooks; self-hating Jews, Jews who hate most other Jews, and wannabe Jews; Jews who want to assimilate and Jews who think they never can; Jews who see in every antisemitic incident a danger to their existence in Britain and Jews who play down the significance of such incidents; Jews who are "Jew-ish" (in Jonathan Miller's words) and Jews who are Jewish; - enough already, I often thought.

Only once, towards the end, did I come across a testamentary passage which, behind all the mockery, I take to be Jacobson's own stance. And on some other levels, too, I thought that the ending of the book - and then only sporadically - engages with more real emotion than is conveyed by his stream of ironic observations.

The central character, Julian Treslove, is not Jewish, but he is close to two Jews: his school contemporary Sam Finkler and their former teacher Libor Sevcik. Yet he feels an outsider in their company. Though he sees a lot of Sam, he doesn't like him, and singles him out for what is typically enviable and also typically dislikeable about Jews - so much so that mentally he uses the word Finkler to mean Jewish. The Finkler Question is therefore the Jewish Question.

As an outsider he desperately tries to become an insider, especially after, early in the book, he is mugged by a woman who hissed something at him in the act of mugging which he hears as "You Jew!" He begins to wonder whether he is not actually a natural Jew, then tries hard to be a Jew, but constantly feels that he fails the test: there is some mysterious element about being Jewish that escapes him, and its absence never escapes real Jews. That's not just the question of circumcision with which - in a book in which sex plays a big part - he is extensively preoccupied. But IF paranoia and guilt feelings are characteristics specifically associated with Jews, he has those in spades.

I find Jules the least credible character in the book. He is an inadequate man, prepared for bad things to happen to him (and they often do); and yet he is apparently so seductive that he can sleep with any of many women he takes a fancy to. He falls in love with them all; but they all leave him - at least all the non-Jewish ones do: only with a vast motherly Jewess does he find happiness for a time, until his insecurity about his identity contributes to make that relationship problematical, too.

I don't find the book well constructed, and felt that the very last few pages were unsatisfactory. The panel that awarded it the Man-Booker Prize in 2010 clearly thought otherwise.

I am not much into fiction, but I was given this book by my daughter. I am glad that I read it, because it reflects (accurately, I suppose) how some of the much-divided community of English (London only?) Jews think and behave. It is not my milieu, and I found it informative.

However, the novel did not discuss, or provide a sufficient forum for describing, what it is that makes a Jew a Jew - ethnicity (being born of a Jewish mother); belief - holding or being converted to believing in some form of Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) or later rabbinic teaching, founded on a Creator and Saviour God; or Zionism; or whatever? I badly missed any in-depth spirituality in any of the Jewish characters in the book. I really think that there must be more to 'Judaism', to being a fervent believing and practising Jew, than we see in any of Jacobson's characters.

So I found the torment that Treslove went through to try to turn himself into a Jew quite without motive. This is one of my key criticisms of this book.

Furthermore, I found the contrived story of the mugging of Treslove which confirmed his many (but totally unconvincing) previous experiences where the word 'Jew' echoed in hs memory, to be artificial beyond belief. I read the book right through, but only once, and I didn't check this over again, but I also have no recollection of there being any point whatsoever to the mugger being a woman rather than a man. Yet this continued to plague Treslove/Jacobson throughout the book.

Furthermore, I think that the way Treslove just took up with Hephzibah, and how they hit it off so well, quite unconvincing - to say nothing of how and why they broke up, as my next paragraph indicates.

The last few pages of the book are again totally unconvincing. That Treslove should have spent that particular day wandering around the park, and experiencing what reads like a specially laid-on anti-Jewish incident, and then musing all sorts of complicated thoughts (very heavy going) and missing the opening night of the life-work of his Hephzibah - well! "Then, as though a stone had been thrown at his temples, he remembered. It was the museum night. Tne launch. The Grand Opening, as Hephzibah had refused to call it." He had forgotten it! I ask you, is this a scenario worthy of a great writer?

Finally, I could make nothing out of the Epilogue (which I did re-read).
A most unsatisfactory ending to the book.

Good English style, and some well-written and amusing reflections. But much too much confusing arguments and philosophizing and politicizing.

Two stars, because I learnt something about some of London's Jews. But as a novel, worth only one star.