The Finkler Question (edition 2011)

“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 is, of course, “What *IS* the Finkler Question?” Or, for those who like to leap forward, “Who *IS* this Finkler person anyway?” To encapsulate, and potentially spoil this little mystery that lasts for all of 5 pages within the book, Finkler is one of the triumvirate of protagonists in this novel and he represents the prototypical modern Jewish person. Rounding out the trio we have Treslove the goy and Libor the old-school Jew.

I will not belabor the reader with the characterizations of our Jewish main characters. They represent well the stereotypes one would expect on the surface. They’re erudite and intellectually immaculate individuals. I’ve noted in my brief survey of Biblical literature that the Jewish view on such matters is impressive in its completeness and honesty. The portraits drawn of that religion in this book strengthen my opinion on the topic. Our goyish third finds himself at a bit of a disadvantage time and again when standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his Jewish counterparts and later a Jewish girlfriend.

At first introduction I found the text a bit daunting. Coming off a long stint in the land of L. Frank Baum, it’s not surprising that my eyes were a bit crossed and my tolerance for long and winding tracks of prose a bit taxed. Finkler is a book best taken in long, savory gulps rather than short, winded sprints. If you cannot devote an hour or more, then do not bother even to begin. It is an immersive tome that requires an investment rather than a mere passing fancy. The rewards, however, are immense, especially for one such as me, who is a true goy among goys. If nothing else, a passing introduction to Yiddish is provided at no cost to the reader save a few trips to the dictionary.

Our gentile protagonist I can relate to well. The book begins trippingly and graphically with the descriptive passage:

“He was a man who saw things coming. Not shadowy premonitions before and after sleep, but real and present dangers in the daylit world. Lamp posts and trees reared up at him, splintering his shins. Speeding cars lost control and rode on to the footpath leaving him lying in a pile of torn tissue and mangled bones. Sharp objects dropped from scaffolding and pierced his skull. Women worst of all. When a woman of the sort Julian Treslove found beautiful crossed his path it wasn’t his body that took the force but his mind. She shattered his calm. True, he had no calm, but she shattered whatever calm there was to look forward to in the future. She was the future.”

I can feel Julian in my own life. For me, as with Julian, a good woman is not so much an entertainment or amusement so much as a lake to be jumped into, something to completely lose yourself in and maybe, if it’s terribly necessary, maybe something to eventually find your way out of. But that’s only if absolutely necessary.

Aside from Julian’s determined devotion to the gentler gender, the main crux of the book is to examine the world of what it means, exactly, to be Jewish.


“Maybe it wasn’t self-respect at all. Maybe self didn’t enter into it, maybe it was actually a freedom from self, or at least from self in the Treslove sense of self – a timid awareness of one’s small place in a universe ringed by a barbed-wire fence of rights and limits. What Sam had, like his father the showman parmaceutical chemist before him, was a sort of obliviousness to failure, a grandstanding cheek, which Treslove could only presume was part and parcel of the Finkler heritage. If you were a Finkler you just found it in your genes, along with other Finkler attributes it was not polite to talk about.”

As the reader we’re simultaneously privy to Julian’s thoughts on the matter as well as the actions of his Jewish friends that form those thoughts. What is most surprising and a new idea to me, is that as much as there may be groups around the world who dislike the Jewish faith, it seems the Jews are their own harshest critics. As Libor says…

“Oh, here we go, here we go. Any Jew who isn’t your kind of Jew is an anti-Semite. It’s a nonsense, Libor, to talk of Jewish anti-Semites. It’s more than a nonsense, it’s a wickedness.’ ‘Don’t get kochedik with me for speaking the truth. How can it be a nonsense when we invented anti-Semitism?’
‘I know how this goes, Libor. Out of our own self-hatred . . .”

“It’s not peculiar to Jews to dislike what some Jews do.’ ‘No, but it’s peculiar to Jews to be ashamed of it. It’s our shtick. Nobody does it better. We know the weak spots. We’ve been doing it so long we know exactly where to stick the sword.”


So again, going back to the honest and determined analysis, even the Jews themselves have problems with what their culture and their state of Israel is doing in the world. Finkler himself heads a group that calls themselves the “Ashamed Jews” and Libor, while less vocal, seems no less disillusioned. If these two represent the majority or even a sizeable faction then it is more than a bit unexpected. The book, though not by any means an easy read, brings the issues of Zionism and anti-Semitism onto a very personal level. No longer are the issues mere warring world views but have found homes in the embodiment of three people pushing ultimately for what is right rather than what is popular.

Waxing personal, I find myself on the side of Finkler and Julian. I fail to see what business Israel has in pushing itself into existence at the cost of more recent inhabitants. It cannot be surprising to anyone that this has stirred the ire of everyone in the region. While I don’t disagree that everyone deserves a place to live and prosper, I’m not personally of the opinion that one should get first choice merely because they happen to be Jewish. Countries come and countries go and any attempt to turn back history is bound to instigate conflict on a greater and greater note.

Julian is the embodiment of fascination with Jewish culture as we look in from the outside. I will admit that I agree whole-heartedly with him in that respect as well. I find the Christian faiths trite. The Muslims, while exotic hold little interest. The Eastern religions, while shrouded in mystery, still seem like mere toys. The Jewish faith, however, seems grounded in a sort of determined honesty and analysis that I find infinitely refreshing. They have traditions like any other group of people but I simply can’t help but respect them because they deal bare-facedly with the world around them and their relationship to their creator. I cannot help but think of a line from Fiddler on the Roof. Tevya asks, “How did this tradition get started?” and his quite acceptable response is, “I don’t know.” While other religions work fervently to construct a reason for everything, the Jewish faith is OK just shrugging its shoulders. That is as closely akin as religion gets to science. For that, it earns my respect, my admiration and my interest.

As usual however, I digress. The 2010 Booker Prize winner, “The Finkler Question” is well worth the read to those who have the grit and determination to power through it and really digest its message. To the hundreds of people on Amazon who gave it a right panning… perhaps you want the “young readers” section. The words are shorter and the messages simpler. ( )

“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 is, of course, “What *IS* the Finkler Question?” Or, for those who like to leap forward, “Who *IS* this Finkler person anyway?” To encapsulate, and potentially spoil this little mystery that lasts for all of 5 pages within the book, Finkler is one of the triumvirate of protagonists in this novel and he represents the prototypical modern Jewish person. Rounding out the trio we have Treslove the goy and Libor the old-school Jew.

I will not belabor the reader with the characterizations of our Jewish main characters. They represent well the stereotypes one would expect on the surface. They’re erudite and intellectually immaculate individuals. I’ve noted in my brief survey of Biblical literature that the Jewish view on such matters is impressive in its completeness and honesty. The portraits drawn of that religion in this book strengthen my opinion on the topic. Our goyish third finds himself at a bit of a disadvantage time and again when standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his Jewish counterparts and later a Jewish girlfriend.

At first introduction I found the text a bit daunting. Coming off a long stint in the land of L. Frank Baum, it’s not surprising that my eyes were a bit crossed and my tolerance for long and winding tracks of prose a bit taxed. Finkler is a book best taken in long, savory gulps rather than short, winded sprints. If you cannot devote an hour or more, then do not bother even to begin. It is an immersive tome that requires an investment rather than a mere passing fancy. The rewards, however, are immense, especially for one such as me, who is a true goy among goys. If nothing else, a passing introduction to Yiddish is provided at no cost to the reader save a few trips to the dictionary.

Our gentile protagonist I can relate to well. The book begins trippingly and graphically with the descriptive passage:

“He was a man who saw things coming. Not shadowy premonitions before and after sleep, but real and present dangers in the daylit world. Lamp posts and trees reared up at him, splintering his shins. Speeding cars lost control and rode on to the footpath leaving him lying in a pile of torn tissue and mangled bones. Sharp objects dropped from scaffolding and pierced his skull. Women worst of all. When a woman of the sort Julian Treslove found beautiful crossed his path it wasn’t his body that took the force but his mind. She shattered his calm. True, he had no calm, but she shattered whatever calm there was to look forward to in the future. She was the future.”

I can feel Julian in my own life. For me, as with Julian, a good woman is not so much an entertainment or amusement so much as a lake to be jumped into, something to completely lose yourself in and maybe, if it’s terribly necessary, maybe something to eventually find your way out of. But that’s only if absolutely necessary.

Aside from Julian’s determined devotion to the gentler gender, the main crux of the book is to examine the world of what it means, exactly, to be Jewish.

“Maybe it wasn’t self-respect at all. Maybe self didn’t enter into it, maybe it was actually a freedom from self, or at least from self in the Treslove sense of self – a timid awareness of one’s small place in a universe ringed by a barbed-wire fence of rights and limits. What Sam had, like his father the showman parmaceutical chemist before him, was a sort of obliviousness to failure, a grandstanding cheek, which Treslove could only presume was part and parcel of the Finkler heritage. If you were a Finkler you just found it in your genes, along with other Finkler attributes it was not polite to talk about.”

As the reader we’re simultaneously privy to Julian’s thoughts on the matter as well as the actions of his Jewish friends that form those thoughts. What is most surprising and a new idea to me, is that as much as there may be groups around the world who dislike the Jewish faith, it seems the Jews are their own harshest critics. As Libor says…

“Oh, here we go, here we go. Any Jew who isn’t your kind of Jew is an anti-Semite. It’s a nonsense, Libor, to talk of Jewish anti-Semites. It’s more than a nonsense, it’s a wickedness.’ ‘Don’t get kochedik with me for speaking the truth. How can it be a nonsense when we invented anti-Semitism?’
‘I know how this goes, Libor. Out of our own self-hatred . . .”

“It’s not peculiar to Jews to dislike what some Jews do.’ ‘No, but it’s peculiar to Jews to be ashamed of it. It’s our shtick. Nobody does it better. We know the weak spots. We’ve been doing it so long we know exactly where to stick the sword.”

So again, going back to the honest and determined analysis, even the Jews themselves have problems with what their culture and their state of Israel is doing in the world. Finkler himself heads a group that calls themselves the “Ashamed Jews” and Libor, while less vocal, seems no less disillusioned. If these two represent the majority or even a sizeable faction then it is more than a bit unexpected. The book, though not by any means an easy read, brings the issues of Zionism and anti-Semitism onto a very personal level. No longer are the issues mere warring world views but have found homes in the embodiment of three people pushing ultimately for what is right rather than what is popular.

Waxing personal, I find myself on the side of Finkler and Julian. I fail to see what business Israel has in pushing itself into existence at the cost of more recent inhabitants. It cannot be surprising to anyone that this has stirred the ire of everyone in the region. While I don’t disagree that everyone deserves a place to live and prosper, I’m not personally of the opinion that one should get first choice merely because they happen to be Jewish. Countries come and countries go and any attempt to turn back history is bound to instigate conflict on a greater and greater note.

Julian is the embodiment of fascination with Jewish culture as we look in from the outside. I will admit that I agree whole-heartedly with him in that respect as well. I find the Christian faiths trite. The Muslims, while exotic hold little interest. The Eastern religions, while shrouded in mystery, still seem like mere toys. The Jewish faith, however, seems grounded in a sort of determined honesty and analysis that I find infinitely refreshing. They have traditions like any other group of people but I simply can’t help but respect them because they deal bare-facedly with the world around them and their relationship to their creator. I cannot help but think of a line from Fiddler on the Roof. Tevya asks, “How did this tradition get started?” and his quite acceptable response is, “I don’t know.” While other religions work fervently to construct a reason for everything, the Jewish faith is OK just shrugging its shoulders. That is as closely akin as religion gets to science. For that, it earns my respect, my admiration and my interest.

As usual however, I digress. The 2010 Booker Prize winner, “The Finkler Question” is well worth the read to those who have the grit and determination to power through it and really digest its message. To the hundreds of people on Amazon who gave it a right panning… perhaps you want the “young readers” section. The words are shorter and the messages simpler. ( )

The Man Booker Prize Winner of 2010.

Through this tale of three friends, Jacobson explores the elusive qualities of Jewishness in contemporary Britain.

First we have Treslove, a directionless Gentile who tries on a Jewish identity, embarking on a relationship with a Jewish woman, Hephzibah, and immersing himself in Jewish lore, ritual, and language. Next we have two recent widowers, Finkler and Libor. Libor, a 90 year old Czech Jew, had a career as a Hollywood gossip columnist, and enjoyed friendships with the biggest stars of the Golden Age. But more importantly, he had the love of his wife Malkie. Her absence would certainly sap him of the will to go on living, were it not for the company of his two friends. Finally, we have Finkler, Treslove's old schoolmate, who has become a celebrity on the strength of his pop-philosophy books and TV appearances. Finkler's relationship with his deceased Gentile wife Tyler was prickly and problematic, but loving for all that.

The theme of the book is explored through Libor and Finkler's friendly verbal sparring over Israel. Libor starts out as a staunch defender of Israel, whereas Finkler becomes involved with an organization called the ASHamed Jews, who decry Israel's inhumane actions in Gaza. Meanwhile Treslove explores what it means to be Jewish in the context of day-to-day life. Anti-semitic incidents occur throughout the book, and the question of whether Israel's current actions are offering thee British public a free shot at reawakening a more active and violent anti-semitism. And whether, if the next Holocaust does come, the state of Israel is complicit in it.

The Jewish characters in the book seem doomed to the necessity of reacting to Israel in one way or another, and being defined by that reaction, rather than just living their lives.

This is a story that couldn't have been set in the U.S., where bigots have several other minorities who top their hate parade above and beyond the Jews. But in Britain, Jews are at or near the top of the haters' list, it seems. ( )

Hmm...this is a tricky one to rate with a solid number as the story fluctuated between a 2-star and 5-star rating fairly regularly. For me, this novel read more as a work of creative nonfiction and it has given me pause to think about the essence and structure of a novel. Certainly Jacobson's style is unique but he has a way with prose that is both apparently straight-forward yet layered in its complexity - a tricky skill to master, I am guessing.

When this book won Jacobson the Man Booker Prize last year, there was a bit of a brouhaha created. The novel has been called "unapologetically comic" and there is definitely some of that wicked British humour within. I have read a few different reviews this morning, and this excerpt from the New Statesman really sums up my amazement with the novel, but also my hesitations about knowing what to do with reviewing what I have read: "Jacobson has occasionally been treated as a one-subject writer, but his accomplishment has been to discover the varied sources of int­erest in the lives of English Jews. The Finkler Question is characterised by his structuring skill and unsimplifying intelligence - this time picking through the connections and differences, hardly unremarked but given fresh treatment here, between vicariousness and parasitism, and between Jewishness, Judaism and Zionism. Even in a strained performance, Jacobson succeeds in generating smart conceits, the best of these - involving a Jew who goes to bed with a Holocaust denier - saved until the end.

The novel has caused me to go on a search for some nonfiction to complement this read. ( )

I was completely engaged by this oh-so clever, entirely engaging piece of work. Raucous, ribald, poignant, provocative, to me, it really has all the hallmarks of a novel destined to please for generations to come. My only regret is that I had to spread the reading out over three weeks, as life is quite hectic now. It's a very nuanced piece, with leitmotifs recurring and taking on new meaning like a sublime musical score, so I suspect it would definitely benefit from being read with as few breaks as possible. A book I know I will return to again and again over the years. Possibly my favourite Booker Prize Winner. ( )