The Finkler Question

It's hard reading a prize winner after it's announced, I think, because one's expectations are high and, well, expectant. To this extent, I was a little disappointed at first and found the beginning rather slow. The main character, Julian Treslove, is a hard character to like, although by the end I felt I had begun to understand him, which is something different. Julian is a man in search of an identity, and his job as a party double for famous people, because of his ability to look like anyone, reflects this. After a particular incident, in which Treslove is obsessed with finding meaning, he decides that the identity he is meant to have is Jewish. The rest of the book is his attempt to "become" Jewish and what that means.

"That was the show more total of Treslove's findings after a year of being an adopted Finkler {Jew} in his own eyes if in no one else's--they didn't have a chance in hell. Just as he didn't."

Treslove isn't the only character trying to find his identity. Sam Finkler is Jewish, but that hasn't made his identity any easier to define. Much of his time, he belongs to a group he calls ASHamed Jews. Trying to escape the influence of his Orthodox father, and gather more aclaim by protesting Zionism, Sam struggles with what it means to be Jewish as well.

"He was a thinker who didn't know what he thought, except that he had loved and failed and now missed his wife, and that he hadn't escaped what was oppressive about Judaism by joining a Jewish group that gathered to talk feverishly about the oppressiveness of being Jewish. Talking feverishly about being Jewish was being Jewish."

There are other important themes carried through the book: the Jewish/Palestinian troubles, anti-Semitism, whether the Holocaust is still a necessary barometer of Jewish life, and the crises that face us as we age. Overall the novel is layer and intellectual, raising questions without answers, and challenging us all to question our self-concepts as Jews or our stereotypes about them. show less

Complicated feelings about this book. On the one hand, it does two things very well: (a) it reframes “the Jewish question” in a clever and funny way, looking somewhat from the outside in at a fictional sliver of London’s Jewish community; and (b) it captures well the conflicting feelings within this community about topics such as Israel, its actions towards Palestinians, whether there is something like a Jewish morality that should govern the state’s approach, and (of course), the distinction between criticism and understanding from Jews versus non-Jews. Those pieces, and the relationships that bind them together, are done well. On the other hand, the book’s central character—Julian Treslove—feels, absent the other show more characters, jejune, lacking an inner life except where it intersects with some others. I get that this is the point, but it seemed to me to diminish rather than enhance the wonderful ways in which the other characters filled out their roles. show less

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 show more 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. show less

Julian Treslove wants to be Jewish like his two best friends, or so he thinks. But he can't quite figure out what it means to be Jewish. He loves the suffering -- he's quite impressed by Jewish funerals -- but can't quite get behind the more mundane aspects of Jewish life, like going to Synagogue or being invited to a seder.

Author Howard Jacobson gets a lot right in this book. For example, he can certainly turn a phrase when he wants to; he describes Treslove's father as "a man who stood so straight that he created a kind of architectural silence around himself." And his Jewish anti-Israel group called "The Ashamed Jews" is dead-on accurate satire. Jacobson also gets the creepy fetishization that a lot of Gentiles engage in, failing to show more realize it's just another less overtly malign side of the anti-semitism coin.

(On that last topic, allow me to relate a story I swear to you is 100% true. I was once with a group of people, and we were discussing some anti-semitic incident; I no longer recall the particulars. One woman said, "Well, you find yourself not hating Jews after you've been invited to Passover supper a few times. They lure you in with food. They just know how people really work. So, people who don't know Jews, who have never had a good Jewish doctor really fix them up right, or a bowl of Mrs. Rosenberg's delicious soup (with a big 'doggie bag' to take home after dinner) or an evening of standup comedy with some young fellow with touseled hair making a ride on the bus sound hilarious -- they're just missing out." She was quite proud of herself for this pronouncement, and couldn't quite understand why I responded, "So...you hated Jews before you were invited to a Seder?" and then asked her to please continue, since I thought there were a few stereotypes she had missed, like the banker who runs the world. So yeah, this stuff does happen -- truly.)

But a lot of the time, it's hard to tell exactly what he's getting at. He seems to be making a point about friendship and how religion and ideology might inform our friendships, both for good and for bad. However, Jacobson also gets so much right that you'll likely want to keep reading in the hopes of finding that next good passage (best example: the face-painting incident and its aftermath, which happens in the last third somewhere). For that reason, reading this book might be either an exercise in frustration or a satisfying treasure hunt. show less

I can't say that I loved Howard Jacobson's "The Finkler Question," but I do like the fact that it won the Booker Prize.There's a lot about this book that's sort of off-center, so it's kind of nice to see a dark horse like this one take a major prize. "The Finkler Question" is certainly serious literature, but it skips out on a lot of the Great Literature templates that can occasionally make spending time in the literary fiction section of your bookstore such a drag. This is a book about a not-too-smart, thoroughly gentile middle-aged English guy who makes his living as a celebrity impersonator and suddenly becomes obsessed with Jewish identity. I don't think that it's going to show up on Oprah's Book Club anytime soon.

"The Finkler show more Question" isn't all a slog, either; parts of the book are genuinely enjoyable. Jacobson has a wonderful sentence: it's simultaneously meticulous and crisp and often light and playful. Some of his characters are genuinely lovable, principally Libor, longtime friend and mentor of the book's male leads, and Hephzibah, who, to be honest, piqued my sexual interest more than any literary character I've met since the great Molly Bloom. It's also interesting to see Jacobson write Julian Treslove, the aformentioned professional double and would-be English Jew. In the same way that it's difficult for great actors to play stupid characters, I sometimes think it's hard for great writers to write characters who are merely average or annoyingly, stubbornly flawed, but Jacobson finds real depth and pathos in a character that other writers might just have passed over.

The problem with "The Finkler Question" is that it's one of those books where you get to watch confused people make dubious choices that lead to much suffering and more confusion. As a reader, there were times when I wanted to give half of this book's cast a good, sharp, sobering slap across the jaw, but readers just aren't given that kind of agency, and sometimes that's a real shame. Instead, you get the uncomfortable sensation of being a bystander to an easily avoidable tragedy, and that gets sort of claustrophobic and uncomfortable. As for the book's political content, I'll take a pass, more or less, since my ideas about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict aren't terribly well-defined. I imagine, though, that readers who are bored by the entire notion of cultural identity are unlikely to enjoy this novel very much at all. Jacobson does some good work exploring what it means to be a non-practicing politicized Jewish person at the beginning of the twenty-first century: for many of his characters, this identity seems to exist only through absence, while for some of the book's gentile characters, Jewishness still seems to be at the heart of the human experience. Also, in an age where blatant anti-Semitism is relatively rare, Jacobson does a good job of trying to identify what might be called the "atmosphere" of attitudes toward Judaism and its practitioners: the way that seemingly unconnected opinions and preconceptions about morality, politics, people, affiliation, and life itself contributes to one's understanding of this single issue, which, I suppose, is where the novel gets its title. There are a lot of writers out there who'd probably say that identifying the zeitgeist of our fractured age is more-or-less impossible, but, as it relates to these characters and this issue, Jacobson seems to have done just that. "The Finkler Question" isn't he most enjoyable novel I've ever read, but I think it deserves credit for that not-inconsiderable achievement, at least. show less

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 show more 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 just at the point when you are most vulnerable and leaves you devastated by an unexpected ending. I loved it. show less

A superb novel and in my opinion fully deserved to win the Man Booker prize 2010

I was hooked from the start by its great opening line "He should have seen it coming" and from then on the novel had me in its grip right through to the end. The book is both funny and sad and like many great novels sweeps the reader along into the realms of tragedy. The humour is one aspect of the book that keeps nudging you along, sometimes witty sometimes black and sometimes just plain laugh out loud funny. Jacobson laughs at his characters: their foibles, their self righteousness, their pride and in Treslove's case his ineptitude. He also pulls off the trick of his characters laughing at themselves and so I found myself laughing both with them and at show more them. Jacobson comments towards the end of the novel that "You never know what a Jew was or was not going to find funny"

The books title led me to ask what is The Finkler question? One answer is and a major thread running through the novel is the pressures on Jews living in Western societies in today's increasingly hostile world. All aspects are covered and each person in the novel finds him/herself coping with the feeling that there is a continual battle to justify their existence in the world. Even the non Jew Treslove who desperately wants to become part of the Jewish culture is affected he becomes a kind of a sponge for the feelings of the Jews around him.

For me the big theme and therefore the Finkler question is guilt. Everybody tries to deal with or cover up their guilt. The tragedy is that mostly they fail and either destroy themselves or become so bent out of shape as to become unrecognisable to themselves and to others. Along with the guilt comes grief and this is reflected by many of the characters suffering actual grief for a lost love or friendship.

I know that some readers have found the characters annoying especially Treslove. I found them very human and sad person that I am I could identify with most of them. On a personal note my first wife was Jewish and we lived with her family for a while and so like Treslove I found myself absorbing the culture all around me, which is all embracing; you can get kind of smothered by it all and this comes across in Jacobson's novel. Many of the Yiddish phrases used had become part of my language and brought back all sorts of fond memories.

There are other important themes running through this novel: friendship, fidelity, hatred, ageing, cross cultural difficulties to name a few all given intelligent and thought provoking analysis by Jacobson. This is a great novel. show less