Kalooki Nights

What Chutzpah, Howard! This book is "Holocaustic". Every Jewish stereotype is laid bare here, every sacred cow slaughtered in a way that only the wit of Howard Jacobson can pull off. Bravo!

This is a sharp and clever exploration of identity, love and family. The humour fades as the book goes on, but books that are funny throughout are very rare, so that can be forgiven.

The vibrant, crisp prose and the hilarious characterisation are the two best features of the book. It's not as good as The Finkler Question, but it's a great read in a similar vein.

I read this after hearing a great interview with Howard Jacobson on CBC. Perhaps I missed something, but I was disappointed by the book. The central character believes every gentile is an anti-semite. The only two non-jewish characters in the novel that aren't anti-semites have devoted their lives to loving and understanding Jewish history and culture. I was hoping that the narrator would learn something by the end, but I must have missed it. I will read more of his books, though, as I liked his style.

Maybe it was all meant to be a charicature (the narrator is a cartoonist after all), but it was lost on me. Perhaps I was trying too hard to see the narrator's point of view that I missed the author making fun of his narrator. If so, too show more subtle for me. show less

This novel just wasn't for me, despite being mostly set in north Manchester and so familiar places, I found the style of the novel very difficult. It seemed too verbose and meandering for my taste and although I continued to about page 250, I couldn't face the thought of another 200 pages of reading.
Kalooki is a card game Max's mother plays and the novel is set in the years after the war. Max is friends with Manny and the novel seems to be about their relationship.
There are funny moments, but these got a bit lost in the tedium.

When Jewish novelists resort to writing about the Holocaust in the 21st century it seems so very obvious. This book is unashamedly obsessed, not just with not just Nazism but the chosen people it sought to extinguish - but just because it is knowingly obsessed doesn't make it any less trying. A weak plot and florid writing, combined with one of my least favourite topics; if this is Jacobson's masterpiece, I suppose he's not for me.

Jacobson is an inventive and comic writer and so I felt something lacking in myself that I didn't finish this novel. Perhaps it is that his exuberant style overwhelms me at times

Do I give up on Jacobson? I loved all his earlier works then I got to the Henry one, which I just managed to finish. I gave up on An Act of Love and took 2 years to read this one. Will the original Howard please come back all is forgiven