But I imagine he feels that being Jewish himself gives him license to do it. 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 wiJulian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular and disappointed BBC worker, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. 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. A good book, just not a great novel.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. Would not recommend.What to make of this? Unfortunately, this momentum didn't continue. Several have landed on the Booker long list.Howard Jacobson's comedy about anti-Semitism, "The Finkler Question," won the $79,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction in London Tuesday, beating "Parrot & Olivier in America," by two-time winner Peter Carey, and Emma Donoghue's popular "Room." by Bloomsbury Sometimes bitter coffee secretes more flavor on palate especially if we cling to trite routine of sweet one's. And that is what the book is really about: the pompousness and not-at-all pompousness of religion; or, to put it another way, the overwhelming bullshit and the overwhelming beauty of Jewishness, where Jewishness is a metaphor for human culture in general.In this dazzling novel, Howard Jacobson uses Jewishness as a way in to universal questions about life and societyHoward Jacobson: "wit, warmth and human understanding". As a Nobel Prize lite it tends to award writers for what they mean rather than what they write.
Well it can go back to the box...Really really really great. I have always tried to live in an ivory tower, but a tide of shit is beating at its walls, threatening to undermine it." I have an appetite for the whole Semitic scene – a necessity to get through this one.Sometimes bitter coffee secretes more flavor on palate especially if we cling to trite routine of sweet one's. 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. I initially had a bit of difficulty with things Jewish, but a lot of it canGood that you got it's sense of humour, most of it at the main characters. 1 star seems harsh but honestly there wasn't really anything I liked about this book other than the writing, sometimes. I just found it in a Little Free Library I discovered by my apartment and knew I’d seen it arNooow I know why I have never bothered to read this one. As a Nobel Prize lite it tends to award writers for what they mean rather than what they write. Welcome back. I really enjoyed this book. Sometimes with success, as in his tremendous J, sometimes not. Photograph by Eamonn McCabeHoward Jacobson: "wit, warmth and human understanding". 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. Way too contrived for me. 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 favourite quotation of mine for many reasons – among them the way it is both so pompous and so not-at-all pompous at the same time – and of course every serious writer thinks exactly the same of his own age. 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 otherwLet there be nary a doubt, this book is first, foremost, and damn near exclusively about being Jewish. 'Finkler' Questions The Meaning Of Jewishness The hero of this year's Booker Prize winner, The Finkler Question, is a non-Jew fascinated by Jewishness.