The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

I seem to have been reading, or actually, not reading this book for a rather long time, but I’m afraid unfortunately that I have been distracted by revision for an exam, work and more fortunately, the festive season!  With Christmas came the temptation of new books to read, which I mostly managed to resist except for one, which is the first non-Booker I’ve read since starting this project at the beginning of 2011.  So a year and a month on and an opportunity to take stock – I’ve read 23 of the Booker prizewinners, of which there are now 45 titles (with the obvious addition of the 2011 winner this year) but I can happily say I’m half-way through - and I’m still enjoying myself and continue to be motivated to carry on!  My optimistic aim would be to able to read the remaining half this coming year, however, I fear that with increased demands on my time this may not be possible, but still, here’s to the coming year of (hopefully) literary delights – and if you’ve been reading either regularly or sporadically- thanks for sharing in this project and please, as always feel free to comment and let me know what you think…

Right so, what did I think of ‘The Finkler Question’, which fell victim to being read rather intermittently?  Well I’m not sure really – it was rather a strange concoction of political and religious opinions mixed in with endless rambling thoughts and deliberations of the various characters, written in a mostly engaging style.  On reflection, I’m tempted to classify it together with ‘Last Orders’ and ‘The Old Devils’; being about middle-aged and elderly characters who dwell on past events in their lives, grieve the death of loved ones and explore the themes of longstanding friendships and relationships.  However, ‘The Finkler Question’ as the name suggests once it is explained that ‘Finkler’, being the surname of the main character’s Jewish friend, is the adjective he’s used since a boy to refer to Jews, is what is the recurring theme throughout the story.  What it means to be a Jew and what it means not to be a Jew, various opinions about Israel/Palestine, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust to name but a few of the issues covered encircling the story of three friends, two of which are mourning the deaths of their wives and the other who is mourning life in general.

The characters were not people to whom I warmed but they were skillfully depicted, in particular the main character Treslove was effectively portrayed as irritating, ineffectual and rather pathetic, whose interminable ponderings were exasperating to himself and to the other characters, and consequently the reader.  Of particular note for me, was the trajectory through which Libor, the eldest of the three friends who had been recently bereaved of his wife after numerous years of marriage, travelled through in the course of the novel.  Especially memorable were the feelings of guilt he felt towards his wife as she neared her death and a touching passage describing how he watched as she had to come to terms with her impending mortality on awakening every morning as the realisation dawned once more after the escape of sleep.  Despite not being a book I would probably rush to read again, it was thought provoking and insightful.  Moreover, it highlighted the contradictory and complicated world in which we live, with a minefield of conflicting thoughts swirling around within every mind, which we only really have brief and occasional glimpses into through our interactions with each other.