The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

Bloomsbury, 2010

The Finkler Question really is about what you might call the Finkler question.  It is an almost perfect title. Early on in the piece, Jacobson makes it clear that the word "Finkler" is a substitute for "Jew" or "Jewish".  And so the book is an exploration by a Jewish author of the various lines dividing Jews and non-Jews, whether those lines are clear or indistinct, and, perhaps more importantly, whether or not they can be crossed. And by whom. This, to me, is perhaps best summed up by a line in the book:

As always he wondered if he would ever get to the bottom of what Finklers were permitted to say about themselves that non-Finklers were not.

I did and continue to wonder whether Jacobson would have been able to write this book were he not himself Jewish.

Project Booker

Racing against time!

So I'm midway through The Finkler Question which won the Man Booker Prize 2010. Other shortlisted ones that interest me are:

C by Tom McCarthy
In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

The longlist for 2011 prize will be announced 26 July 2011, and the shortlist 6 September 2011. At that point I will decide whether this was worth my while.

Four novels and four reviews in four months - here's hoping. No more page-turning blockbusters for a while - thank goodness there aren't any more Hunger Games books left to read!

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Algonquin Books, 2006

First, a caveat. I am not amongst the legions who picked up this book because of the recent movie adaptation starring Robert Pattinson! It has actually been on or near the top of the Amazon Kindle bestselling list for ages. I passed it over for a while because I am generally not a fan of circuses, and I particularly do not like circuses with live animals. But I did buy it eventually because reviews promised it would be a great summer read.

And so it was. Despite the fact that my nervousness concerning animals proved to be entirely justified, I really enjoyed reading this book.

February by Lisa Moore

Anansi, 2009

I was itching to write this review even before I finished the book. But now that I've finished and I'm putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) I am not sure how to start, and what combination of words to use.  I am staggered by the depth of its reach into me.

Let's start with what the novel is about. It is about Helen O'Mara, whose husband Cal died on the Ocean Ranger oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland one stormy Valentines' night. It's about how she copes with desperate grief, in the face of which time resolutely refuses to stand still - pregnant Helen has to summon all her strength and raise their four young children without Cal. The narrative moves back and forth in time, and we see Helen at various stages of a long life. Somehow she pulls through. She has lost the love of her life, but she is surrounded by those who love her with so much of theirs.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Random House, 2010

 The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is set in 1799, during the time the Dutch East India Company occupied, with the permission of the Japanese shogunate, the port of Dejima in Nagasaki Harbour.

We follow two main characters - Jacob de Zoet, a Dutch clerk seeing out a five-year stint in Dejima to earn enough to marry his fiancee back home, and Orito Aibagawa, a young Japanese midwife. De Zoet, a man of integrity and intelligence, finds himself thrown into the local Dutch politics of the day, smitten with the beautiful but elusive Aibagawa and embroiled in the dark and sinister machinations of the book's villain, Lord Abbot Enomoto. It is tale told in the bipolar format of good vs. evil - most if not all of the characters are either one or the other.