This is essentially a study of modern Jewish life, based in contemporary North London, in the context of comfortable, middle-class, middle-aged men.
The 'Finkler' in the title refers to Sam Finkler, one of the three main characters, who is a Jew. His childhood friend Julian (the first syllable of his name clearly deliberate) associates all Jewish topics with Sam, so - in his head - replaces the word Jew with 'Finkler'. One day, dawdling home after dinner with Sam and their former schoolteacher Libor (also Jewish), Julian is mugged. By a woman. And is potentially accused by his assailant of being Jewish.
The shock (and shame) of the incident, and of possibly being the victim of an anti-Semitic act, starts a snowball of ideas and fears within Julian's head. The purpose of the book is to share these ideas with the reader, and they touch upon Israel's actions, the link that British Jews have with Israel, the reliance on the Holocaust as a debating tool and the concept that there are levels of Jewishness. Julian is used by Jacobson as a dummy in these situations, explaining the arguments to the reader by having Julian consider them and be informed by his two Jewish friends.
Some of the arguments presented in the book are interesting and wouldn't have otherwise occurred to me, but I found the plot plodding and too thin a veil for this general discussion of Jewish culture. In a way, I felt that I would have enjoyed the book more if I myself was Jewish, and understood the arguments from the inside. What's more, Jacobson packs in the Jewish/Hebrew jargon, making both ceremonies and banter hard to follow. Perhaps this is intentional, to separate the Gentile reader from the argument and suggest that the issues themselves are difficult to understand for the outsider, but I'm not sure.
Jacobson does write well, and is occasionally witty. But the Daily Telegraph reviewer on the back of the book calls the author 'Our funniest living writer'. I felt that I missed the joke.
No comments:
Post a Comment