"The Finkler Question" by Howard Jacobson

Yet another book that was quite recently awarded with the MAN Booker Prize that I find particularly trustworthy. I just finished Julian Barnes' "The Sense of an Ending" awarded in 2011, so there came time to go back and read the winner from 2010.
Howard Jacobson's book is very English, as English as may be that is. The action takes place in contemporary London, and among the Jewsih community, or shall I say, Jewish intelligentsia living in London. The main characters: Julian Treslove, a non-Jewish unsuccessful radio producer, Sam Finkler, a popular philosopher and Libor Sevcik, a Jewish Czech gossip columnist from the times when Hollywood really mattered (Libor is almost 90 at the time of the events taking place in the book).

The friends talk about their relationships, identity, mutual relationship, their different lives and the very fact that they remained friends  despite differences of opinions and different other obstacles, and there were many of those, trust me.
The book opened my eyes to several burning issues of the minorities living in such a multicultural hub as London obviously is, the troubles with self-identification and the general pain of not being understood properly.
Unfortunately at some point it simply is too much to take. The amount of problems with all this just heaps up not allowing any breathers. In that way "The Finkler Question" is rather flat, not allowing for any major turns in the plots. I expected something more from this well-written, but in some ways, ordinary book.

From now on I will also try to include a rating to describe books, the scale is as it is with films, meaning from 1 to 6 stars or asterisks, if you will.

Rating: ***1/2

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