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2.68 AVERAGE
2.68 AVERAGE
At first I didn't like the main characters at all, but I persevered as it is a book club book, and was glad I did. I ultimately missed the grumblings of Treslove, Finkler and Libor by the end. The Jewish issues I'm relatively ambivalent about, but I did like the fact that the issues were presented from a number of different view points. Violence just makes me sad. More irritating was Treslove's anxieties. At times he just drove me crazy. Not a good head space to spend time with.
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Finkler Question makes you laugh, think, and go back for some more. I can't think of the last time I've found a book this delightful. Howard Jacobson, you are a miracle.
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This really didn't work out for me. I wasn't really interested in the topic nor do I know enough about it to be able to appreciate this story.
A slog. It got a lot better once Hephzibah arrived and once the complexities of Jewishness, religion, politics and violence came into focus. But the attitudes of the men towards the women were often dripping with misogyny even if it was sometimes supposedly well meaning and sometimes born of grief. Those moments seem to pass without comment or any realisation that they're not ok. They are not ok.
I didn't find it particularly funny.
I didn't find it particularly funny.
A painfully obvious and overstated novel that revolves around three men: one, an older Jewish man who is comfortable with himself and his identity as a Jew; another, a middle-aged Jewish man who hates his Jewish heritage and continually rebels against it, and the third, a gentile with few ties and no family, who romanticizes Judaism and longs for the superficial qualities of Jewishness he sees in his two friends. Two of these three are insufferable, obnoxious men (you can guess which), yet sadly they are the two who are the bulk of the novel's focus. What, after all, is there to say about someone who is content and sure of himself? It's a shame that the one salvageable character is given such short-shrift. That leaves us with a disappointing - though occasionally quite humorous - primer on Jewish identity that makes one long to slap the author and say "we get it, already, now shut up about it!" One only wishes Mr. Jacobson had the restraint of his most admirable character. The elder Jew, Libor, would have stopped reading this book after a few pages. How I wish I had.
According to the reviews on the back cover, The Finkler Question is hilarious. The front cover proclaims that it won the 2010 Man Booker Prize. A reviewer from the London Times asks "How is it possible to read Howard Jacobson and not lose oneself in admiration for the music of his language, the power of his characterization and the penetration of this insight?"
I dunno how exactly, but I did not lose myself in admiration of Jacobson while reading The Finkler Question.
Two friends of Julian Treslove have both lost their wives. Julian daydreams about losing his, but first he would need to get one. (Most of his girlfriends leave him because he's "morbid." That's perfectly understandable if he's waiting around for them to die tragically in his arms, which he is, in his fantasies.) His two friends are Jews, and quite a bit of what I read deals with Julian's percieved differences between himself and his friends. Which I found to be neither interesting nor witty. I just didn't get it.
I made it a third of the way through the book and finally accepted that I am unable to sympathize at all with the incredibly neurotic Treslove and I am not sufficiently intrigued by what happened in the first 112 pages to finish the book and find out what happens.
I dunno how exactly, but I did not lose myself in admiration of Jacobson while reading The Finkler Question.
Two friends of Julian Treslove have both lost their wives. Julian daydreams about losing his, but first he would need to get one. (Most of his girlfriends leave him because he's "morbid." That's perfectly understandable if he's waiting around for them to die tragically in his arms, which he is, in his fantasies.) His two friends are Jews, and quite a bit of what I read deals with Julian's percieved differences between himself and his friends. Which I found to be neither interesting nor witty. I just didn't get it.
I made it a third of the way through the book and finally accepted that I am unable to sympathize at all with the incredibly neurotic Treslove and I am not sufficiently intrigued by what happened in the first 112 pages to finish the book and find out what happens.
In general, the book was not well received. A couple people appreciated the glimpse into British Jewish culture, or the finely drawn female characters standing in the background. But the major characters were nebbishes, and it was difficult to sympathize with them. There were funny bits in the book, but the jokes tended to be drawn out too long.
One of the very few books that I just gave up on halfway. I was totally uninterested in the characters (except the old man) and just didn't connect at all. It was as if I kept waiting for all the various plot points set out in the beginning to merge/meld into one, but they never did.
I was reading it and kept asking myself "why am I reading this?"
Because it was free on my Kindle?? I think so. Delete!
I was reading it and kept asking myself "why am I reading this?"
Because it was free on my Kindle?? I think so. Delete!
I am not the audience for this book and only finished it for a book club.