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The Finkler Question

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The Finkler Question

By: Howard Jacobson
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
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About this listen

Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2010

Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick. Now all three are recently widowed, in their own way, and spend sweetly painful evenings together reminiscing. Until an unexpected violent attack brings everything they thought they knew into question.

©2010 Howard Jacobson (P)2010 W F Howes Ltd Contemporary Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Funny Witty
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Most relevant
Even though I know it was deliberately void of character development, it was just a bit too soulless for me. Lot's of clever thematic metaphors and all that malarkey but all head and no heart makes Serge a dull boy. One for the critics to de-construct.

The narrator didn't help much either. He reminded me of a newsreader half the time. Maybe he was just keeping in spirit with the lack of emotion in the book. The sound quality wasn't great either though.

Interesting but soulless

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I agree with the previous reviewer. Characters not particularly likeable or sympathetic, plot non-existent, too many and not very interesting or clever jewish jokes. This could have been illuminating and entertaining, but it was neither. I don't even think that it is particularly well-written. A rare disappointment from audible and from the Booker judges.

Why on earth did this win a Booker?!

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I had heard this was a funny book, but I barely smiled apart from one exception where I did laugh out loud. It is overlong, self-absorbed and too full of clever and not so clever wordplay. The minutes or pages devoted to whether a character has heard or misheard a certain phrase, which is returned to again and again, were simply tiresome. Had it been a physical book i may have thrown it out of the window.
ALL the characters seem addicted to the wordplay, which makes one assume it is the author who is addicted to it, and he should realise that it drives some people crazy, and perhaps thereby credit one of his characters with that stance. It would have made the whole more believable. a slow read , I wish I hadnt bothered with. Sorry.

A disappointing answer

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This won the Booker Prize a few years ago. No idea why. Tediously repetitive, two of the three main characters are entirely unsympathetic (Libor was the only person I liked) and not very funny, despite what I thought was a good, well charaterised reading by Stephen Crossley. I almost gave up with two hours to go, and now I have finished I wish I had given up and done something more rewarding with the time.

Disappointing

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Really struggled with this. It goes from mildly amusing at the start through dull and comes to rest in melancholy. Best avoided.

Dull

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