The Finkler Question

Just in case you have been living under a rock (which I sometimes do), this won the Booker Prize this year. On the back cover it is described as "A blistering portrayal of a funny man...." and "Our funniest living writer....". It is always dangerous to describe things as funny. A bit like saying to someone "I saw this great movie last night!"...a sure set-up for disappointment.

I finished this book today. I now owe the Brisbane City Council Library $1.75 in late fees for it. I was determined to finish it by hook or by crook. I think I laughed maybe twice.

This year for me seems to have been marked by books about vampires and books about Jews or Jewishness. I haven't deliberately chosen this path. I merely remark upon it and I mean nothing by the association. I am just intrigued by it. So far I am finding neither genre or subject matter an easy read - certainly not funny.

Let's talk about the Jews we know. Or what it means to be Jewish. Yes, let's talk about stereotypes. Bette Midler. Woody Allen. They come to my mind. I often quote Bette Midler's line in Beaches "But enough about me, let's talk about you,........what do You think about me?" Neurotic. Self-obsessed. Funny. Sad.

The Finkler Question is about three men who come together in grief. The main character Julian Treslove is a kind of an anti-hero. He was born to be miserable. He is excruciatingly pathetic. He is so miserable he secetly fantasises about being Jewish. A bit like you fantasise about being adopted....anything not to have been born into this awfully boring suburban family. Give me a bit of the exotic...make me Jewish! His best friend from school Sam Finkler is Jewish and all that Julian wishes he was - smart, successful, a bedder of countless women. They keep in touch with an old teacher from their school days - turned friend - Libor - an eccentric loveable Czech, also Jewish. Libor and Sam are recently bereaved and Julian revels with them in their misery.

Spoiler alert! The book is called The Finkler Question. And, of course, as the reader you thirst to know why. It is Julian's secret way of internally de-stigmatising the word "Jew". And I quote..."Before he met Finkler, Treslove had never met a Jew. Not knowingly at least. He supposed a Jew would be like the word Jew - small and dark and beetling. A secret person. But Finkler was almost orange in colour and spilled out of his clothes. He had extravagant features, a prominent jaw, long arms and big feet....If this was what all Jews looked like, Treslove thought, then Finkler....was a better name for them than Jew.....The minute you talked about the Finkler Question, say, or the Finklerish Conspiracy, you sucked out the toxins. But he was never quite able to get around to explaining this to Finkler himself."

That last sentence I believe holds the key to the book. Why doesn't Julian get around to explaining his labelling to Sam? And therein lies the genius I guess of Howard Jacobson. Because Julian is a loathsome character. He is in fact like some kind of small dark beetle...a secret person. He, like a vampire, sucks the lifeblood out of his friends and girlfriends/wives/lovers. He purports to be deeply interested in being Jewish but is frustrated when the going gets tough....His lover Hephzibah recommends reading Moses Maimonides' The Guide for the Perplexed when he seeks enlightenment with regard to Jewish thought.....but poor Julian can barely make it beyond the first sentence and feels "like a child lost in a dark forest full of decrepit lucubrations." He is lost because he is never honest with himself about his motivations and he is certainly never honest with his friends about his innermost thoughts.

I wonder if by The Finkler Question in fact Jacobson is referring to the Human Question. Ultimately I felt I loathed Julian because I was seeing a reflection of myself.....see it's all about me!!! He disappointed me the same way I disappoint myself. There was no great triumph or change in Julian's character...he was excruciating from beginning to end...failing to see what a tosspot he was...as indeed no doubt we all do of ourselves. For me, The Finkler Question is about the mystery of the human condition...about our eternal quest to label, categorize, blame and explain the inexplicable.

Laugh? I could have cried.

Book Review

Singing God's Work- The Inspirational Music, People and Stories of the Harlem Gospel Choir by Allen Bailey founder and director with Penelope Holt

Hallelujah!  I have finally finished reading this book and can now review it for Librarything.  Really it should not have taken me so very long as it is a slim volume of only 159 pages. 

The book was written by Allen Bailey, founder and director of the Choir with Penelope Holt.  Penelope has written two other books - The Apple and The Painter's Gift.  Her other two books are described as "visionary fiction that explore dreams and the power of the creative unconscious to create personal reality."  While Singing God's Work is non-fiction, I think a similar theme runs through this work.

Singing God's Work is published by York House Press.  York House Press seems to publish mostly business and management books so this publication seems an exception to their usual bill of fare.

The author's intention was to give fans "a better understanding of the Choir, its mission, its music, its ministry, its joyful noise."

Each chapter opens with a tribute to the Harlem Gospel Choir from fans all over the world - from Australia to the Czech Republic.  The Choir has been going for 23 years now and Allen has logged over two million miles with them as their manager.

When I started this book, I got about 50 pages in and then lost interest.  I felt like I was reading a book the subtitle of which should have been - Famous People I have Met. Allen Bailey does acknowledge that not everyone he mentions in his book will be well-known to others (particularly those not from the US) and so he helps us by describing them as "best-known", "prominent", "influential", "legend" and so on.  Phrases like "he never forgot his roots or where he came from" is the highest praise he bestows.  I found much of the prose repetitive and tiresome.

But not finishing the book is unfair and so I made a concerted effort to do so.  I think it is fair to say that the book continued in much the same fashion with a few exceptions.  It was about two thirds of the way through that I realised what my expectations were ....I wanted to know about the choir itself.  Chapters Seventeen through to Nineteen go some way to addressing this need.  One chapter highlights about eight of the singers or former singers, another talks about the fans and their response to the music and the last chapter talks about the challenges of being on tour.  I was most interested to learn that "the three countries with the greatest appetite for the classic gospel...are Japan, Italy and Ireland."  I kind of get Ireland and maybe even Italy, but Japan???  I would have liked to know more about this interesting phenomenon.

Allen Bailey is to be commended for taking the time to document the work of the Choir.  We need more stories of how ideas or dreams are made real. "It takes a team to create a dream" is one of his favourite quotes from Uncle Pigmeat.  Unfortunately, I think he has forgotten this in creating this particular record.  A choir is a concert of many voices but I could hear only one voice and only one note.