The Finkler Question

Book Review:

Let me preface this by saying that I read copious amounts of books, everything from the latest Harry Potter to (the recently re-read)  Great Gatsby, from Bill Bryson's histories and travel tomes to Carl Hiasson (a guilty pleasure). I read the Giller Prize winners and the Man Booker Prize winners and Oprah's choices - I read a lot, always have and always will. I adore books.

Which leads me to my review of Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question, the latest winner of the Man Booker Prize. Rarely do I manage not to finish a book - so rarely that it is a noteworthy occasion. I couldn't finish The Finkler Question. I struggled with it. I persevered. I forced myself to continue to pick it up and read just a few more pages. In such a manner I managed to get three-quarters of the way through the book. I kept telling myself, "Come on now. It won the Man Booker Prize; sooner or later something is going to happen."

Nothing happened. I finally gave up and shut the covers one last time. I was curious. I went to Amazon.com to check out the reader reviews - not the critics who fawn over the prize winners regardless - journalism is dead and gone even in book reviews. (trust me - I know - I have reviewed an awful lot of books).

I couldn't say it better than a lot of the "lay" reviewers on Amazon. One mentioned that it was a book club selection that very few book club members managed to finish. I concur with these readers that it was a book Woody Allen could have written if he had lost his sense of humour and decided to people the story with characters he uniformly and thoroughly disliked. There are no characters here with redeeming qualities. And NOTHING HAPPENS! It's just plain boring.

Why did it win the prize? Because it deals with a supposedly controversial topic? Please! We could take any religious or national demographic and find existential angst about who they are and what they have done to themselves and others - Catholics could have a field day with this.

As for clever humour. A seven-year-old could do better than "D'Jew know Juno?" And that's the funniest bit in the book.

Enough of that. How about some good books? If you love dogs you cannot miss reading "A Dog's Purpose" by J. Cameron. Brilliant! Beautiful! A wonderful story!

Cool Water, the Giller Prize winner is a Canadian delight - set in the prairies and overflowing with believable and charmingly eccentric characters.

There - more to come.