Howard Jacobson

Frank Ritz has been on heat more or less continuously since he could speak his own name. But what happens when sex is all you know but no longer what you want?

Roman psychologique (formation). Roman de société

Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer, and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never lost touch with each other, or with their former teacher, Libor Sevcik. Dining together one night at Sevcik's apartment—the two Jewish widowers and the unmarried Gentile, Treslove—the men share a sweetly painful evening, reminiscing on a time before they had loved and lost, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. But as Treslove makes his way home, he is attacked and mugged outside a violin dealer's window. Treslove is convinced the crime was a misdirected act of anti-Semitism, and in its aftermath, his whole sense of self will ineluctably change. The Finkler Question is a funny, furious, unflinching novel of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and the wisdom and humanity of maturity. Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize.

A smug novel that aspires to rip the lid off religious convention & conviction. Jacobson (Roots Schmoots, '94, etc.) tackles the Hebrew Scriptures in this new effort. Narrated by Cain, the 1st murderer & the founder of the 1st city, the life led by Adam & his family is far different than that portrayed by pious chroniclers. Tho the group has already been expelled from Eden, creation is far from complete. The Earth still vibrates with the energy of formation. To even stamp one's foot is to set in motion a chain of reactions that could lead to some bizarre new species & there's plenty of reason to stamp one's foot. The omnipresent deity is getting on humanity's nerves & any attempt to discuss the matter leads to divine punishment because He's decidedly thin-skinned. Adam abuses Cain because the boy is the only thing in the world that he's unafraid of. To top things off, the new baby, Abel, is getting all of Eve's attention, leaving Cain feeling deprived. The boy vows that, even tho he loves his brother, he'll nonetheless kill him. The novel bounces back & forth between this story & Babel, where an aged Cain is telling his tale in a kind of one-man show for the amusement of the cynical citizenry, who crave entertainment & lack both a theology & a sense of humor. Also related are the stories of the Exodus & of Korah, a cousin of Moses & Aaron who led a rebellion against their leadership & authority. Lurking at the edges of it all is the mysterious Sisobk the Scryer, a member of a Cainite cult that's grown up around the fratricide. Condescension & anachronisms mar what comes across as 2nd-rate Joseph Heller or Philip Roth. Jacobson looks into faith & sees only dark corners.-Kirkus (edited)

"A profound, darkly comedic parable set in a future where collective memory has vanished following a historic catastrophe, and one young couple's love affair could have shattering consequences for the human race. In a world where the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited, J is a love story of incomparable strangeness, both tender and terrifying. After the devastation of WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED, all that should remain is peace and prosperity. Everyone knows his or her place; all actions are out in the open. But Esme Nussbaum has seen the distorted realities, the fissures that have only widened in the twenty-plus years since she was forced to resign from her position at the monitor of the Public Mood. Now, Esme finds something strange and special developing in a romance between Ailinn Solomons and Kevern Cohen. As this unusual pair's actions draw them into ever-increasing danger, Esme realizes she must do everything in her power to keep them together--whatever the cost. With a sense of the dramatic sweep of Michael Ondaatje and the dystopian, literary sensibility of Margaret Atwood, Howard Jacobson's J is an astonishing feat of fiction. In this exquisitely written, beautifully playful and imaginative, and terribly heart-breaking work, Jacobson gathers his prodigious gifts for the crowning achievement of a remarkable career"--

The author recounts his efforts to discover his Eastern European roots and shares his thoughts on what it means to be a Jew in the twentieth century

At the age of ninety-something, Beryl Dusinbery is forgetting everything - including her own children. Her tongue, meanwhile, remains as sharp as ever. She spends her days stitching macabre messages into her needlework and tormenting her two long-suffering carers with tangled stories of her love affairs. Shimi Carmelli can do up his own buttons, get around without the aid of a walking frame, and speak without spitting. Among the widows of North London, he's whispered about as the last of the eligible bachelors. Unlike Beryl, he forgets nothing - especially not the shame of a childhood incident that has hung over him ever since. There's very little life remaining for either of them, but perhaps just enough to heal some of the hurt inflicted along the way and find new meaning in what's left. Could this be their chance to live a little?

Frank Ritz is a television critic. His partner, Melissa Paul, is the author of pornographic novels for liberated women. He watches crap all day; she writes crap all day. It's a life. Or it was a life. Now they're fighting, locked in oral combat. He won't shut up, and she's putting her finger down her throat again. So there's only one thing to do: Frank has to go. But go where? And do what? What happens when sex is all you know and yet no longer what you want?

Jacobson brims with life in this collection of his most acclaimed columns from the Independent. From the unusual disposal of his father-in-law's ashes and the cultural wasteland of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to the melancholy sensuality of Leonard Cohen and the desolation of Wagner's tragedies, Jacobson writes with all the thunder and joy of a man possessed. Absurdity piles upon absurdity, and glorious sentences accrete to create a uniquely human collection, at times hilarious, at others heartbreaking, and always irresistibly entertaining.

"Marvin Kreitman, the luggage baron of South London, lives for sex. Or at least he lives for women. At present he loves four women - his mother, his wife Hazel, and his two daughters - and is in love with five more, his wife's interior decorator and his ex-window-dresser's mother among them. Charlie Merriweather, on the other hand, nice Charlie, loves just the one woman, also called Charlie, the wife with whom he has been writing children's books and having nice sex for twenty years." "Once a week the two friends meet for a Chinese lunch in Soho, contriving never quite to have the conversation they would like to have. The conversation about fidelity and womanising, and which makes you happier." "Until today, that is. And now they have started that conversation there is no stopping it. It is Charlie who takes the dangerous step of asking for a piece of Marvin's disordered life, but what follows embroils them all, the wives no less than the husbands. And none of them - nice or not-nice - will ever be the same again."--BOOK JACKET.

Seria: Projekt Szekspir, T. 2