The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

I first came across Jacobson the writer at his launch of his ‘Mighty Walzer’, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story set in 1950’s Manchester with hard-bat table tennis as a constant backdrop to a young life emerging from the Jewish Diaspora of that city. I remember it as a cracking tale which definitely deserves a second reading and an accompanying review for this blog. At the launch of the book, in the basement of his then publishers, Random House, a number of table tennis tables were set up (that’s where I came into things) so that the publishing agents could indulge themselves in copious quantise of free booze and a game or two of ping.

I managed to get a game in against Jacobson but the result was somewhat academic given that he was three parts gone. Thanks to Jacobson novel, readers now have a window into the wonderful world of 1950’s hard-bat ping pong that would otherwise, in this age of highly technologically designed equipment, be in grave danger of disappearing from the collective consciousness.

Enough of ping pong already. The Finkler Question’, clever code for the so called, Jewish question, is a brilliant construct and, as would be expected from a man of letters such as Jacobson, a masterly written text. Little wonder it is already on the long list for a Booker prize. In his story, Jacobson creates characters, Jewish and gentile, that are then able to dissect the ‘Jewish thing’ from every conceivable angle and in a non didactic way, leaving his readers pondering not just what it is to be Jewish but what it is to be human.

If I have any criticism of the work, it is on this very point of our shared humanity that I feel Jacobson’s story is lacking. Too much emphasis is placed on what it is to be Jewish and too little emphasis on our common human heritage and our common human condition. Everything that Jacobson subscribes to the Jewish psyche is, in fact, common to all communities that find themselves marginalised as ‘the other’. Yes, Jews have suffered for thousands of years, but so have those of African dissent, so have the Celts, so have the Asian peasantry, and while we are at it, so have the world’s women folk. In fact, if we want to be blunt, the history of humanity is one of human suffering; those without resources and power at the mercy of those with it. The Jewish story is but one brief chapter in that grim five million year history.

Even when Jacobson attempts to lift the narrative beyond the narrow confines of Jewish suffering, he invariably lapses back into the Jewish comfort zone. Take for example these few lines from one of his leading protagonists:

He was a thinker who didn’t know what he thought, except that he loved and failed and now missed his wife, and that he hadn’t escaped what was oppressive about Judaism by joining a Jewish group that gathered to talk feverishly about the oppressiveness of being Jewish. Talking feverishly about being Jewish was being Jewish. P275

No Mr Jacobson, to talk feverishly about the particularities of one’s tribe is a very human trait and is not specific to any one tribe; religious, national or otherwise.

Not wanting to do Jacobson’s work a disservice, it is important to quote another of his leading protagonists who, mourning the death of his close friend, has these very universal thoughts to offer:

There was disgrace in it. He wasn’t sure whose. Just being part of nature, maybe. Just the not having got beyond its rising tide of blood after all these hundreds of thousands of years of trying. The disgrace was universal. Just to be a human animal was to be a disgrace. Life was a disgrace, an absurd disgrace, to be exceeded in disgracefulness only by death. P290

Yes, this is the universal existential dread that we must all face sooner or later, either described in brilliantly articulate words by the likes of Jacobson or dimly felt by the billions of dulled and wearied workers that make up the human citizenry of planet Earth. As the only species to be privileged to able to plan and reflect our own existence, we are also the only species to be cursed with the awareness of our own mortality. This privilege and curse is not the preserve of any one tribe, it is the wonderful and terrible inheritance of all humanity. And the reason that religions have retained their hold on the human psyche is simply to lessen the pain of that awareness. There is absolutely nothing special in Judaism in this respect.

On reading ‘The Finkler Question’ a sporting dimension came to mind. During my tenure as manager of London Progress Table Tennis Club, I was regularly faced with the dilemma of whether to accept the offer to host the annual UK Maccabi Table Tennis Tournament. One side of me, the more pragmatic side, welcomed the opportunity because the event promoted my club and its venue, promoted table tennis generally and bought in some useful revenue in the process. The other, more philosophical side, was reluctant to promote what was in effect, an exclusive sporting event that was open only to members of that particular tribe. It flew in the face of the general philosophy of London Progress; to be fully inclusive, internationalist and welcoming to all.

What I could not comes to grips with, either then or now, is why any community in cosmopolitan London should want to voluntarily retreat back into the ghetto when there is no imperative to do so. Historically it is easy to understand where the laager mentality comes from, but we have a responsibility to break that siege mentality whenever and wherever circumstances allow. Despite the forebodings expressed in Jacobson’s latest novel, I choose to believe that London, of all places on the planet, offers a rare opportunity for all of us to lower our tribal guards and engage with ‘the other’. In that way, the narrative no longer speaks of the Jewish question, the Muslim question or some other tribal variant, but rather what it has been all along; the human question.

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