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J (2014)

by Howard Jacobson(Favorite Author)

3.03 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0224101978 (ISBN13: 9780224101974)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Jonathan Cape

review 1: Like Jacobson's other Booker prize winner, "The Finkler Question," this novel is also a must-read. Unfortunately I mean that more in the sense of an academic exercise than an enjoyable experience. As in TFQ, Jacobson is dealing with the knotty issue of anti-semitism, but he does it in a more speculative way. J deals with a world that has experienced a violent schism which is only referred to as WHAT HAPPENED IF IT HAPPENED. The solution that society has come up with to try to prevent such an event from ever occurring again is to completely forget that it happened and to never refer to it. J is a philosophical fiction, like "1984" or "Animal Farm," and chooses to illuminate the questions and problems of cultural displacement and repression by telling a love story of sorts b... moreetween two individuals (Kevern and Ailinn) who live in a small village by the sea. Other voices join theirs in the form of newspaper reports, scholarly essays, and diary entries. It's an interesting premise and the questions it raises about what makes us hate one another as a society (and whether or not that is actually beneficial to society) are fascinating. I had to force myself to keep going, though, because, despite Jacobson's intelligent probing, his prose falls flat for me.The intellect is there, but the heart and soul of the art are absent.
review 2: The first half of J is Jacobson at his most brilliant, cutting, sardonic. The subject under consideration is familiar territory for him: antisemitism and the veneer of civility under which murderous and violent sentiments lurk, ever ready to burst forth in the right circumstances. Nowhere, no one immune. The second half of the book didn't entirely persuade me as to the reasons and consequences for violence in this near-future, near-British dystopia, and I'm dying to talk about it with an intelligent reader. I intend to make my husband read it for that purpose! It's the sort of book that should provoke a lively and interesting, if fiery, discussion in a book club. less

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