Thaindian News

October 14, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): Tuesday night when Howard Jacobson won the Booker Prize for his comic novel ‘The Finkler Question’, he not only shocked some of the puritans of the literature world but was himself shocked.  The 68year old columnist and writer has been long listed twice but failed to make it to the final stage as more than often a comic novel has not been given the status of high class literature.

But this time the odds were broken and in spite of not getting the unanimous vote of 5 for the win, Jacobson’s novel got 3 out of five to bag the £50,000. To many people’s delight this win of Jacobson reinforced the belief that Booker Prize overlooks the genres and finds the right book to bestow its award on.

Bookies too had staked the odds against Jacobson’s novel with 10/1 odds but the writer and columnist of London beat Tom McCarthy and Peter Carey the favorites of the night to get the award.  The 68year old author’s two other books ‘Who’s Sorry Now’ (2002) and ‘Kalooki Nights’ (2006) were part of the long list but failed to make its cut to the short list for the awards.

Jacobson’s ‘The Finkler Question’ talks about the Jewishness that the protagonist gets attracted to and the relationship that Julian Tresolve develops with two of his Jewish friends. It makes the reader cry, laugh and get emotional with Tresolve as he goes on the journey of life. The comic novel has the love, loss and life that any good novel demands. This win of Jacobson’s also paved the way for other future comic novelists and their scope of getting a Booker. Jacobson had also written ‘The English sound of Hindu bagpipes’ which talks about piped music.

– Sampurn Wire