Howard Jacobson´s Novels in the Context of Contemporary British Jewish Literature
Howard Jacobson´s Novels in the Context of Contemporary British Jewish Literature

Author(s): Petr Anténe
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Jewish studies, Studies of Literature, Comparative Study of Literature, British Literature, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci
Keywords: English fiction; Jewish literature; Jewry; literary themes; literary criticism and history; interpretation and reception of literature
Summary/Abstract: The novelist Howard Jacobson, who received the 2010 Booker Prize for The Finkler Question, has often been characterized as the ""British Philip Roth"",although he himself prefers to be viewed as the ""Jewish Jane Austen"". This monograph concludes that both comparisons may be used to comment on various features of Jacobson's oeuvre. Like Roth, Jacobson tends to focus on male Jewish protagonists and intimate relations between the sexes. Like Austen, he portrays a certain social class, whether it be the British Jewish minority or the social world of British writers and university professors. Apart from reflecting on the tension between Britishness and Jewishness as inseparable aspects of his characters' identities, Jacobson's novels contribute to the traditions of British and Jewish humour.

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