J by Howard Jacobson: Book Review

A catastrophe has broken out in the past which has somehow transformed the society and culture.  With that in the background in a distant memory, the novel begins when the lead characters, Kevern Cohen, a young paranoid male and Ailinn Solomons, a young female from the orphanage and adopted later, meet each other and fall in love. The story is like driving in an unknown territory in a dense fog with no clues as to where or to what the author is driving. The story progresses slowly with melodramatic and emotional reactions of the couple with a few references to the forefathers of Kevern Cohen. Sometimes the author narrates through the eyes of a professor who vacillates between like and dislike for the couple. And then there at the heart of the plot is Esme Nussbaum who is seeing the chinks and faulted lines in the new world.

The story becomes more and more intriguing as it is revealed that it was not a mere coincidence that the couple met, that there are forces that throw the two into each other’s arms.

Such is the brilliance of the author Howard Jacobson that at times you will feel like shelving the book without finishing it but you will read it to the end and once you have finished reading it you will want to read it again.

In a scale of 10 we give it 8.5, a must read book which was short-listed for the Man- Booker Prize of 2014.