A funny thing happened when Howard Jacobson won the Man Booker Prize last Tuesday. Instead of the traditional audience reaction \u201d\u201d euphoria from the winner\u2019s entourage, anemic clapping underpinned by envy and bitterness from everyone else \u201d\u201d the announcement, over dinner at the Guildhall here, was greeted by loud, sustained applause. A smattering of people who were not even related to Mr. Jacobson stood and cheered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s that I\u2019m someone who\u2019s been around for a long time,\u201d\u009d Mr. Jacobson, exhausted but excited, said in an interview two days after. \u201cThere was also the feeling that, \u201d\u02dcThank God an old man\u2019s won it.\u2019 \u201d\u009d (He is 68).<\/p>\n
The winning book, \u201cThe Finkler Question,\u201d\u009d is Mr. Jacobson\u2019s 11th novel; it was published in the United States as a paperback original by Bloomsbury on the same day that the prize was announced. It is an unusual Booker choice, both because it delves into the heart of the British Jewish experience, something that few contemporary British novels try to do, and because it is, on its surface at least, so ebulliently comic. It tells the story of three friends, two Jewish and one, Julian Treslove, who longs to be.<\/p>\n