Jane With a Little Bit of Yiddish

I was reading an article about Howard Jacobson, winner of the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Finkler Question (on order at the library), in the the New York Times Book Review. Now Mr. Jacobson is a Jewish man who writes about the Jewish experience, but he refers to Jane Austen several times during the interview--I am not making this up. “I’m an old-fashioned English lit. man,” he said. “Straight down the line — it’s George Eliot, it’s Dickens, it’s Dr. Johnson, it’s Jane Austen.” Early in his career he tried to write like his heroes, but that didn't work so well for a Jewish man from New York. Mr. Jacobson has been likened to an English Philip Roth (he writes about British Jews), but he would rather be the English Jane Austen. I will leave you with my favorite quote of the article--maybe my new favorite quote period.

“I’m an English writer who happens to know about Jews and would like to write like Jane Austen, with a little bit of Yiddish,” he said.