The Mighty Walzer

March 7, 2011
First published in the U.K. in 1999, the stateside latest (after The Finkler Question) from Man Booker–winner Jacobson chronicles the mordantly funny (and highly autobiographical) coming-of-age of Oliver Walzer as he contends with his neurotic Jewish family in 1950s Manchester, England; struggles to find his way with the ladies; and, most crucially, develops into a Ping-Pong champion. At the heart of the novel is the intertwining of the sport and Oliver's burgeoning love life ("Even my erotic dreams had a ping-pong component"). Walzer is deeply anxious about his sexuality, creating elaborate collages combining his family's photo albums and pinups from lad magazines, but it's a trip to the Akiva social club that proves fateful for the awkward adolescent, as it's there where he meets the older boys of the local Ping-Pong team who lead him, for better or worse, to an improved Ping-Pong game and something of an understanding of women. Jacobson spares no painful or uncomfortable moments, and while the notion of a novel of Ping-Pong may not sound like the most enticing offer, Jacobson writes with such verve, and his sense of humor is so sharp, that he could turn a novel of basket weaving into a ripsnorter.

Starred review from March 15, 2011

An entertaining Jewish picaresque novel, following on Jacobson's Man Booker Prize–winning The Finkler Question (2010).

This roman à clef is a Rothian romp, a Goodbye, Columbus across the water in Manchester, where we find young Oliver Walzer desperately trying to do what young men try to do, namely satisfy their baser urges while grappling with whoever the hell they are. Oliver's not sure of any of this, and it doesn't help that he falls under the tutelage of a ping-pong patzer, and maybe even goniff, with the resonant name of Sheeny Waxman, who has a gift for confusing things. The association is natural, and if Oliver doesn't quite experience the "slow awakening of genius" that the novel grandly announces in its very first paragraph, then he enjoys a lively sentimental education all the same. Oliver has a family tradition to uphold: His schlimazel of a pop was an ascended master of the yo-yo, after all, and now Oliver has to carve his own reputation into the gates of Birmingham with his own chosen instrument ("cometh the hour, cometh the toy"); Oliver also strives to rise above his origins, since, as he puts it, "all we'd been doing since the Middle Ages was growing beetroot and running away from Cossacks." Yet, hormone-driven as he is, Oliver has other aspirations, most of them things that inspire reverential circumlocution ("Mr Waxman drove her to Miles Platting, a considerable distance from her home, requested that she allow him to perform an indecent act upon her, and when she again refused he unceremoniously ordered her to get out of his car"). Will Oliver attain his several goals? That's the question that awaits the young man who thinks of himself as a mediocre being, a Kafkaesque bug, as, worst of all, "So-So Walzer." Jacobson is a sympathetic narrator, but not above poking fun at his characters and poking holes in their pretenses—and clearly having fun as he does so.

A delight from start to finish, and a note-perfect evocation of the gray 1950s.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 1, 2011

This earlier title by Jacobson, the 2010 Booker Prize winner for The Finkler Question, is further proof that the author deserves his literary reputation. A funny and perceptive coming-of-age story, it follows Oliver Walzer, member of an extended Jewish family in 1950s Manchester, England. Surrounded by aunts and steeped in the culture brought over from eastern Europe, Oliver starts as a shy and observant youth who begins to discover himself and the world through his natural gift as a Ping-Pong player. As the years progress, Oliver and his mates also discover girls, and the novel follows his sexual awakening and maturing, as told from the perspective of a painfully self-conscious, perspicacious, and somewhat cynical teenager. Oliver moves beyond his local roots and attends Cambridge but later in life returns to Manchester for a visit. Memorable characters populate this novel, which is rife with so many Britishisms and Yiddishisms that a glossary might have been handy. VERDICT Readers of literary fiction should be acquainted with one of Jacobson's works, and Finkler may be the easiest choice. Beyond that, this new work is brilliant, funny, engaging, and strongly recommended.--Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. at Oneonta

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2011
A ping-pong ball floating in a pond changes the life of introverted 11-year-old Oliver Walzer, growing up in a household full of females in Manchester in the 1950s. Using his leatherette-bound copy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as a paddle, he hones his skills by hitting the ball against his living room wall and dreams of winning championships (when he isnt in the bathroom pleasuring himself with doctored photos of his female relatives). His ping-pong prowess brings him a measure of fame and trophies, plus entr'e to Cambridge, until he meets and competes against luscious Lorna Peachley and learns to love losing. This autobiographical novel (Jacobson was once one of the top 10 junior table-tennis players in England), published in England in 1999, won both the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing and the Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize in 2000. Peppered with British and Yiddish terms, it may have a bit less appeal for Americans, but Olivers first-person account is a riotous, sometimes poignant coming-of-age story that takes ping-pong to a whole new level.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 15, 2011

An entertaining Jewish picaresque novel, following on Jacobson's Man Booker Prize-winning The Finkler Question (2010).

This roman � clef is a Rothian romp, a Goodbye, Columbus across the water in Manchester, where we find young Oliver Walzer desperately trying to do what young men try to do, namely satisfy their baser urges while grappling with whoever the hell they are. Oliver's not sure of any of this, and it doesn't help that he falls under the tutelage of a ping-pong patzer, and maybe even goniff, with the resonant name of Sheeny Waxman, who has a gift for confusing things. The association is natural, and if Oliver doesn't quite experience the "slow awakening of genius" that the novel grandly announces in its very first paragraph, then he enjoys a lively sentimental education all the same. Oliver has a family tradition to uphold: His schlimazel of a pop was an ascended master of the yo-yo, after all, and now Oliver has to carve his own reputation into the gates of Birmingham with his own chosen instrument ("cometh the hour, cometh the toy"); Oliver also strives to rise above his origins, since, as he puts it, "all we'd been doing since the Middle Ages was growing beetroot and running away from Cossacks." Yet, hormone-driven as he is, Oliver has other aspirations, most of them things that inspire reverential circumlocution ("Mr Waxman drove her to Miles Platting, a considerable distance from her home, requested that she allow him to perform an indecent act upon her, and when she again refused he unceremoniously ordered her to get out of his car"). Will Oliver attain his several goals? That's the question that awaits the young man who thinks of himself as a mediocre being, a Kafkaesque bug, as, worst of all, "So-So Walzer." Jacobson is a sympathetic narrator, but not above poking fun at his characters and poking holes in their pretenses--and clearly having fun as he does so.

A delight from start to finish, and a note-perfect evocation of the gray 1950s.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)