A comic novel on the unfunny state of being Jewish in Britain today

I don’t intend this critically, but Howard Jacobson seems to have one subject: being a Jew in Britain in the past 50 years. My evidence base is perhaps too weak, as I’ve read only three of his novels, all of which I’ve enjoyed. Jewishness is certainly present on every page of Howl, his most recent novel. It’s a great achievement (and I don’t mean this sarcastically) to explore the same subject endlessly and yet be funny, entertaining, insightful, and never boring. And the subject of being a Jew in Britain is high on the national agenda with growing antisemitism and Jews discussing whether it’s time to leave Britain. I read Howl as an attempt to understand more about being a Jew in Britain but knowing as well that I would be likely to enjoy the novel. (I asked one Jewish friend, a great reader, what she thought of Jacobson’s books, and she said she’d never read them. She said I don’t want to know more about the anguishes of neurotic Jewish men and that’s why I didn’t marry one.)…