Winkler

by Giles Coren

A comic account of a man’s search for meaning, identity and a suitable response to the burden of history; Coren’s examination of the nature of Jewishness (and, incidentally, of Englishness), of the lies we tell to survive and the stresses of urban life, is irreverent, funny, provocative and brave.


From the Hardcover edition.

320 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2005

Reviews

[Burnout02urza · Rating 1 out of 5]

Remember to do it 'like Zorro'.

[Rosa · Rating 1 out of 5]

ROFLMAOOOorifbnerfobwerv what did I just read?!

[Lara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst sex in literature award? Nice. Quite like the look of that Coren fellow, actually.

[Cody Connelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

The prose within this book sounds like the ramblings of a man with illusions of grandeur who also happened to have the hardest boner at the same time. He also really needs to discover the magical world of punctuations.

[Harry Tomos · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is rare I struggle with a book, really really rare...I think in all my life I've only ever not finished a book and that was because every other word was swearing (not a prude, it just had no meaning and there was no story)...this book, I put down and tried to come back to it 4 times, 3rd time I thought about not attempting again, there were a couple of moments in it, but I felt lectured at, felt as if I had to agree and each time I didn't the book went down...so it's a shame but I am glad I persevered yet am left disappointed

[Steven Godin · Rating 1 out of 5]

An absolute stink bomb of a novel. Jesus, I mean, just what the hell was Coren thinking.

(Most people in the UK will know him as a TV presenter & food critic). Stick to the food!

Never mind worst sex, this is just about worst everything. It just might be the most utterly terrible thing I've ever read. Well, almost half of it anyway. How on earth I even got that far I'll never know.

Good job I only borrowed it. Wouldn't have paid 10p for it.

[E. Liako · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've... Genuinely never read a book that actually made me wish that there were negative numbers in GoodReads. 1 star isn't enough. 0 stars isn't enough. I need to give this book -10 stars. I didn't think anyone could be this bad without actively trying, and even then I feel like it's quite an accomplishment to be THIS bad at writing.

[Ian Mapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genuinely funny book. Had me laughing out loud more than any other from recent times.

Winkler is jewish and works in an office, where his skills and originality are rewarded by not having to keep regular hours.

It starts with a childhood cricket match where his "uncle" plays in a kids vs. dads game, gets everyone pissed but still manages the catch of the game.

Moves on to recent time where Winklers loating of his co workers is exceptionally well (and funnily) written. There is a character who is so Pierre it is untrue. Very, very funny.

He has a chance meeting with a jew fella who survived the holocaust and tells his sombre story of joing the resistence and killing indiscriminately. and interesting turn for a comedy book to take.

this liberate Winkler - he resuces a blind girl from attack but then proceeds to wank in front of her - has a sex sessions with an antipodean that made the bad sex fiction awards and pushes a fat woman under a train. Then he gets charged with the murder of the bling girl and reality and fiction get blurred - did his sex session happen - did he kill the girl. it all gets muddled for him.

Enter two hilarious policemen and his eventual acquital.

Some sections of this book are the funniest things I have ever read and Coren has created a memorable charachter much in the vein of "Strutter". He says things you have probably thought.

As a comedy it has a lot of seriouis points about identity and history to make and is brave enough to re-invent itself several times through the course of the book - eventually pulling everything back around.

A real success.

[Vicky Cornelius · Rating 1 out of 5]

I recently come across this book - no pun intended - and have decided to write a quick review in the style of my favourite passage in the book, by that I mean to use just one really long sentence: I want to start by making it clear that I generally prefer books written by men - it's not a conscious choice but seems to be an unconscious one - so I am in no way prejudice about male authors: that being said (and I want to add at this point I'm really struggling with the one sentence) this man should never claim to be an author - his writing is horrid and he should be grateful to have been awarded a bad sex award, as he'd not be eligible for any others. Unlike Zorro.

[Marie McAnnerary]

It's not just that the book needs editing, the Point of View is confusing, and it is ragged. It is also that this book is a monument to entitlement. It would never have got an advance of 30k and been taken up by a major publishing house had Coren not benefited from the nepotism that allowed him to get a cushy gig writing columns in the first place. That then led to the profile that led to this book being accepted. Think I'm exaggerating and Coren got the publishing contract because of his skill as writer? Read this and the books reviews. Shortlist called it the worst entry to win the Bad Sex Awards ever. The books awfulness has almost become famed, given a sex scene ending with the words 'and Zorro.'

Coren of course would find all this very lovable but this book was an opportunity he then squandered by not editing the book properly. Why would he not edit the book properly? Why would he squander such opportunities with sheer laziness? Because he feels entitled to such opportunities, as his career widely evidences. You won't see millennials get 30K for their bad novels, because Coren epitomises Boomer entitlement ('Oh no! My Jaguar got stolen again! he cries) masquerading spoilt child tantrums as charisma when really it's just all part of the under developed mind that spawned this thing.

And the real tragedy? For all that self-loathing male baby boomers like Coren (and Johnson, and Clarkson) benefited from the type of economics, not least in publishing, that the rest of us will never see again. They are also, for all this luxury, deeply unhappy people. Winkler (Coren) is full of rage, racial resentment, anal obsession. I'd say give this a wide berth but in its great wisdom the world of literature already did.

[Peter Rowe · Rating 2 out of 5]

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