About this title: The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" pens an homage to the stylish menace of 1940s noir, in a novel that imagines if Alaska, not Israel, had become the homeland for the Jews after World War II.
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Description: Acceptable. Ex-Library Copy. Stickers on front/back cover and spine. Stamps on inside label. Otherwise in good reading condition. read more
Description: Acceptable. Book is in good reading condition. Cover has wear at edges and corners. Spine has wear at edges. Dust jacket has some wear. read more
Description: Good. A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dustcover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "from the library of" labels. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Acceptable. Book is in good reading condition. Cover has wear at edges and corners, and may have creases. Spine has wear at edges and creases. read more
"I not only really wanted to like The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon, I expected to love it. Chabon is one of my favorite authors, and Kavalier and Clay is a true masterpiece. However, his latest novel is a far cry from, really, any of his previous works.
An alternate-history book that will draw inevitable comparisons to Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, Chabon envisions a world where, as FDR actually suggested (which I didn’t know) that a Jewish settlement be located in Alaska. Derisively called the “frozen Chosen” by Americans (referred to as “our neighbors in the South” by the locals), the area is due to be returned to America, and the Jews are due to go…somewhere.
“It’s a strange time to be a Jew,” almost every character states at one point or another, and indeed it’s true. This is the backdrop to the novel, which in most respects is – or attempts to be – a hardboiled detective story.
Our Mickey Spillane is a policeman named Meyer Landsman, a beaten-down shell of his former self, who spends his nights drunk and contemplating suicide. One morning, he’s called to investigate the murder of someone also living in his fleabag hotel.
I’d get into the story, which involves several different sects of Jews, chess and the Holy Land…but it’s really hard for me to do that. The book feels far too clever for its own good, and at several times Chabon refers back to characters who I barely remembered – who turn out to be incredibly important and relevant. In the zeal to keep this alternative history “real,” Chabon can’t draw out a historical review, so characters casually refer to things, in Yiddish slang no less, that take several repetitions to make sense. Many characters have similar, unfamiliar Eastern European names, and the way their roles intertwine gets more confusing as the book progresses, until perhaps the last third of the book.
Perhaps most disappointingly, the book seems to explain itself towards the end in two somewhat cheap ways – through a flashback, and then by Landsman suddenly figuring a key component out in the last few pages. It feels beneath an author as brilliantly talented as Chabon, and while there’s no denying it’s a good book, it’s far from a great one. I didn’t much care for most of the characters, but I perservered because it was Chabon, and also because I did want to see the story play out…which it only sort of does.
All in all, a disappointment, and a book I couldn’t honestly recommend."
"I love Chabon's prose, but I can't read it for more than an hour at a stretch because it's exhausting. His writing is very sensual; he wants you to taste and smell and visualize every scene. There are no throwaway, transitory sentences and no wasted opportunities for a vivid metaphor. Normally I don't have the patience for that kind of florid writing and admittedly it could be distracting sometimes. I was often pulled out of the story when I paused to admire the turn of a phrase. I can certainly see where his writing would put some people off, but I enjoy it as long as I can take frequent breaks from it. I wouldn't want to be trapped on an airplane for several hours with nothing but a Chabon book to read.
This novel is an alternate history with a small supernatural element. It will possibly be mysterious in spots if you don't have at least a slight familiarity with Jewish traditions. I looked up several Yiddish words, but by the end of the book I was comfortable with the slang.
The first half of the book is excellent, but the second half didn't quite live up to my expectations. I loved the character development, I was satisfied with the resolution of the murder mystery and with the disposition of the main characters, but the handling of the larger plot was rather vague and unsatisfying. This was still a very good read."
"My father's family is Polish-Jewish. My paternal grandmother was fluent in Yiddish, and whenever I see my parents they talk incessantly about Israeli politics. I must have read at least half of Isaac Bashevis Singer at one time or another. Also, I'm a chess player. I even knew the chess problem in question, and had read Nabokov's explanation in Speak, Memory of his thought processes as he constructed it.
So how would it be possible for me not to love this book? But my reasons for loving it are sufficiently unusual that I won't try to convince anyone else that they're necessarily going to feel the same way. Me and The Yiddish Policeman's Union just happen to be made for each other, and we're very happy together."
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