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43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Chosen Frozen, 6 July 2007
The novel supposes that in 1940 the American Congress had passed the Sitka Settlement Act to allow the persecuted Jews of Europe to seek refuge, for an interim period of sixty years, in the newly created autonomous `federal district' of Sitka on Baranof Island, which my atlas tells me is a narrow sliver, about 100 miles long and 25 miles wide, in the south-eastern tail of Alaska. But it was a kind of ghetto: to appease the American public, the Act prohibited the refugees from moving off the island. A trickle of Jews, mainly from Germany and Poland, are supposed to have arrived there soon afterwards, to be joined after the war by a flood of Displaced Persons and other Jews who could not go to Israel, because that state is supposed to have been snuffed out by the Arabs after only three months. After the sixty years were up, Sitka was to `revert' to become part of Alaska and the Jews of Sitka were supposed to find somewhere else to go. By that time Sitka had a population of two million and had acquired a thoroughly Yiddish character, with Yiddish names for shops, districts and public buildings, Yiddish (secular) cops and Yiddish (religious) gangsters - all to the resentment of the original inhabitants of the area, the Tlingit Indian tribe. The book opens as the date of the `Reversion' draws near.
Meyer Landsman is a Yiddish police detective who has not been very effective in the past and now has to solve a murder. That genre is not unfamiliar, nor, especially in American fiction, is the laconic dialogue. But here the text is sprinkled with Yiddish words, whose meaning the non-Yiddish speaker can usually, but not always, work out. Yiddish has many wonderful curses, but sometimes only American four letter words will do. The humour has a Yiddish flavour, and the author's own English is full of wisecracks and of immensely inventive and vivid similes. The setting - especially among the ultra-orthodox `black hats' - is very atmospheric.
Landsman does eventually unravel the murder mystery, though in the process he stumbles into and escapes from some tight corners that cry out to be made into a movie.
It's not always an easy read, partly because of the extreme complexities of the plot, but also because Chabon's narrative technique, for all its humour and raciness, is sometimes more opaque than I think it needs to be. Oh, and there's just one brief and insignificant reference to the Policemen's Union of the title.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Frustrating, 30 April 2008
Kavalier & Clay is one of my all time favourite books, and when this came out I pounced on it in eager anticipation of a fabulous read. I have to say I was slightly disappointed. Chabon's story telling style is still epic and at times very funny, even in a fairly bleak book like this and there were moments of great beauty and insight that made me light up inside and go 'oooh', but on the whole it was incredibly hard work.
The story revolves around the idea that part of Alaska has been ceded to the dispossessed Jews after WWII on the proviso that they only have it for sixty years and when that time is up they have to find somewhere else to go. The story starts just as the lease is about to expire. Meyer Landsman, a Jewish cop, has made a mess of his life and is living on vodka and cigarettes in a flophouse. A body in the same hostel turns his life around as he races to discover the murderer against the political clock ticking loudly in the background.
The basic cop story is traditional but done with this Jewish Noir twist that makes it extraordinary. It was however, extremely hard work if you are not Jewish or don't know much about Jewish life and lore, which I don't. There were quite a few things I didn't understand and which rather than break the flow and keep looking up every five minutes I decided to hope would become explicable as the book moved on. Some do, some don't, but it was quite frustrating, at times like reading a book in another language altogether.
Because of this it took me a long time to get into the story and I didn't really pick up the pace until nearly half way through. It's testament to Chabon's ability that I stuck with it that long, as with other books I would have been tempted to give up. As it is, the plot pulls you along nicely to the end and things become a lot more understandable as the book goes on.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stylish Thriller, Unique Setting, 19 Mar 2008
The central character in this book is a drink dependant, divorced cop, who has problems with authority. So far so hackneyed; but Meyer Landsman's beat is in Sitka, Alaska; a Jewish homeland set up in 1948. Israel as we know it does not exist.
Interested? Well you should be.
Firstly, this is an excellent piece of detective fiction; the plot is intricate and the characters are well rounded and believable. In addition to an excellent story, the action takes in a beautifully realised alternate reality. Landsman's Alaskan homeland feels as though it exists somewhere more solid than in the Michael Chabon's imagination. This is counter-factual story telling at its best.
Chabon's writing style is heavy with metaphor, which I take as a positive but I imagine for some may become wearisome. I did find the novel a little difficult to feel my way into. The author often uses twenty words to describe something when fewer would have sufficed. The novel also contains many Jewish terms. Since I'm not Jewish, I found this broke up the narrative flow as I had to decipher what was meant by a particular word or phrase. As I become used to the style, I found that, like reading the subtitles to a good foreign film, it soon ceased to matter.
Perhaps the book's most remarkable feature is that despite being set in an entirely fictitious world, it deals sensitively with issues facing the Jewish diaspora in this world and the divisions within the holy land. Chabon really seems to have a handle on the strengths and frailties of the Jewish psyche. All of this makes the Yiddish Policemen's Union a memorable piece of crime fiction and a truly exceptional novel.
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