Book 25: The Yiddish Policemen's Union

TITLE: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
AUTHOR: Michael Chabon
STARTED: April 27, 2008
FINISHED: May 5, 2008
PAGES: 414
GENRE: Fiction

FIRST SENTENCE: Nine month's Landsman's been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered.

SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown.

But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life—and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage—and with theunfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears.

THOUGHTS: When this book won our May selection for the book club, I did a little dance. The premise sounded amazing, the narrative style sounded entertaining and different, and I've heard nothing but beauty flows from Chabon's pen. This book had the makings of greatness... and I HATED it. The plot was fantastic. The style of writing was even decent. The tone of the book, however, made me loathe having to finish it. Instead of coming across as a work of genius, I was whacked over the head with a sense of Chabon saying "Look how awesome I am."

From the first page, this book felt smarmy. It felt as if Chabon was trying to prove to me how much smarter than me he is. I'm all for an author being smart than me. In fact, I like it. What I don't like is when an author feels like he has to impress me with his innovations and rarely-seen narrative style. If it wasn't for that tone, this book would have been a spectacular read. Instead, I found myself rolling my eyes and trying not to fling the book against a wall.

While I was unable to put the tone aside while reading, I can still appreciate some qualities of this book. Chabon does do a good job of creating a world. The setting, for me, was the best part of this book. I could clearly see the landscape and the emotion of the characters that pervaded it. The noire style of writing felt gritty and, despite my loathing, was well paced. The wrapping up of the overall mystery felt rushed and a bit of a let-down, but the story idea as a whole, was at least thought provoking.

If only Chabon didn't sound like he wanted to be fawn over his greatness... then maybe, just maybe I could have stood reading this book.

RATING:2/10 [Awful]

Comments

Anonymous said…
How can you like the world building without liking the style? The one goes with the other... you can't convey a bitter, cold, uninviting world without using a style that sets you back a little bit.
In fact, I agree that he's much smarter than I do; but I like the effort he puts into getting the right word in the right plaes.
Meghan said…
I can like the world building because I see the potential for genius in this book. It wasn't so much the story or world that bothered me, but the tone I perceived from the author.

It's difficult to verbalize exactly how I feel. The best I can say is that I felt Chabon was sitting at his desk, writing this book, and thinking to himself, "I am freaking awesome." And though I am positive that is not the case, that tone of self-imposed greatness that I perceived ruined the book for me.