The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.) by Michael Chabon
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Book Reviews of The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)
Book Review: "Yiddish Policeman's Union" (From BookBanter)
Summary: 4 Stars
Michael Chabon is a writer that many other writers are envious of: he's young, he's brilliant, and his books will undoubtedly survive long after his is gone. Pulitzer Prize winner for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay aside, Chabon's writing seems almost effortless, but is pure craft and magic. Unlike John Irving, who plots out the complete story beforehand, and then meticulously crafts each sentence and paragraph to be perfect (which is why he can take up to five years to finish a book), Chabon has both the story and ability from the start in creating his piece of art.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, like his other books, takes you to a place you never could've imagined. In this alternate reality, during the time of the Second World War, two million Jews are transported from Germany to Alaska, where they create their own small civilization meshed in the bitterness of their treatment in Germany and their treatment in Alaska, a cold and distant place from the contiguous United States. The main city is known as Sitka, but there is little independence, and any whisperings of nationalization are immediately quashed. Yiddish is the primary language, with very little American spoken. Little happens in this people's history from World War II to the present, other than a pathetic World's Fair that now only retains the constant reminder of the reaching stone structure known as the Safety Pin. Sitka is not a happy place for anyone, as they dream of Zion and their return to their true home.
Landsman is our main character, a policeman who's been in the service for many years but has little to show for it, apart from a trashed hotel room, a failed marriage, a dead sister, and his own depression over the state of his life. And it is then that he finds out about the dead body in the room nearby. A man has been murdered and the case begins. With his partner, Landsman travels around the area, picking up clues, and trying to piece together the ever-growingly complex case. At the same time, his ex-wife returns to the precinct now as his boss, with the news that big changes are happening and all outstanding cases must be dealt with post haste. But as Landsmen digs deeper, he finds a larger plot taking place, involving more bodies, and more importantly the death of his sister. The pressure increases from important people in high places, as Landsman with the help of his partner and ex-wife - who he is growing close to again - get closer and closer to the truth.
While my hope is that Chabon will return to this incredibly developed world in future stories, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is nevertheless a thrilling mystery: a Sherlock Holmes case with a Jewish twist, that keeps the reader hanging on until the end when the case is solved, and everyone seems happy. However, the state of Sitka and these many homeless Jews remains in jeopardy, to be resolved perhaps at a later date.
Originally written on April 29th, 2007 ŠAlex C. Telander.
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Book Review: a strange time
Summary: 4 Stars
The key phrase 'It's a strange time to be a Jews' repeats itself in the words and minds of several characters of Chabon's book. It's a time of challenge for Jews again, at the start of the 3rd millenium and 50 years after the State of Israel was destroyed in it's failed war of independence in 1948.
As with Philip Roth's 'The Plot Against America' this apparently detective story that proposes an alternate historical world starting from historical premises. In 1940 some politician and Jewish circles considered creating a heaven for the imperiled European Jews in Alaska. The plan never became true but in Chabon's book where following the imaginary loss of the war of Independence by Jews in Palestine the US government lends for half a century a part of Alaska for the Jewish refugees of Palestine and Europe, in an environment dominated by the yidish language and customs of Eastern Europe shtetls. However this loan is temporary and the crime story imagined by Chabon takes place in the last months before the Reversion of the sovereignty of the area to full American control. Jews seem again destined to start wandering over the planet as a people without home.
The Jewish home in Alaska is a desert of another kind, a frozen one. The main character is a yid policeman named Meyer Landsman, who may look like a Chandler character if his gun was not called a 'sholem', if his mobile phone did not bear the Shoyfer brand and if his after work drinks were not shlibowitz sipped at the Polar Shtern. It is in this realistic to detail rendition of an imaginary word weaved from Chandler and Bashevis-Singer materials were much of the charm of this book is to be found. Yet, the serious undertones of the book are all over, in the questions asked about Jewish identity and the fate of Jews in the modern world and in the too many similarities between the Frozen Chosen country and Israel - difficult accomodation up to conflict with a native population sharing the land, internal disputes between religious and secular Jews and the tendency of solving the political problems through violence.
I will not say much more about the story. Chabon succeeded to write a good book, satisfactory for the crime stories readers but also for people who do not want to leave apart the current problems of importance when choosing their readings, or who are looking in literature for characters to care about or identify with. Chabon's book just shows once again that good literature does not fit well into rules or genres categorizations.
Book Review: A mixed success
Summary: 4 Stars
***1/2
The Yiddish Policemen's Union is set in an alternate universe in which millions of Jews live on the Alaska panhandle, thanks to a World War II resettlement program that almost happened in our world, but didn't. It's the early 2000s and the "temporary" settlement is about to revert to US control, leaving "the frozen chosen" once again without a homeland (a past attempt to found Israel failed). The book's protagonist, a down-on-his-luck detective in classic noir form, however, has other problems, not the least of which is a strange murder case...
Chabon's novel is very ambitious, juggling a parallel world, a complicated plot, personal relationships, messiahs, end-time conspiracies, and explorations of what it means to be a Jew. On the world-development front, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is brilliant, its reality feeling lived-in and alive, right down to its many humorous quirks. Chabon makes it easy to imagine the Sitka settlement as something that could have been, complete with a seedy flophouse district, a network of underground tunnels built by World War Two survivors who didn't trust the US, tensions between Jews and native Americans, and its own Yiddish slang.
On other fronts, the book is a little less successful. Chabon commitment to writing a hard-boiled crime story is an inspired style choice at the beginning of the book, but feels like more and more of a distraction as it progresses, especially from character development. The convoluted plot also becomes unwieldy, with Chabon racing tediously from scene to scene in the latter part of the novel just to bring all the threads to their semi-satisfying resolution, at the expense of the sense of immersion that made the first half of the book so fun. And the scheme to take over the Holy Land, which involves a conspiracy between a Hassidic sect and the United States government, seems a bit absurd, at least in terms of logistics.
Still, the detective and conspiracy stories are only a layer of the novel, whose strong aspects overcome its weaker ones. The premise is imaginative and well-realized, and full of interesting implicit commentary on our own world. Even if Chabon doesn't quite pull all the parts together, there aren't many writers talented enough to have made such an effort in the first place.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the film version turns out in the hands of the Coen Brothers.
Book Review: Chabon does it!
Summary: 4 Stars
Back when I read Wonder Boys I was smitten with Chabon's prose. But, I kept being unhappy with the book. It took awhile to figure out why: Chabon's hero and the plot itself were simply so pedestrian as to be unequal to, and undeserving of a writer of his ability. As a fiction writer myself, I kept wondering why Chabon felt that his main character deserved a novel to himself! We fiction writers are Gods of a sort. We can create and destory characters at whim. A boring characater simply cannot be allow to live. And no matter how much I loved the writing itself, the character, and the plot, bored me. I had never encountered this before and it was confusing. I then read his short story collection and again felt like the language was amazing but the ideas behind the stories...not so much.
Well, lo and behold I picked up Yiddish Policemens Union just recently and was surprised and very pleased. The epic nature of the story was, to my mind, well-suited to the writer's brilliant prose. I know Chabon likes plot, and genre, and so he did this as a detective story. To me, that was neither here nor there. Once he had his setting, and his characters, and his entire communities and histories, he really could have done anything he wanted vis a vis plot, and kept me reading. I can see how true lovers of mysteries would be disappointed at the pace. But, hell, I read Proust, which has NO plot and I am fine with it. In fact, the mystery in this novel was entirely secondary to me.
My only complaint is still about his choice of main character. Landsman is too much of the stereotypical washed out, alcoholic detective even though he is Jewish, living in Alaska, etc. Just about every other character, including those who appear only once, was more interesting than Landsman.
What I love about Chabon's writing is that he is unafraid to write the lush prose he writes. There's something almost old-fashioned about it, too. I think it is because once upon a time a writer was expected to be creative with language and didn't hesitate to do so, and wasn't apologetic for it. So much contemporary writing just exists to serve the plot. If plot is what I want, I can watch TV or go to the movies. If I am going READ, I want interesting language also. And that's when I turn to Chabon.
Book Review: union of humor and mystery
Summary: 4 Stars
In Michael Chabon's alternate universe, several million Jews inhabit Sitka, Alaska, thanks to the fall of Israel in 1948. Their days are numbered, though, because their land is soon to revert back to the U.S. government, and everyone is scrambling to apply to stay. In the meantime, our protagonist, a stereotypical overweight, alcoholic, divorced cop, Meyer Landsman, now reports to his ex-wife Bina, for whom he carries a well-lit torch. Among the "frozen Chosen" are a group of Orthodox Mafiosi, who may be responsible for the death of a junkie chess player in the same sleazy hotel where Landsman lives. I had procrastinated about reading this book because of its reputation for a smattering of Yiddish. However, there was a lot more that I, with my WASP heritage, was in the dark about than just the language. In fact, what bothered me most was that Chabon is a little smug and arrogant as he tosses around Biblical references and whatnot, so much so that, in the end, I didn't totally follow who did what to whom, especially the U.S. government. I did get the general gist of it, though, and that was sufficient. The metaphors are a dime a dozen but all spot-on, although sometimes I had to read them twice. The dialog is colorful and sometimes so sarcastic that it's hard to know who are friends and who are enemies, and sometime the line is just intentionally blurred, as with Inspector Willie Dick (the names!), a small man whose accoutrements are all 2/3 normal size. To me, although a lot happens, this book is more about the over-the-top playful and rather rambunctious style than the plot. It brings to mind the old noir detective stories with their perfunctory telling of events but in this case also with a raucous sense of humor. There's one particularly funny scene in which Landsman and his partner join his partner's father for a homemade dinner of moose chili, moose quiche, and moose meatballs--just before the old man tries to off himself.