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Dec 16, 2009

Anne rated it:

"I don't care what is written," Meyer Landsman says. "I don't care what supposedly got promised to some sandal-wearing idiot whose claim to fame is that he was ready to cut his own son's throat for the sake of a hare-brained idea. I don't care about red heifers and patriarchs and locusts. A bunch of old bones in the sand. My homeland is in my hat. It's in my ex-wife's tote bag."

The Yiddish Policeman's Union is one of those rare, rare novels of ideas that is also c More...

3 comments like (45 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2012

mp rated it:

When I think of The Yiddish Policemen's Union, I can picture a complacent Chabon spending a lot of time patting his own back when writing this book. If he can come up with three ornamental ways to portray one thing, he includes all three of them in the book. He seems mighty pleased with his writing and probably believes in sharing his beautiful mind with everyone. He will leave you sitting on the edge of your seat with suspense, to furnish a leisurely description of the setting before moving on. More...

5 comments like (20 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2008

Edan rated it:

You know that fashion rule where, before you leave the house, you're supposed to quickly turn to a mirror and then take off the first accessory that catches your eye? Well, I feel like Chabon should have done that with his prose, which is sometimes so ridiculously overwritten and boastful that it ruined an otherwise pretty interesting story.

With some writers, I want them to put on another accessory or two--please, would some bangle bracelets kill you?--but with Chabon I'm like, Dud More...

13 comments like (46 people liked it)

Mar 17, 2009

Lena rated it:

When I first heard about this novel, I found its premise too fascinating to resist: it's a noir-inspired murder mystery set in an alternate universe in which refugees from the failed state of Israel are living in a section of Alaska temporarily loaned to them by the US government. At the beginning of Chabon's novel, their lease on this land is about to expire, signs of the messiah's imminent arrival are accumulating, and a dead man has inconveniently turned up in the fleabag hotel of broken dow More...

10 comments like (22 people liked it)

Sep 16, 2010

Alex rated it:

THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION BY MICHAEL CHABON: 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 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 More...

3 comments like (10 people liked it)

Feb 22, 2012

Cassy rated it:

1. Chess
2. Police investigations
3. Judaism (Yiddish, red cows, those little hats)
4. Alaska

I don’t know much about any of these topics. And honestly, only the last one piques my interest. Which meant from page one, it was going to be an uphill battle for Chabon.

And he lost the battle. I mean he was slaughtered on that hill.

Now that I have finished the book, I have negative interest in items 1 to 3. I am still curious about Alaska. Yet once i More...

4 comments like (8 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2008

Sandi rated it:

I picked up a copy of “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” by Michael Chabon purely out of curiosity. This novel was nominated for, and won, the prestigious Hugo Award. The Hugo Award is for outstanding science fiction and I have never seen “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” on the science fiction/fantasy bookshelves in any bookstore. It’s only been in the mainstream fiction section. Now that I’ve read it, I still don’t understand how it won the Hugo. True, it is an alternate history; but it’s a so More...

7 comments like (19 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2008

Kersplebedeb rated it:

Imagine a crazy world in which, following the Holocaust, Jewish survivors languished in DP camps in Europe, were often still barred or discouraged from immigrating to the various "democracies", and found themselves pushed into emigrating to the Middle East where, through a variety of historical coincidences, they founded a new society based on dispossessing the indigenous Arabs and acting as imperialism's pit bulls in the region.

That's the crazy world we do live in.

More...

3 comments like (19 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2007

Deidra rated it:

Had a pretty lengthy review, which was deleted when I made the mistake of changing the shelf. Yeah, I don't get it either.

Long story short: I still don't get why Michael Chabon is supposed to be one of the great writers of the 21st century. "Wonder Boys" was an enjoyable read. Nothing life-changing, but smart, fast, and chock full of quirky characters.

"Kavalier & Clay"....not so good. I am a fan of the comics industry, and I have to say the beginning More...

3 comments like (15 people liked it)

Oct 30, 2010

Emma rated it:

Jews, Alaska, chess, and murder: usually these subjects don’t have much in common. That's until you read Michael Chabon’s new novel “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” where these elements come together to create the core of this quirky noir story.

Chabon’s novel is based on an interesting conceit: What if Jews had not been able to settle in Israel after World War II and, instead, were granted temporary residency on the Alaskan panhandle?

The original plan was set into motion More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

May 15, 2007

Sam rated it:

Michael Chabon's latest novel manages to be both painfully specific (add [www.yiddishdictionaryonline.com] to your bookmarks list if you're going to read it) and generously engaging. Even with the chill of both murder and the Alaskan setting weighing down the proceedings, Chabon's hero Meyer Landsman gives off an unaccountable, wonderful warmth.

It doesn't hurt, either, that the writer's prose gets better and better with each successive novel. Chabon has championed genre fiction in in More...

7 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2009

Logan rated it:

This is a book that I didn't want to read. Once I actually acquired a copy it sat mouldering on my shelves for over a year before I got to it. Having only read Kavalier & Clay and having been only mildly whelmed by it, it didn't call to me at all. Then, madness of madnesses, it was not only nominated for, but won the Hugo Award, even when stacked up against such brilliant scifi writers as Ian McDonald and Charles Stross. Upset doesn't begin to describe my reaction. How dare this dabbler in More...

11 comments like (12 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2008

This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For rated it:

The one thing I kept thinking while reading this was Arkady Renko - if the story took place in Moscow and the protagonist's name was changed to Arkady Renko (the protagonist from Martin Cruz Smith's "Gorky Park" and related books) I don't think I would have noticed the difference. (Ok, the whole Yiddish thing would have been out of place, but otherwise...) The similarities were rather overwhelming.

All of that being said, The Yiddish Policemen's Union was a good read. In an More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2008

Damian rated it:

I usually bias my ratings to a 2 or a 4. A 3 just says "average" which isn't much help to folks looking for a good book to read. In the case of the Yiddish Policemen's Union I was so torn that I ended up sitting on the fence. I loved the concept: After the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel, the Jewish people are given a "temporary" safe haven in Alaska. I was annoyed by the lack of an understandable plot. I mean there's a plot of course More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 22, 2007

Clidston rated it:

Wow, this is a hell of a book. The prose style is ravishing - Chabon is definitely a maximalist. His language is virtuosic, full of pyrotechnics and equally in love with the idiom of hard-boiled detective fiction and with Yiddish. It blows you away, and it's also funny.
The world that Chabon creates - the federal district of Sitka, Alaska which became a temporary Jewish homeland after the Holocaust and the collapse of Israel in 1948 - is so thoroughly, magnificently detailed that you nev More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Kate rated it:

This book was an impressively-realized disappointment.

The entire way through, I couldn't stop thinking that Chabon had lent his extraordinary talent to the wrong cause. Although his noir is quite good, it's simply not his native language, and it shows. Chabon is so much more expressive than this mode of writing allows.

Furthermore, and this was a new experience for me with regards to Chabon, I couldn't muster any feeling for the characters, who were so clearly imaginary, More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2009

Manny rated it:

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 lov More...

3 comments like (16 people liked it)

Feb 21, 2009

Jamie rated it:

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 More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2011

Matt rated it:

And I thought Jonathan Lethem was the king of alternative noir detective novels (and in my book he still is..)

Writers love the noir detective genre. One of these days I am going to have to try and read Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and try to figure out what the appeal is.

This book may be more appealing to Jewish Americans as it takes place in an alternate universe where somehow Israel just didn’t work and the Jewish people find themselves in Alaska. They can’t More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2008

Alan rated it:

On one level, this book is a standard detective story, with nods to noir film and at least one name-check for Raymond Chandler. The protagonist is a hard-drinking policeman who cracks wise and has trouble with dames (well, at least one dame), and takes an enormous amount of physical abuse in the course of performing his duties... duties which he often defines more broadly than his supervisors really expect. Sound familiar?

On another level, it's a science fiction novel, taking for More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2008

Colinski rated it:

OK, so it's certainly not the first hard-boiled detective novel set in an alternate reality. But what an inventive reality! Chabon created a parallel Earth that almost could have been. In the book's universe, a couple key events went very differently then they had in our own.

In 1940, there was a brief proposal from the Roosevelt administration to allow European Jews to emigrate to Alaska to escape the Nazis. In Chabon's universe, that proposal went through, in part thanks for an acci More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2007

Marie rated it:

I read this for an upcoming book club meeting - it's not the kind of story I'd usually go for. I found the writing style difficult and cumbersome. Chabon's constant similes are tedious and clumsy, and although I understand that the Jewish/Yiddish vocabulary was necessary to the themes of the book, I was stumbling over them, trying to pronounce them in my head or ask people what they meant. I got tired of the characters unmercifully belittling and insulting each other. Characters truly so bit More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 28, 2007

John rated it:

It’s an alternative history novel about Jews in the 20th century that makes more references to Cuban politics than to the Holocaust. It’s a book with a rich use of language that references Looney Tunes more than it references William Shakespeare. It’s a hardboiled crime and conspiracy novel after the hearts of old detective stories, and one you read for the language. Chabon shamelessly abducts the world-weary, overindulgent prose of that genre from the 50’s and 60’s to explore the English langua More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 10, 2008

Tim rated it:

I really liked the start of this book. It was cruising along, likable characters, good depth, great backstories that were doled out just right. Up until the last hundred pages or so I was loving it. Then we get into this messianic world changing conspiracy thing. OK, the book is set in an alternate universe, so I guess changing the world id allowed and expected. Still, for some reason I was put off by the conspiracy. I'm conflicted about it. I still think the book is really well written and almo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 16, 2008

Tim rated it:

Michael Chabon is just a wonderful author and his new book is just as entertaining as his earlier stuff like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Wonder Boys. Okay, so I'm a huge, dorky fanboy, so shoot me - and go read this book.

For me, The Yiddish Policeman's Union worked on all levels of writing: Chabon writes hilarious one-liners and enjoyable characters, he knows the ins and outs of the hard-boiled detective genre and using these building blocks he constructed a t More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2009

Amy marked it as to-read

Hm. I just finished Kavalier & Clay, the only book of Chabon's I've read, and I loved it. So I went over to this book, thinking to add it, and the first review I started began with this godawful quote from a main character:

"I don't care what is written. I don't care what supposedly got promised to some sandal-wearing idiot whose claim to fame is that he was ready to cut his own son's throat for the sake of a hare-brained idea. I don't care about red heifers and patriarchs and More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 12, 2009

Mommalibrarian rated it:

The beginning of the Yiddish Policemen's Unionthe author weaves a very convoluted, involved and interesting world. Like the shetles of Eastern Europe, a portion of the Jewish diaspora is living in tight quarters around Sitka, Alaska. The story was so believable I did a couple of web searches to find out why I had never known of this before. The characters speech is dotted with Yiddish words. The smells, the dress and the foods make for an immerse experience.

Then, two thirds of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 27, 2009

Isis rated it:

I adored this book, which could have been written just for me. First, I am a big fan of alternate histories and sf that takes just a slight tangent from reality. Second, I am the granddaughter of Czech Jews who fled to Palestine, and the daughter of an Israeli - their son, who at 16 fought for independence in 1948. This could be my alternate history! Third, I am a great lover of books which are structured like architecture, with every beam an indispensable support, and each element depending More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2008

Dana rated it:

I wanted to be a good reader, I wanted to give it a good chance and not pick nits because it wasn't written by an Alaskan. But I just. couldn't. trudge. through the prose. So, yet again, I feel out of step with everyone I know, who all loved the book and demanded I read it. Sigh.

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2009

Lisa rated it:

I bought this for my husband, than quickly took it away to read myself. He can wait, though I know he will relate to the part of a slivovitz-drinking detective guy. This is gritty and dark. Not usually a fan of noir, I liked this very much. The characters are interesting, the elements of chess and the many levels of Judaism complex. We had a family friend from Torrance (Torrance! dude, you are from Torrance!) who became an ultra-orthodox Jew. I mean, moved to Israel, arranged marriage, the works More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

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