Allan's review

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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/587638.Gentlemen_of_the_Road_A_Tale_of_Adventure?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1189135103m/587638.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/587638.Gentlemen_of_the_Road_A_Tale_of_Adventure?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2715.Michael_Chabon">Michael Chabon</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/13362658?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>I enjoyed reading this book, although I have to say it is not the best Michael Chabon book I've ever read. <br/>It does a great job of putting the reader in a place and time and mindset that she has probably never experienced. <br/>The vocabulary, though, is a bit of a stumbling block. A lot of the words, because they are so culturally bound, were almost impossible to understand even given the context. After looking things up here and there, though, it began to make a lot more sense. <br/>And a lot of the time I felt a little like I was wriggling around in the book hoping to find something solid to grasp onto. So I'm wondering if I go back and read it again whether or not I will pick up on more than I did before. A couple of times I felt like he was talking about new characters, but really he was describing a character that we already knew, but they were in disguise or something. It was a little like I had a blindfold on while being pushed around in a foggy Golden Gate Park. It's somewhat familiar, but I know it's possible that I could get lost in there even in daylight... <br/>It's still beautifully written, though. The rhythm and song of Chabon's prose are never lacking. He lives up to any previous expectations he has created by his other books. <br/>Only, then, at the end, he goes into this pretentious long-winded explanation of why he wrote it and why it's different than any other story he has ever written. It was unnecessary... because at the very least, this would be the one thing that the reader would notice. <br/>I wouldn't recommend it as a first Chabon experience... but after you've read a couple, read this one, too. And skip the Afterword. :) <br/> <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/696604?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>