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Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure
by Michael Chabon

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<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://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> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9952248?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars Reading this directly after Lawrence Block's "Tanner's Twelve Swingers" was quite eye-opening. Unlike Block, who relied on flimsy flash and sex to barrel through his story, Chabon created a complex world for his two Jews with swords - a French Jew (before there was a France) who looks like a scarecrow and a giant Abyssinian black Jew who wields a battle ax called Motherfucker. Sure, it sounds like the stuff of fantasy, but with this little novel, Chabon achieves what only the best fantasy stories can. His world, though immensely removed from our own (I mean, Jews with swords, how crazy can you get? (Chabon makes sure to address the anomaly in his Afterword)), seems much more real than much naturalism that purports to show modern life as it exists. 
 
 The two gentlemen of the road - Zelikman and Amram - take on a task - a quest, if you will - that rewards them less monetarily than politically, and perhaps morally - when they set out to escort a young royal to his grandfather's fortress and out of the way of the new bek's (king's) mercenaries.
 
 The twists and turns of Chabon's tale delight in a rather light manner. This young royal isn't what he at first seems. The relationship between the two unorthodox Jews proves to be comically warm and the political climate of the Near East is much more interesting and varied than one would have thought. Chabon does a good job of showing that ages old fault line where the three masses of men - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - smash into each other with devastating consequences - not that Chabon delves too much into the conflict between the religions, but the obvious rifts are evident.
 
 One of the more interesting political devices in the novel is the structure of the government of Atil - a great massive city-state split down the middle between the Jews and the Muslims - in which the bek rules over the lives of his subjects, but the kagan - a man who lives in a fortress on an island in the delta of Atil and never sees another soul except for his blind servant - tells the bek what to do. Sounds like Cheney and Bush.
 
 A land of elephants, caravans, silk embroidered head gear, daggers, whores (love the whorehouse scenes), and Vikings makes this little book burst. A fun, fun read.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/42934?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Michael's review
rating:

status: Read in December, 2007

Reading this directly after Lawrence Block's "Tanner's Twelve Swingers" was quite eye-opening. Unlike Block, who relied on flimsy flash and sex to barrel through his story, Chabon created a complex world for his two Jews with swords - a French Jew (before there was a France) who looks like a scarecrow and a giant Abyssinian black Jew who wields a battle ax called Motherfucker. Sure, it sounds like the stuff of fantasy, but with this little novel, Chabon achieves what only the best fantasy stories can. His world, though immensely removed from our own (I mean, Jews with swords, how crazy can you get? (Chabon makes sure to address the anomaly in his Afterword)), seems much more real than much naturalism that purports to show modern life as it exists.

The two gentlemen of the road - Zelikman and Amram - take on a task - a quest, if you will - that rewards them less monetarily than politically, and perhaps morally - when they set out to escort a young royal to his grandfat...more Reading this directly after Lawrence Block's "Tanner's Twelve Swingers" was quite eye-opening. Unlike Block, who relied on flimsy flash and sex to barrel through his story, Chabon created a complex world for his two Jews with swords - a French Jew (before there was a France) who looks like a scarecrow and a giant Abyssinian black Jew who wields a battle ax called Motherfucker. Sure, it sounds like the stuff of fantasy, but with this little novel, Chabon achieves what only the best fantasy stories can. His world, though immensely removed from our own (I mean, Jews with swords, how crazy can you get? (Chabon makes sure to address the anomaly in his Afterword)), seems much more real than much naturalism that purports to show modern life as it exists.

The two gentlemen of the road - Zelikman and Amram - take on a task - a quest, if you will - that rewards them less monetarily than politically, and perhaps morally - when they set out to escort a young royal to his grandfather's fortress and out of the way of the new bek's (king's) mercenaries.

The twists and turns of Chabon's tale delight in a rather light manner. This young royal isn't what he at first seems. The relationship between the two unorthodox Jews proves to be comically warm and the political climate of the Near East is much more interesting and varied than one would have thought. Chabon does a good job of showing that ages old fault line where the three masses of men - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - smash into each other with devastating consequences - not that Chabon delves too much into the conflict between the religions, but the obvious rifts are evident.

One of the more interesting political devices in the novel is the structure of the government of Atil - a great massive city-state split down the middle between the Jews and the Muslims - in which the bek rules over the lives of his subjects, but the kagan - a man who lives in a fortress on an island in the delta of Atil and never sees another soul except for his blind servant - tells the bek what to do. Sounds like Cheney and Bush.

A land of elephants, caravans, silk embroidered head gear, daggers, whores (love the whorehouse scenes), and Vikings makes this little book burst. A fun, fun read....less

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