Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

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

3 reviews

filia_secunda's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Very fun old-fashioned historical adventure (think Kim by Rudyard Kipling or Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson), written with some new-fashioned ideas that rarely feel out-of-place or annoying. You can tell the author has done his research, and he may be stretching history a bit but isn't breaking it. If you accept the right historical theories it's really possible that these wacky far-flung characters could all meet, all adventure together, and all be Jewish. Loved the prose too - it's the long ornate sentences that are proper for this kind of old-timey action-adventure novel, and it rarely has the clumsiness it might have in the hands of some modern-day writers. The author's afterword where he talks about the nature of adventure, the confusion some people felt at a "literary" author writing a book like this, and the reactions to thebook's working title (Jews with Swords) is to die for.
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a1exander's review against another edition

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adventurous funny relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

This is a very short book. I don't know how many pages it has (The StoryGraph says 204, but they're not always accurate with page counts), but the unabridged audiobook was just over four hours long. (For context, most audiobooks are in the 10-14 hour range.) I listened to it in one go between starting work and my lunch break. 

Audio may not have been the best format to read, since I couldn't keep most of the names straight. I was about halfway through the book before I realized that one of the names being thrown around was not a third adventurer who never said anything, but in fact the name of Zelikman's horse. 

It was an interesting story. Zelikman and Amram are "gentlemen of the road" - thieves, con men, and mercenaries for hire as the opportunity presents, traveling across the Khazar Empire and accidentally getting wrapped up in trying to help the rightful heir to the empire get back on the throne. From what I can tell from a brief look through Wikipedia, it was pretty historically accurate, and having the backdrop of a great Jewish empire while the two main characters fought, survived, and maintained a strong friendship was really cool. The best way I can describe the mood of this book is to compare it to The Walking Drum - except, you know, actually good. 

I did enjoy the story, and despite having a hard time keeping track of the names I followed the plot pretty well. However, I think I missed a lot of details reading it as an audiobook, so I might come back to it later as a physical book and try to catch what I missed. It would be worth it. 
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