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A review by thealucinaut
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
5.0
4.5 stars!
Impressive world building—from fake languages to fake places to fake histories to fake historical events—and an intriguing story that has truly soaring (and sinking) moments that provide a raw and masterful look into the human soul make up for a book that is times genuinely opaque and somewhat frustrating in its highfalutin reach that can undercut the point it’s making. I appreciate when a book is a puzzle in so many ways, but when prose is so dense that it chunks up the storytelling, at least for this dullard, and especially at the start when I was trying to adjust to the groove of this book, it can be a bit much.
That said, once I was on board I was very on board. Such an enchanting and fascinating twist of the noir detective story!
That said, in the back of the book, Chabon is asked about criticisms regarding his writing of (or even not bothering to include) women, he said something like “yeah that’s something I’ll have to work on.” And I was like…you’ll have to work on trying harder to include women in your book and writing them as full characters? I feel like that might been a good idea before you were at this level! THAT said, I did like Bina in this and wish there was more of her.
I’ll be thinking about this one for a bit, probably, for better or worse. It got under my skin, as tales of schmuck’s who are trying to be better often do.
Impressive world building—from fake languages to fake places to fake histories to fake historical events—and an intriguing story that has truly soaring (and sinking) moments that provide a raw and masterful look into the human soul make up for a book that is times genuinely opaque and somewhat frustrating in its highfalutin reach that can undercut the point it’s making. I appreciate when a book is a puzzle in so many ways, but when prose is so dense that it chunks up the storytelling, at least for this dullard, and especially at the start when I was trying to adjust to the groove of this book, it can be a bit much.
That said, once I was on board I was very on board. Such an enchanting and fascinating twist of the noir detective story!
That said, in the back of the book, Chabon is asked about criticisms regarding his writing of (or even not bothering to include) women, he said something like “yeah that’s something I’ll have to work on.” And I was like…you’ll have to work on trying harder to include women in your book and writing them as full characters? I feel like that might been a good idea before you were at this level! THAT said, I did like Bina in this and wish there was more of her.
I’ll be thinking about this one for a bit, probably, for better or worse. It got under my skin, as tales of schmuck’s who are trying to be better often do.