The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon - 2007

 

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon - 2007

Winner of The 2007 Hugo and Nébula Award for Best Novel

In February of last year I read Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavilier and Clay.  I got bored with it about half way through but because of the creative power of Chabon I completed the work.  

This year I decided to read his Multi-Awarded alternative history novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.  I have been Reading in Yiddish literature and associated history for almost eight years now.  I was intrigued by idea of Alaska having been turned into a refuge for Jews during the early years of World War Two, the premise of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.  Because of this four million mostly Yiddish speaking Jews were saved from from the Holocaust.

The Jewish state was initiated in 1941 with a sixty year mandate after which time unless the American government makes it a state ths Yiddish capital, a Yiddish speaking city with, in 2001, several million residents, will become part of Alaska.

Chabon mentions in brief allusions other changes in history.  In 1942 The Germans defeated Russia, in 1946 the war ended when Berlin was totally destroyed by nuclear bombs.  The state of Israel was wiped out in 1948.  

The plot line centers on a detective plot, a murder mystery.  The detective is a member of the Yiddish Policemen’s Union.  Chess plays a big part in the story line.  We encounter lots of sorts of individuals.  We see how the Yiddish speakers and Alaskan Indians interact.  They even marry.  There are a lot of Yiddish words employed.  There is even a glossery included.

This seems to me a book for those intrigued by the alternative history presented.

Michael Chabon (b. 1963) is an acclaimed and bestselling author whose works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000). Chabon achieved literary fame at age twenty-four with his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), which was a major critical and commercial success. He then published Wonder Boys (1995), another bestseller, which was made into a film starring Michael Douglas. One of America’s most distinctive voices, Chabon has been called “a magical prose stylist” by the New York Times Book Review, and is known for his lively writing, nostalgia for bygone modes of storytelling, and deep empathy for the human predicament.  .from Goodreads

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, 2000, 675 pages

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon has been on my to be read list for sometime.  When I received notice the Kindle edition was for sale for $2.95, down from $10.95 I hit purchase now.

I found the first half of the book very interesting, as the work procceded on I almost quit reading.  Only Chabon is so creative I did not want to miss out on what might come next so I finished it, am glad to have done so.

Kavalier enters the story as a young Jewish boy who escaped from Prague with a stopover in Shanghai only to wind up in Brooklyn at the house of his cousin clay.  It is 1935 or so.  The account of how he escaped from Prague is very interesting.  The boys, in their late teens, have never met before but soon find a bond in their love for drawing.  Clay gets his cousin at the company where he works, a publisher of comic books, just starting to get big.  Kavalier is very worried about his family left back in Prague.  Compressing a lot, the cousins start a comic book series called The Escapist.  The Escapist is a Nazi fighting super hero with Houndini like skills for breaking locks.  The boys gradually develop a very large following, making good money.  

As the war gets nearer, Kavalier develops a hatred for Germans.  This gets him in fights, in one cool interlude he is beaten up by a German boxing champion.  We see a lot of the business and creative side of producing a comic book series.

About half way through their partnership ends.  One boy starts a romance with Rosa Saks, from the department store family.  One slowly accepts he is gay and begins a romance with a man who plays The Escapist in a radio drama.

I will say no more about the second half of the book.  It won the Pulitzer Prize.

I do hope to read his The Yiddish Policemen's Union one day.

Michael Chabon (b. 1963) is an acclaimed and bestselling author whose works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000). Chabon achieved literary fame at age twenty-four with his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), which was a major critical and commercial success. He then published Wonder Boys (1995), another bestseller, which was made into a film starring Michael Douglas. One of America’s most distinctive voices, Chabon has been called “a magical prose stylist” by the New York Times Book Review, and is known for his lively writing, nostalgia for bygone modes of storytelling, and deep empathy for the human predicament.  .from Goodreads