BBC Russian

Top positive review

The Last Days

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2008

This is the third Chabon book that I have read (afterTHE FINAL SOLUTIONandTHE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH) and it is unquestionably the best -- imaginative, audacious, thought-provoking, and humane. As I gather he did withKAVALIER & CLAY, Chabon takes a genre of popular fiction, in this case the police story, and transforms it into a vehicle capable of carrying significant insights into the human condition, and particularly the complex crosscurrents of Jewish identity. For some reason this fascinates me, and I have read a good deal of post-Holocaust fiction, but I felt that I understood more about Jewish life in America, especially among the orthodox, from reading this book than from any other author since Chaim Potok (e.g.THE CHOSENorMY NAME IS ASHER LEV).

Chabon creates an alternative historical reality on the basis of three plausible assumptions. The first is that, in the years before the War, America created a home for a limited number of Jewish refugees in Sitka, on the South-East coast of Alaska; (this plan was actually floated, but never brought to a vote). Second, that the new state of Israel was overrun by its enemies shortly after its founding, causing a massive exodus of people to be accommodated in this small area, giving rise to a large city built up over islands and a narrow strip of land. The third assumption is that these refugees were not accepted as American immigrants, but as temporary nationals of the new entity, leased for a period of sixty years. So while Jewish Sitka is a self-governing city-state, with Yiddish its official language, and with its own police force, this authority is precarious. For one thing, different sects have taken over different parts of the city, effectively maintaining their own law, even sometimes in opposition to the official law. For another, the sixty-year lease is about to expire, and the action of the book takes place in the last weeks before Reversion, when Jews who have not made other arrangements will be forced out again in yet another Exodus.

One such unprepared unfortunate is our protagonist, an alcoholic homicide detective named Meyer Landsman. One of the other residents in the fleabag hotel where he lives is found murdered, with a chess game set out on a board beside him. Even though his superiors tell him to drop the case, Landsman persists in his attempts to discover who the victim really was, and who killed him. This thread sews the plot together and leads to some surprising places. Ultimately, however, it is not the whodunnit element that is important; we discover the answer, but that is a minor detail in the almost apocalyptic drama of fear and destiny that is revealed in the shadow of the last days of the Jewish people in Sitka. But while specifically Jewish in context, I find the book also is full of insight into the fundamentalist mindset generally, and it is very much a reflection of forces in American politics of our own time.

Chabon is equally successful on the intimate level. We come to know a lot about Myer Landsman: the suicide of his chess grandmaster father, the death of his sister in a flying accident, and his separation from his wife Bina after the abortion of their unborn child. This last relationship is further complicated when Bina turns up as Meyer's new boss, but the unraveling of the case also has the effect of bringing the past and present together, in ways that are ultimately deeply satisfying, and give the book human warmth as a ballast to its flights of brilliance. If you come to the novel as a Gentile (and perhaps even as a Jew), you will be plunged into a world that seems hermetic, claustrophic, extremely strange. When you finish it, you will understand where the strangeness comes from. More, you will be left with a small group of human beings whom you have come to know as intimately as if they were your own family or neighbors.

16 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

David Wilkin

Lets go aain

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2009

It is part science fiction and part mystery. Or Yiddish Policeman is fully both. Thus just by that it is hard to classify. Whether you have a Yiddish background, or great exposure to a Jewish heritage, or an Alaskan one, the world creation by Chabon elevates this story to a level beyond the common in either genre.

Yiddish Policeman's is a very good book. It is a well deserved edition of exceptional literature. An achievement and worth reading. Is the mystery a little weak and perhaps a bit like a television mystery episode, in parts. Is our protagonist too intimately caught up in the details of the mystery, again perhaps. But as the story stretches out, these become small quibbles that do not detract that this is a phenomenal piece of writing.

The narrative and detail in creating the world soon has you engrossed in that world so you can believe in it. Would the jews wish to resettle to much safer Alaska, then to the very turbulent holy land? Probably not, but with speculative fiction, once you give into it, then the new worlds builds upon itself. Would oil be cheaper if there were no wars in the mid-east, or would there still be wars there over other issues.

Since we are concerned about the Jewish settlement in Alaska, we don't really even care about such. We become consumed about the world Chabon has crafted. Even thinking that perhaps more in this world would be nice to visit again.

2 people found this helpful

2,643 total ratings, 773 with reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

Roger Brunyate

The Last Days

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2008

Verified Purchase

This is the third Chabon book that I have read (after THE FINAL SOLUTION and THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH ) and it is unquestionably the best -- imaginative, audacious, thought-provoking, and humane. As I gather he did with KAVALIER & CLAY , Chabon takes a genre of popular fiction, in this case the police story, and transforms it into a vehicle capable of carrying significant insights into the human condition, and particularly the complex crosscurrents of Jewish identity. For some reason this fascinates me, and I have read a good deal of post-Holocaust fiction, but I felt that I understood more about Jewish life in America, especially among the orthodox, from reading this book than from any other author since Chaim Potok (e.g. THE CHOSEN or MY NAME IS ASHER LEV ).

Chabon creates an alternative historical reality on the basis of three plausible assumptions. The first is that, in the years before the War, America created a home for a limited number of Jewish refugees in Sitka, on the South-East coast of Alaska; (this plan was actually floated, but never brought to a vote). Second, that the new state of Israel was overrun by its enemies shortly after its founding, causing a massive exodus of people to be accommodated in this small area, giving rise to a large city built up over islands and a narrow strip of land. The third assumption is that these refugees were not accepted as American immigrants, but as temporary nationals of the new entity, leased for a period of sixty years. So while Jewish Sitka is a self-governing city-state, with Yiddish its official language, and with its own police force, this authority is precarious. For one thing, different sects have taken over different parts of the city, effectively maintaining their own law, even sometimes in opposition to the official law. For another, the sixty-year lease is about to expire, and the action of the book takes place in the last weeks before Reversion, when Jews who have not made other arrangements will be forced out again in yet another Exodus.

One such unprepared unfortunate is our protagonist, an alcoholic homicide detective named Meyer Landsman. One of the other residents in the fleabag hotel where he lives is found murdered, with a chess game set out on a board beside him. Even though his superiors tell him to drop the case, Landsman persists in his attempts to discover who the victim really was, and who killed him. This thread sews the plot together and leads to some surprising places. Ultimately, however, it is not the whodunnit element that is important; we discover the answer, but that is a minor detail in the almost apocalyptic drama of fear and destiny that is revealed in the shadow of the last days of the Jewish people in Sitka. But while specifically Jewish in context, I find the book also is full of insight into the fundamentalist mindset generally, and it is very much a reflection of forces in American politics of our own time.

Chabon is equally successful on the intimate level. We come to know a lot about Myer Landsman: the suicide of his chess grandmaster father, the death of his sister in a flying accident, and his separation from his wife Bina after the abortion of their unborn child. This last relationship is further complicated when Bina turns up as Meyer's new boss, but the unraveling of the case also has the effect of bringing the past and present together, in ways that are ultimately deeply satisfying, and give the book human warmth as a ballast to its flights of brilliance. If you come to the novel as a Gentile (and perhaps even as a Jew), you will be plunged into a world that seems hermetic, claustrophic, extremely strange. When you finish it, you will understand where the strangeness comes from. More, you will be left with a small group of human beings whom you have come to know as intimately as if they were your own family or neighbors.

16 people found this helpful

Helpful

Hello Spud

Good

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2013

Verified Purchase

As a reading experience this is one of the best books I've read this year, and I am glad I invested my time in it. To summarize and not repeat what has been written in plenty of other reviews here: the prose is enchanting and the rich complexity of the characters and the world make for an all-enveloping vision as I read through the story.

However a few things threw me off about this book, namely, my own experiences with Yiddish. As a language and a culture that I have encountered through my family (predominantly secular) and through my associations with Hasidic Jews (obviously orthodox), Chabon's Yiddish seemed a bit off, and although it wasn't a deal-breaker for me, it took a little getting used to. This book's Yiddish just isn't exactly the Yiddish I know, however, I make no claims to speak the language or have lived a Yiddish life. I finally came around to accepting Chabon's setting in Sitka, Alaska as more of a, "If this were what we got instead of Israel," senerio, and since I've personally had a lot of exposure to Hebrew, Israel and modern Israeli culture, I felt Meyer and Berko fit in a little better as I found myself seeing them this way.

The plot also disappointed me on a certain level, as it starts off so seductively as we slip into a noir-of-sorts city that makes its way into a bigger world; I was fine with letting go slightly of that dark noir ambiance, but I was not pleased with how the book concludes; the wrap up betrays the theme of the book in some ways as it ends uneventfully (an explosion reported on the TV doesn't count for much with me), bad-guys sort of winning, nothing too learned to take away except that Meyer is getting old and contending with the idea that he needs to settle--his story to tell, at the end, was already told, better to have left it at that than to make it a tale he's now going to share with a journalist.

On a final positive note, the characters are robust and so very real, especially the Black Hats who are without exception brilliantly written.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Leslie Ariel

A literary tour de force

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2016

Verified Purchase

Don't be put off by the unlikely hypothetical premise of a US - sanctioned Jewish shtetl in Sitka, Alaska -- Chabon could take any premise at all, regardless of how crazy, and do anything he wants with it so long as he keeps writing in his characteristic, highly evocative style that exactly places the reader in the moment right down to the components of a particular smell or color or thought or memory, or light or mood. He delivers his easy, almost free wheeling exactitude of description, with unparalleled and seemingly effortless turn of phrase, through multitudinous and constant allusion, delightfully concise and incisive by turns, nailing it, never letting the allusion get in the way, speeding by it, allowing it to spring forth as from a well rehearsed comedian, in consistently dense prose achingly and enviably to the point in stream of consciousness types of controlled leaps from this to that, precisely conveying in disarmingly simple words, a likeness between the object or emotion or taste at hand and things we know intimately, all with with shocking accuracy, constantly drawing a string of minute comparisons and likenesses in a made up world made undeniably palpable and familiar, a made up world especially for Jews, but so enjoyably particular and intimate in its description that in the end, his wild premise seems not so terribly unlikely.
As for the plot, it's as wild as the notion of a remote Alaska Jewish shtetl set up by the state, and yet it moves along briskly enough, implausible --or not? -- as the outcome may be.

Crazy enjoyable read, although it helps of you are Jewish or nearly Jewish by association owing to near constant cultural and actual Yiddish references (a lot of which, however, are self explanatory by context). All of this creates a feeling akin to an inside joke best understood by Jews, but again, the language is so beguiling to anyone enchanted by a well written turn of phrase, that it would be a shame for only Jared to read this and for non Jews to miss out. I encourage all linguaphiles, whatever their ethnic background, to dive in, maybe with a mini Yiddish reference dictionary on hand.

14 people found this helpful

Helpful

David Wilkin

Lets go aain

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2009

Verified Purchase

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Timothy Haugh

Tour De Force

Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2010

Verified Purchase

To be honest, I put off reading this book because, unlike his nonfiction, I've never really been impressed by Chabon's fiction. I enjoyed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, though I wouldn't rank it as one of my favorite books, but I barely made it through Wonder Boys, which I thought was a real disappointment. I had hopes for this one, however, because I read an excerpt from it in a magazine some time ago. So, I finally bit the bullet and pulled it off the shelf. I was absorbed from beginning to end.

It's not really a risk anymore to write an alternate history novel--too many respectable authors have done it lately. In Chabon's world, the United States allowed Jewish immigration in the early years of World War II, but only to the city of Sitka, Alaska. This had the result of lessening the Holocaust, eliminating the founding of Israel, creating tensions between Jews and Native Americans, and basically altering the political landscape of the world. Most importantly, it had the result of creating a gigantic Jewish enclave on American soil which is where our story takes place, in the waning days when the US is about to take the city back.

Still, Chabon's novel is riskier than most. He creates a multi-cultural, Jewish world with Jewish cops struggling against Jewish organized crime. He isn't afraid to use Jewish terminology and have his characters use Jewish slang against each other. It is an altogether seedy, Jewish world. It's fascinating.

Then, he peoples his world with some great characters. His lead, Meyer Landsman, an intuitive cop with a world of problems is the slug that drags us through. He's surrounded by a host of great supporting cast mates: Berko, the half-native, half Jewish partner; Bina, the ex-wife/boss; the Verbover rebbe and his wife, Zimbalist, the boundary maven, and on and on. There isn't a person who steps on stage who isn't somehow memorable.

And these characters move around in a great murder plot: the death of a supposed nobody who turns out to be somebody which leads the way to a plot more important than murder. It's all handled deftly with plenty of mystery left to the last pages, which play out well, but not in a way that one might expect. There is a sense that the end comes very rapidly and there are some loose ends that are not really tied up as the novel closes but, somehow, it is satisfying.

I found this novel to be a tour de force. Once I started it, I didn't want to put it down. I don't get this feeling of excitement from novels much anymore, but Chabon managed it here. This magnificent world he's created and the people he's populated it with needs to be experienced.

14 people found this helpful

Helpful

Joyce W. Graff

Where in the world...?

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2009

Verified Purchase

For the first few pages, I figured I was in New York City. After all, where else would there be enough Yiddish-speaking policemen to have a Union? But more and more I realized it didn't fit, so I read the book flap and got oriented. I realized that in order to appreciate this book I was going to have to let go of everything I thought I knew about history, time, place, and American Jews, and let the author create his fictional world to replace them. Once I did that, I embraced Chabon's enticing Raymond-Chandler or Robert-J-Parker characters and their unique Yiddish-speaking but entirely different world -- a tenous existence in a harsh climate and a marginally hospitable world, shaping another new existence for a people that has had to create a new existence out of nothing more times than I can count. (Picture the "Big Macher" department-store-cum-Walmart an Alaska, one of whose main exports is wireless phones.) A very clever fictional universe and a very clever plot, with questions woven in about politics, ethics, and the meaning of life. It's a bit of a roller-coaster ride -- you never quite know where you are going or what's around the next bend. A challenging and refreshing read!

Helpful

Melanie D. Typaldos

It's all about the writing

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

I am reading the Nebula Award winning novels in chronological order. This is the winner for 2008.

I must say, this book was very...different. Different in an interesting but sometimes difficult to read way. The novel is liberally embellished with Yiddish, the native language of the characters. There is a glossary in the back which I didn't notice until it was too late. I don't like looking things up anyway, plus the context makes most things obvious.

The story is complex and the ridiculously long names for some of the characters don't make it any easier to keep track of things. There is a lot to follow. This is not a light read, you have to be paying attention. I would not recommend it for an audiobook.

The two main characters are detectives in a province of Alaska to which they have been granted a 50 year lease. The main character, Landsman, life has gone down the tubes, his marriage collapsed leaving him with nothing to live for. He rents a dumpy apartment in a slum where he spends his non-working time drowning himself in alcohol. But he is a driven detective and when a young man is murdered in his apartment building, he takes it seriously. The book follows the complicated path to find the man's killer.

What I really liked about the novel was the language, not the insertion of Yiddish, but the colorful and insightful aphorisms. So much can be conveyed in so few words. I'm going to put a number of them in this review so you can see what I mean. There are a lot, lot more throughout the novel.

The lady has been in and out of the hospital lately, dying in chapters, with a cliff-hanger at the end of every one.

The blood from the back of his head has scattered rhododendrons in the snow.

He can feel his rib cage ringing under the mallet of his heart.

Landsman feels a numbness enter his limbs, a sense of doom that is indistinguishable from peacefulness.

I'm like a cash gift, I'm always appropriate.

I could go on citing these things but you've probably got the idea by now.

55 people found this helpful

Helpful

JR Pinto

Nice novel...

Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2007

Verified Purchase

Terrence Rafferty's review in the New York Times ends with: "Nice novel. You were expecting maybe the Messiah?" This is a good description of the novel in three ways. For one thing, it captures the Yiddish cadences that Chabon painstakingly creates for his characters. As a die hard Chabon fan, I am used to reading his fiction with a dictionary at my side. The thing with this book is that dictionary needs to be in Yiddish. I thought I knew a lot of Yiddish for a goy, but this novel proved me wrong. There is no glossary at the back of the book (too late did I notice that Chabon provides the address of a Yiddish-to-English website).

Second, the remark about the Messiah is central to the mystery at hand. There are conspiracies in this book of Biblical proportions. As in The Final Solution, Chabon delves into the mystery genre here - the difference being he is channeling Dashiell Hammett instead of Arthur Conan Doyle. His omniscient third-person narrator uses Yiddish slang to create a tough-edged voice.

Finally though, it is a "nice novel" - it doesn't live up to the magnificence of Kavalier & Clay (but then, what could?). It is like Scorsese following Goodfellas with Cape Fear. The book is an alternate-history novel in which the Jews have been relocated to Alaska instead of Israel (and, after reading the book, I guess Chabon feels that this was a spectacularly bad idea). It is full of fanciful creations - most notably a Hasidic sect as an organized crime family and a rabbi as a Don. Chabon is right to champion plot and genre, and it does work in this book - but it still left me slightly hungry. I recommend this book - as I recommend everything that Chabon writes. Just don't keep us waiting seven years for the next one.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

W. A. Tchmann

A NOIR NOVEL NOT TO BE OVERLOOKED

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a review of Michael Chabon’s novel, ‘The Yiddish Policemen's Union’. If you like Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald or Isaac Bable and have not yet partaken of the word-crafting expertise of Michael Chabon, be prepared for a vibrant escapade into writing at its best. The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a 2007 ‘Noir’ detective story set in an alternative history of post WW2 to present Sitka Alaska. The mystery opens with alcoholic Sitka police department homicide detective, Meyer Landsman, examining the murder of a man in the hotel where Landsman lives. The victim turns out to be the potential Moshiach, Mendel Shpilman. The plot swims in political corruption, treachery, weaving patterns of character into a reality that shock, intrigue, and unforgettably engross the reader in a page turning marathon. Is there a dark cloud over the novel? Unfortunately, there is, and the tragedy is that the book ends. Chabon breathes life into each character that is unsurpassed and when the last page was turned something grievous personally happened. With no more pages to turn, it was like experiencing a death in the family; like an addiction, you crave more. Unfortunately Chabon has moved on to other venues in his novels. Take heart, another writer R. Avraham Kosźmiński, it is rumored, is in the process of picking up the scepter with a sequel that moves Detective Meyer Landsman and his wife Bina up the coast to Valdez Alaska where the adventure steps forward into a 21 year future that brings closure ushering in the Moshiach. The merit of this novel is widely shared. ‘The Yiddish Policemen's Union’ debuted at #2 on the New York Times Best seller on May 20, 2007, remaining on the list for 6 weeks. It won a number of science fiction awards: the Nebula award for Best novel, the Locus Award for best SF Novel, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History for Best Novel. It was shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel and the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. I went to Amazon now and found a brand new hardcover, unused, for only $1.59. A great deal.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

interesting

Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2023

Verified Purchase

A very readable story steeped in Jewish culture. A fictional setting of a large Jewish settlement in Alaska filled with a score of internet characters. I liked it as a murder mystery although the much larger scope it encompasses, made me want a little more simplicity to the story.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Need customer service?

‹ See all details for The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)

The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)

›

Customer reviews

Customer reviews

The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)

Top positive review

Top critical review

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.) › Customer reviews

Customer reviews

The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)

Top positive review

Top critical review

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From the United States

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

There was a problem loading comments right now. Please try again later.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)

›

Customer reviews