The Yiddish Policemen's Union

A book that lured me in with the promise of a noir detective novel, but turns out to be an alternate history and more. Excellent world building, great characters.

I got to the point where Landsman was in the airplane as a hostage and I just couldn't take it anymore, it had become too ridiculous. I really wanted to finish this book, it had such good ideas. I loved the alternate history of there being a Jewish country in Alaska. I loved how there was a mini Jewish mafia of hassids, how everything was oozing schtick and yiddishisms, it felt so filled with culture and personality, more human and less caricature. But instead of focusing on world building and the alternate history and the parody of a forgotten mis-remembered time, we get Landsman. The wannabe noire Jewish police detective who can't stop obsessing over sex with his ex-wife who he somehow hates and can't get over, and is also his boss so we get that dynamic. Yeah the mystery was very interesting, and I usually hate mysteries, but I was so invested, until it somehow also became about Landsman and his MIA pilot sister so of course he gets his multi-page internal hateful monologue. There's self-hating Jew and then there's Landsman. This book felt like a medication, started out working as it should, but the more I read the more tolerant I became and then I couldn't stomach it anymore because the effects were lost. This could've been amazing, and I was so excited when I found a Jewish author who made Jewish characters in Jewish settings without making it about the Holocaust or anti-semitism, but god Landsman just ruined it all. By all means if you can get through it I encourage you to because Sitka and the culture in and around it is nothing like I have ever read, he just happens to be an awful, hair-ripping narrator.

So funny and witty. A very well written take on the alternative history genre.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – 4.5 stars

I'm not sure why this book doesn't get higher ratings. It’s a tightly written noir in the best hardboiled tradition, but with fresh elements that make it stand out. The alternative history setting is compelling, but the real strength lies in the well-developed characters and a plot that’s far from linear. It also carries far more cultural and historical weight than a typical detective story. I really enjoyed this.

Bizarre book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It makes sense that it was written partially out of spite.

As a detective novel, middling. The atmosphere is great but the pacing is off and the plot rambles around the block and up and down a few hills before settling down somewhere out of left field. Still, it's got chutzpah, if I may borrow the term. Chabon writes like a control freak - you must know the exact inflection with which this minor character pronounces a name. - but with such imagination and wit that it is impossible not to enjoy. The big picture is rich and the little picture is jam-packed with weird little quips that make you laugh and say, “where the hell did that come from?” A character was “as sober as a carp in a bathtub.” A place “had all the allure of a dehumidifier”. In the slower first half, I had to make myself pick up the book, but I was always glad I did. The ending also hit like a ton of bricks, in light of recent events. (“That's the kind of shit we have to look forward to now. Burning cars and homicidal dancing.”)

If you put aside the whole “detective story” angle and look at the book as something else - a black-humored look at the tangle of fathers and sons, displacement and diaspora - it's really very good, probably even great. And in a monkey-brain aside, I imagined Landsman as Harry du Bois from Disco Elysium, but I'm pretty sure the writers of Disco Elysium were imagining Landsman when they wrote Harry du Bois, so I stand by it.

Yawla ngapain gw bela-belain namatin buku ini sih. Capek bacanya kebanyakan deskripsi berbunga-bunga.

Notă: nu am terminat cartea, ci am citit doar 100 pag din vreo 400 și ceva. Asta pentru că, în afară de crima din pag.1, în următoarele 100 nu s-a mai întâmplat absolut nimic, în afară de introducerea la nesfârșit de personaje neinteresante. Asta ar fi prima mare problemă și, deși am avut multă bunăvoință, nu m-am putut forța mai mult de atât.
A doua, uriașă, este stilul de scriere al lui Chabon, exagerat de încărcat și ridicol: autorul e ferm hotărât să folosească absolut toate adjectivele și adverbele din dicționar și să mai inventeze câteva, iar dacă în Guiness Book există un record pentru comparații și unul pentru comparații uluitor de proaste, Chabon le triplu-bate pe amândouă. Cîteva exemple: ”Blocurile-turn (...) îngrămădite în beznă ca niște prizonieri strânși laolaltă ca vitele, cu ajutorul unui furtun de mare putere” - wow, o comparație la comparație, când și una e prea mult în ziua de azi, nu mai suntem la 1800; ”ambii micuți dorm acolo, depozitați pe balcon ca niște schiuri nefolosite” - what?!; ”Brennan își ridică degetele albe, asemenea unor larve, și clipește din ochișorii de un albastru pal, ca al laptelui acrit” - clasa a 3a much?!. Oribil și de tot râsul, cel mai prost stil scriitoricesc citit de mine de ani de zile.
A treia: șabloanele, Dumnezeule! Chiar e obligatoriu ca noir-urile să fie identice? Personajul principal e un detectiv ratat (checked), bețiv (checked), divorțat (checked), care își plânge de milă (checked), scârbit de tot (checked) și se comportă cu sictir (checked), trăiește într-un hotel decrepit printre ratați rău-famați (checked) and so on. Come on!!!
A patra: carte nu prea are fapte, dar este o înșiruire infinită nu doar de comparații, ci și de detalii. Nenumărate, irelevante, obositoare.
A cincea: încărcătura prea mare de termeni idiș și de referințe la lumea evreiască: eu sunt pasionat de Israel, motiv din care le știu foarte bine istoria, cultura și nițel limba (ivrit, ce-i drept, nu idiș), dar tot mi s-au părut că îngreunează foarte tare lectura.
A șasea e doar personală: în afară de fundalul vag distopic, nu e deloc SF, ci o carte 100% polițistă. Iar mie nu-mi plac deloc romanele polițiste, mă plictisesc de moarte și fără să fie atât de prost scrise. Cartea ar fi trebuit scoasă de Paladin în colecția lor de noir, acolo îi este locul, nu în cea de SF.
Sincer, de mult nu m-a mai plictisit așa tare o carte, iar de enervat chiar de și mai mult.
A, și coperta e una dintre cele mai urâte de mulți ani, dar nu e vina Paladin, e coperta folosită la majoritatea edițiilor. Ce hâdoșenie infantilă!
Concluzie: o mare decepție, o așteptam de mult...
PS: am descoperit online cum se continuă povestea. Mă bucur că am abandonat la timp, urăsc Dan Brown-ismele.
SF? Deloc.

I feel like I would have had a better connection to this excellent mystery book if I was Jewish. Neverless, this book has wonderfully engaging characters, even if they start out a little slow. It would have gotten five stars except for two complaints. First, the plot lost me a once or twice, but I was able to put myself back on track. Secondly, and most importantly, the edges were fucking perforated.

I think the most amazing thing about Michael Chabon books is how he takes genre fiction and creates a work which is simultaneously such a faithful and true expression of the tropes and mores of that genre, and yet his language, the settings, and the characters he creates are so lush and unexpected that the novel is so unexpected, surprising and joyous. There's something fantastical about his novels that I find myself using words like adore in reference to them (and while normally that would make me grumpy, I just can't stay mad at such a cheeky little book).

Didn't finish. Too slow.

Usually I read a new book in about a day or two or maybe three if the book is ‘literary' - this has taken me weeks (practically forever in my world). I thought since I enjoy a good fantasy novel, that I would understand and like the whole alternate reality thing, but obviously I am not as smart as I thought. I continually felt lost. There were parts that I felt were beautiful but most of the time I was re-reading wondering, ‘what the hey is going on?'

I read a review after I finished, the reviewer compared Chabon to a person leaving their house and looking in the mirror and taking off an accessory. He should have taken off a few accessories. I loved that review because I agreed wholeheartedly. The bones of the story were interesting but I found the bones lost amongst the twinkling jewels.

Though slow to start, Michale Chabon engages the reader with a fascinating murder mystery in an alternate history setting. Jewish culture is sprinkled throughout, and makes the story that much more interesting. A highly recommended read.

This is the sort of book that only Chabon could have written. An exemplar of the Noir genre (probably the best of its class for the past several years) – Sitka, Alaska is a dark place, inhabited by a plethora of morally gray characters and equally gray bureaucracy. Meyer Landsman is a man on the edge of life, struggling with alcoholism; emotionally dependent on being a police officer, but too emotionally broken to consistently be a good one.

Added to the mixture is a generous helping of Jewish culture, Yiddish language and a not entirely kind treatment of the relationship between spiritual beliefs and good deeds.

Much has been noted about how, although set in Alaska, Union points a critical eye to the non-alternate history Jewish settlements in Israel, which, while true, is incidental to the greatness of the book.

One point of criticism: I am not sure how approachable this book would be to a non-Jewish reader. I was highly critical about the pre-existing amount of culture knowledge needed for Oscar Wao, and by comparison there is more foreign language and far more cultural and religious references in Union.

It took a while for me to get into, and I do kind of feel bad saying it, but the Yiddish was an obstacle.. I just didn't feel at home. But a stretch is good, right? Once I got the characters voices established in my head, I really enjoyed the story and think it's one of the most creative books I've read in a long time.

An alternate history novel set in a Jewish settlement, Sitka, in southern Alaska, The Yiddish Policemen's Union tells the story of a down-on-his-luck detective named Landsman who has to investigate the death of a junkie who may have been the Messiah before his untimely death.

This book was amazingly written. I hadn't read much Chagon previously, but he's one of those writers who has a complete mastery over the language, to a degree where I think I would read him write about anything at all, just because of the style it's written in.

A patchy tapestry of clever writing, convoluted plot, interesting characters, and a setting sufficiently odd to be the necessary introduction. Although occasionally frustrating, the frayed edges manage to suggest a system in the threads left they leave exposed, and the central intersections are pretty transcendent anyway.

This would have been a lot easier to read if there was a good yiddish & hebrew online dictionary.