Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel

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Rated 4 stars

“I like Michael Chabons' writing a lot, so I was quite surprised that I had difficulties "getting into it". I considered giving up on it, but slowly the plot, the place and the characters grew on me, and by page 150 I was hooked.
Chabon has created a complex parallel world, where the Jews have not been able to make Israel their homeland, and must find their place elsewhere in the world. In Sitka, Alaska, their time is almost up, and the Indians will win the vote for an end to the Jewish...”

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Didn’t Like It

Rated 2 stars

“Detective and mafia Jews in Alaska. Novel but pointless.”

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Rated 3.696188 stars

Amazon:

Rated 3.5 stars

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drew j said:

“Chabon dives face first into every conceivable cliché about Jews and hard-boiled detective fiction. It takes about nine pages to get used to constant lines like, "This Yid, wearing a pair of cement forelocks he was, took a kibbutz to the bottom of the Baffin Bay!", but once the reader acclimates himself to what the novel takes for granted, it's an incredible page-turner.”

posted Wednesday, June 18 2008

rustom d said:

“I enjoyed the book. It wasn't a brilliant treatise on anything and I don't know if it made me think about the world in a different way, but I like Chabon's vivid style and therefore I think I would read anything he wrote just for that. I wasn't bothered by the Yiddish--I rather enjoyed it. Chabon's book Kavalier and Clay introduced me to the idea of the Golem--something I had never been exposed to. This book was Jewish but it didn't just play the Jewish card as a cheap way of gaining sympathy--which was what I thought about Jonathan Safran Foyer's "Everything is Illuminated"--the movie at least--I didn't read that book. I may be wrong about that though--after all they do say "never judge a book by it's movie" :)
Anyway, speaking of movies, I actually think Yiddish Policeman's Union would make a good one--one I would watch at any rate. True, the end is far-fetched, but was interesting as a political commentary in it's own way--Jewish "terrorists" plotting to take over Israel--quite a funny concept actually. Sorry for the spoiler!”

posted Wednesday, May 28 2008

rob h said:

“I was highly disappointed with this book. I had read, and loved, everything else he wrote. I bought this hard cover and dove in and it was painfully boring to me. Also, if you have read any other of his books, it is wholly predictable what the dead antagonist's great secret is.”

posted Monday, May 26 2008 ( | view 1 reply )

johnie s said:

“Sounds like heaven,as a frustrated lady cop myself I look very forward to diving in.”

posted Friday, May 9 2008

melissa b said:

“I found the first 120 pages very dense reading. But afterwards the book just took off. He has truly created a unique world here, full of yiddish and non yidddish vocabulary, gangster Jews, tension between jews and Indians, etc....really amazing stuff! Almost an alternate universe. I found it very much worth the read after the first 120 pages. You really can't fathom where the story is going to go. Is it as good as Kavalier and Clay? Not in my opinion. But very good none the less. Just hang in there past page 100...you won't be disappointed!”

posted Tuesday, April 1 2008