The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)Is Michael Chabon possibly our nation's greatest living writer? Oh, wait, I already know the answer to that rhetorical question -- yes, yes he is. And that's because, more than almost anyone else working today, Chabon has the ability to elegantly enfold the elements of literature most revered by academes with the elements most sought by the beach-and-airport crowd -- or in other words, he is able to find a magically perfect balance in his books between an exciting plot, deep character development, and a sophisticated personal style, and by "magically perfect" I mean that it's almost impossible to determine how exactly he pulls it off, even when you're sitting there actually reading the book in question. And so it is that Chabon is one of the few authors in America right now to have novels that regularly receive prestigious award nominations (and in fact even a Pulitzer win once, for 2000's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) even while being hugely popular bestsellers at the same time.Take for example 2006's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which I recently got a chance to read through the new "Netflix for books" service BookSwim.com (from whom I recently received a complimentary two-month membership, in exchange for writing about my experience here after it's over; that write-up will be coming in early December), a book so insanely popular that I've been searching for vain for a spare copy within the Chicago Public Library system for two entire years now. And that's ironic, because the book is in actuality a science-fictiony "alternate history" tale, and in fact is one of the few books in history to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards in the same year, the two most prestigious awards in SF and with highly competitive committees that are loathe to give it to the same book -- turns out that in Chabon's fictional universe, World War Two wasn't actually won until 1946, a much harder fight than what happened in real life (in his version, for example, Germany actually beats the Soviet Union), and that only ended after the US dropping a series of atomic bombs on Berlin. As a result, then, the very real Jewish experiment in establishing a unified Israeli nation in those same years was in his universe a dismal failure, due to the US's backing military support being so diverted by the war; prompted by liberals in Congress, then, as a conciliatory gesture the US establishes a new federal district in a large stretch of southern Alaska just for Jewish refugees (something actually contemplated in real life, which was the main inspiration behind this entire book), which over the decades swells into a major metropolitan area of over three million, comprising Jews from all over the world and of every persuasion, from mystics to militants and everything in between.Whew, yeah, I know! And in fact, apart from the actual storyline itself, a major reason for this book existing is simply for Chabon to create a convincingly complex history for this "Sitka" that never was, using the incidental passages of this 400-page novel to leak out a massively complicated timeline: from the first generation of Mid-Century Modernist "Polar Bear" settlers, promised a fertile farmland paradise by Interior Secretary Harold Ickes as an enticement to move there in the first place, just to discover upon arriving a half-frozen wasteland and hostile Indian natives; to the World's Fair the district hosts in 1977, considered by most to be Sitka's cultural height; to the establishment of the "Jewish mafia," a particularly hardass clan of rural Russians known as the Verbovers (or slangily as simply "the black hats"), almost extinguished as an ethnic group during the war and with them never forgetting this fact; al the way up to the early 2000s of our story, with Chabon presenting us a crumbling, past-its-prime Sitka, just waiting out its last few months before officially reverting back to Alaskan territory (and with all three million residents getting kicked out at that point, and with no one quite sure where they're all going to go), with more and more of these soon-to-be exiles turning these days into trigger-happy Zionists, convinced that the Great Reversion of 2008 is a sign from God that it's time for them to march right back into the Holy Land and try taking over Jerusalem again, whether the Muslims currently there f-cking like it or not.And let's face it, that just this alone would've made for a fine book, although one probably with only a limited appeal among mere genre enthusiasts, but this is where Chabon is truly brilliant -- because in reality, everything I've just described serves as background dressing only to the murder mystery making up the actual main plotline of The Yiddish Policemen's Union. And not just any murder mystery either, but a noir murder mystery, full of wisecracking alcoholic detectives and tough-as-nails dames, dangerously close-lipped gangsters and all the rest; in fact, Chabon has gone on record in the past about this, confessing that he meant this novel to partly be an homage to such pulp-fiction writers as Raymond Chandler and the like. And the reason this is brilliant is because an environment like this surprisingly turns out to be perfect for telling a noirish pulp-fiction story; because believe me, you've never heard sparkling rat-a-tat dialogue until you've heard it from the mouths of a couple of bitter, Yiddish-speaking Jews. It's the element that really earns Chabon his chops, and what elevates him way past the usual genre author; because while most writers would be exhausted merely from the effort of putting together this fantastically original and complex history of a frozen Holy Land tucked away in the Arctic Circle, Chabon himself essentially starts over from scratch at this point and instead asks, "Okay, now what can I actually do with this environment I've created?"And this isn't even the end of the inventiveness; because on top of everything else, the book turns out to have a political message too, with George Bush in Chabon's made-up universe still managing to be President in the early 2000s, despite the fantastically fictional half-century of alternative history that precedes him. Although I won't reveal any of the actual plot developments regarding the last half of the novel, let's just say that it's important to the story that Bush is President, and that by its end The Yiddish Policemen's Union turns out to be yet another early-2000s scathing indictment of the neo-fascist, superstition-obsessed times we all lived through back then; and in fact, the ending of this book is not going to be very well received either by hardline Israelis and other militant Zionists, a surprising element in a novel where nearly every single character is Jewish.Any of these elements on their own are just fine, and alone would make for a perfectly serviceable if not eventually forgettable book; combine them all into one tale, though, and you suddenly have an explosive game-changer that will literally blow your head right off your freaking neck. This is the power of Michael Chabon, and why more and more people each year are going absolutely nuts for his work; and I admit, now that I've read three of his novels myself (the other two being the aforementioned Kavalier & Clay and his early hit Wonder Boys, adapted in 2000 by Curtis Hanson into an equally great movie starring Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire), I too am rapidly becoming one of these Chabon fanatics, and am even thinking now of reading his new book of essays regarding the struggle among perpetual-childhood Gen-X males to grow up (Manhood for Amateurs), even though the very subject usually makes me want to claw out my own f-cking eyes. As you can tell, The Yiddish Policemen's Union comes with a giant recommendation today, and now stands in my eyes as easily one of the top ten post-9/11 novels so far in history.
On one level, this book is a standard detective story, with nods to noir film and at least one name-check for Raymond Chandler. The protagonist is a hard-drinking policeman who cracks wise and has trouble with dames (well, at least one dame), and takes an enormous amount of physical abuse in the course of performing his duties... duties which he often defines more broadly than his supervisors really expect. Sound familiar? On another level, it's a science fiction novel, taking for its setting a parallel world that treads the already over-trampled ground of World War II (or thereabouts) as a pivot point. Again, a pretty familar trope. Add a third ingredient, though - a deep and warmly sympathetic perspective on Jewish culture from the inside out - and a fourth, the accomplished talent of Michael Chabon - and the intersection of these cliches turns into much more than the sum of its parts. I was tremendously impressed with this book. The detective mystery provides a suspenseful (and cinematic) skeleton for the story - down-at-the-heels shammes (cognate to "shamus," of course) Meyer Landsman is obsessed by the murder of a junkie chess player who lives in his rundown residence hotel, and even though he's ordered to close the case he can't stop trying to solve it. This alone would make a pretty good movie (and, it would appear, the Coen brothers think so too). The niftiest thing about The Yiddish Policemen's Union for me, though, is its background, the world in which it's set: a plausible but entirely bizarre alternate universe originating from one tiny, obscure but significant change, in the best tradition of such parallel worlds. In our universe, Anthony Dimond was Alaskan territorial delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives from 1933 to 1945. In 1940, midway through that career, Dimond was instrumental in defeating a plan that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was really considering: to make part of Alaska an international Jewish homeland. In Chabon's alternity, Dimond was killed in a car accident before he could dissuade Roosevelt, and the District of Sitka was formally established in 1941. The changes this evokes are both far-reaching and entirely plausible. The existence of an alternative refuge, even one as forbidding as Alaska, saves millions of Jews from the Nazis... but it also strengthens the Axis nations and lengthens WWII, and siphons off many of those who would otherwise have been instrumental in the founding of modern Israel, and so that effort fails in 1948. Jerusalem becomes a Muslim city in an Arab land, and Sitka is the place where Jews go to build a nation. Sixty years later, the District of Sitka is a thriving country of 3.2 million people, but it's facing a deadline: Reversion. Sitka was never intended to be a permanent nation, after all, and it's getting harder to ignore Native calls for the return of at least part of their territory (there were, after all, people in Alaska before the U.S. began handing out parts of it to refugees). Now, the "frozen Chosen," as they call themselves (more nifty worldbuilding on Chabon's part), have to find somewhere else to go. The question looms darkly behind everything Meyer Landsman and his compatriots do... and the answers Sitka's residents have come up with range from Madagascar to, of course, the ever-populous nation of Denial. But not everyone is so complacent or accepting of the status quo... There is no way to do justice to this book in a short review. You'll just have to read it if you want the full flavor. Highly recommended.Sources used for this review:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yidd...http://io9.com/search/chabon/
What do You think about The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007)?
It is probably my own fault that I was disappointed by this book. I heard a review of it many years ago on the radio and hunted up and down the shelves of bookshops until years later I found a paperback copy. In my imagination I was sure that this book would be the hard-boiled love child of Isaac Babel and Raymond Chandler, witty, insightful and with its collar turned up against the rain. The title promised an array of pleasures. The slog of police union politics conducted in Yiddish, a hint of inter-police union rivalry, the ribald camaraderie shared over the mid shift bagel break.Ah how that book lived for me and was so vital and entertaining right until I got home and started to read it.I loved the details of the setting, the ritual reinterpretation to create outside areas that where part of the home, the yiddishisms, the awkward interrelationships with the indigenous population, the chess club and so on but the messiah plot never engaged me. A personal messiah would obviously be very useful (view spoiler)["hey Jesus, could you come round, I've got the same problem with my taps as last time, yeah...running water, no need to change the hot - that's fine, this afternoon? That would be great, I've said it before and I'll say it again, you've saved me" (hide spoiler)]
—Jan-Maat
Christmas 2010: I realised that I had got stuck in a rut. I was re-reading old favourites again and again, waiting for a few trusted authors to release new works. Something had to be done.On the spur of the moment I set myself a challenge, to read every book to have won the Locus Sci-Fi award. That’s 35 books, 6 of which I’d previously read, leaving 29 titles by 14 authors who were new to me.While working through this reading list I got married, went on my honeymoon, switched career and became a father. As such these stories became imprinted on my memory as the soundtrack to the happiest period in my life (so far).Have you ever thought that you were in love, only to realise, surprised in the middle of some mundane moment (such as pouring a cup of tea or hanging up your coat) that you are not in love at all? You were only ever, briefly, excited and infatuated – and that tantalising, mesmerising infatuation has now lifted from your eyes.I thought, for a while, that I was in love with Michael Chabon. His use of language is so seductive – such sensuous sentences and playful, poetic paragraphs! The man is a natural wordsmith. The inspiration for this alternative reality is both wacky and deadpan, the noir homage both familiar and refreshing. I swooned!I remember posting a status update on Facebook:www.ischabonmynewfavouriteauthor.com/...I kept stroking the book and bimbling around with a skip in my step.This was only a couple of weeks away from my wedding day – love was in the air and I had more than enough to share with Mister Chabon!And then... I remember it so clearly. I was in the pub, getting some lunch. I picked a comfy corner with a bench, hooked my feet up beside me and cut up all my sausages so I could eat with just one hand. I was all cosy, curled into the wall, book in one hand, fork in the other, pint of beer waiting, delectable in front of me… it was a perfect moment… Then I started to read and the magic that had captivated me beforehand just wasn’t there any more. It felt flat; facetious, smug and smarmy. From hanging off every word, I found myself struggling to stay focused. My eyes were repelled from the page. I had to fight to finish what I’d started. By the end, it was a matter or pride, but I wasn’t enjoying it any more.I did a bi-polar flip over this book.It was an emotional and exhausting experience.The idea of reading another Chabon makes me feel ill – I can’t handle that kind of heart-ache – I read for pleasure, man!Somewhere between those giddy highs and dizzy lows, I’ll give the book a 3-star rating.Now where did I leave my meds…?
—Clouds
I picked up a copy of “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” by Michael Chabon purely out of curiosity. This novel was nominated for, and won, the prestigious Hugo Award. The Hugo Award is for outstanding science fiction and I have never seen “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” on the science fiction/fantasy bookshelves in any bookstore. It’s only been in the mainstream fiction section. Now that I’ve read it, I still don’t understand how it won the Hugo. True, it is an alternate history; but it’s a socio-political alternate history rather than a technological one. Any differences in science and technology due to the events that veer off from real history aren’t covered in the course of this novel. In addition to it not being science fiction, I’m surprised it won the Hugo because it’s really not that good. I know that saying this book is not good, or is merely okay is heresy, but I’m saying it. My problems with this book stem mainly from the semantics and the fragmented storytelling. I liked that Chabon implemented Yiddish into the telling of the story. I liked that he used sentence structure that mimicked Hebrew/Yiddish sentence structure. I thought the use of present tense was unusual and interesting. I know that in Hebrew, present tense is often used in storytelling to make it more immediate. What I disliked about the semantics of this novel was they way it went back and forth between present tense and past tense. I figured out that the present tense was used when the story was focusing on Landsman and what he was doing. The past tense was used for telling about things that were happening. That sounds pretty straightforward, but it isn’t. There were a few times when Chabon would be telling about something that happened to Landsman in past tense then pick up on the present and switch to present tense. The tense would change from one paragraph to the next.Now, just the fact that I was analyzing verb tenses should tell you how tedious I found the story. It had so much potential. The murder mystery was a good one. Landsman had a lot of potential as a protagonist. The alternate history of millions of Jews being relocated to Alaska in 1948 because of the failure of the Jewish state in Israel was intriguing. The impending reversion of the Jewish territory to the United States and the uncertainty of what would happen to the Jews in Sitka added dramatic tension. However, none of the individual element gelled into a compelling narrative. It seemed like a lot of great ideas strung together with no real connection. The language had the potential to enhance the story, but ended up detracting from it. The characters seemed to be two-dimensional symbols rather than three-dimensional people. The author would go of on expository tangents that had nothing to do with the story. Towards the end, solutions to different aspects of the mystery came out of the blue. A heretofore-unseen character would show up and hand Landsman and the reader a huge piece of the puzzle, no deduction necessary. For me, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” was a book that had a heck of a lot of potential and a lot of great ideas. It just failed to put it all together in a way that was compelling and/or comprehensible.
—Sandi
