Título: The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Autor: Michael Chabon
Sinopse: Reviewed by Jess Walter They are the "frozen Chosen," two million people living, dying and kvetching in Sitka, Alaska, the temporary homeland established for displaced World War II Jews in Chabon s ambitious and entertaining new novel. It is—deep breath now—a murder-mystery speculative-history Jewish-identity noir chess thriller, so perhaps it s no surprise that, in the back half of the book, the moving parts become unwieldy; Chabon is juggling narrative chainsaws here.The novel begins—the same way that Philip Roth launched The Plot Against America—with a fascinating historical footnote: what if, as Franklin Roosevelt proposed on the eve of World War II, a temporary Jewish settlement had been established on the Alaska panhandle? Roosevelt s plan went nowhere, but Chabon runs the idea into the present, back-loading his tale with a haunting history. Israel failed to get a foothold in the Middle East, and since the Sitka solution was only temporary, Alaskan Jews are about to lose their cold homeland. The book s timeless refrain: "It s a strange time to be a Jew."Into this world arrives Chabon s Chandler-ready hero, Meyer Landsman, a drunken rogue cop who wakes in a flophouse to find that one of his neighbors has been murdered. With his half-Tlingit, half-Jewish partner and his sexy-tough boss, who happens also to be his ex-wife, Landsman investigates a fascinating underworld of Orthodox black-hat gangs and crime-lord rabbis. Chabon s "Alyeska" is an act of fearless imagination, more evidence of the soaring talent of his previous genre-blender, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.Eventually, however, Chabon s homage to noir feels heavy-handed, with too many scenes of snappy tough-guy banter and too much of the kind of elaborate thriller plotting that requires long explanations and offscreen conspiracies.Chabon can certainly write noir—or whatever else he wants; his recent Sherlock Holmes novel, The Final Solution, was lovely, even if the New York Times Book Review sniffed its surprise that the mystery novel would "appeal to the real writer." Should any other snobs mistake Chabon for anything less than a real writer, this book offers new evidence of his peerless storytelling and style. Characters have skin "as pale as a page of commentary" and rough voices "like an onion rolling in a bucket." It s a solid performance that would have been even better with a little more Yiddish and a little less police. (May)Jess Walter was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award for The Zero and the winner of the 2006 Edgar Award for best novel for Citizen Vince. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Contexto da obra
Quando a classificação é mais ampla, o contexto do livro costuma depender ainda mais de autoria, tema e edição. “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union”, de Michael Chabon, publicado pela editora HarperCollins Publishers, em 2007 e com 432 páginas, integra a categoria Livros Variados. Por isso, autoria, edição e tema acabam tendo ainda mais peso na forma de apresentar o livro.
Editora: HarperCollins Publishers
Páginas: 432
Ano: 2007
Edição:
Linguagem: inglês
ISBN: 0007149824
ISBN13: 9780007149827
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora HarperCollins Publishers trazem narrativas que transitam entre o histórico e o contemporâneo, frequentemente explorando conflitos pessoais em meio a cenários ricos em detalhes. A experiência de leitura varia do suspense juvenil, marcado por investigações e segredos sombrios, até sagas históricas que envolvem intrigas familiares e batalhas épicas. O catálogo sugere uma predileção por histórias que combinam personagens complexos com tramas que mesclam ação, mistério e elementos culturais, seja em ambientes urbanos modernos ou em paisagens remotas e fantásticas. Além disso, há obras que se aprofundam em biografias e relatos documentais, oferecendo ao leitor uma diversidade que vai do entretenimento à reflexão.
