Paperback, 160 pages
English language
Published Nov. 1, 2005 by Harper Perennial.
The various points of view were well done, and seeing Holmes as very elderly was fresh and interesting, but the mystery was not very compelling and sort of deflates at the end.
In all honesty: two pages into this book, not knowing anything about Chabon or the contents of this book, I felt this was most probably written by an American pretending to be English, born and braised.
While Chabon can obviously write well, the book works as a whole piece, but I tended to get interrupted by the details really bothering me as every dialogue sounded as though Chabon had really wanted to be Arthur Conan Doyle, writing about Sherlock Holmes; the title of this book is a reference to a Sherlock Holmes story.
The mystery in itself is plain and simple: where's the parrot? An old detective tries to solve everything.
A light, quick read, but painful and really, Conan Doyle's stories are infinitely better.
In all honesty: two pages into this book, not knowing anything about Chabon or the contents of this book, I felt this was most probably written by an American pretending to be English, born and braised.
While Chabon can obviously write well, the book works as a whole piece, but I tended to get interrupted by the details really bothering me as every dialogue sounded as though Chabon had really wanted to be Arthur Conan Doyle, writing about Sherlock Holmes; the title of this book is a reference to a Sherlock Holmes story.
The mystery in itself is plain and simple: where's the parrot? An old detective tries to solve everything.
A light, quick read, but painful and really, Conan Doyle's stories are infinitely better.
An excellent twist on Sherlock Holmes.
The Final Solution has a compelling premise, but the execution (perhaps a poor choice of words when dealing with a book that obliquely refers to the Holocaust) leaves a bit to be desired.
Although he's referred to solely as "the old man," it's immediately apparent that the protagonist is intended to be Sherlock Holmes at 89. The idea of Holmes coming out of retirement during World War II to solve one more mystery is intriguing, but the reason why he becomes involved in this particular case (a murder and a bird-napping) seems a bit flimsy. While I'd hoped to see the master detective--even a Holmes diminished by age--there wasn't much in the way of brilliant deductions, just a few "Easter egg" references to past cases and an admittedly clever allusion to the title of what was intended to be Holmes' final case, "The Final Problem."
The characters were too many …
The Final Solution has a compelling premise, but the execution (perhaps a poor choice of words when dealing with a book that obliquely refers to the Holocaust) leaves a bit to be desired.
Although he's referred to solely as "the old man," it's immediately apparent that the protagonist is intended to be Sherlock Holmes at 89. The idea of Holmes coming out of retirement during World War II to solve one more mystery is intriguing, but the reason why he becomes involved in this particular case (a murder and a bird-napping) seems a bit flimsy. While I'd hoped to see the master detective--even a Holmes diminished by age--there wasn't much in the way of brilliant deductions, just a few "Easter egg" references to past cases and an admittedly clever allusion to the title of what was intended to be Holmes' final case, "The Final Problem."
The characters were too many in number, and too sketchily rendered to leave much an impression. This surprised me, since characterization was such a strong point in his previous novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
Another issue I had is that the viewpoint character for the climactic scene is a parrot. This isn't an unforgivable sin--it was an interesting portrayal--but it IS pretty goofy.
Finally, detective novels (even self-consciously literary ones) live and die on their mystery, but here Holmes solves the lesser one while ignoring the larger one. He nabs the murderer while failing to uncover the nature of the German numbers constantly recited by the parrot at the heart of the case. The reader will likely figure it out right away, but Holmes never does. I imagine this was intentional on the part of Chabon; he seems to want to say that even a master detective is incapable of realizing the scope and true horror of the Nazis' depravity. However, it didn't feel right or authentic that Sherlock Holmes would let this particular puzzle slide.
While I don't feel like my time was wasted reading this book, I do feel like the interesting premise was wasted on an undercooked story.
Bravo, from the Sherlock Holmes fans.
I'm having trouble coming to terms with this book. Add it on the pile of my ambivalence about Michael Chabon. I think the thing that bugs me the most is the potential for greatness here.
An aging Sherlock Holmes is coming to terms with the fact that he is no longer in his prime and preparing himself for death and battling senility? Awesome, awesome premise. As a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, I usually refuse to touch modern interpretations, because I don't trust authors to give me what Conan Doyle did to make Holmes so compelling. On this aspect, Chabon mostly delivers: he captures Holmes' greatness in his dedication and flashes of brillance and tempers it with his moodiness and self-destructiveness. It's not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Holmes mystery, though, failing in the complete lack of explanation of how Holmes deduces anything (and really, failing as a …
I'm having trouble coming to terms with this book. Add it on the pile of my ambivalence about Michael Chabon. I think the thing that bugs me the most is the potential for greatness here.
An aging Sherlock Holmes is coming to terms with the fact that he is no longer in his prime and preparing himself for death and battling senility? Awesome, awesome premise. As a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, I usually refuse to touch modern interpretations, because I don't trust authors to give me what Conan Doyle did to make Holmes so compelling. On this aspect, Chabon mostly delivers: he captures Holmes' greatness in his dedication and flashes of brillance and tempers it with his moodiness and self-destructiveness. It's not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Holmes mystery, though, failing in the complete lack of explanation of how Holmes deduces anything (and really, failing as a compelling mystery all over.) Holmes is aging, his brain isn't what it used to be, don't tell us that, show us by having Holmes try his famous Holmes deduction. Show us him missing clues, or thinking slowly, or coming to the wrong conclusions. It's an insanely original, compelling idea, that mostly only reaches it's full potential when Holmes reflects on a post-Blitz London with anger that London still exists in the post-Holmes area and that the Blitz and WWI have allowed it to change and grow into something else. I love the idea of what happens to the characters we love when they move past what they once were.
I think the big reason that this book fails is that while Chabon is good at many things, the novella is not an ideal format. His books become compelling over time, as you become more enmeshed with the characters. Pages give his language room to proliferate and his sprawling sentences feel less suffocating in longer books. There are so many ideas here, ripe for the picking. I can't possible imaging saying to myself "I have an idea for a book that's about an aging Holmes, in WWII, meeting a mute orphan, who will act as his foil, who has a parrot, who knows secret numbers, which may be the key to German codes, prompting discussion of the lengths one will go for national loyalty and exploring the tension between commitment to country and commitment to Jewish orphaned refuges in the middle of the holocaust, while also discussing the morally grey characters who form this boy's foster family and I want this story to be an exemplar of the modern mystery novel. That sounds like it can be done in 170 pages!" Everything loses in the brevity.
What really bothers me is that in the author's note, Chabon writes about the respect he has for "genre novels" and that he wants people who normally don't read genre to pick up this book and it to make them want to go back and read more mysteries. It's insulting to authors who frequently write genre. I agree that genre can be the most compelling form of fiction; it's freed from constraints; it can explore the worlds of possibilities and use that to reflect on the way our world is. This is not a great genre novel, and although Chabon has been a great friend to the melding of genre and literature in Kavalier and Clay (superhero/comic book) and Yiddish Policeman's Union (a much better version of mystery/noir), he should have left this one to the mystery writers.
A simple mystery, although in hindsight I can't remember a lick of detail. What I remember are bees and mise-en-scene: an old man crumbling but not unhappy. I could be wrong.
