El sindicat de policies jueus

Many people seem to enjoy Michael Chabon’s books so I was pleased when I finally had a reason to read The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. In the dark Alaskan winter in the city of Sitka; Detective Meyer Landsman’s ex-wife has just become his boss and has handing him a huge stack of old cold cases that she wants him to solve. While Landsman life may feel like its already hit rock bottom, he’s only just discovering the mess that he’s in; a mess that will lead to a conspiracy.

This alternative verson of Sitka, Alaska in this book is a Yiddish-speaking metropolis. That was the whole basis of this book; Michael Chabon’s idea came from a book he found called 'Say It in Yiddish' which had sayings that he would never have a chance to use because Yiddish isn't the primary language of any country. While toying with the idea of a hypothetical Yiddish-speaking country this book was born. The idea was Israel lost the 1948 war; the Jews established a Jewish state in Alaska.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is an interesting blend of Michael Chabon's heritage with a love of old mystery novels. Chabon has called it a homage to Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald and Isaac Babel. But while the noir stylings of this book are good this book also has a satirical nature about it, with a comic look at the Yiddish language and Jewish culture. Michael Chabon originally published an essay called Guidebook to a Land of Ghosts; which he discussed some thoughts he had of the travel book Say It in Yiddish, this essay was responded with a spiteful reaction from a Jewish community. This vitriolic response only spurred Chabon on and eventually he developed the idea of this book.

While there was some parts of the book that felt like it dragged on, over all the balance between the comical and the noir seemed to work. There are some great line coming from thing book; a highlight for me was "He feels like he suffers from tinnitus of the soul." I was really surprised with just how well the dark and gritty mystery mixed with Chabon’s satirical style. I liked the whole concept of a Jewish noir novel; it was a refreshing take on a genre that I love. Well worth checking out this Alternate history novel; as it is one of the best I’ve read. I hear that the Coen Brothers are looking at adapting this book into a movie, if anyone could do this book justice as a movie, it would definitely be them. I’d be interested to see if this movie ever gets made and how it translates onto the screen.

Nine months Landsman's been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered. Now somebody has put a bullet in the brain of the occupant of 208, a yid who was calling himself Emanuel Lasker.

Michael Chabon's latest novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, at first seems to be simply a homage to the 1940's detective story, and that is certainly the backbone characteristic of this story, but it is also written in an alternative future and is richly embellished with Jewish cultures and the intricacies of chess. One reviewer at Publisher's Weekly called this book "a
murder-mystery speculative-history Jewish-identity noir chess thriller." Right. That's exactly what it is.

Chabon imagines what would have been if Franklin Roosevelt's proposal to establish a temporary Jewish settlement on the Alaskan panhandle had been carried out. The talented author calls this place Sitka, and populates it with "the frozen chosen," some of the most richly described characters in fiction. Chabon's similes and metaphors, some quite humorous, are remarkable.

Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined dessert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running. A little kid lumped him together, a mob of kids, blind orphans who never laid eyes on a man. They clumped the dough of his arms and legs to the dough of his body, then jammed his head down on top. A millionaire could cover a Rolls-Royce with the fine black silk-and-velvet expanse of the rebbe's frock coat and trousers. It would require the brain strength of the eighteen greatest sages in history to reason through the arguments against and in favor of classifying the rebbe's massive bottom as either a creature of the deep, a man-made structure, or an unavoidable act of God. If he stands up, or if he sits down, it doesn't make any difference in what you see.

The hero of this tale is Meyer Landsman, a cop, or as the Yiddish say, a noz. (I didn't let my lack of Yiddish background or chess intimidate me while reading, by the way, because everything the reader needs to know is there, though this is a challenging book). Landsman is obviously in a bad way, living in a slum of a hotel, a man just divorced, with a drinking problem and insomnia. . Anyway, when Landsman starts to investigate this murder, he finds himself delving ever deeper into the various cultures in and around Sitka, which are made so real by the author's vivid imagination. What Landsman uncovers about the murdered man fascinates him and is very important and central to every facet of this complicated plot. All the while, too, is a looming deadline in everything Landsman does; the Yiddish settlement in Sitka is nearing the end of its 60-year, temporary status, and Sitka is scheduled to revert back to Alaskan control in a matter of a couple months. Indeed, Sitka's denizens have adopted the refrain, "these are strange times to be a Jew."

What does chess have to do with it? Oy, that's another matter, but it's an important part of Landsman's childhood landscape and a window into the minds and personalities of several male characters in the novel. Two other important personalities are Landsman's partner, his half-Tlingit, half-Jewish cousin Berko, and his ex-wife Bina, who is now, suddenly, his boss.

I love the dialogs in this novel! The constant sarcastic wit and tough-guy affection going on between the characters is highly entertaining and provides comic relief to a background that is so bleak. The various plots in this novel were like converging waters, which the author kept parted until they reached their boiling point. The Yiddish Policemen's Union shows off the boundless talent of Michael Chabon, and I would highly recommend it.