Dorota Wojciechowska Wojciechowska itibaren Clinton County, NY, Birleşik Devletler itibaren Clinton County, NY, Birleşik Devletler

This book was an impressively-realized disappointment. The entire way through, I couldn't stop thinking that Chabon had lent his extraordinary talent to the wrong cause. Although his noir is quite good, it's simply not his native language, and it shows. Chabon is so much more expressive than this mode of writing allows. Furthermore, and this was a new experience for me with regards to Chabon, I couldn't muster any feeling for the characters, who were so clearly imaginary, no matter how vividly described. Cruelly, Chabon's natural brilliance turns against him in passages of dialogue, wherein characters who confuse "your" with "you're" churn out witty comments about adverbs, or comebacks that, while totally necessary for the hard-boiled detective genre, ring false. Finally, it didn't help that the first 150 or 175 pages were absolutely crammed to the rafters with similes. Chabon is a master of the simile, but he went overboard here. I want very much to give The Yiddish Policemen's Union 3 stars, because I truly love this man's writing ability and his imagination, but if anyone asked me how the book was, no doubt about it, I'd say, "it was ok."

This is a tale about woman who works with her father in an antiquarian book store until she has sent a letter from a famous English writer asking the woman to write the writer's autobiography. The writer, Vera Winter, is an elusive woman who has hidden her personal life and history from her thousands and thousands of fans. However, Winter is now terminally ill and wants to have her entire story told. Winter's story is intertwined with that of the woman writing the biography and the two stories expose the hidden truths, in both of their lives, that have laid dormant for decades. Issues surrounding illegitimate children, incestuous desires, "twinness", and other gothic elements are woven into these parallel plots. It is written within the Gothic tradition with overly rich writing that is reminiscent of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights (if even includes the burning down of a house!). While the writing and word choice is extremely discriminating and resonates throughout the pages, the characters fall flat and uninteresting. The most interesting characters in the story are only present in the first fourth of the novel. For the rest of the story, the characters are stereotypical and the plot turns can be seen a hundred pages away. While many reviews praised the novel for being reminiscent of the classic Gothic tales, I found that the book had more or less stolen the Gothic elements from other tales and had not developed them into the author's own story or craft. In regards to the audiobook, I found the narrators to be exceptional. Though the story was dull and quickly became boring, it was the narrators who kept me listening. Their voices were enchanting and their reading of the story added more to the book than the actual text. However, not even the narrators could save me from the disappointment I felt when I reached the cliched ending. Overall, if you love Gothic fiction, you may be interested to read this book for the language and the allusions to Gothic classics. Yet, if you are looking for something comparable to Jane Eyre or other captivating classics, you have more luck just rereading the classics. www.iamliteraryaddicted.blogspot.com