wojciechowska

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."

2020-09-09 15:03