Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure
by Michael Chabon
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Book Reviews of Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure
Book Review: Chabon Elevates Genre Fiction
Summary: 3 Stars
Michael Chabon is the undisputed master of rasing genre novels into (or nearly into) the realm of literature. "Gentlemen of the Road" was originally produced as a serialized adventure, published incrementally by the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
It shows.
But as always, Chabon makes a convincing argument that we should overlook what we would normally think of as a failing. The adventures of a pair of Jewish con-men/mercenaries in 10th-century Khazaria feels like a very good mini-series on a channel like A&E or The BBC. Rousing action, battles and barfights, love and deceptions, politics and revolution packaged intelligently with quality actors and wrapped in Chabon's wonderful prose. While the chapters are at times disjointed, "Gentlemen of the Road" makes for an entertaining whole.
The depth and seriousness of "Kavalier & Clay" and "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" is replaced with swashbuckling heroes and the dust and mist of history, allowing the reader to relax and enjoy following Zelikman and Amram, a classic pair of bickering opposites, in their trip across an ancient and little known landscape.
Book Review: What it lacks in ambition, it more than makes up for in fun and adventure.
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed Chabon's early work; pieces like Wonder Boys are wonderful pieces of drama that really show off his talent for establishing characters and their psychologies. However, this second wave of work, filled with more experimentation and playfulness - from the neo-noir stylings of Yiddish Policemen's Union to the Holmes homage The Final Solution - maintains all of Chabon's literary talent while giving the work a higher level of simple, pure enjoyment. The fact that he creates such wonderful worlds while smuggling in literature? Even better. Gentlemen (I prefer Chabon's admitted original title, Jews with Swords) is a quick read, but its short length is packed with adventures, wonderful environments, surprising twists, and characters who come to live perfectly. A classic adventure novel in the tradition of everyone from Dumas to Errol Flynn, Gentlemen plunges the reader into a 10th century struggle in the desert and creates a tale that's pure fun. I can't say enough how enjoyable it is, and how much I recommend it. What it lacks in the ambition of something like Union, it more than makes up for in joy and adventure.Book Review: Short, but sweet...
Summary: 4 Stars
...just like this review.
If you love language...if you love adventure-writ-economical...if you believe that 'less is more'...then this novel is for you.
It's not for everyone. It is a sortakinda set-piece of muscular language; imagine if you will, Shakespeare writing a novella, and doing it with brevity in mind. It presumes that you're either familiar with many/most/the majority of arcane references...or you have the mental chops to connect the dots, to keep up with alacrity...while having a ball.
Having said that, as a screenwriter/novelist, part of my reaction to any book is, at the risk of infuriating literary purists, to ask the question 'Would it make a good movie?'
'Gentlemen of the Road' would make (in the right hands, with the right touch) a fantabulous film.
My fingers are now crossed.
Book Review: Enjoyable, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
I love this guy's work. So much so that I refuse the see the movie version of Wonder Boys, because I don't want it to spoil the visual images that Chabon created for me and rattle around in my head. I've already read Kavalier & Clay three times, and simply cannot express how much I love The Final Solution.
That said, when I first bought this book back in 2007 or 2008, I could not get past the first chapter. I felt like it was overwritten, and never could get the cadence of the narrative voice. So I gave up. Fortunately I picked it up again, and had fewer problems this time around. I still feel like it is a little overwritten, and agree with some of the reviewers here who argue that the characters are a little cookie cutter and not well developed. On the plus side I enjoyed the story itself, and once I got going it was a very quick read.
Book Review: I expected more. I got less
Summary: 1 Stars
Going by the glowing reviews and recommendations, I thought I would be getting a breathtaking adventure that would keep me up at night as I just HAD to know what happened next. Hardly. While I will give kudos to author Chabon for setting his story in a part of the world we Westerners don't often get to read about, I would have liked to have gotten more involved in the setting. Learned more about the area, it's people and history. But because of the brevity of the book (more novella than novel) there wasn't time. Nor did I form any attachment to the cookie-cutout heroes Zelikman or Amram. My biggest complaint was it was SO predictable. I knew what twists and turns were coming. I knew what was going to happen before I turned the page. I was disappointed with the whole thing.