The Yiddish Policeman's Union

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The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon

2008 Hugo Award Winner

Read by Peter Riegert

Got it from: Public Library

10h 45m

In Chabon’s alternate history, European Jewish refugees were allowed to settle in Sitka, Alaska during WWII.  Israel was destroyed after only a few months, and now after sixty years, the Federal District of Sitka is set to revert to the state of Alaska.  In the midst of the gloom and the impending finality that surrounds the district and its inhabitants, Meyer Landsman, an alcoholic homicide detective, finds himself pulled inexorably into the murder investigation of the son of a powerful organized crime boss.

Reading in three dimensions

No one can deny that the Hugo list, which has tended to the representation of male and WASPy perspectives, could use an infusion of diversity.  Some of my favorite Hugo’s have been those that more inclusive of a wider array of human experience, but they’re few and far between.  I was pretty excited by the title, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, for that very reason.  Chabon’s win has the added benefit, or curse, of being the kind of book that tests our boundaries, and as a result, reaches fans outside the genre.  And that’s probably a good thing.

At the same time as I’m happy about this book as a kind of border crossing, I’m not a great fan of alternate history as SF.  I’m not aware of much critical discussion regarding the topic, and maybe this is my fault.  Maybe there is a true dearth of scholarship on the fringes of SF, I’m not sure.  I suppose I should do some research.  I do know that I don’t find that the most often repeated justification holds water.  After all, doesn’t every book ask, “what if?”, in some way or another?

Whatever your perspective of the appropriateness of considering this book, or alternate history in general, as a part of the Science Fiction/Fantasy universe, this book will hopefully be one that, years from now helps us to better understand the genre.  Other than this, I feel pretty ambivalent about The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.

Chabon in fact conceived of the book as a result of something of an odd question - What if there was a place that would necessitate a translation manual from English to Yiddish.  What countries would such a manual (he happened across one called “Say it in Yiddish”) be necessary?

Chabon’s Sitka, Alaska, was a pretty wonderful exploration.  There is a very real sense of place and space – a feeling of a living breathing place – which is the result of some truly great prose.  It tricks you into grabbing hold of the direct and austere noir elements which he then slyly pokes holes in with unexpectedly sardonic witticism and cynical-yet-florid descriptions.  The effect is that every street, building, and room, has something of a unique texture and feeling of actual depth.  It felt like reading in three dimensions.

Despite amazingly great writing, I thought the story itself was lackluster at best.  I’m normally a fool for a story with such dark and hopeless characters and places, but something kept me from really sinking into this one.  Even by the end I didn’t have any particular feelings about it.  I hope it wasn’t because I was forced to listen to the audiobook, but it could have been.  There were countless times that I wish I could have lingered on a scene or phrase.  I guess this is all good reason to return, at a time when I’m more prepared to give it some real effort.  Honestly though, I don’t know what would motivate me to do that.

The audiobook

When I started this decade, I was committed to “no more audiobooks”.  Then I checked out Susanna Clarke’s mind-bogglingly long winner and felt I had no choice but to listen during my commute if I wanted to finish the Hugo’s anytime soon.  A vague awareness of the book’s critical reception had only heightened my anticipation and I had been excited to read The Yiddish Policeman’s Union for the cover alone so I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get the feel of real pages. 

Peter Riegert’s reading was the perfect substitute.  He was great for capturing the gritty-noir and the uncomfortable air of something impending.  Perhaps his gruff sound took something from the moments of levity in Chabon’s prose, but I loved every minute of his reading.

There is also an interview with Chabon at the end of the book which was helpful.  I appreciated the better understanding of where Chabon was coming from, the genesis of Jewish Sitka, and his intentions.

Overall, I was happy with the audiobook.  I don’t know that I would really encourage anyone else to listen but if someone were anxious to, I wouldn’t stop them.

Recommendation

Despite recognizing that this was an amazing book, I find myself deeply perplexed as to how it was nominated and won Best Novel.  I’m not completely convinced that it belongs here and Chabon himself admits that he never thought of it as science fiction while writing it.  I normally don’t care much for what an artist thinks of their own work once it’s in the public sphere, but in this case it seems telling.  I’m not diametrically opposed to it winning, I just need better context.  For everyone else, there’s plenty to like here.  Just know what you’re getting into.

HEP SCORE

Universe 5/5

Social/Political Climate 4/5

Dialogue 4/5

Scientific Wonders 3/5

Characters 2/5

Overall 18/25

Doomsday Book

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Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

1993 Hugo Award Winner

Got it from: Public Library

578 Pages

Doomsday Book completes the Grand Master Review Challenge over at WWEND for me.  It has been great fun and all the other participants are great people.  Getting involved with their challenge has seriously been one of the highlights of my year.  I can't wait for the reveal of next year's challenge!

Time travel happens.  And if you’re an excitable undergad historian that means you can have the chance to visit your very favorite times throughout history.  For Kivrin Engle, that means the Oxford of medieval England – 1320 to be exact.  When the drop is botched and the entirety of Oxford-Present comes down with a deadly virus, Kivrin’s professor, James Dunworthy is racing against the clock to save her, whether she needs saving or not.  Meanwhile, Kivrin herself must cope with translation issues, debilitating sickness and some pretty intense experiences of humanity.

Kivrin or Dunworthy?

The key to whether one enjoys Doomsday Book is in the narrative shifts. 

Despite overwhelming sickness, darkness, dirtiness and you know…the possibility of being raped, burned at the stake, or contracting the plague, the tale of Kivrin’s journey to the fourteenth century was so vibrant and emotional, and the townsfolk so distinctly human, that it was probably one of the more compelling stories for me.  Mostly, Kivrin herself was just a great experience.

Before she even leaves the present and without actually hearing much from her, Kivrin establishes her personality pretty forcefully.  She’s eternally optimistic, idealistic and just a damn enthusiastic medieval historian, despite only being an undergraduate.  Her enthusiasm is constantly under attack once she successfully drops to the 1300’s and watching experiencing her transformation from simply student of history to something less naïve and much more painfully aware of the unifying humanity and faith present throughout history but especially in a small town besieged by utterly terrifying illness.

Kivrin’s gradual understanding of Father Roche was also particularly good and it was a transformation of different sort.  From incapacitating fear of Roche to pity and then fierce admiration, Willis kept me with Kivrin through the whole damn thing and sometimes it was pretty dang gut-wrenching.

Then there was one moment after Kivrin recovered from her sickness and was just beginning to take care of Agnes (“Agnus” – oh man, I really loved that kid!) that had me laughing uncontrollably for over a minute.  I might have been affected by extreme exhaustion at the time but – no joke – I could not stop myself giggling like an idiot.

Whenever Willis…I’ll say it…forced me to break away from Kivrin’s story in the beginning, it was quite difficult to care about Dunworthy’s apparent doting over Kivrin and whether the drop was accurate.  After a good 100+ pages, and still not being sure whether Kivrin was in the right place, I was starting to feel like this plot line was just to tease us, and honestly on one or two occasions, slightly annoyed.

After the threat of influenza had become ominous enough and especially as the relationship between Dunworthy and Colin started to seriously blossom, and the antics between the nurses, Americans, and academics became ever more akin to the tomfoolery of a Monty Python farce.  Notwithstanding my serious love for Kivrin and her fantastic voyage I did begin to appreciate, at long last, both sides of the story.

Recommendation

This was my first read of Willis and in the months prior to reading this one, I heard a number of complaints, mostly about being long-winded.  I thought the length was just fine but I can somewhat understand why folks gripe about Willis taking forever to say something; she drags out the contagion suspense longer than I would have thought humanly possible.  I eventually came around to it, but I'd caution anyone to be prepared for some amount of frustration probably.

Compared to the rest of the early 90’s winners, Willis’ tale of time travel was a welcome departure from incessant detail and explanations of some of the very serious and science-heavy tomes of the period.  This is fun no matter when you read it though.  The children in both time periods were amazing (Colin’s gumball!) and Kivrin was a saint.  This will very likely become one of those books I read many times in my life.

HEP SCORE

Universe 5/5

Social/Political Climate 4/5

Dialogue 5/5

Scientific Wonders 4/5

Characters 5/5

Overall 23/25

I took forever slogging through Blue Mars and Barrayar for some reason.  Now I’m behind by a few reviews and I’m working on To Say Nothing of the Dog, also by Willis and Hyperion by Dan Simmons.  After that I have very little time to finish the rest of the decade if I’m to stay on schedule.  Psst...don't tell anyone but it's not looking like that's going to happen :/

The Man in the High Castle

The boring kindle-book cover

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The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

1963 Hugo Award Winner

Got if from: Kindle Store

288 Pages

Imagine an alternate history in which the axis won WWII.  The U.S. and the rest of the world has been divided between Japan and Germany and totalitarianism reigns supreme.  Germany has carried out their Final Solution world-wide and the Western United States has become dominated by Japanese culture.  To be American is to be downtrodden, abused and disrespected but slowly one book begins to introduce the possibility that things could be different.

“When I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning”

When I began TMHC, I approached it thinking I’d be reading about how laws are different or what conflicts take place or other such macro-level issues in the alternate past.  Instead, TMHC paints a surprisingly subtle picture of what life is like under Nazi or Japanese rule.  As PKD does so well, we get a sense of the personal turmoil which actually tells more about what the world was like than had it been told the way I expected.  And the suffering seems so much more real and worse for it.

Even more than I expected macro descriptions, I absolutely expected some kind of political conflict.  Of course political conflict was present but the real conflict was the search of a downtrodden American people for an authentic American experience when the dominant culture tells them that the very best of contemporary American culture is a joke to the high class, Japanese elite.

In that way, I thought PKD had more to say about the debate over high/low, hierarchical approaches to art and culture than the politics of a victorious Axis Powers.  While I normally enjoy that discussion, I wasn’t terribly impressed by anything PKD had to say here.  The other converstation taking place dealt with authenticity and in this case, I think PKD just didn’t have anything to contribute to the conversation.  I’ll grant that I don’t really know the direction of academic thought on authenticity in the 60’s compared to today, but I’d be willing to bet that this may have been cutting edge the time even though it fell flat for me now.

The world in TMHC - Find it on Wikipedia

If On a Winter’s Night An Art’s Dealer

There were very few (probably none) characters that I cared about in TMHC.  The one I was most interested in though was Robert Childan, the American artifacts dealer.  He has completely internalized the view of the low-class American and his struggle to come to terms with and overcome his doubts was stirring, though a little strange at times.

I guess, his motivation was probably my second favorite “character”.  Which is to say I loved it when the book took a reflexive, introspective turn and become self-aware – Italo Calvino style.  I don’t want to say much about it because I was a bit disappointed by it and don’t want to give away much about the end.  But the fact that a book about an alternate WWII outcome which contains a book about an alternate WWII outcome was a bit like being trapped in a house of mirrors for a while…and fun.

Recommendation

In retrospect, there were a lot of things I liked about TMHC and I imagine it was even more poignant in it’s time.  Throughout my last week though, this book was excruciating at times.  Yes PKD succeeds at developing a frighteningly dark world, which was good, but most of the time I was so disinterested and just plain bored by what was happening that it may have been one of my lease enjoyable reads thus far.  Erg…

HEP SCORE

Universe 3/5

Social/Political Climate 4/5

Dialogue 3/5

Scientific Wonders 1/5 (basically non-existent, sorry)

Characters 3/5 (They were a little stiff, but some of them developed alright)

Overall 14/25

The Die Being Cast

This week’s book is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by RAH.  I think this is one of the best Heinleins, though I’ve not come close to reading them all.  I am really looking forward to it.  Also, we’ve got a sure to be major 3-way M of the P contest coming up for the 60’s.

Next week’s book is A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. which I know nothing about, but it sounds like it might be more theological SF, which have been a mixed bag to this point.