Chabon

Last night, I went to see Vendela Vida interview Michael Chabon about his latest novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, for City Arts & Lectures. I was going to wait for the paperback, but like Chabon said, there's nothing more fun the alternate history and I couldn't wait to start reading his version of the world where America accepted millions of Jewish refuges and allowed them to settle in th Alaskan Panhandle, thereby mitigating the Holocaust to some degree.

One the thing that he talked about that struck me was an awareness that his own writing voice tended to run long and snuck in clauses at the drop of a hat. I can certainly identify with that tendency as well. So trying to writing detective fiction in the manner of Chandler was really tough for him. I've only dug in to the first few chapters, but it is a bit of a strange bird, Chabon's beautiful sentences in a much more clipped style. I think I'm going to enjoy it.

Even though Chabon made a strong argument that typical "mainstream" literature that comes out of the tradition psychological realism of Checkov is a type of Genre fiction itself, I think one of the best things he's doing in legitimizing Genre such as super-hero stoies, sword fantasy and now detective fiction. I can totally see how he's part just writing the things that he'd like to read but the modern sensibilities and awareness he brings to his subject is a grand a glorious thing.