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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gentlemen, gentlemen!,
This review is from: Gentlemen of the Road (Hardcover)
Award-winner Michael Chabon usually focuses on the disaffected of the present, or at least the near past.
But he goes over a thousand years into the past for "Gentlemen of the Road," an old-fashioned adventure story with some gloriously offbeat heroes. It's a fun, quirky read (the original, fitting title was "Jews With Swords"), with lots of unique twists but the prose gets a bit purple at times. In caravans and on the road, the giant Abyssian Amram and gawky Frank Zelikman make money however they can -- even staging mock fights. After their ruse is found out by a weary mahout, he offers to take them on as bodyguards to a sullen young prince, Filaq. Then the mahout is murdered, and the two "Gentlemen of the Road" find themselves babysitting a snotty teen with a tendency to run away. Unfortunately, the fortress they're heading for has been destroyed, and a gang of hired thugs kidnap Filaq. For no reason they can explain, Amram and Zelikman find themselves racing to rescue the kid, and beginning a quest full of checkered pasts, civil wars, ancient elephants... and the discovery that Filaq isn't quite who he seems to be. There's something very classic about the flavour of "Gentlemen of the Road." Maybe it's because it was actually serialized in the New York Times Magazine, or maybe because Chabon apparently soaked up the works of Moorcock, Alexandre Dumas and Fritz Lieber. Think a Jewish version of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. "Gentlemen of the Road" does have one flaw -- Chabon's prose gets dense and purple at times, which sent me spinning right off the narrative. But it does a pretty good job of evoking the dusty, harsh life of people on the march, brothels, attempted executions, ancient elephants, and the occasional mercenary joining up with the "gentlemen." But Chabon doesn't let the story become leaden. He peppers it with wryly amusing dialogue ("Now, will you ride calmly behind me or do we need to bind you at the ankles, too?" "You had better bind my ankles") and the occasional running joke like Zelikman's mutilated hats. There's even a Norse axe humorously called "Defiler of All Mothers." As you'd expect, Zelikman and Amram are likably rough, with some dark pasts -- one has left his home and family behind, the other has been roaming in search of his daughter for twenty years. Chabon doesn't try to make either a likable person, and that makes them even more so -- the same with Filiq, the feisty princess in drag. "Gentlemen of the Road" is a solid adventure story, with a classic flavour and slightly overblown prose. Certainly a worthwhile read.
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great Ideas with poor execution,
This review is from: Gentlemen of the Road (Kindle Edition)
This felt like the first draft of what was too be a much, much better novel. The author was more concerned with writing clever, twisting dialogue than with constructing a cohesive story and that's a real shame because the interesting setting and characters deserve better treatment than this. I wanted to like this novel but found it frustrating, having to re-read entire pages because the writing would become incoherent. The events of the story are illogical at times and in many cases just plane confusing. For example we have a scene where one of the main characters, an orphaned prince, is captured by brigands. The prince convinces half the brigands to turn on the other half and follow him. How he does this we never really find out because the story is being retold by another character who doesn't really explain it all that well. When the prince's previous companions find him he's tied up and being treated like a prisoner again. Why? Who knows but it doesn't matter because in about two pages he gives them a speech that convinces them to follow him. Again. There are scenes in the book where characters are playing a game like chess and making references to the game moves but since the actual game rules are never explained you can not tell if they are talking about the game pieces or real events happening around them. There is a scene where a Warlord is playing this game and I still don't know if the "armed guards" the author refers too are actual armed guards or pieces on the chess board. Aside from the plot holes and the confusing train of events the author falls back on some pretty tired cliche's. I mean things you have literally read or seen in movies a hundred times before.*SPOILER AHEAD* Two 'strangers' dueling with the large one being defeated only to have it revealed that it was a ruse to win money. A male character being revealed to be 'gasp' female. And so it goes.
I haven't read this Author's previous works, one of which won a Pulitzer prize, so he is no doubt gifted. This novel should never have gone to print in its current state. It feels like notes that could be turned into a great novel but as it stands its an incoherent mess. The editor that green lit this for print should be fired and the author should re-release this in a more complete and professional form.
0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't buy this book.,
By
This review is from: Gentlemen of the Road (Hardcover)
An awful mess. For those that were enthralled with Michael Chabon's Summerland, best bypass this train wreck. It is hard to believe these two books were written by the same author. Run-on sentences and a incoherent chain of events derails this book on every page. I wanted to enjoy this book, but found myself unable to avoid being bogged down.
While the premise of two wayward con artists in the Middle Ages would be a great plot, Michael Chabon wastes it by his inability to structure even a single comprehensive idea.
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