Lessons from 'Gentlemen of the Road'

The working title for Michael Chabon's latest novel, "Gentlemen of the Road," was "Jews With Swords." It is a hilarious saga of two Jews who couldn't look less alike -- a willowy Frank and a giant African -- as they fight and out-think their way through the Khazar Empire, a land ruled by Jews after a mass conversion.

I finished this book while sitting in an airport, having just returned from Las Vegas. And though I thoroughly enjoyed the 196-page story, I found the afterword, in which Chabon discusses the oddity of a former literary snob writing about Jews with swords, even better.

This incongruity of writer and work suggests, of course, that classic variant of the adventure story (found in works as diverse as Don Quixote and Romancing the Stone) in which a devoted reader or author of the stuff is granted the opportunity (or obliged) to live out an adventure "in real life." And it is seen in this light that the association of Jews with swords, of Jews with adventure, may seem paradoxically less incongruous. In relation of the Jews to the land of their origin, in the ever-extending, ever-thinning cord, braided from the freedom of the wanderer and the bondage of exile, that binds a Jew to his Home, we can make out the unmistakable signature of adventure. The story of Jews centers around -- one might almost say stars -- the hazards and accidents, the misfortunes and disasters, the feats of inspiration, the travail and despair, and intermittent moments of glory and grace, that entail upon journeys from home and back again. For better and worse it has been one long adventure -- a five-thousand-year Odyssey -- from the moment of the true First Commandment, when God told Abraham lech lecha: Thou shalt leave home. Thou shalt get lost. Thou shalt find slander, oppression, opportunity, escape, and destruction. Thou shalt, by definition, find adventure. This long, long tradition of Jewish adventure may look a bit light on the Conans or D'Artagnans; our greatest heroes less obviously suited to exploits of derring-do and arms. But maybe that ill-suitedness only makes Jews all the more ripe to feature in (or to write) this kind of tale. Or maybe it is time to take a look backward at that tradition, as I have attempted to do here, and find some shadowy kingdom where a self-respecting Jewish adventurer would not be caught dead without his sword or his battle-ax.

And if you still think there's something funny in the idea of Jews with swords, look at yourself, right now: sitting in your seat on a jet airplane, let's say, in your unearthly orange polyester and neoprene shoes, listening to digital music, crawling across the sky from Charlotte to Las Vegas, and hoping to lose yourself -- your home, your certainties, the borders and barriers of your life -- by means of a bundle of wood pulp, sewn and glued and stained with blobs of pigment and resin. People with Books. What, in 2007, could be more incongruous than that? It makes me want to laugh.

More on 'Fargo' in Sitka

JTA has a bit more info about the great news that the Coen Brothers adapting Michael Chabon's "Yiddish Policemen's Union." The author is, as he told Sugar Bombs, "over the moon."

Richly conceived and phenomenally detailed, Chabon's Sitka is home to just the sort of improbable characters that populate Coen brothers films. It is the Coen brothers, after all, who gave the world The Dude, the hero of their 1998 film "The Big Lebowski," a blissed-out stoner and bowling devotee who finds himself negotiating the return of a bimbo wife from her supposed kidnappers.

And their love of genre films, particularly screwball comedies and film noir, seems perfectly suited to a novel that contains distinct elements of both.

"The Yiddish Policemen's Union" was released to critical acclaim in 2007. But among some Jewish writers, the book created a sense of unease, and even barely suppressed outrage, some of which is sure to resurface when the film is released.

Claiming Chabon was sending a clear anti-Zionist message, Ruth Wisse, a noted Yiddish scholar at Harvard University, demolished the novel in a withering essay in Commentary magazine, calling it a "sustained act of provocation," among other denigrations; Commentary's editor-in-waiting John Podhoretz and journalist Samuel Freedman offered similar criticisms of the novel. A decidedly less scholarly view was expressed in a New York Post story, headlined "Novelist's Ugly View of Jews."

One can only imagine what these critics will have to say once the Coen brothers, with their Jewish fluency and twisted sense of humor, get their hands on Chabon's prose.

The upcoming film is being produced by Scott Rudin, who reportedly bought the rights to the book five years ago, before it was even completed, and the film is not expected before mid-2009. But industry skeptics are rightly wary. The film version of one of Chabon's earlier novels, the award-winning "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," has been reported to be in the works for years, with direction by another famous Jewish filmmaker, Sydney Pollack.

But regardless of whether the film version of "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" ever sees the light of day, the news alone has been enough to set the blogosphere on fire with overheated speculation.

"This is the greatest fit ever," one Israel-based blogger heaved. "I can't picture any other director tackling this book and doing it right. What a great fit. Yiddish Noir!!!"

In an interview last November, Chabon discussed with me the accusations that he was not only an anti-Zionist but an anti-Semite.

Coen Brothers to adapt Chabon's "Yiddish Policemen"

I can't ask for much more than to have my two favorite screenwriters/directors adapting one of my favorite novels. The Coen Brothers, it was reported today, will be taking Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" to the silver screen.

According to Chabon, the Coen brothers have agreed to at least write the adaptation, once the writer's strike ends. (They made the deal pre-strike.)

"I am, of course, over the moon about this," Chabon said. "They are among my favorite living moviemakers. Three or four of their films are on my all-time favorite list. They are geniuses. What's more, I think they are perfectly suited to this material in every way, from its genre(s) to its tone to its content. I can't wait to see what they eventually do with it."

As we already know, the Coen Brothers can do a lot with crime capers set in frozen other worlds.

Jews with swords: 'Gentleman of the Road'

Let’s face it: we Jews were never really the sword-carrying type. And that’s a good thing because you know what they say about those who live by the sword.

But, it’s amusing to read about Jews with swords in Michael Chabon’s latest novel, “Gentlemen of the Road.”

Originally published earlier this year in serial installments in the New York Times Magazine, the book follows the exploits of a pair of 10th century Jews — Amram and Zelikman — who pursue adventure throughout the Caucasus Mountains. They fight with swords and battle-axes, swindle tavern dwellers, perform daring acts of thievery and ultimately help raise a rebel army to overthrow the man who usurped the throne of the Khazar Empire from its rightful owner.

That’s a lot to get through in 196 pages but with Chabon’s fine storytelling abilities, our heroes make it from beginning to end without leaving the reader feeling rushed.

That's from Jewish Literary Review. Such fond phrases come as no surprise. Chabon is, quite simply, a master. I finished last week "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," which reminded me poignantly of his ability with a pen. (Coupled with "swords," mentioning "pen" reminds me of a couple of Sean Connery SNL sketches.)

As for Jews with swords, sometimes they've wielded them well. Other times not so much.

My interview with author Michael Chabon

This was cool. God Blog readers know I enjoy the writings of Michael Chabon, and last month I got to interview him after the Celebration of Jewish Books at the American Jewish University. JTN put it on their Web site a few weeks ago, but we just got it up on YouTube for your embedded enjoyment.

I asked Chabon about his "frozen chosen" hit "The Yiddish Policemen's Union," about being called an anti-Semite and about being comfortable as a geek.

Jewish authors date to Moses

I'm a Michael Chabon fan -- "Wonder Boys," "Final Solution," "Yiddish Policemen's Union," and, oh yeah, that Pulitzer-Prize winner I haven't yet read. It was a treat, then, to see last week that the Jewish weekly in San Francisco, j., had a cover story on Chabon and his wife, best-selling author Ayelet Waldman.

Being a Jewish author “is a great tradition to be part of, stretching back to …” She pauses.

“Moses?” suggests Chabon.

“Moses,” states Waldman definitively, adding Cynthia Ozick, Saul Bellow and Mordecai Richler for good measure.

Bintel Blogger Daniel Treiman, though, notes a glaring gap in the j.'s story, which doesn't touch the controversy surrounding "Yiddish Policemen's":

Critics — some more sober than others — have argued that the book is hostile to Israel. It’s a disappointing omission, given that some have already started casually referring (perhaps unfairly) to Chabon as an anti-Zionist. It would have been good to hear what Chabon has to say on this issue.

You know what I would also consider unfortunate? That an author is branded an anti-Zionist -- which has become a synonym for anti-Semite -- because they write a fictional account of the efforts to create Zion in a parallel reality.