Michael Chabon: "Gentlemen of the Road"

Chabon's new book disappointed me. I hoped for another Yiddish Policemen's Union. I didn't find what I expected.

"I am a gentleman of the road," says his main character Zelikman, "an apostate from the faith of my fathers, a renegade, a brigand, a hired blade, a thief... ." Zelikman's actions show him to be a fighter, a healer, a wanderer, an adventurer, sometimes even a con man. But somehow, the adventures he shares with Amram, a giant from Africa, never seemed to me as exciting or captivating as the author seems to promise.

True, the two soldiers of fortune wander with various intentions through the obscurest parts of Asia, in the 10th century Jewish kingdom of the Khazars, but I think this is the problem: this setting is just too obscure.

The popular series of "Magic Treehouse" books for children tell of two modern children transported to obscure and far-away places where they become familiar with a few customs and exotic ways of life -- ancient Egypt, the American pilgrims, pre-contact Hawaii, etc. It's very philistine of me, but I think Chabon could have learned something from the way that the "Treehouse" authors fill in the gaps in readers' knowledge. Chabon just left us too many gaps. Reading Gentlemen of the Road is too much like reading a real tale of knights from the Middle Ages: you just feel lost and eventually (excuse the expression) bored. I want a Reader's Guide!