Steven Galloway / Features / Untitled Books

What I'm reading: Barney's Version and The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Steven Galloway

Canadian author of Ascension and The Cellist of Sarajevo.

Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler

This is one of my favourite books. Being somewhat blessed with a porous memory, I find I'm able to go back every few years and read books again as though I've merely heard of them through friends, and this is one that's held up through a half dozen readings. Richler's prose is seamless, and his sense of pacing makes moments deeply moving where in the hands of a lesser writer they could have been melodramatic. Our narrator, Barney Panofsky, is funny, maddening, offensive, endearing and nearly everything else a human being can be. If I met him I'd probably hate him, but as a reader with access to the inside of his head I find myself loving him. As Barney writes his memoirs we watch as his memory deserts him, see his life as it fades from his view. The ending, which I dare not give away, is nothing short of brilliant.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Given my reaction to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon should call me if he ever needs a kidney. The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a very different novel, and I enjoyed it for different reasons. My favourite bit is a small bit of wordplay where a gun is called a sholem (a gun being a piece, and peace in Yiddish is shalom). I imagine that the book's full of these small gems, and I simply missed them because shalom and oy vey constitute 100% of the Yiddish I know. Part detective noir, part speculative fiction, Chabon is one of the few writers who, for my tastes, can combine elements of genre fiction with literary narratives and language and make it work. The premise of the book supposes that Alaska has been given to the Jews instead of Israel, but for a limited time, and we enter the story just before reversion. Detective Meyer Landsman, a disgraced borderline alcoholic, becomes obsessed with solving a murder that everyone around him would rather he not. It's a lot more personal than Kavalier and Clay, a lot less epic, and completely rewarding.

Friday, 5 September, 2008