Gentlemen Of The Road

by Michael Chabon

Two wandering adventurers and unlikely soulmates are variously plying their trades as swords for hire, horse thieves and con artists - until fortune entangles them in the myriad schemes and battles that follow a bloody coup in the medieval Jewish empire of the Khazars.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy, Historical, Literary Fiction, Jewish

196 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2007

About the author

Michael Chabon is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.
Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), was published when he was 24. He followed it with Wonder Boys (1995) and two short-story collections. In 2000, he published The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel that John Leonard would later call Chabon's magnum opus. It received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.
His novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union, an alternate history mystery novel, was published in 2007 and won the Hugo, Sidewise, Nebula and Ignotus awards; his serialized novel Gentlemen of the Road appeared in book form in the fall of the same year. In 2012, Chabon published Telegraph Avenue, billed as "a twenty-first century Middlemarch", concerning the tangled lives of two families in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2004. He followed Telegraph Avenue in November 2016 with his latest novel, Moonglow, a fictionalized memoir of his maternal grandfather, based on his deathbed confessions under the influence of powerful painkillers in Chabon's mother's California home in 1989.
Chabon's work is characterized by complex language, and the frequent use of metaphor along with recurring themes such as nostalgia, divorce, abandonment, fatherhood, and most notably issues of Jewish identity. He often includes gay, bisexual, and Jewish characters in his work. Since the late 1990s, he has written in increasingly diverse styles for varied outlets; he is a notable defender of the merits of genre fiction and plot-driven fiction, and, along with novels, has published screenplays, children's books, comics, and newspaper serials.

Reviews

[Jayson · Rating 2 out of 5]

(C+) 66% | Almost Satisfactory
Notes: Grandiloquent verbosity and overlong sentences make what should be an escapist tale a needlessly bothersome read.

[Jayson · Rating 2 out of 5]

(C+) 66% | Almost Satisfactory
Notes: Wherein clarity's a rarity and story's not the focus: the point's to preen, wax byzantine, flaunt rhetorical hocus pocus.

*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary:

Progress updates:

01/02/2025 - Preamble

(1) I hated this the first time around, and I don't like to reread books I know I won't like, but it's fairly short, available right now at my library, and I need something to listen to.
- Since you can never give 100% attention to audiobooks while doing other things, mine must all be rereads so I'm familiar with them and won't have to concentrate too hard on the go.

01/09/2025 - Chapters 1–4

(1) "If I am mistaken as to the actual nature of your lower extremities, I beg you to join me in the courtyard of this house, at your leisure but preferably soon, so that, with the pedagogical instrument of your choice, you may educate me."
- Ugh... if I had to translate this, I'd guess: "If you have the balls to teach me a lesson, pick your weapon and step outside."

01/12/2025 - Chapters 5–8

(1) If I may coin a term, this novel is the foremost example I know of "unliterature."
- The purpose of literature, as Stephen King put it, is telepathy: to convey information nonverbally, through written words.
- Chabon does not do this. His primary intention is not to be clearly understood, but to hot-dog byzantine vocabulary.
- Escapist pulp adventure this is not.

01/13/2025 - Chapters 9–12

(1) "'The offer to join us was a simple one, really,' Joseph Hirkanos said ... 'But I divine that you find a way to complicate everything.'"
- Chabon writing about himself, apparently.
(2) Listening to this audiobook is like trying to transcribe a phone tap.
- Lots of rewinding to catch whether sounds are phrases or names or jargon or just needless baroque verbosity.

01/16/2025 - Chapters 13–Afterword

(1) The main takeaway from Chabon's afterword is how the book was originally titled "Jews With Swords."
- Ironic, since neither protagonist, the Jews in question, actually carries a sword.
(2) It wasn't my intention, but I haven't touched on plot or characters at all in these updates.
- Though, to be fair, story wasn't Chabon's priority or object of attention either.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

"All the evil in the world derives from the actions of men acting in a mass against other masses of men."
- Michael Chabon, Gentlemen of the Road



Jews with Swords? I guess that was Chabon's working title, if Chabon is to be believed. He is a bit unreliable. His prose, however, is delicious. His perspective is always new and fresh. I don't think this is nearly one of his great ones*, but it seems like it might have been the most enjoyable (that I've read so far) for Chabon to write. It is a yarn, a tale, a swashbuckler, a grift, a rollick, a legend. I'm not sure why it hasn't been made into a movie. It is NOT, however, a live promotions company, record label and organizer of the global series of Stopover Festivals. That is a different set of Gentlemen.

This short novel seems like some Jewish equivalent to The Princess Bride (yes, I understand that William Goldman is Jewish, but the Princess Bride was not directly a Jewish adventure). Anyway, it was the perfect book to read as I flew from Phoenix to Dallas to start a weeklong eclipse road trip with my brother and Douglas Laux. It was tight and the prose was classic Chabon. One of my favorite things about this book? The chapters:

"On Discord Arising from the Excessive Love of a Hat"
"On the Seizing of a Low Moment"
"On Anxieties Arising from the Impermissibility, However Unreasonable, of an Elephant's Rounding Out a Prayer Quorum"
"On the Melancholy Duty of Soldiers to Contend with the Messes Left By Kings"

* Great Ones:

1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
2. Moonglow
3. Wonder Boys
4. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
5. The Yiddish Policemen's Union

[Shovelmonkey1 · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is impossible to verbalise how much I wanted to like this book. I became an ardent fan of Chabon's output after The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and subsequently read The Wonder Boys hoping for more of the same. I rapidly realised that Chabon is an author who might thematically link his books in many ways (Judaism, homosexuality and the struggle to achieve an identity are ongoing themes) but he's not one for sticking to the same style, much like grand-master of the ever changing style China Mieville who is also a tricksy SOB with that kind of thing.

Gentleman of the Road seemed to be right up my, er road. Slight but well presented with an excellent cover and a historic theme set in an area of the world which I am interested in. So, to summarise historical swash buckling which knowing Chabon would be meticulously researched, pretty pictures and a tome which was not going to test my glass back if I had to carry it around with me for a while.

That's why it is such a tragedy and with heavy heart I have to report that I didn't even quite make it to the end of this and its only 204 pages long! I've checked my attention span and it seems to be intact. The book is definitely in English not Quechua or Latin so no problems there. The problem is definitely the words themselves and the issue is that whenever I tried to read this they sort of swam around in front of my face, without ever piercing the backs of my eyes and getting through to my brain in any sort of sensible stream. Well then, you might point out, the problem is clearly with your brain. I have considered this too but all the other words seem to be going in just fine.

Perhaps I'm just spoiled by Kavalier and Clay but this book lacked the bazinga pizazz of previous output for me and I struggled to engage with Amram, Zelikman or the whiny Feliq. Ok so you want your kingdom back? Well stop whining and running away. As predicted this book was well researched (lots of environment detail regarding buildings, landscapes, clothing and weaponry of the period) and appears from the outside cover to have the key ingredients for an old fashioned adventure story, but for me it just didn't have to push to take it from rip-snoring to rip-roaring.

[Warwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was great fun. The writing has been criticised as rather over-wrought – well, it is certainly a little baroque but Chabon's tongue is firmly in his cheek, and there is a wittiness to his descriptions which makes me very willing to go along for the ride. Besides, the sentences may be elaborate, but they are always interesting, utterly free from cliché, and often strange and beautiful:

Then, as if overhearing and taking pity on the maudlin trend of his thoughts, the wind carried to his nostrils from the fires of the troops camped in the valley the desert tang of a camel-dung fire, and with it the plangent cry of a soldier-muezzin calling his saddle-weary brothers to a belated Jumuah.

The plot, for its part, is a full-on no-excuses Adventure! tale, with plenty of derring-do and Byzantine soldiers and isolated kingdoms and swordplay. It's like H. Rider Haggard meets…well, meets Michael Chabon.

Unfortunately, the book is rather spoiled by an unnecessary and bizarrely defensive author's afterword, in which Chabon seems to feel the need to apologise to his readership for not having produced another literary novel about modern-day Jewishness. Despite this current novel, Chabon apparently wants to point out, he is still to be regarded as a "serious, literary" author. I can't help feeling that if you find it necessary to attach a lengthy apologia to a book then you shouldn't bother writing the stupid thing in the first place. It is almost unbelievably patronising and irritating.

But try to ignore that, and concentrate on the story itself, which really is unashamedly enjoyable.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Gentlemen of the Road makes for a lively, entertaining buddy adventure. Its pre-industrial Central Asian setting - with its patchwork of cultures and peoples, many of them seemingly invented - was the part that most grabbed my attention. The characters and action, while serviceable, didn’t land with quite the same spark.

For a book whose working title was "Jews with swords," it surprisingly lacks much that feels distinctly Jewish - religiously, culturally, or otherwise. The characters and societies labeled as Jewish rarely convey much of a Jewish sensibility, leaving the novel feeling more like a playful historical romp than the cultural experiment Chabon seemed to have in mind.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

“There was no hope for an empire that lost the will to prosecute the grand and awful business of adventure.”

“The Gentlemen of the Road” is a buddy adventure epic set in the Caucasus Mountains region in 950 AD, with a lapsed Jew named Zelikman and an African named Amram as the titular duo. It is an adventure story through and through, but it is written in a literary style. It is not often that the two combine, however Michael Chabon, the author, pulls of the feat admirably. Chabon can write. There are some long beautiful sentences in this text. Not all of them necessary, but well executed nonetheless. Once you read a chapter or two you get use to the style and the text flows nicely.
The plot goes along effortlessly, and this 196 page story has only 15 chapters. The novel was originally published as a serial story in a magazine and you can see how it would work in that format.
The chapter titles are clever in this book, take for instance this chapter title- “On The Belated Repayment Of The Gift Of A Pear”. After reading the chapter, looking back at the title makes you appreciate what you have just read a little more.
The book features 15 illustrations by Gary Gianni, who also draws the “Prince Valiant” comic strip. It aids the text in creating the world of the story for the reader.
In the Afterward to “The Gentlemen of the Road” Mr. Chabon acknowledges what may be an issue for some of his readers, the so called “incongruity of writer and work”. This text is a fun story that moves along, and is well written by a gifted writer. Nothing wrong with a great writer writing a book whose plot makes you want to pick the text up and keep reading.
I enjoyed this text, you will too.

[Fabian · Rating 3 out of 5]

What occurs when you have the freedom to produce any-length book after winning the Pulitzer. Believe it! This one is too short to be adventuresome, too busy in its prose to match its zippy plot. Every single sentence must be odd and fascinating... which does nothing to make the tale odd and fascinating. It's an adventure ("Jews with Swords") that's not really worth taking.

("K & C" may just be the only way to go...?)

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rollicking book. If any book deserves the word 'rollicking', this is it. This adventure yarn draws heavily and with much love from Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, and Robert E. Howard, among others. While some readers may wonder 'what's the point?', the reader who does not look for a point to everything will enjoy the ride immensely.

[Mattia Ravasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

#18 in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIWkw...

Michael Chabon pretending he is Jules Verne. Combines all the sheer, unbound awesomeness of Jules Verne and Michael Chabon. If all the books I read were this good I would do little in my life but read.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun little picaresque tale of adventure and daring-do. I had no idea what to expect from this book when I picked it up a few weeks back from Powell's after a particularly entertaining reading from the author (not this book, he read from his newest). I do have to say that, after reading three of Chabon's book at this point, that the man definitely has a knack for keeping me guessing. He follows the muse wherever, and I do mean wherever, she may alight.

This may not be a piece of Chabon's work that will stand the test of ages, but it definitely serves to flip on its head the current cultural stereotyping of Jews as neurotic Woody Allen clones or tight-fisted Manhattan attorneys. Rather this book looks back to over a millennium past at the adventures of two very different Jewish brigands (or Gentlemen of the Road, as the title allows). The first is Franco-Jewish Zelikman ben Solomon, a physician who has turned his smarts to the more practical (for 950 a.d. Eastern Europe) skill of lightening the purses of fellow travelers. Along with his partner, Amram, a hulk of a man who hails from North Africa and who has adopted the Jewish faith, they find themselves in the company of the youngest son of the recently overthrown bek of Khazria (present Azerbaijan) and struggling to return him to the throne of his father.

A fun and fast read, I barely stopped to savor Chabon's always exquisite style of writing. While definitely an exercise in wish fulfillment (Chabon admits as much in the book's afterword) he still crafts an eminently enjoyable tale of adventure. The book has everything: elephants, silken garrotes, cross-dressing royalty, smart horses of the kind that normally appear in Owen Wilson Westerns, hash smoking, and ancient (ridiculous) rites. Definitely ideal for a plane trip or a few hours spent waiting in the reception area of the doctor's office.

[Theo Logos · Rating 3 out of 5]

”The original, working, and in my heart, the true title of this short novel was Jews With Swords…I could not have entitled this book any more honestly than by means of anachronism and incongruity.”
Michael Chabon, from the Afterwards

If Woody Allen had written a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tale it might look a little bit like this odd, swashbuckling adventure tale of Michael Chabon. The mismatched heroes — Amram, a hulking Abyssinian warrior who is nominally Jewish, companions with Zelikman, a skinny, Frankish, agnostic Jewish physician who smokes hashish and broods regularly. This odd couple are con men and strangely ethical highwaymen — “gentlemen of the road,” and become reluctantly entangled with a young, fugitive Khazar prince desperate to regain his kingdom from the usurper who murdered his family. The story contains fights, chases, pitched battles, elephants, Vikings (Rus), sacked cities, slaughter, humor, wit, intrigue, and a fair amount of kvetching.

The problem with this short novel is not Chabon’s complex and over clever sentences. (I’m rather a fan of his style.) Nor is it his radical departure from his earlier, naturalistic material. The book’s true shortcoming is its brevity. Chabon’s great strength is his layered, complex characters. This novel was too short and fast moving to give his characters more than a shadow of his usual treatment — the broad strokes of the classic Chabon characters are present, but not fleshed out to the depths I’ve come to expect from him.

I admire Chabon’s attempt at something so different. And I enjoyed this rollicking adventure tale and its 10th century trappings. It is a solid, three and a half star entertainment. I’m rounding down to reflect how it compares to the rest of the author’s work.

[Seizure Romero · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stole this book from my friend Krystal. Ok, not so much stole as co-opted for a few days. I see her at the coffee shop and she shows me the book she just started reading. She then starts talking to other people. Having left my book at home in a rare moment of bibliotardedness, I start reading hers. She wanders off to run errands nearby and by the time she comes back I'm a third of the way into it. She gathers her things to go and tells me, "Go ahead and finish it. I've got another book."

*sniff* That's friendship right there, people. She is the sweetest person in the world right now, and maybe even for the rest of the week.

Anyway. This is a fun adventure story and I liked the characters immediately, but Chabon sometimes gets in his own way when he bludgeons his reader with rather ponderous sentences. At barely 200 pages, I was glad for the brevity. The man's style would wear me down in a longer book. When he's not torturing a metaphor, however, he comes up with some entertaining prose:

"...[he] began to explain that any king who controlled both the treasury and the army was, in the eyes of the world, legitimate, and that while no one could know the mind of God, the Almighty had in the past shown a marked tendency, in his view, to ratify public opinion."

"I don't save lives," Zelikman said. "I just prolong their futility."

"She had always found a paradox in the crime of blasphemy, for it seemed to her that any God who could be discountenanced by the words of human beings was by definition not worthy of reverence...."

Thanks, Krystal. I think you'll like it.

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Avventurieri ai confini del mondo

In risposta ad un ipotetico indovinello avrei potuto citare almeno un centinaio di possibili autori di questo romanzo senza azzeccare il nome giusto, tanto i temi, lo stile, l’epoca e il contesto appaiono lontani dal creatore di “Le fantastiche avventure di Kavalier e Clay” (Pulitzer 2001) o “Il sindacato dei poliziotti Yiddish”.

Nella postfazione, Michael Chabon, forse consapevole dello sconcerto procurato ai suoi lettori abituali, si sforza di giustificare la scelta di un romanzo del genere (avventure picaresche ambientate più di mille anni orsono nella terra dei Khazari, sulle sponde del Mar Caspio) col fascino esercitato dai luoghi e dal turbinoso periodo storico, ma sinceramente tale “excusatio” mi ha convinto poco. Lo considero piuttosto quello che in genere si attribuisce a una pausa digressiva di un autore affermato, cioè puro “divertissement”…

I protagonisti del racconto sono un’improbabile coppia di avventurieri che agiscono come gli epigoni di Hap&Leo di lansdaliana memoria o gli antenati del “buono” (Eastwood) e del “brutto” (Wallach) ideati da Sergio Leone, gente che vive di espedienti, abili nel congegnare, grazie anche alle doti di trasformismo, elaborate truffe ai danni dei creduloni, con un risultato che può rivelarsi in qualche modo divertente.

I dubbi e le perplessità sorgono quando Chabon comincia a prendere la materia troppo sul serio, ad infiorettare l’azione e l’avventura con dissertazioni sulla coesistenza in quei luoghi e a quei tempi di religioni, sette, conversioni di massa, rinnegando in tal modo la freschezza e l’esuberanza proprie del racconto picaresco, apparentemente indeciso fra divertimento ed erudizione e rischiando di deludere sia il lettore affezionato avvezzo alle sue stravaganze, sia chi immaginava di trovarsi al cospetto di un solido romanzo storico.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, this book was f****** great. And for those of you who are a little slow those asterisks stand for ucking. I would give it 6 stars if I could.
Really though, this book was just excently written. It was fun, had great character development (which I think was the main thing lacking in Chabon's last novella experiment, The Final Solution), and of course a great story with unexpected turns and an excellent ending.
I've seen that some other people have written lesser reviews and I'm not sure why. It is a strange pairing, the dense, articulate language used by Chabon with the adventure-story genre, but who says it shouldn't be done?
I think it is my second favorite book of his after Kavalier and Clay; really, it's that good. read it.

[Jazzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little tale of adventure that comes a little too close to being trite. Very few of the twists actually come as a surprise. I found myself both lamenting that many scenes/actions/characters were described briefly and broadly instead of unfolding in greater depth, and also being thankful that the book wasn't twice its length to accommodate more complete storytelling.

In short, pleasant, but not essential in the least.

And yet, if Chabon ever wrote a sequel, I'd read it.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's sad when I enjoy the afterword (which was itself long and self-indulgent) more than the entire book. I really wanted to like this book. The scenario was refreshing, the characters interesting and language challenging. However, I was able to easily figure out the entire plot within the first chapter. The writing was difficult -- page long paragraphs with only two sentences. I'd get to the end and find myself thinking "huh?" and return to reread. This happened repeatedly. There were many foreign terms which were introduced without any situational reference allowing me to guess what it meant. I am well read and really hate the required use of a dictionary.

In the afterword, Mr. Chabon takes great pains to describe why he wrote this book. Look, I am not Jewish and do not live in an area with a large Jewish influence. I had no preconceptions and honestly did not find the overall premise ironic or mind-blowing in the least. Perhaps if I'd had that stereotype (which the author assumes every stinkin' person has), I would have liked it better. But thankfully, I don't. The title needed to stand on its own wobbly and interminably verbose legs.

This is my first (and perhaps ONLY) title by Mr. Chabon. Perhaps if I'd developed a love for his writing first, as so many of the positive reviews seem to have done, I may have appreciated it more.

[vladimir · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm rewriting my review now that the book has finally come out (read it in August as an advance); I knew it would divide fans and perplex even more.

"Gentlemen of the Road" draws from what some might call 'pulp' fiction styles, or in other cases 'adventure fiction'. The language is very much a product of these styles of writing; frankly, prose was more complex back then (not that I'm saying it was better, but it was definitely different)-- longer sentences, oddly constructed, and florid.
If you have read Dumas, Sabatini, or any fantasy writer of the 20s, 30s, and 40s that was NOT Tolkien, you'll find traces of them in Chabon's book.

"Gentlemen of the Road" is a tribute to an overlooked style of storytelling, and an overlooked period in Jewish history. This one will define the true fans from the fair-weather dabblers.

I love Chabon's literary career arc: full of novels and projects he feels like doing 'cause it's fun, 'literary' establishment credibility be damned!

[/Fitbrah/ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love these kinds of books usually, but this one lacked the grit and shamelessness that makes escapist fantasy work.

It might be a good intro to sword and sorcery for the uninitiated, but for fans of Conan, Elric and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser it will seem milquetoast.

[Alissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you favor long periods and complex wording this book is a delightful study in characters. It's not an easy read but I truly liked the protagonists and their development, not to mention the horses&elephants. What's more, I had no idea lush prose and emotional descriptions could fit a swashbuckling adventure so well; the result is intense.
I mean:

“Get up,” Amram said.

Zelikman looked up at him, his face blank, soot-streaked, filling with that unshakable weariness as rapidly as a staved-in hull fills with cold black sea.

Sure, it's also a matter of tastes but when I read that, in the context, the image felt natural and powerful because the character's thoughts demanded it. On the downside, at times the sentences were so long I had to reread to find some cohesion.

Anyway, with its many roads, fine humour, witticism and cynicism doled out in equal portions, and art even in insults (“You mendacious sons of bitches,”), this book was truly a galvanizing read!


Because adventures befall the unadventuresome as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result—and have been since at least the time of Odysseus—of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventure happens in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home.

[Blake Charlton · Rating 3 out of 5]

in his apology...er...afterward to this quick-witted and enjoyable historical adventure story, chabon discloses that the original working title was 'jews with swords.' (personally, i think that would have been a pretty kick ass title.) chabon goes on to explain how it came to be that he, a capital-L-literature-author, ended up writing a story that involved swords. unintentionally it smacks of condescension, of a slight embarrassment of what it was trying to be. that was my only significant complain of this otherwise delightful romp involving two friends cum con-men who, trying to make some quick cash, end up toppling a dictatorship. the prose is erudite, polished. the narration takes great pleasure in it's wit--an experience, i think, that most readers will share, save for perhaps a vague sensation that the prose is _trying_ to be worthy of intellectual scrutiny. the characters were sympathetic and likable. despite a gosh and disturbing treatment of rape, the author executes the plot well. i hope chabon continues to produce adventures of this time...though perhaps not one that is so...self-conscious.

[Matt Quann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years back I made it my goal to read at least one Chabon novel per year, but I've fallen off the wagon in the past two. Lately, my schedule has been very busy as I stare down the barrel of a Royal College exam and I've tended more towards shorter or easy to read novels. I'd forgotten just how verbose Chabon can be, but in the case of this novel it actually makes for a somewhat confusing experience.

Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the Khazars or the period of history in which this novel is set. This led to some initial confusion only bolstered by stunning word choice and Chabon's signature style. What worked best for me were the lead characters and their relationship. This novel has the feel of a classic adventure boosted by old-school illustrations and a swashbuckling tone.

This lands, for me, around lower tier Chabon. It doesn't have the grand impact of some of my favourite of his novels (Kavalier & Clay and Yiddish Policeman's Union) but is still some good fun. I wish I'd been able to follow the story a bit better, but I'll also admit to some fractured attention and distraction on my end.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this directly after Lawrence Block's "Tanner's Twelve Swingers" was quite eye-opening. Unlike Block, who relied on flimsy flash and sex to barrel through his story, Chabon created a complex world for his two Jews with swords - a French Jew (before there was a France) who looks like a scarecrow and a giant Abyssinian black Jew who wields a battle ax called Motherfucker. Sure, it sounds like the stuff of fantasy, but with this little novel, Chabon achieves what only the best fantasy stories can. His world, though immensely removed from our own (I mean, Jews with swords, how crazy can you get? (Chabon makes sure to address the anomaly in his Afterword)), seems much more real than much naturalism that purports to show modern life as it exists.

The two gentlemen of the road - Zelikman and Amram - take on a task - a quest, if you will - that rewards them less monetarily than politically, and perhaps morally - when they set out to escort a young royal to his grandfather's fortress and out of the way of the new bek's (king's) mercenaries.

The twists and turns of Chabon's tale delight in a rather light manner. This young royal isn't what he at first seems. The relationship between the two unorthodox Jews proves to be comically warm and the political climate of the Near East is much more interesting and varied than one would have thought. Chabon does a good job of showing that ages old fault line where the three masses of men - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - smash into each other with devastating consequences - not that Chabon delves too much into the conflict between the religions, but the obvious rifts are evident.

One of the more interesting political devices in the novel is the structure of the government of Atil - a great massive city-state split down the middle between the Jews and the Muslims - in which the bek rules over the lives of his subjects, but the kagan - a man who lives in a fortress on an island in the delta of Atil and never sees another soul except for his blind servant - tells the bek what to do. Sounds like Cheney and Bush.

A land of elephants, caravans, silk embroidered head gear, daggers, whores (love the whorehouse scenes), and Vikings makes this little book burst. A fun, fun read.

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the longest sentences in the history of sword & sorcery.
I thoroughly enjoyed.

[Rick Riordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An adult selection. I listened to this one on audio, and it was a perfect companion for a trip from Dallas to San Antonio. I haven't read everything by Chabon (my mom is still dismayed that I haven't gotten to Kavalier and Clay yet, since I'm a comic book fan), but I enjoyed Summerland and I thought Chabon did a good job in Gentleman recapturing the feel of a Dumas adventure. The language of the narrative was as antique and exotic as the setting, and I mean that in a good way. It wasn't an easy read, even in audio. I felt like I was listening to Faulkner -- "I know there will be a verb in this sentence eventually, if I just keep going." I probably had a very confused look on my face as I was driving, but about the time I hit Waco, I started getting into the feel of the narrative. The main characters -- your typical Jewish Ethiopian and Jewish Frankish swashbucklers -- were a perfect pair. I can definitely see a sequel to their adventures, although Chabon never does the same thing twice, so I'm not holding my breath!

[lia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Chabon has been making it hard for me lately, to love him in the way I'm used to doing. The Yiddish Policeman's Union was unfinishable for me, but I'm going to try again. This is something totally different however, a swashbuckling adventure story full of Turks, caravans, princes in disguise, swordfights and ruffians of many degree. He says in the afterward that he wanted to name the book "Jews With Swords" but didn't get a lot of positive feedback on that. But it made me like the book more, once I had that added perspective. Like a jewish Horse & His Boy with whores, melancholy and less racism.

[Tim Lepczyk · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't want to believe the negative reviews when I started this book. I'm a big fan of Michael Chabon and have been impressed with his writing. However, this novel seems to tread the line of wanting to be literary fiction or pulp adventure fiction as a result it fails at both.

The novel is bland and empty. Things happen and there is a fast pace at times, but I didn't care. That's the first for a Chabon novel. I don't care about any characters or what happens to them.

So, leave this one on the shelf and don't bother. Read Wonder Boys or the Yiddish Policeman's Union or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

[J.P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no writer that I have more of a love-hate relationship with than Michael Chabon. Having rated his works everything from 5 stars for The Yiddish Policemen's Union which I enjoyed immensely for its humor, plot, and overall fine writing down to 2 stars for the plodding and dull Telegraph Avenue I enjoyed this book more than I thought but with some caveats. It's a fun story in a swashbuckling way but the prose is so breezy that on occasion I had to go back to the beginning of a sentence to see how what I read at the end pertained to the start. Anyone who enjoys an adventure story should enjoy this but it's not going to knock your socks off. 4 stars.

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Chabon’s satisfying adventure novel in one brisk sitting and with dictionary in hand, looking up a few archaic words each page. The chore of looking up exotic English terms mimicked the ordeals of the characters dealing with one strange situation after another and helps transport you into the terms of the story. The tropes of fantasy adventure are all here, impishly deployed and beautifully rendered. This is perhaps the first historical fantasy about the Khazars, a legendary Turkish-Caucasian Jewish people. Chabon was going to call this “Jews with Swords” since its main characters are medieval Jewish adventurers, a hulking Ethiopian warrior and a melancholy Ashkenazi physician-strategist (with allusions to Michael Morcock’s Elric and Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane). The plot deals with a coup by a treacherous Khazar warlord who aims to expand his empire by instigating clashes between Russian brigands and Muslim armies. Chabon’s homage to the pulp fiction of our youth is genius.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a picaresque adventure story set in the Caucasus Mountains (Khazar Empire) in the year 950. The protagonists are Zelikman, a non-practicing Jewish man, and Amram, an African. The two are very different in personality, background, and stature. The storyline involves the two men embarking on a journey, finding themselves in various dilemmas, and figuring out how to get out of them. It is historical fiction written in a literary style. It reminded me a bit of Don Quixote. It is quite different from other books I’ve read by Michael Chabon. There are elements of humor and wit. It is not my favorite of Chabon’s works, but I found it entertaining.