Hello. Hi. Hi. Sorry I'm late to our little "laaady" party here. Over the internet of course. I'm not making dictations at a real party. Ha, I'm so cool. Actually, it's 11pm and currently, I am waiting on a 5-cheese slice of organic wheat crust pizza in the oven to bake to perfection. Thought I'd give a little bit of love to this blog 'till that happens.
Let me begin post-beginning, by saying what Lady Elise claims in slothilness toward her writing; I, admittedly, share similar slothy habits in my reading. Together, we're a semi-illiterate sloth, probably with sloth-diagnosed ADD by a fake sloth psychologist. (Which I guess is incredibly counter intuitive and slightly misleading when it comes to this blog. Also inefficient; we'd have six fingers total for typing. And you know we'd keep asking where every damn letter is out loud.)
Enough about moss growing mammals, though. This blog's about books. One book. One book by Michael Chabon. Yeah, I know, everyone's probably already read everything of his and I'm late to that party too, but hey, there's some light I hope to shed through this little bloggeroo in hopes that those who have read it, may add to the mix, or those who haven't will put it on their TO READ lists. (Everyone makes those, right?) (SEE MY TO READ LIST BELOW.) I don't know how to make that a cool link, that'll shoot you there, so either scroll all the way down with your eyes closed, or read through everything and reward yourself... with my list....at the end.
GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD by Michael Chabon
I ordered this book off of Amazon around 3 am one day, and forgot what I had ordered until it came in the mail two weeks later. I was genuinely, pleasantly surprised.
Gentlemen of the Road, is a hundred and ninety-six pages of adventure, history, foreign languages, war, humour, romance, animals, and a peppered with sketches. Why the hell not?!* Now that the gripper's over, I'll attempt to [somewhat elaborately] deconstruct the plot.
The story's set in Khazaria in 950 AD, and the plot revolves around two friends who partake in thievery of all sorts (Amram, the older of the two, a burly African Jew who was a former soldier, and Zelikman, a physician-learned, Frankish Jew aptly named for his lankiness and pale features) who go from town to town and put on con-shows. Their money-making focus shifts when they encounter a young Khazarian prince, Filaq, orphaned by a coup --- there was an overthrow of the family's royal position by a man named Baljan. Who is the villain that pretty much rules Khazaria. The fucker. --- So! Keeping a promise to Filaq's dying caretaker (also caretaker of the family's royal elephants) The two men decide to take the offer of returning Filaq back home - for potential monetary gain, of course.
Throughout the course of the book, tid bits are revealed about each character that increase a reader's investment and in the end, leave you feeling rewarded.
Chabon writes in such a way that the reader is - on horseback, looking out through a Persian glass at war scenes in the distance, creating poultices made of herbs and applying ointments to the open bellies of wayward soldiers, stealing horses from an enemy camp under dim moonlight, being trampled, riding elephants, slitting the throats of night-guardsman, lost in hazy nostalgia over one's past and destruction of origin, and rounding up the troops- alongside all the well developed, intricately depicted, characters. Those sketches I mentioned earlier? They're almost unnecessary, but it's fun to play "I wonder how my imagination compares to the sketch" after the first few. Which adds more adventure to the book, if you ask me.
This is my first Chabon. I don't know if he uses hypotaxis in all of his writing, but good golly, even the print in Gentlemen of the Road takes you on a journey. His sentences are so full of descriptions and luxurious language that, physically, take your eyes on a pathway as winding as the characters' travels. If you've ever read Virgil (I've been working on the Aeneid. probably not the best to try blogging about?) Anyway, many of Chabon's sentences have that epic and profound emotion that causes a reader to reel, take a few breaths, and come back for more. It's not a bombardment of long, unorganized sentences, but a successful execution in using the physical print to help enhance the story. Even the chapter titles set your curiosity up for a titillating spike by the time you've finished one. One chapter's title is, "On the Melancholy Duty of Soldiers to Contend with the Messes Left by Kings" Each chapter starts with "On" like the whole book's full of guideposts. I'm a fan.
A note: Even the Afterword is beautifully written and full of insight and information.
Now for a taste of the characters through some hypotaxis:
Zelikman
"When, rarely Zelikman recalled his mother to Amram, it was often a bedside memory of her seeing him through fevers and nightmares, or singing to him in the soft Latin dialect of her grandmothers, and the shade of that unknown Jewess always seemed to appear in Zelikman when he anesthetized a guard or watchman and laid him tenderly on the ground."
Filaq
"He held himself apart from the men as he had from Zelikman and Amram, sleeping in his own tent, performing his ablutions and elimination in private, riding usually at the head of the train with none beside him and none before, but he fell in regularly among the ranks, during the course of a day, all the way back to the weakest and most useless of the stragglers, to join them for a song or find shoes for the unshod."
Amram
"It was the business of the world, Amram knew, to manufacture and consume orphans, and in that work fatherly love was mere dross to be burned away. After long years of blessed absence, the return of merciful feelings toward what was, after all, only another motherless and fatherless child, struck Amram, bitterly, as a sign of his own waning powers to live life as it must be lived."
Thematically speaking- and truly, anyone can come up with at least two dozen themes in any well crafted story- but my favorite thing about this story, has to do with the notion of someone being nurturing, yet cold and distant at the same time. (re read the above quotes if you want examples.) It is the theme of genetics - explored through the many cultural diversities within mainly the Jewish people here- that lends itself to the idea of origin and how a person's origin, culture, education, and habits ingrain within us a need to keep tradition and forge our own paths at the same time. To cherish, and yet, be distant. To remember what we've been taught at home, and fulfill an itch to seek to learn new things elsewhere.
Every character has a rich back story, and yet, as a reader, I never felt bombarded by exposition --- which is HUGE for me. There's nothing I loathe more when reading something, than blatant exposition. I take that back, sentimental arguments through dialogue filled with exposition would make me commit a literary hate crime.
Okay. SO. I could go on and on and on exploring more and more themes, and dissecting the book and giving you a fuller, more academic approach, but why ruin this moment, lovies? Pick it up for yourself is all you need to do. There's still the history, foreign language, and humour of it all you need to experience for yourself, I think. A cop out on my part, possibly.
I'll leave you with a a list of words I've learned from this book (Not all of them, of course, but some favorites.) And also some music that I feel fits Amram and Zelikman's description and relationship. Enjoy :) Videos are off of Youtube.Com
Myna - an Asian bird that imitates sounds/people/devices :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDdDJ-HgHmo&feature=fvwrel
Calumny- (slander)
Japery - (Joke)
Mendatious - (Habitually dishonest)
Ululating - (a loud/shrill lament or howl)
Vivaldi - Concerto for Bassoon and Cello in E Minor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvpMyZzqelM&feature=related
WELL THANKS FOR READING, YA LITERATES.
I promise to make them shorter from here on out!
Lady Atra
*this was when I left to get my pizza. I didn't forget...did you?
BOOKS ON MY TO READ LIST:
The Alphabet vs The Goddess (non fic)
The Moon Box (A series of folk lore tales about the moon)
The Theif at the End of the World
And of course, Virgil and I are still dating.
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