For many a year now, I have heard Andy Lampl singing his praises for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, so I thought I'd head to the good ol' Barnes and Noble and pick myself up a copy. But, alas, some other Christmastime bookstore goer had the same idea as me and it was nowhere to be found. So never having read anything by Michael Chabon before, I decided to grab this to hold me over until I get my grubby hands on a copy of Kavalier and Clay.Now, I am a huge believer in judging books by their covers. The cover of The Final Solution proved to be a very accurate microcosm of the treasures within.
First of all: "A Story of Detection." Great. Mysteries are great. A little further reading about Chabon's inspiration for this book taught me that this is his tribute to/take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.
Second of all: "The Final Solution." A super fantastic double play on Nazi rhetoric and Doyle's title"The Final Problem." I love it already.
The story centers around an elderly inspector-turned-beekeeper who is brought in to investigate a murder. It is 1944, and a mute nine-year old Jewish boy named Linus has appeared at the vicarage with his rare gray parrot who, incidentally, talks a lot. The parrot spouts off long strings of numbers in German - Is it a top secret code? Is it the number of a Swiss bank account? Hitler's phone number? Then a guy gets bludgeoned on the back of the head, the parrot goes missing, the and beekeeper detective detects. But it's also not really about the mystery. The whodunnit is just sort of a nice fun bonus to the rest of the book, which is poignant and nuanced and heartbreaking and fun and adventurous all at the same time. And, while not transcendent, it was my first taste of Michael Chabon, and now I'm hungry for more.
I read it on an airplane coming back to Boise from Kansas City. Towards the end of the flight, the guy next to me and I started chatting. He was flying to Alaska and lamented having already finished his book before his next six hour flight. I gave him my copy of The Final Solution, which I think sums up my experience with it: I liked it enough to want to encourage someone else to read it, but not so much that the thought of parting with it was terribly upsetting.
Also my spell check thinks that "Lampl" should be "Limply" which made me laugh.
Rating
The Final Solution: 7/10
Pat King: 2/10
4 comments:
I had a copy of this book, but then I literally ate a few pages out of it in Mary Zimmerman's Performance of Poetry. So, technically, my digestive tract has consumed this novel, but my literacy has not.
WAIT! You ate a book in Perf of Po? How do I not remember this? What performance was it?
I was in a shopping cart, wearing those scary face glasses, and I took turns eating peaches and pages of books, and then kissing Dan Foster.
I don't think I was there! I remember your Margaret Atwood performance, but that one did not involve shopping carts or Dan Foster. Oh man. I'm pretty bummed about missing it.
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