I started reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union. The writing style is too herky-jerky for me. Is it so awesome that I really should get over it and keep reading, or can I just stop now?
It does smooth out over time. A little. The first chapter is the most Hemmingway-choppy-style, but it's always a little like that.
The question is whether you like the concept, and the style. It's a hard-boiled pulp mystery. If you don't like hard-boiled pulp mysteries, it's not going to do much for you.
Me, I like that genre, and I like Jewish-focused alt-history, and I loved the image of the hardboiled detective hitting a shot of schliowitz, so I was on board from the beginning, and love the book. But if the genre doesn't do it for you, the book isn't going to.
I think I'm not crazy about the style and I don't know if I like the concept. Being from Southeast Alaska, I get hung up on things like the idea that 3.2 million people would live in Sitka. It's impossible. I know the point of fiction is that it's fiction, but my brain is being a jerk about it.
Logistically, I don't think there would be a way to get enough supplies into Sitka to support that many people. If its airport and ferry options are like Juneau's (no road options), they're pretty limited. I suppose with 3.2 million people, they would have figured out how to develop those options better than what they are now with 15,000 residents. But then, where would all those people live? You can't build straight up the mountains...avalanches would wipe you out, and bears would eat you. You can't build into the water...it's not nice. So the available space is limited. So my ability to imagine how Sitka could have been built up into such a huge metropolis is a big hang-up in the first 20 pages already. I will have to convince myself that the author has never been there and/or that it's such an alternate universe that it bears almost no relation to actual Sitka.
I loved it, but I think it sort of peters out at the end. The first couple chapters read a bit like Chabon was in love with Raymond Chandler, but I'M in love with Raymond Chandler, so that was OK with me. You might not feel the same.
I felt like what I have read so far is like reading the Internet: sentences that aren't sentences. His descriptions are more creative than the Internet's for sure, but I guess what I probably want right now as my first venture into fiction in many years is more along the lines of Thomas Wolfe. So, the opposite of this.
Herky-jerky? Hmmm..... I really loved YPU. For many reasons: great writing, solid sticking to the genre's rules, while transcending them for a broader audience, a good story and for writing about Alaska well. I say stick with it, but I'm not sure what your general fiction tastes are.
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The question is whether you like the concept, and the style. It's a hard-boiled pulp mystery. If you don't like hard-boiled pulp mysteries, it's not going to do much for you.
Me, I like that genre, and I like Jewish-focused alt-history, and I loved the image of the hardboiled detective hitting a shot of schliowitz, so I was on board from the beginning, and love the book. But if the genre doesn't do it for you, the book isn't going to.
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first venture into fiction in many years
Whoa. I hope that reflects genuine disinterest and not the time compromises a person makes by being a student and a mother at the same time.
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