March by Geraldine Brooks

Several years ago, I fell in love with a book called Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, a gorgeous historical novel set in a “Plague Village” in England in the mid-1600’s. When Brooks won the Pulitzer in 2006 for her book March, a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women from the POV of the largely absent patriarch of the March family, I knew I would eventually have to give it a read.

In order to appreciate March, it’s not essential that you’re familiar with the story of Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth, the little women of the original book. I have to admit that when I read Little Women in my teens, I was less enthralled than my mother had been—she’d lauded the book as being the most influential of her life, so much so that she changed her name briefly, I believe, to Beth, when she was a girl. I may be wrong about which little woman she emulated—young Mama-of-Lou was probably more Jo than the sensitive Beth, but that doesn’t ring a bell for me. (Lou, in seventh grade, changed her name to Mary for a year and still has report cards citing Mary’s success as proof.)

More essential is an understanding of the Civil War era of Louisa May Alcott’s young life, especially the philosophical underpinnings of New England during that time period. Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne make guest appearances and Mr. March’s character is deeply influenced by Alcott’s father, a radical, transcendentalist, abolitionist, vegetarian preacher from Concord, MA.

That being said, a reader who knows none of this will still welcome the expertly crafted, beautifully woven story of a man whose deeply held beliefs conflicted—sometimes violently— with the prevailing tide of his times.

March, for all of its history and philosophy, is a zippy read. I devoured it in less than two days. Brooks mimics the writers of Alcott’s era with rich descriptions of nature and emotion—the relationship between which echoes the relationships forged by New England transcendentalists. More modern, however, is the depth of pure passion related in the pages, passion not only in the romantic sense but also in the zeal for cause and conviction.

Mid-book, the novel takes a radical turn and shifts POV to another character. I had been so won over by Mr. March’s narration that I was at first angry and discomfited by being removed from a POV I had come to trust. But as I read on, the new perspective won me over, and I began to understand the reason behind the shift. I was afraid that the book had taken a turn for the worse, but instead ended up citing the twist as among the book’s many strengths.

I no longer remember the book’s competition for the 2006 Pulitzer, but I feel quite confident that it would have taken an extraordinary book to be more deserving than March.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

Chabon writes as though he is crafting poetry, not prose. That’s not to say that his work is poetic, per se, but that the art of his work is in the fact that it reads as though every word he sets to the page is a deliberate and much-deliberated choice. Thick with metaphor and simile, his writing makes the reader feel as though they’re in the hands of a author who lets nothing happen by chance, who makes no mistakes, without feeling intimidated.

You don’t have to “work” to read Chabon’s writing. It is not slow. It is not confusing. It is, simply, gorgeous.

And The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is as gorgeous as anything Chabon has written. The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay ranks in my top five favorite books ever, and this book is only slightly less astonishingly good. I struggle to put my finger on the difference between the two. Perhaps it is that K&C had an epic quality, or perhaps I just connected more deeply with the material because I enjoy comic books and NYC history.

I mean that not to diminish The Yiddish Policemen’s Union in the slightest. Nor to suggest that this book lacks an epic quality. But here the epic revolves around politics and culture, and not an individual.

Remarkable on every level, this book, like K&C showcases the depth of Chabon’s knowledge of Jewish history, knowledge that he uses to build the foundation of an alternate history, one in which Sitka, Alaska—not Israel— becomes the temporary homeland of displaced Jews post WWII. Sitka is not meant to be a permanent home, and now, in 2007, the territory is set to revert back to an American holding—“Alaska for Alaskans” is a political rally cry of the day. The looming reversion will mean another exodus for the “Frozen Chosen,” who have few, if any, viable options.

“It’s a strange time to be a Jew.” The refrain appears again and again, spoken by character after character.

At the center of the story is Meyer Landsman, divorced, alcoholic, rogue cop who lives in a flop house straight out of a noir novel. A murder has occurred in his run-down hotel home, and just when you think that the book will be a noir mystery that happens to be set in troubling times, the plot spins wide and reaching and suddenly the thriller embraces international politics, terrorism, mysticism, the second (or third) coming of the Messiah, and even the End Times.

Like any noir detective, Landsman is sympathetic in his flaws. But more than most iconic gumshoes, he’s loveable. His greatest sorrows haunt him and move him to tears on a regular basis. He’s an asshole who takes advantage of his kinder, more centered friends, but does not do so without regret. The tiny thread of a love story in the novel is among the most believable and moving that I’ve encountered of late.

My only complaint, and it’s not a complaint so much as a regret, is that Yiddish, the language of the Sitkans, plays such a central role. If I understood even rudiments of Yiddish, I might have found the book even funnier and even more tender.

As I read the last chapter, I snuck a peek at how many pages were left and saw that there were but three. I stopped reading and cursed Chabon for creating such a dense and complicated book—there was no way he could finish it in a satisfying way in three pages.

I was wrong. I am satisfied. Satisfied in that any true, tie up all loose ends, ending would create an impossible Die Hard-ish fairy tale of a thriller. His (again satisfying) ending is messy and frustrating. But the situation is messy and frustrating. Any neat ending would have felt fraudulent.