2007; 206 pages (including "Afterword" and "A Note on the Khazars"). Genre : Historical Fiction; New Author?: Yes. Overall Rating : 9*/10.
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Set in 10th-century Khazaria (a real place - see Wikipedia's entry here), two mercenary con-men travel the local roads, doing whatever it takes to make ends meet. One is a giant African warrior with an axe named "Defiler of your Mother"; the other is a scarecrow-framed Frankish itinerant with fencing and healing skills and a passion for hats.
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They get more than they bargain for when they're talked into safeguarding a headstrong, sassy prince in his quest to avenge his slain family. Revolution and adventure spring up; when all they wanted was a few extra dirhams.
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What's To Like...
10th-century Khazaria - is that a kewl setting or what? Chabon's prose is beautiful; new vocabulary words abound; great humor percolates throughout the story; there's a map to help you make heads and tails of our heroes' wanderings; and above all, there are lots of buckles to be swashed.
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Chabon wrote this as a serialized tale (the New York Times ran it over the course of a couple of months). Gentlemen Of The Road is comprised of 15 chapters, all almost identical in length; and each a "story within a story". If you could convert a comic book action series into pure text, this is what it would look like. Well, not quite 100% text. Gary Gianni, who draws the Prince Valiant comic strip, provides an awesome picture for each chapter.
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Kewl New Words...
Chabon likes highbrow vocabulary, so there were a slew of them. Calumny : a false, slanderous accusation. Rheumy : wet, arthritic. Here, "rheumy jargon", so I guess it was used in a figurative sense. Senescence : old age. Ambit : the area in which someone or something operates or has control of. Contumelious : arrogantly insolent. Scabrous : rough, improper, scandalous, shocking. Melisma : a musical passage of several notes sung to a single syllable of text. Affiant : swearing to be true, as in giving an affidavit. Littoral : the shore area of a lake, sea, or ocean. Sukkah : a temporary structure with a roof of leafy boughs. Chiromancy : palm-reading. Dirham : a monetary unit used in the story. Wisent : a European bison. Caparisoned : clothed in finery.
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Excerpts...
For numberless years a myna had astounded travelers to the caravansary with its ability to spew indecencies in ten languages, and before the fight broke out everyone assumed the old blue-tongued devil on its perch by the fireplace was the one who maligned the giant African with such foulness and verve. (opening sentence)
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Though only a week earlier the idea would have struck him as heresy, as he lay waiting to become carrion he considered that plump and vivacious Sarah was perhaps unworthy of his suffering and death, when after all, she chewed with her mouth open and her wind, when she had been consuming too much milk, gave off an unsettling odor of brimstone. (pg. 45)
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Filaq wiped the blade on the flap of his tunic and then handed it back, haft first. "Thank you for saving my life," he said.
"I don't save lives," Zelikman said. "I just prolong their futility." (pg. 103)
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A few words about Michael Chabon...
He won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2001 for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay". He won the Hugo, Sidewise and Nebula awards in 2007 for "The Yiddish Policeman's Union". He writes in a variety of genres - drama, alt history, and here, comic book adventure. His books are usually about Jewish life - past or present. Wikipedia's article about him is here.
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"I need you to put me back together," she said. "I have a man to kill." (pg. 154)
There are story-tellers and there are novelists. I tend to read more by the former than by the latter. But once in a while, you run into an author that deftly combines the two, and that's always an unexpected pleasure. Gentlemen Of The Road is such a book. My only gripe is that this literary delight ended way too soon. Nine Stars.
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