The Final Solution: A Story of Detection (P.S.)

Michael Chabon has produced a delightful gem of a book. The Final Solution is exquisitely crafted and reveals rich layers of learning on obscure subjects from bee-keeping to 1930s motor cars. His portrait of an elderly Sherlock Holmes, never named as such, but so finely captured in fragile old age is a delight. He gently mocks the mores of little England while at the same reminding us of contemporary horrors as reflected in the silence of a small wartime German Jewish refugee. The strands of mystery and murder are at last pulled together and explained by the wise, faithful parrot who alone understands what it is all about. A clever, touching account humorously and deftly told.

Michael Chabon has taken a simple story, much in the tone and feeling of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and developed it around a title that can only be described as a "double entendre" of the most precarious type. ACD was well known for his marvelous descriptions of decorum and the wit of his characters. Chabon has name his most nervous character-Paniker, and calls his Holmes character-the old man, and beekeeper.

Chabon's Holmes is almost like a walking obituary. His manners are of a different age (which he, Holmes, acknowledges), as are his many mended clothes. But from time to time, that bright light of genius shows, and the great man is back. Chabon's description of Holmes trying to communicate with the boy, is worth the whole story. It is so much like an old man trying to remember back 80 years, to a time that seems almost medieval.

The solution, to say the least, is elementary.

Chabon writes a 21st century version of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Twenty-first century, because it recognizes the true grey of life, as opposed to the black-and-white manner in which Conan Doyle wrote during the Victorian era. I would contend that Chabon is one of America's most interesting writers. He continues to explore the power of the written word. In the Final Solution, the "old man" -- presumably Holmes, though never named -- makes the realization that a solution to a problem may not be quite as important as other things, such as making a small boy happy by returning his one joy in life, a parrot. Although the old man comes close to figuring out the import of a parrot's recited string of numbers, he realizes that that solution will not ultimately make the world a more orderly or sane place. But what is important is the smile on his small companion's face upon the parrot's return. Joy and happiness are, indeed, a final solution far more important than the cold logic of a puzzle solution. Chabon's writing style has never been stronger, with each sentence bearing repeated readings. Given Chabon's strong writing style and excellent pacing, his best may be yet in his future.

I must preface my opinion with a caveat- I experienced neither the print nor audio edition of this book, but rather heard it on Wisconsin Public Radio's excellent "Chapter A Day" program. Therefore my experience may reflect whatever condensing and editing WPR felt was necessary to fit the story into half-hour segments.

That said- this was a very engrossing story. The Old Man is always implied but never stated to be Sherlock Holmes at the twilight of his life, and he has a characteristically enigmatic mystery to solve. The rest of the characters are not as well fleshed out but nevertheless are not the cardboard cutouts one might expect, and I think this reflects well on the author- elsewhere he is faithful to his source, but here he improves.

Disconcerting? Yes, and here is why: Chabon's crabby old beekeeper adds a dimension to Holmes which Arthur Conan Doyle never showed us, and perhaps with good reason, because it is not altogether pleasant to see the once-mighty detective burdened with a decayed body and a failing mind. This is absolutely necessary to the story, but nevertheless adds a slightly unpleasant air to an engrossing story.

Side note: Mr. Chabon is no beekeeper. He gets nearly every detail correct except one- no beekeeper opens his hives before the day gets hot. The feistiest bees will be out of the hive gathering nectar only when the day is warm enough. Molesting hives in cool weather is a wonderful way to collect bee stings. Such a minor slip is forgivable, nevertheless, in light of the rest of the story.

This is an intriguing mystery story written as a tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It is filled with strange and dramatic elements; a murder and a talking animal, a mute child and government intrigue. The protagonist is Sherlock Holmes himself, retired in old age and drawn out, in the summer of 1944, for one last investigation. And the protagonist is also a parrot, lately owned by a German Jew whose small son is the only family member to have escaped to Britain.

The parrot recites strings of numbers. Over and over again. As a modern reader, you know exactly what those numbers are from the very beginning, and when we learn that the British government is seeking out the parrot because they think it knows the keys to the German naval cipher it is almost enough to make you despair. Doesn't anybody know what's going on, what's happening at that very moment in Buchanwald and dozens of other camps?

It seems that nobody does, but Holmes, from the first, is intrigued by the numbers the parrot recites. We are reminded that this is the man who is fond of saying "When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." If anyone is capable of penetrating to the improbable truth of the concentration camps it would be Sherlock Holmes.

But in the end even the greatest mind in the history of detection can't unravel this particular mystery. The cruelty involved is so large that even Holmes' jaded and cynical expectations are exceeded. The motivation is so incomprehensible that even his logic cannot deduce it. By the end he knows that something has gone undiscovered, but he cannot quite make the leap into madness needed to make the final prediction.

I am not, in general, a subtle person, and I don't enjoy books that are as much subtext as story. It is a very rare book that can tell two stories: one within the plot and the other created by the reactions of the reader to the book. But in this case Michael Chabon has produced a subtle and worthwhile book that twists what I expected from a mystery story to produce rage and despair at things missed and deeds done.

It takes an immense amount of either skill or arrogance to attempt a Sherlock Holmes "final case." And of the two, it seems that Pulitzer-winning Michael Chabon has the former. "The Final Solution" is a smaller, more intimate story about Holmes' waning years.

The time is around World War II. An old man, once a famous detective, now sits on his porch and contemplates his beekeeping -- when he sees a young boy with a parrot walk nearby. The boy, Linus, is intelligent but mute; his parrot Bruno just rattles off numbers in German. The boy is placed with the local clergyman, Mr. Panicker, who is struggling with his faith, and his unhappy wife.

Then Bruno goes missing and the lodger Mr. Shane is found dead. Since it's unlikely that the parrot killed him, the police zone in on the Panickers' ne'er-do-well son. Then they call on the elderly detective -- not just to solve the murder, but to find the parrot, which they believe is reciting secret German codes.

"The Final Solution" is more a story about people than a mystery, although the whole subplot about the parrots is very intriguing. But Chabon focuses on the story of Holmes -- who is never specifically named -- as he ponders his twilight years, and the changes in the world around him. It's a bit saddening to read about the legendary Victorian detective in WW II, out of sync with the rest of the world.

Chabon also changes his usual writing style. In most of this book, he adjusts his style to be more like Arthur Conan Doyle's -- much more erudite, intelligent and mellow. There's one chapter that is pure Chabon (from the POV of Bruno the parrot), but the rest of the time, it feels like a much older book than it is, complete with vicarages, WW II spies and relics of the nineteenth century.

The old man is clearly Sherlock Holmes, even though Chabon never mentions him by name. Perhaps it's to keep from treading on literary holy ground. But he brings the right mixture of warmth and crabbiness to "the old man." He also gives depth to the supporting characters like Mr. Panicker (who is having a crisis of faith) and his wife (who has a crush on their lodger). Even Bruno gets well developed.

While "Final Solution" isn't too great as a mystery, it's an excellent novel, and a poignant tale of Sherlock Holmes' final case. Definitely worth checking out.

Michael Chabon has used his wonderful command of the language to give us a peek into the life of Sherlock Holmes as he closes in on his final years. I really did not read this book expecting a "mystery" or a "who done it," something you could pretty well figure out by reading the inside flap of the cover. It was pretty much a no brainer to catch this fact before the first page was read. Whether or not this is great literature, I suppose it is a matter of taste. I quite often do not agree with others on what is great and what is not. Rather, I approached this work from the point of view of reading something which was simply a pleasure to read, something that was "different" and this one certainly was. I loved the author's usage of our language, his syntax, and yes, I must admit, by reading this book I did indeed increase my vocabulary. (Of course, living here in the Ozark Mountains, and having a rather narrow view of the world at large, it was not difficult to do, i.e. increase my vocabulary). I was very pleasantly surprised at the author's ability to so well describe "old age," per se. Being about there myself, i.e. into my dotage, the author pretty well hit the mark. It was rather amazing to find a author so young that could describe the results of aging so well. I am afraid I must disagree with another reviewer who happened to agree with Publisher's Weekly in that they had hit the mark. After quite a few years of reading their reviews, Publisher's Weekly, I have found very, very few times that I have agreed with them, and certainly this was one of those times. This work takes only a couple of settings to finish and it is well worth the time. Recommend it highly.

I really enjoyed Michael Chabon's mix of comic books and pulp fiction in his epic novel, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", so it was a surprise to find this to be such a compact read - only 131 pages - even though the subject is arguably more ambitious. The plot focuses on an 89-year old Sherlock Holmes, long retired and perfectly content looking after his bees, who is called back to action by an odd murder case involving a rare and oddly eloquent parrot named Bruno and a 9-year old mute German Jewish refugee named Linus. Holmes and Linus inevitably start out with a prickly relationship, but they begin to nurture each other in the midst of the changing yet steadfastly prejudiced society that was Britain before the end of World War II.

Inspired by the atmospheric Arthur Conan Doyle mysteries, Chabon has written a very English mystery that hinges on a numerical puzzle. The parrot can sing German lieder but more pertinently, repeat complex lists of numbers. His talent attracts British intelligence agents and perhaps German ones as well, and the consequence of the war comes to the fore. This is too convoluted for the clueless police but not for Holmes even in his frail and enfeebled state. There is plenty of wonderful writing here, and Chabon keeps the narrative tight, almost too cryptic at times. The conclusion is inevitable and frankly not all that surprising, which undermines the point of resuscitating Holmes for what is presumably his final case. An intriguing novella ideal for a few commuter train rides, though I think Chabon could have lent a bit more of the color and texture that made Kavalier and Clay so memorable.

First published in the Paris Review in 2003, this charming and wistful little novella is Chabon's own humble contribution to the vast quantity of Sherlock Holmes pastiche that continues to be published each year. While it bears the trappings of a whodunit, the story is rather is sneakily constructed to be a meditation both on aging and the passing of an age. Set in the South Downs of Sussex in mid-1944, we meet Linus, a mute 9-year-old Jewish refugee. He's been taken in by the local vicar and his wife, who also have several other boarders, including Linus's voluble African gray parrot. And while Linus is silent, the parrot has a propensity for rattling off series of numbers in German. One evening the parrot disappears and one of the boarders is killed, and the local plods drag the vicar's no-good son off to the jail.

However, it just so happens that an 89-year-old beekeeper of some repute lives in the environs. Somewhat overwhelmed by the murder and missing parrot, the constabulary ask "the old man" (Sherlock Holmes) for his assistance. Chabon's portrait of the famous detective as a crotchety and yet sharp old man is entirely faithful to the canon and handled with kid gloves. He uses the aging of the old man as a vehicle to explore the notion for all of us. The period manners and speech are very nicely rendered, as Holmes unravels his last mystery. While the murder is the ostensible catalyst, the true mystery is just what the parrot's number sequences are. Nazi codes? Swiss bank accounts? Are there German agents afoot, eager to retrieve--or kill--zee parrot? Of course, the reader has a pretty good idea of what the numbers are, and that's how the book is a chilling reminder of the ending of innocence. Don't expect any truly deep thoughts or a wildly complex mystery, do expect Chabon's usual masterly writing (a chapter written from the parrot's point of view is particularly wonderful) and two hours well spent.

A couple of years ago I literally devoured Michael Chabon's deeply engaging "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay". It had all the marks of a great lit. oeuvre: brilliant writing, a captivating plot, 3-dimensional characters, whom you could fell in love with...and it was long!

Now, I know that some people like short novels but for me the first problem with "the Final Solution" lies in its lenght: 127 pages written in big types and interspersed with occasional illustrations (all of this makes me wince when I hear other people describing this work as Chabon's first stint at adult fiction since K&C... this is not full-fledged children literature, just like Robinson Crusoe, but it isn't what you'd call "adult fiction" either. Let's just say it falls somewhere in between, "like all great literature", some would say, and just leave it at that). Anyway, how can you develop an engaging tale over the span of so few pages? It's impossible, at least for me, and the result is that this novella feels like a glass of water: you drink it and then you forget it...

But the lenght isn't the only problem here. Bluntly put, the plot is far from engaging... and the secret behind the "mystery" is so clichéd and just plain dumb that...well, I'd better stop myself here. Brillian writing? yes and no. There are some marvelous sentences where Chabon gets to show all of his talent, words that you'll immediately re-read in order to better savout them, but all in all this novel isn't up there with K&C, even in terms of writing (now, don't get me wrong: Chabon defintely knows how to write, he merely seems less brilliant that his usual self).

In conclusion I'd advise you to skip this novella and wait for Chabon's next book (titled "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" and coming out, if gossip has it right, later this year). I also urge you, needless to say, to read K&C.

Who better than Michael Chabon to pay homage to Sherlock Holmes? Chabon has perfect pitch for literary style, obviously loves the mystery genre, and is playful enough (just look at his Yiddish Policemen's Union for his sheer joy in invention). The idea of an aged Holmes solving a mystery connected with the Holocaust only adds anticipation. And Chabon brilliantly conveys the sights and sounds of wartime England.

But sadly, this book delivers little that was promised. The mystery is ultimately uninteresting, as is its solution. Characters seem to come and go, and the only ones Chabon seems to care about are "the old man" and the parrot.

This is neither a successful literary novel nor a successful murder mystery.

This short book, really a novella or novelette, is another example of Chabon's attempts to fuse popular fictional forms with serious literature. Chabon has tried this with hard-boiled detective fiction (The Yiddish Policemen's Union), alternative history (The Yiddish... also), historical adventure fiction (Gentlemen of the Road), and this Sherlock Holmes tale. Chabon is a talented writer but one of the defects of these efforts is that these books have not been very good by standards of these genres. The Yiddish Policemen's Union was neither a particularly good thriller nor a particularly imaginative alternate history. The Final Solution is the best of these efforts with good quality writing and character development, though the most interesting character is an African Grey Parrot, but a pretty pallid plot. It is clever, and Chabon obliquely explores themes of memory and sorrow in a good way, but its ultimately a failure.

I must admit this about "The Final Solution: A Story of Detection"...so what.

I will also admit that I could not finish this book. I just couldn't follow it; not because I am dumb or that it was poorly written, but just because I didn't care. From page one, this book left my brain wandering and thinking about what I was going to make for dinner, should I go kayaking or hiking, and what I should read next.

I can't give you a coherent synopsis of the story or an analysis of the characters. I can only tell you that I found this to be a literary exercise for literary sake. Though this book is getting great reviews from some, I am obviously not alone on this from other reviews - including some from literary publications - including Publishers Weekly.

I would say that if you are looking for a detective story, pass as this will not fulfill you. If you are looking for a literary gem, pass as this will not fulfill you.

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A Guide to my Book Rating System:

1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.

Chabon surely had fun writing this account of a new Sherlock Holmes case, taking place during WWII when Sherlock was quite aged, leading a lonely life in the country. Sherlock is sustained by his love of logic. The novella is sustained by the quality of Chabon's writing, but in truth I did not find the case very interesting, nor did I much enjoy the many passages detailing Sherlock's physical challenges in getting around. I wouldn't discourage other potential readers, but neither am I enthusiastic. It is interesting that the characters included a black clergyman who marries the daughter of a white clergyman and "inherits" the parish, and that this clergyman had a son. Arthur Conan Doyle himself achieved justice for a son of just such a family, who was falsely accused, and was actually an upstanding citizen (cf. Julian Barnes' "Arthur and George", a novel based on fact).

Chabon's writing is, without question, exquisitely timed, finely phrased, and nimble without pretention. The range of his talents has been adequately expressed via his Pulitzer Prize winning novel (Kavalier & Clay) as well as his more playful and certainly chewier children's book, Summerland. Plied in these diverse arenas, his craft is almost overwhelming in its pristine beauty.

This novella, about an over-the-hill Sherlock Holmes and a mute boy with a parrot, is similarly beautiful and a delight to read, but only if looked at less as a novella and more -- if I may be cute -- as a novelty.

The more effusive the store.com reviewers point to Chabon's underlying intent, and they wax philosophic about pop iconography, the vainglory of wasted nostalgia, and other rather intricate and complex literary facets. I'm not about to suggest that those elements aren't there. On the contrary, I do believe that Chabon is a writer whose prowess and poise can belie a whole wealth of implied intellectual gold.

However, whatever lofty intentions this book may have, they are underwhelmed by the form in which they are expressed. Here Chabon has written less of a story, and more of a character sketch, and even that is ill-formed, playing out in fits and starts against the backdrop of a watery mystery that arguably only has less than half of a resolution.

It might be enough to say that the "mystery" isn't important to the story -- and I would agree with that -- but it is still a part of the story, and as such I find myself disappointed that Chabon didn't sculpt it with as much precision and skill as he did the more psychological moments (when the unnamed Holmes' age begins to get the better of him) and the outerlying British landscape in general (Chabon has definitely painted a simplistic but authentic landscape upon which to play out this rather tired drama).

This book is not worth buying, but fans of Chabon should read it for no other reason than to enjoy watching the writer flex his literary muscles. People unfamiliar with the man, however, shouldn't bother.

** Spoiler Below **

This is not one of Chabon's best. The language is beautiful and some of the scenes are effective--for example when Mr. Panicker is driving his dilapidated car and almost runs down "the old man." The descriptions are great. But the plot is not fully wrought out.

For example, was the pseudo milk plant ever fully explained? What were they doing in there, besides milking "beef cows"? Colonel Threadneedle was from a London intelligence outfit and not from the local milk compound, so who were the other guys? Also, towards the end when the boy shows Holmes the piece of scrap paper with Mr. Black's shop address and the word "Blak" written on it--Mr. "Kalb" spelled backwards--how was Mr. Holmes so sure Kalb was the guilty party and that he had the bird? Sure, Mr. Kalb made contact with the boy, but he did so in the very beginning so there's no revelation there: Mr. Kalb was the one who caught the boy falling off the roof! . . . Someone who know the answers to these questions, please post.

The fact that the parrot's numbers turned out to be irrelevant--not bank numbers and suddenly no longer needed for the war effort--was disappointing. We were built up to expect something, and instead the book is conveniently wrapped-up and its loose ends are cut. Yet, having thought about the ending further, while I still find it disappointing on several levels, I am beginning to appreciate it, albeit in a cerebral kind of way. The "Final Solution" explaining the parrot's numbers is the sequence of train cars headed east to the Nazi death camps. The numbers are representations of dehumanized people converted into numbered chattel. In the last few pages the old man muses on this same theme, wondering whether human reason and understanding will be replaced by "lunatic cryptographers" and their codes, whether the dignity of man will be lost and human inquiry will be reduced to insensible numbers: to binary codes, percentages and stick-figure calculations. Holmes is a living relic of yesteryear and thereby has insight into the contemporary milieu. He represents the human face of curiosity: bravery and resolve, a gentleman's logic in the face of insoluble problems. But as the book ends, we are left wondering whether such virtue can carry on, or whether it will die and be absorbed by the void underlying the new and rapidly changing world. In the end is modern truth so esoteric as to be no more understandable than the indecipherable chatter of a bird?

There were some good moments in terms of character portrayal. For one, Holmes is very well depicted. We are given a man whose mind tries to overcome the failings of its body, a desperate jockey tired of whipping an all-but-spent horse. There is a poignant moment when Holmes and Mr. Panicker reach Mr. Black's shop and find it closed--Holmes bumps into a mental impasse, and we catch a glimpse of the despair that haunts him in his lonely hours. Holmes bangs on the empty shop's door with his walking stick--"'A Monday' said the old man sadly. 'I ought to have foreseen this'. . . 'Such practical considerations seem to lie beyond my . . . '--and the weak man lurches forward, eyes staring "as if blindly at the unanswering face of the shop." What does he do when the steps of logic end? When life has no clue there to greet him? Behind the great detective lies a feeble old man.

The book raised some interesting questions, but on the whole it could have either been a lot shorter or a lot longer. A longer book, which I am in favor of, would have allowed for the expansion of characters, better development and a non-jettisoned resolution of the plot.

It's only 131 pages, so you won't waste too much of your time if you read this book. Chabon fans might read it just to keep up with their author. Others might check out something else.

I love Michael Chabon's life and work. Working at the creative fringe of multiple genres, and succeeding at most of them. I can think of few contemporary authors who would write a new Sherlock Holmes mystery with Holmes as a crotchety 89-year-old beekeeper. It's a delightful concept.

But that doesn't mean that the book is equally delightful. The writing is fine, and certainly consistent with Chabon's work elsewhere. The images of an aging Holmes are memorable. But the mystery is pedestrian, and the ah-hah moment of its solution lacks the thrill that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have evoked. It is a worthy read, but falls short of truly emulating the best of Doyle and of Holmes.

This book is great, a brilliant tale of Holmes (although he is never named you cannot miss the clues!) in his old age. A young boy, a Jew, appears at the old man's door in 1944 with a African Grey parrot on his shoulder. The boy appears to be mute, but the parrot spews a jumble of numbers in German that seem to be a type of code.

The boy and parrot have found shelter with a black Cleric and his white wife and somewhat rebellious son. Before long, others come along who show an unhealthy intrest in the parrot. Murder ensues. The old man investigates, only to be ordered off the case by the government. But he is not so easily put off. He has promised the boy his parrot back, and he prides himself on always having kept his promises.

The Raven wishes Mr. Chabon would have contacted the Conan Doyle estate and received their blessings on this volume. I feel it is one Doyle would have been proud of. The Raven must also chastise Mr. Chabon for the two ugly and completely unnecessary words in the novel. Bad form, Sah!

That said, this is the best Holmes story The Raven has read in a long time. It truly reflects the hand of Conan Doyle. Quoth The Raven...

This is not a flatly written whodunit. Michael Chabon writes extremely richly in this book which has a murder which is reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. You can see that he read that mystery writer (and others) in his youth.

But, unlike Doyle, his use of the English language is more elegantly depicted -- at times the prose is unparralleled. You cannot skim this one -- the prose is too good for such treatment and reviewing and rereading certain passages make them only read or sound better.

It is nevertheless a quick read -- 130 pages of very stretched pages (even some blank pages or pictures are included to make the pagination count so high). It should not take more than a few hours to read this novel.

And, if you like this book, read some of his others by Chabon which are equally well written but not nearly as short. You will not be disappointed.

The Final Solution finds Sherlock Holmes (never named, but always referred to as "the old man") an 89-year-old recluse who lives in the country and cares for nothing anymore except bee-keeping. Then, one day, a young boy with a parrot on his shoulder strolls into his life.

This is a very modest story: the safety of the free world does not rest on the outcome. It does not rely on previous Sherlock Holmes literature: Dr. Watson and Lestrade are not here; we do not find out what happened to the old man since his retirement. Chabon's style is so distinctive, we always are aware that we are reading him and not Arthur Conan Doyle; but, as Chabon is one of my favourite writers, that is not a bad thing. However, he is true to the character: I am sure that he must have read all of the real Holmes stories and gives us valuable insight into his mind at the end of his life. This is an entertaining read and would interest any fan of Sherlock Holmes or Michael Chabon.

As several reviewers have said, read it for the writing, especially Chabon's way of getting inside the head of the old man. And how on earth does Chabon depict the world of war-time Britian so spot-on? Or so it seems.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Several reviewers have speculated on the meaning of the numbers, but the answer is in the book...and in the title. The numbers are the numbers on the trains that passed by the boy's window in Germany--the trains that that carried Hitler's victims to his "final solution": the death camps.

I didn't find the Final Solution "magical or entertaining" to me the story was disquieting. The writing was taut, edgy, tense, I felt some inner anxiety while reading the prose. It was about sad people, the Panicker's who take in a sad boy who though intelligent is mute and worst of all about a once great detective who has with age succumbed to the disintegration of his physical body. Michael Chabon has created an engaging but not entirely likeable story that includes the central character Sherlock Holmes or "the old man" as he is referred to in this novel. Reading this story was easy, it engages the reader with well written descriptions and passages but it also includes patched together chapters where one has to work quite hard to figure out who is talking, or where the action is taking place. You are hard pressed to identify with any of the characters when the most likeable of all is a parrot, who speaks to the reader in one of the chapters. So in review, the mystery was not the central point of the story rather it was the sad lives of all the characters that is the focus and further how their individual misery plays out to culminate in a murder and the redemption in solving it.

My taste for "literary masterpieces" must be lacking. This homage was a mish-mash that probably has Arthur Conan Doyle turning over in his grave. Chabon submerges the reader in a clutter of virtually inconsequential "clues", characters that are limp and colorless, and a murder and a mystery that can only be characterized as run-of-the-mill. An 89 year old Sherlock Holmes, possessing limited mental capabilities, should not have wasted the precious little time left in his life attempting to resolve this mess when he could be tending his bees.

The only positive aspect of this tale was the chapter devoted to the grey parrot, Bruno. His thoughts and feelings as he attempted to escape his captor was the only inventive and refreshing part of the book, and presented this feathered fowl as more "human" and more intelligent, by far, than his mortal counterparts.

The solution to the birds utterances of strings of numbers is elementary my dear Watson.......after all it is WWII and the boy & his bird have escaped from Nazi Germany.

My final solution: Four stars for Bruno, one for the rest of the cast.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon ("The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay") takes a shot at writing a classic Sherlock Holmes mystery. Holmes, never explicitly named, is nearing the end of his life. He has retired to Sussex, England, to keep bees. This is all that he wants to do for the remainder of his life, but the mystery of a mute boy and a stolen parrot comes into his life and calls on his skills of observation one last time.

A young boy walks into town. He is mute and he owns a parrot. The only thing the parrot seems to say is a list of numbers in German. When the parrot disappears there is suspicion of a darker motive. The police call Holmes to investigate, and though he is reluctant, he does agree to help. But Holmes' motivation is only to return the parrot to the child and not to solve the riddle of the German numbers.

There is a certain amount of wistfulness in "The Final Solution." It may be, as the title suggests, the last Sherlock Holmes mystery, and the specter of the aging Holmes does give rise to this air of sadness and remembering what has come before. So, in that manner it is a treat to get to see Sherlock one last time. But as a mystery story there isn't much to it. There is no true feeling that Chabon is giving all of the clues necessary to grasp the mystery (the twist at the end is nice and clever, though). Perhaps the problem is that the stakes here (a missing parrot) do not seem to be sufficiently large to have involved Sherlock Holmes, despite the mystery of the German numbers. "The Final Solution" is interesting for fans of Chabon, Sherlock Holmes, and as a little curio of a novella, but nothing deeper than that. It is well written, of course, being Chabon, but it feels too light. Too insubstantial.

-Joe Sherry

In the Final Solution, Michael Chabon introduces to us a character and mystery unlike what we generally see nowadays. Instead of focusing on mindless red herrings and introducing more suspects than in the Black Dahliah mystery, everything in this story is important and to the point. I make no bones that Chabon is my favorite author, but even at that point, I can't give the book a full five stars and I shall explain why.

The book is about an old, retired dectective whose name is never given. The descriptions make it very obvious that it has to be none other than Sherlock Holmes. This is the mystery outside of the mystery in the book itself. However, it doesn't become important in reading the story who the detective is. He is only referred to as "the old man." Through the descriptions of the man, it's not even important to realize he is Holmes. Furthermore, we don't even care at any point to know his name. It is not necessary.

The old man sees a boy with a parrot on his shoulder walking by the train tracks. The parrot spews out random patterns of German numbers, which is the first part of the mystery. The young boy-a jewish refugee during World War II- does not speak and hardly communicates in any way. In an ironic way, though, the boy actually communicates more than any of the other characters. His expressions and demeanor portray his state of mind without getting convuluted by words.

As usual, you can't have a mystery without a murder. And although there is a murder in this book, it is hardly integral to the story in any way. The center of the story now becomes the parrot, who is missing after someone boarding at the same vicarage as the mute boy is found dead. One automatically assumes that this 'parrot napping' must have something to do with the numbers he spouts.

My only issue with this book is that the majority of characters are lacking of any real description or development. This could be necessary, though, as the old man and the boy's characters are the only ones that are truly important. However, no one is better than Chabon at seeing and bringing out the depths of all of his characters. At the end of this short book, you don't come out of it feeling you really knew any of the participants of the story.

Even so, I totally recommend this book. It should only take a couple hours to read it, so make sure you are not interupted and you should have a wonderful time.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon displays his impressive vocabulary in the glibly verbiaged detective yarn, "The Final Solution". The books only disappointment was it's brevity.

In 1944 a young mute boy with an African grey parrot perched on his shoulder encounters a gnarled old man while walking along railroad tracks in Sussex, England. We soon learn that the "old man", a 89 year old beekeeper is none other than the retired super sleuth Sherlock Holmes.

The boy, Linus Steinman has escaped Germany and is staying in the boarding house run by the local vicar and his wife the Panickers. The multi lingual and verbose parrot, Bruno keeps on repeating a series of numbers in German. Could these numbers represent a secret code or numbers to a Swiss bank account?

Within short order a suspicious boarder, Mr. Shane, a milking equipment salesman is found dead outside the boarding house with his skull fractured. The parrot Bruno is missing.

Holmes is recruited by the local constable, Inspector Bellows, a grandson of a former colleague to aid in the investigation, endeavoring to solve his final case.

I'd read Summerland, and thoroughly enjoyed the off-beat worldview in it, so was eager to try another by Chabon. This book is very different, but equally good, if not better, I think. The writing is beautiful, if a bit difficult to read aloud (as I did, to my husband) because many sentences are very long. The story is very imaginative (who would ever think of these characters and then put them together?) and the brevity of the book does not detract from it, as other reviewers have thought. It is a true original, and in this day of so many formulaic books, a delight.

A mute boy, a parrot that spouts a seemingly random series of numbers, and an elderly beekeeper are brought together by circumstances and intrigue commences. Chabon does a great job capturing the testy old detective who is shaken from his daily routine by the disappearance of aforementioned parrot, leading to what becomes a murder investigation and other mysteries. Purists always have some kind of problem with these "Further adventures of.." but I get a kick out the way good writers can work with a classic character, remaining true to the essence of the icon while still able to put a spin on our perceptions. The mystery is ok, and while I felt there was a bit too many helpings of "red herring" this was a lot of fun for the short time it lasted.

Michael Chabon has a unique prose style that is at once confusing and engaging though not in equal measure. His sentences are sometimes long and winding, full of subordinate clauses in which the reader can get lost (my heart goes out to those hapless commuters who are wondering whether to re-read the last page or hurl the book at the conductor). In his latest book, "The Final Solution," this elliptical, non-linear approach manages to encompass in a short space -- the volume is only 131 pages long -- a surprising array of subjects: murder, the holocaust, bee keeping, the London blitz, war spies, dysfunctional marriage, train spotting, the retirement of Sherlock Holmes, the fate of a mute child, and the mental ramblings of a German-speaking African parrot. In addition to this ambitious subject matter, Chabon seems to be experimenting with the mystery genre itself, putting his own spin on it here and there, and this is not an entire success. Mysteries inevitably set up expectations for a clear solution, something unsuited to the spiraling, assymetrical structure of this book.

But more critical than style issues, in this reader's view, is the creative decision to import a character like Sherlock Holmes and then expect him to perform under new rules. Conan Doyle's original character is so imprinted on the public imagination as to seem like one of the family. Not only was Doyle's creation a likeable sort, especially when buffered by Watson, he became a bell weather of moral attitudes: reassuring, resourceful, brilliant, and humane -- a classic if unpredictable hero.

In "The Final Solution," however, Mr. Chabon seems to have something else in mind. Though careful to import the crusty, curmudgeonly side of Holmes, along with his uncanny knack for getting to the heart of a problem, this writer ignores the elegant, cat-like grace of the character and does nothing to preserve it. Chabon's Sherlock, fighting a touch-and-go battle with old age, is baffled, bewildered, and not himself, stumbling over things to get to the door. His efforts at harvesting honey from the bees are strained and stressful. Old age need not rob someone of dignity (A.Christie's octogenarian Miss Marple comes to mind). Also, given Holmes' success and achievments it seems odd to present him without basic supporting elements: a decent wardrobe and a Mrs. Hudson-type to tidy up his messy room would be a start.

Mr. Chabon's willingness to play fast-and-loose with another writer's character in particular and with the mystery genre in general makes "The Final Solution" an uneven journey, though there are some wonderful descriptions along the way: Holmes' trip to London in a comic wreck of a car, and the parrots soliloquy, itself worth the price of the book. Ultimately, however, Chabon's addiction to originality and eccentricity in character, style, and structure destabilize what could have been a stronger, better grounded, and more credible story.

Michael Chabon has an amazing imagination. This might not be the greatest detective story ever written (it's not). But in the way that "Motherless Brooklyn" (by Jonathan Lethem) used the noir genre as a vehicle for giving us a fine story about a man with Turrets Syndrome, here Chabon has done an amazing job of creating a portrait of a great man who, in old age, has many diminished abilities, but a mind as sharp as ever. Chabon's books are always very rich, and there is much here to consider also about banal evil in a context of great, horrific evil, and banal survival as well. But it was the Old Man that gripped me.

This is a complicated book, which I found interesting, but ultimately uninvolving. The story is compelling and pulls the reader along, but the characters did not emerge (for me) as real people. Moreover, the mannered style intensified the disconnect for me. Ultimately it left me intellectually interested but emotionally unmoved by what is a very moving premise.

Chabon is one of my favorite contemporary writers--his word choice and descriptive prose regularly blow me away. The Final Solution is no exception--the novella contains a number of beautifully written scenes (the opening, the beekeeping section--in fact, all of the scenes where both Linus Steinman and the old man are present). However, I did not find this novel as engrossing as the mighty Kavalier & Clay, or even as engaging as Chabon's short stories. In fact, (slight spoiler) by the time of the resolution, I had to go back and reread the section where the murderer is introduced. I had forgotten who he was. This novel is well worth reading, but I, personally, would have been happier if I had waited to purchase the paperback edition.

My first Chabon book and well worth the wait. The story, the characters, the pacing, the deftness of the writing - a true master at work. And when you put together the meaning the numbers the parrot spouts, chilling. This is everything a short novel is meant to be. I'd be hard pressed to identify what could actually be better about this book.

If you've heard about Chabon, or his writing, I'd recommend getting this book first. In 131 pages, you'll know if you want to read more of his works or not. I, for one, will be reading them all.

My first Chabon book and well worth the wait. The story, the characters, the pacing, the deftness of the writing - a true master at work. And when you put together the meaning the numbers the parrot spouts, chilling. This is everything a short novel is meant to be. I'd be hard pressed to identify what could actually be better about this book.

If you've heard about Chabon, or his writing, I'd recommend getting this book first. In 131 pages, you'll know if you want to read more of his works or not. I, for one, will be reading them all.

I actually wish this book had been longer because so many questions remain unanswered. The cover of the book is deceiving because the numbers that the parrot says are only a small part of the story line. Still, there is mystery and compassion here, simplicity and depth even though there are few pages used in telling the story.

This is one of my favorite books ever. A nonagenerian Sherlock Holmes is presented with a quiet mystery. The book is short and each sentence is just exquisitely crafted and honed, shined to a fine polish.

A lot is happening in Chabon's sentences, and critical plot points are deftly - but fairly - hidden in the description. I have two crucial bits of advice for prospective readers:

First, the book must be read slowly, and carefully. Try to savor and understand each image the author is conveying. Understand not just the plot, but the way in which the plot is articulated and conveyed.

Secondly, once it is read, it MUST be read again. The second time I read the book, it was like a whole different book, from the first sentence on. I know some people who didn't "get" the book the first time, and when I told them to read it again, they too fell in love with it. I've read it three times, always picking up something new.

Anyway, this is just an amazingly wonderful book. I understand how some readers, skimming it lightly, get confused; but this book truly repays attention.

Michael Chabon has written a delightful novella that resurrects Sherlock Holmes, without ever mentioning his name. The scene is England in 1944, and an 89 year old beekeeper is asked by the police to look into the murder of a lodger, and the disappearance of a mute German boy's parrot. What is the significance of all of this, and are there implications involved with the war effort? It's good to see the old man creaking and groaning, but doing his old business of ferreting out what really happened, well before the police, as usual. The language of the book is excellent, and for that alone it is well worth reading. Sherlockians should rejoice at this latest appearance of their hero!

The setting details are wonderful, as are character descriptions. And the book is filled with mysteries in all sizes. Who is the old man? What do the numbers mean? What is the secret project disguised as a dairy institute? I wanted it to go on longer but, most of all, I wanted to be smart enough to figure out what I couldn't.

A huge dissapointment. This is my first read of a Chabon novel and may be my last. For a book that is only 130 pages (double spaced and large type) it has an agonizingly slow pace. Therefore, even though you are plodding along the storyline, waiting for something to peak your interest, the story ends abruptly. In this book's case the shortness of it came as a blessing. The best chapter is told from the parrot's perspective, and is the only one that kept my attention.

I was not aware of the Sherlock Holmes aspect of the story until after I finished but I do not think this would have added any interest to me. There was not a character that I was drawn to on an emotional level. Even the boy who wouldn't talk and clearly was intended to draw a sympathetic reaction from the reader was dull and unimportant to me.

The authors command of writing and vocabulary are impressive but I am left wondering if I had submitted this manuscript to publishers if anyone would have taken the bait. This book is an example of how once you get published and are successful with one novel the standards for your subsequent novels become rather low. In fact, your name printed on the cover becomes the most important part of the novel.

A really strange snippet of a book involving an aged former police inspector of note, a mute child from the kinder transport, a rare and remarkable parrot who had memorized the numbers of transport cars loading for the journey east, a Pakistani vicar and his petty criminal son, and a murder, set in a village south of London during WWII. An intentionally Sherlock Holmes type of "who done it?" story. Chabon writes well, but why this?

Having read over a dozen reviews of Chabon's novella, I'm surprised at the critics' collective lack of attention to the central effect of this pleasing effort. It isn't a too-long short-story, or a character portrait, or a rather slight attempt at a mystery novel; no, it's a remembrace of childhood reading, a book about the very mystery of coming to these works in the first place.

Nostalgia is evolked at so many levels that the book becomes a tesseract of longing, where we find that our own wonder at the pulps was hanging on as tenuously as the cords that hold old Holmes together. Readers wander through the faltering mind and withered body that once fired our collective imagination, across the landscape of blitz-bombed London, or a once-bucolic beekeeper's yard scarred by an electric rail line, or an abused pet's memories, and nostalgia is born in the gaunt present of a once-vital past. The novella's final solution is not a cracked code or Holmes's last hurrah or a boy's smile: the final solution is the reader's aching suprise at the near-loss of our childhood joy in these stories, a loss from which Chabon tries to save us with his own calculated shred of pulp.

Anyone who reads Chabon picks up on the osmotic infusion of the pulps, and to find the memory of enjoying them hanging on by thin cords, as if we've just happened upon them in the last desperate condition of old men, old London, old England, is an alarming and nostalgic experience. The reward--and I suspect it's Chabon's reward as much as the reader's--is that this slight novella sends us back to dozens of works by Doyle, Burroughs, Haggard, Howard, Lovecraft, and all the rest, works we enjoyed before we grew into critics. Chabon creates in us the need to recover it all before it's lost: to renew the cords that bind us to our early reading selves. There's no telling how many books you'll joyfully re-read after putting down The Final Solution.

The Final Solution

Michael Chabon has written other novels. He lives in Berkeley Calif with his wife and children. This short novel will be a puzzle to anyone who is not familiar with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous fictional detective (who is not mentioned by name even though the expiration of the copyright in 1970 allows anyone to use the name). Hammett’s novel “The Maltese Falcon” told about people who sought a valuable object that turned out to be a fake. This book echoes that story; an item is sought for its perceived value. Were their assumptions correct? The background is England in the 1940s.

A boy walks in the country with a gray parrot. He is a refugee from Germany; he is mute but his parrot repeats numbers in German. There is a new lodger, Mr. Shane, at Mrs. Panicker’s boarding house. She is the wife of an Anglican vicar. Elsewhere Detective Inspector Bellows visits an old man for a consultation. Mr. Shane was just murdered! He was a salesman for farming equipment. That boy’s parrot is missing. Is there a connection? The vicar’s son is the prime suspect, but the old man found evidence to clear him. A man from the Aid Committee visits to check on the boy. Nearby is the National Research Dairy, it raises Galloways beef cattle. Its roof has many aerials. A Colonel visits the old man. Shane was his skilled operative. The old man harvests honey from his beehives. [Note the research for this description.]

The boy has a clue for the old man (Chapter 8). Mr. Panicker takes the old man to London. They note the many American soldiers there, then visit a dealer in “Rare Birds”. Four men visits Mr. Black, they hear a noise from his wardrobe. The parrot is returned to its rightful owner. We learn the cause of the theft and murder, and the origin or those numbers recited by the parrot (Chapter 11). It is an ironic ending. [I won’t mention plausibility.]

This could have been titled “Holmes’ Last Case”, although Sherlock is never named. This story references events from the 1930s and 1940s, before most people today were born. The words suggest the author has a knowledge of that era, but most readers will find some words puzzling. The whole story suffers from its opaqueness, it is not a reader-friendly style. Compare it to any of Doyle’s short stories and note the differences. Conan Doyle succeeded in overturning a wrongful conviction of an innocent man, in another he prevented the wrongful conviction of a man with a questionable character. These were well publicized in his day but are mostly forgotten today.

Don't let the short length fool you.

After reading this latest installment in the great works of Pulitzer-winning Michael Chabon, I realized that each of his novels (even the tiniest among them) must be read three times: once for plot, once for fluidity of language/sentence structure, and once with a dictionary.

There is incredible depth in this novella and density that far exceeds his other short stories.

Michael Chabon's The Final Solution, A Story of Detection is an exquisite book. Chabon, who reexamined the golden age of comics in the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay, takes up the detective novel.

Final Solution is set in the Sussex Downs, in Southern England in the summer of 1944. The Allies have just invaded Normandy but the war is far from over. An 89-year old man, retired to a life of quiet bee-keeping, sits looking out his window and spies a young boy strolling along some railroad tracks with a large gray parrot on his shoulder. The old man deduces that the young boy is about to do himself in and drags himself out of his chair and makes his way to the boy. The boy, Linus Steinman, turns out to be a young Jewish-German refugee, recently escaped from the horrors of occupied and resettled in England by a refugee agency. He is mute and generally uncommunicative. The only sounds emanating from the direction of the boy come from the extraordinarily loquacious parrot who comes out with an apparently never-ending stream of numbers, spoken in flawless German.

It is the talking parrot and the meaning of the random numbers that form the heart of the mystery of the Final Solution. Chabon then introduces us to the rest of his cast of characters. The mute Linus lives in a small boarding house owned by the Reverend and Mrs. Panicker. Mr. Panicker, of Malayan origin, seems to have lost his faith and seems merely to be treading water. Mrs. Panicker seems unloved and unwanted except for the meal she provides her boarders, until the mysterious Mr. Shane intervenes in an argument between Mrs. Panicker and her ne'er do well son. Mr. Shane, despite claiming to be in the dairy equipment business seems far more intriguing than his occupation suggests. The parrot incites interest and speculation on all concerned. What do those numbers mean?

Speculation and the possibility of untold wealth at the end of the random number mystery invariably lead to the murder of one of the characters. Additionally, the mysterious parrot has been stolen. Of course, the bumbling local constabulary immediately focuses on the wrong party. Into the breech steps the old man. It turns out the 89 year old bee-keeper was once a world famous detective. Still smoking a pipe and still mocking constables, the old man goes about seeking a solution to the crime.

Chabon does not provide the name of this old man but it seems clear that he could be none other than the great Sherlock Holmes. Readers of Sherlock Holmes know that Holmes retired to Sussex Downs to spend his remaining years as a bee keeper. The title of the book, Final Solution, provides another clue. Although clearly relevant to the as yet undiscovered horrors of the Holocaust implicit in Linus profound silence, it also calls to mind A.C. Doyle's The Final Problem, the famous Holmes tale where Holmes was thought to have died after falling at the Reichenbach Falls.

Although short, only 131 pages, Chabon has invested his characters with depth and nuance. His portrayals of both the old detective, Linus, and Mrs. Panicker are compelling. He even manages to invest Bruno the parrot with insight into the `human drama' unfolding before him.

This is an excellent book. Be prepared to read it in one sitting. It is that good.

An aged and decrepit detective takes on the case of a silent refugee child and his missing parrot. Who is the detective? Who is the boy? What is the meaning of the parrot's numerical chatter? Why should we concern ourselves with such picayune events, and what relation do they have to WWII, which forms the novel's backdrop?

This slender, beautifully-written book keeps you guessing until the devastating end.

I haven't read the other two Holmes pastiches that came out this year, and I haven't even read any original Holmes, so maybe I am a bad judge, but the Holmes pastiche chapter in Zoran Zivkovic's The Fourth Circle was more interesting than this. I really enjoyed "Kavalier and Clay", but this book was dull and flat, and I did not care about any of the characters. The only thing I found to like was that one of the chapters was told from the parrot's point of view, but in the end the book just wasn't satisfying.

Especially if you were hoping, like I was, for the same quality of character development and plot whimsy as Kavalier and Clay. Judging by the other reviews, I guess one either likes this book a lot, or not very much at all.

These would be great characters if they had a chance to develop. Instead, they show up out of nowhere, even Holmes, and act out of motivations that are more redolent of pop psychology than anything else. Perhaps it is better as a screenplay than a book.

The story has such a great historical and literary backdrop and I was very hopeful in the first few pages. However, it was a book I finished only out of grim determination than any deep interest in the plot or characters.

What a disappointment. This book misses every mark it tries to make. A humdrum read and puny mystery unworthy of N. Drew let alone S. Holmes. Plodded through it on the hope that the final pages would make it all worthwhile; they didn't. If you are looking for an engrossing read and crackerjack mystery, don't choose this one.

I loved all of the descriptive phrasing, but I often felt confused about the story line. It always felt incomplete. I guess I am just one of those people who needs more answers, instead of more questions.

This is a short story, enjoyable to read. There's a lot of carping over various shortcomings, which have some validity. However, I thought it was generally well written (with some occasional overindulgence in purple prose) and the story moved along well. The numbers the parrot recites are never solved - but what numbers would a little Jewish boy escaped from a concentration camp know and repeat often so that a parrot would remember? My guess is the numbers tattoo'd on his arm. We never learn, but it would be nice to hear from Chabon.

What's with all these paragraph-long sentences that must be read three times to be understood? Where's all the character development? I thought the relationship between the old man and the boy promised a rich, intriguing story, but I could never get on board. I concur with the one-star reviewer who compared the book to a jazz musician drowning you with a blizzard of technique with no texture, emotion, or dynamics. Just too much. I really think the writing got in the way of a potentially great story.

I really found this book to be highly entertaining. A quick read, yes. But many of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories were novellas and not novels, such as A Study In Scarlet or The Sign of Four. I commend Michael Chabon for giving us new look at "the old man" in his retirement. He is a lot like I imagined he would be. This is a novel with humor and puzzles, and a host of very interesting characters. Enjoy!