Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure

Astounding and beautiful language and intriguing characters combine to evoke an alluring time. This book was a joy to read and to savor.

I have noticed that some other reviewers have noted critically that Chabon sometimes uses words that not everyone knows. In fact, he is using language perfectly and precisely.

For example, some reviewers critized his using the word "mahout," but there is no other substitute ("elephant trainer" has different connotations). Anyway, the word is defined in the text. Some said the word "shatranj" was too obscure, but that was a precise description of what they were playing and was also beautifully thematic - look for how one of the pieces in the game makes a clever cameo appearance. (The book is full of very subtle jokes like this one).

To lovers of language, reading Chabon is thrilling. To read him carefully is doubly wondrous, as the reader marvels both at the story he is telling and at the concise and perfect manner of its telling.

The book is produced in a lovely bicolor format, nicely typeset with elegant illustrations.

I only have three complaints. First, I didn't like the title. I thought it was boring. Second, I thought the afterword was unnecessary. I would have preferred a detailed historical analysis in the afterword, rather than the introspective work that was there. Third, the map at the end is not detailed enough - I hope future printings include a detailed map of all the places mentioned as well as a diagram of the path the adventurers traveled.

This was a trade for Aitmotov's Day...Years. Friend I traded reading material with lured me in with promises that it is my part of the world but she got the better part of the deal.

Gentlemen of the Road is so different from Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys in tone, obsession, vocabulary, word play, historic research and subject matter you have to feel happy for the ghost writer who hopefully paid a bunch of tuitions with the proceeds. You picture ghostwriter being told, "Go to town. Have a good time." Not that some of the writing isn't wonderful. p. 170 a blind man sniffs out a crime scene. p. 178 "...offering information, speculation and unfounded hearsay in a style that ill-befitted and was hardly characteristic of Radanites. The snowflakes fell into the fire with an endless chorus of derisive hissing." I am a cynic about celebrities anyway. This time ghost writing seems so obvious I don't believe that Chabon wrote it.

This book reads like a Conan the Barbarian book that was translated into Latin and then back into English by an anglophile obsessed with Victorian poetry. There is plenty of sword play peppered with a few entertaining metaphors but little insight. The characters lack believability and saying they are cliche (and anachronistic) is being too complimentary. The reading experience was like waking from a dream of viewing a play which could barely be seen through a dense fog. I give the book three stars because Michael Chabon is young, I appreciate an author's willingness to try something different, and because Chabon induced a not entirely unwelcome nostalgia for Conan the Barbarian.

***1/2

A short but worthwhile story of two oddly matched adventurers called on to aid a deposed prince in the 10th century Caucasus Region. Chabon's florid prose and scenes of storybook heroism seem meant as a homage to the Arabian Nights tales, The Three Musketeers, and other works in that vein, but with a modern sense of humor and well-researched historical flavor. Ultimately, though, the book ends up feeling like a disappointingly abbreviated version of a work that had the makings to be a full novel. But I liked it well enough that I'll check out some of Chabon's other books.

Michael Chabon originally called this tale JEWS WITH SWORDS, and I can't gainsay the choice. In three words, he captures the elements of humor, history, and horseplay that inform this wonderful lark of a book. This book's design, along with Gary Gianni's excellent illustrations, make the volume a spirited homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs' early 20th century canon.

And I love Edgar Rice Burroughs. (Or at least did when I was a kid.)

I'd like to point out that while this book IS a lot of fun, Chabon clearly didn't just "toss it off." GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD is hardly a trifle; there are sentences aplenty here to relish, to wit: "The agent only nodded his head and smiled a Radanite smile, which was not a smile at all but rather a promissory note to deliver one at some unspecified future date."

It's an amusing romp, larded with fascinating historical information and amusing wordplay. If that sounds appealing, I encourage you to sample from L. Sprague de Camp or Arturo Perez-Reverte's canons, starting perhaps with The Best of L Sprague De Camp and Captain Alatriste respectively.

By reputation, Michael Chabon is one of America's finest young writers. When I read that he had an adventure tale set in Tenth Century Khazaria, I thought this book is going to be great. Having finished the book, what a great dissapointment! First and foremost, he lifted his two main characters from Fritz Lieber's "Fafhrd and Grey Mouser" series. Chabon changes the color and profession of the characters but they are the same characters with the same dynamic. The whole book reminded me of those terrible Dungeons and Dragons' adventure novels that I read as a teenager. While those books may have been terrible, they had the virtue of being simple and honestly written. It is hard to write a good adventure story with something new to say. If you want to read a good historical adventure story written by a serious novelist, check out the works of Arturo Perez Reverte. One day, when academics study the works of Michael Chabon, "Gentlemen of the Road" is going to be the embarassing novel that will amuse them.

This novel certainly is unique, and Leonard Fleisig's spotlight review here sheds much needed light on the historical context of its rather obscure setting and unusual characters. Although Leonard's scholarship helped him enjoy this book perhaps more than most, I have to admit that, in my ignorance, I found myself treading through it, as if entangled in a bizarre backwater of words, geography, and history. At first the iconoclastic outlook of the two main characters, Amran, the giant African, and Zelikman, the brooding, slender Jewish soul from Francia, reminded me of "The Three Musketeers" (minus one), particularly when these two pull off all kinds of stunts, feats of bravery, and legerdemain. The plot, in spite of its being embedded in a smothering veneer of historical references and obscurities, still manages to entertain, much like an action movie entertains.

Ultimately, this work is a forgettable bauble, good enough for a quick airplane ride read, as Chabon himself suggests, but not something I would recommend to any serious reader or even one seeking a good laugh. I rate it 2.5 stars.

I hesitate to only give this book three stars, because I did enjoy it, but I found that it didn't really stay with me aftwards. The writing, as one would expect from an author of Chabon's caliber, is exceptionally strong, but the story itself doesn't flow terribly well and was lacking in depth. To be fair, Chabon was deliberately trying to imitate serialized stories of the 19th century, so that contributes to the pulpish feel of the book. Moreover, if hadn't received the book from the the store Vine program, I doubt I would have paid for it, so in that regard my review is, admittedly, skewed.

Nonetheless, well "Gentlemen of the Road" is an engaging diversion, it lacked depth in the storytelling which ultimately, at least for me, derailed the reading experience.

Yes, indeed this is an adventure tale as advertised. The illustrations play a key role. As a child I read many such adventure stories. I was always pleased when a book included illustrations as this one does. Books without illustrations were definitely suspect and were at a disadvantage.

The book is well written and fast paced. I believe that this episodic adventure story set in the Khazar empire of one thousand years ago is perfect for those of the right age, e.g. young adults. Keeping to the illustration criterion, I rate this novel five stars.

With "Gentlemen of the Road" Michael Chabon seeks to reinvent the classic adventure story with very untraditional Jewish warriors as its heroes. Think "Don Quixote" with Jews instead of Spaniards and you have a sense of what he intends to do. And so we are introduced to Amram and Zelikman, an exceedingly unlikely duo who have forged a deep friendship and travel the roads together, each man with his own private goal in mind. When money gets tight the two stage a disagreement that leads to a duel with a fixed result - the seemingly unlikely victory of Zelikman, a skinny and pale man, over Amram, a muscular soldier with dark skin and an air of menace. Zelikman collects their winnings from the betting pools and meets Amram outside of the town's limits to head out and do it all over again. This plan goes off without a hitch until one day the duo finds themselves involved in a major political struggle while fleeing with their booty. Suddenly the unlikely travelers become unlikely guardians, escorting the sole remaining heir of the supplanted bek (a king-like figure) from the armies of Buljan, the man who killed the bek and is now working to ensure that no one remains alive that could potentially claim a right to the throne.

Chabon's thoroughly charming tale captures the tone and purpose of the adventure stories he seeks to imitate perfectly, proving that he is that rare writer whose skills cover a wide range of styles. One would never guess that this is the same man who authored the stellarWonder Boys: A Novel and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The transition in tone and style is so deft that he makes it look seamless.

If "Gentlemen of the Road" has a flaw it is that you can tell that it was a serialized work that is being collected for the first time. The early chapters feel very stop-and-go, but once the story has time to get moving this problem fades away. It can't be easy to set up a two-hundred page adventure story with an epic scale when you've been limited to twelve-to-fifteen page installments, so the fault does not necessarily lie with Chabon here as much as the format the story was originally published in. So I would recommend this story as well as the other two Chabon books that I mentioned earlier.

Grade: B+

Having channeled Mickey Spillane to produce the "Yiddish Policeman's Union," Michael Chabon now turns Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Leiber and Prince Valliant in his sword swinging adventure story "Gentleman of the Road," recounting the tale of the unlikely friendship of two wit-living travelers, one a blond European and the other an Abyssinian mercenary and their exploits through an alien kingdom along the silk route. Of course as with the "Yiddish Policeman's Union," Chabon has brought a new twist to an old genre, for all of his characters, indeed his whole setting of "Gentleman" share something in common; one of the two friends, Zeligman, with his too slender sword, his gift as a healer, and his penchant for hats is Jewish. His companion, Amram, an Abyssinian giant who served in the army of the Byzantine Empire and wields a might axe named "Mother Deflier," is likewise a Jew. Indeed, the adventure at the book's heart centers on the struggle for the Khazar throne, a Jewish empire which ruled much of the land around the Black Sea all the way up to the Ukraine, which had the good fortune of sitting bestride the Silk Route.

As is Chabon's gift, the book reads fluently as part of its genre, complete with high adventure, detail, and daring do to spare. Sword fights are so well recounted the reader hears the blade wiz by his or her ear; the description of sumptuous palaces are so carefully drawn one can almost feel the tapestry. Through it all, the buoyant prose are assisted with the crackling illustrations of the talented Gary Gianni, which make the whole feel of this book that much more effective and visceral.

Some may find Chabon's language, with its flare for prose imitative of 19th century dime store novels, somewhat off-putting. Likewise some may wonder why an author whose early work so focused on the subject of alienation, continues exploring this topic, but as in "Policeman's Union," chooses to weave tales of alienated Jews living among other Jews. All of this is of course worthy of consideration and discussion, but one should not ignore the meat of what Chabon delivers -- an excellent gripping adventure story sure to keep you turning the pages.

Language should enhance a story, not distract from it. Michael Chabon has such a fine command of English that he could write a love story that only five people in the world could understand was a love story. But what purpose would that serve? It would merely indicate pride at work.

To me, an adventure story needs to focus on the action and move rapidly. I want to find myself hanging over a cliff without first realizing that I'm barreling towards it. Otherwise, I don't feel like I'm in the adventure . . . but merely reading words about someone's idea of an adventure.

As a result, I wasn't pleased with the results of Michael Chabon's imaginative series of 15 short stories. I was spending more time studying the language than I was thinking about the story. It's like having a cake that's almost all icing. Why? For some reason, he chooses to use extremely long sentences ("With his skin that was lustrous as the tarnish on a copper kettle, and his eyes womanly as a camel's, and his shining pate with its ruff of wool whose silver hue implied a seniority attained only by the most hardened men, and above all with the air of stillness that trumpeted his murderous nature to all but the greenest travelers on this minor spur of the Silk Road, the African appeared neither to invite nor to promise to tolerate questions.") and many infrequently used words (the first chapter includes "shatranj," "bambakion," "buskins," "ostler," "bodkin," "runes," "Mehr," "Varangian," "caravansary," "japery," "Parthian," and "mendacious." Now I knew all but one of those words and could figure the other one out from context, but I doubt if most people would agree that those words added to the meaning of the story.

Building a tale from 15 short stories also makes the book choppy. I would have preferred a novella or a novel. Few have written this way since the time of Dickens when books were sold by installment. There's a reason for that: It doesn't work as well.

But the historical references were interesting, ones that I'm glad I learned from reading the book.

It's a short book and well illustrated. Without the illustrations, I would have liked the book a lot less well. The illustrations, however, pointed out some of the weaknesses of the writing: You need the illustrations to complete the story telling for the words are inadequate by themselves.

Beyond that, was I glad I read the book? Not very much. The overall story is one that didn't capture my interest very much. After Chapter One, the book was all downhill for me.

This work feels like a writing exercise rather than a serious literary work designed to please a large audience.

If you like fine writing and don't care much about how well the story works, by all means read this book.

But if you are looking for the best and most accessible of what Michael Chabon can deliver, skip Gentlemen of the Road.

I think, maybe, the adventures are there, but they are buried under a very uninspired, boring reading by Andre Braugher. He is a wonderful actor and a painfully lousy reader. That may very well have dimmed my view of the book. The story, itself, doesn't seem to exist; it's just a series of adventures with a couple of characters I never was able to care about. It reminded me of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2," Disneyfied characters doing lots of "stuff" without any heart. I would not recommend it, and it certainly has soured me on any Chabon book.

In the afterword, Chabon tells us that the working title of this book was "Jews with Swords," which would have been an apt and tongue-in-cheek title for this wonderful novel. Chabon has a true love of language, and his prose is at once erudite, literate, accessible and funny. This slim novel (200-ish pages) moves quickly and never bogs down. The titular "gentlemen of the road" are the thin French physician Zelikman and his African friend and traveling companion, Amram. They are at once con men, warriors, vagabonds, thieves and heroes. As you might expect, they have a variety of adventures that lead them to the kingdom of the Khazars, a Jewish kingdom of the Caucasus, where they have more adventures. The journey is as much fun as the destination.

Your reaction to this book might be determined by your reaction to the title of Chapter 1: "On Discord Arising from the Excessive Love of a Hat." If you find that intriguing and amusing, you will love this book, hands down, and you can feel comfortable ordering it blind. If not, you may want to check out this novel from the library first. This is the first Chabon book I have read, and after this I plan to read the others. Wonderful!

Gentlemen of the Road, by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon, not only takes the reader to another time, the 10th century, but, although it was published in 2007, it feels like a novel from another time. Following the travels of Zelikman and Amram, the gentlemen of the road, Chabon takes us on a journey on which they will survive tight scrapes, overcome long odds, and ultimately restore a kingdom.

Beautifully and colorfully written, Gentlemen almost seems as it it were written in the 18th or 19th century, fitting right in with The Three Musketeers or Arabian Nights. Time will tell if it has the staying power of those books, but I think it's definitely one worth reading again.

Michael Chabon is the undisputed master of rasing genre novels into (or nearly into) the realm of literature. "Gentlemen of the Road" was originally produced as a serialized adventure, published incrementally by the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

It shows.

But as always, Chabon makes a convincing argument that we should overlook what we would normally think of as a failing. The adventures of a pair of Jewish con-men/mercenaries in 10th-century Khazaria feels like a very good mini-series on a channel like A&E or The BBC. Rousing action, battles and barfights, love and deceptions, politics and revolution packaged intelligently with quality actors and wrapped in Chabon's wonderful prose. While the chapters are at times disjointed, "Gentlemen of the Road" makes for an entertaining whole.

The depth and seriousness of "Kavalier & Clay" and "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" is replaced with swashbuckling heroes and the dust and mist of history, allowing the reader to relax and enjoy following Zelikman and Amram, a classic pair of bickering opposites, in their trip across an ancient and little known landscape.

As someone who enjoys adventure stories (Sabatini, Leiber, Burroughs, Cussler, H. Ridder Haggard, Sax Rohmer, L'Amour, Anthony Hope) I was pleasantly surprised to find this book at the local library, and Michael Chabon's name was a big reason why I picked up the book.

The Good:
- Interesting setting - I have never read a novel about the Khazar Kingdom, and I found it very interesting.

- Deep characters - Chabon's strength in the novel is his characterization. His characters of Amram and Zelikman are very lifelike and engaging, and fit together nicely, much like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

- Chabon pays homage to the genre with his vivid prose, that creates a great image in the reader's imagination.

The Bad

- The plot is very disjointed, and I felt that it skipped and rushed necessary parts of the story. In addition, there was little sense of suspense, which is necessary for this type of the novel. The plot twists were not well executed, and the book's ending is not very interesting.

My take?

Although Chabon is a very good writer, he does not have the skills for an adventure story. Although the characterizations are important, what is most important for an adventure novel is a tight and well thought out plot. This novel left me feeling unsatisfied at the end, and I think that it could have benefited from further editing or elaboration. No way does it measure up to a true master of the genre like Rafael Sabatini, or Fritz Leiber and so I give it a 2/5.

Michael Chabon has always been an inventive and challenging writer, one has to only ready some of his work in comics or novels to see the different ground he covers. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was the only novel of his I had read besides his work in comics, and this book while not the same epic is a rousing tale of adventure on the Silk Road that doesn't follow its characters as deeply as AOK&C but is as readable & engaging. Working in the tradition of Robert Howard (action/adventurewise) his loquacious text mixed with Gary Gianni's excellent artwork throughout make for a jumpy rollicking laste summer/fall read. As his writing stimulates my cerebral cortex and I find myself wanting to follow his characters I guess now I need to read a few of his older well known novels.

Delightful summer read for lads and lasses 10 and above, especially their parents. Hardcover has lavish production values and the illustrations add a lot (and wish there had been more) with the exception that the rendering of Amran did not seem Abyssinian enough. Chabon creates a charming and unpredictable hero in Zelikman, who deserves a sequel, at least one. The pace is uneven, which is OK since it permits Chabon opportunities to indulge in reader vocabulary building and fascinating historical/literary asides, as well as genuine revelations, like about the Khazar kingdom. We need more of this in our libraries and homes.

What a delight! Someone handed this book to me in a bag of paperbacks and I will be forever grateful to them.
This short novel takes place around the Caspian Sea, I think just before the Crusades. Two unlikely adventurers have unlikely adventures. Wild coincidences and surprises abound. And, hey, there are pictures--well, ink drawings. Just in case you need to check your imagination against another's idea of what the scene looked like.
The language is a joy in and of itself; that the story is exciting as well is pretty much icing on the cake. I went to bed with lists of words to look up in a dictionary and that has not happened in a long time.

This latest offering from Chabon is a small but witty read. His impressive knowledge and mastery of the English language really shines, and I appreciate the fact that he did not "dumb it down" for the masses. This book isn't necessarily intended for the average Joe who just wants to sit down and lose himself in a formulaic cookie-cutter story line. Despite its brevity, it will require a disproportionate amount of time to fully digest. Again, much appreciated. It is rare for me to find a book that I would read a second time, but this one practically demands it.

I generally love books by Michael Chabon (and I've read a lot of them), so I was very disappointed when I didn't like this one. It's an old-fashioned adventure story about two traveling Jews (one thin and fair, the other thick and dark) who are quick to join any fight they encounter on the road. The story is intricate, and the prose is even more intricate. Chabon's linguistic gymnastics didn't make up for the lack of character development and the formulaic plot. I get the sense this was a quickly-written experiment published between major works. Had Chabon not been the author, I don't think this would've been publised at all.

It's an adventure tale. The setting is exotic, the characters, though bit hackneyed, are interesting enough, and the plot moves briskly.

Phrases and clauses, larded with obtuse metaphors, are strung up incongruously to form clumpy contrived sentences, particularly at the beginning of each chapter. Still, it does not quite rise up to the level of "it's so bad, it's good."

There is an afterword in which the author apologizes in a self-conscious, defensive, drawn-out manner, not for the ugly prose, but for writing an adventure tale.

The physical book itself is handsomely printed with fine illustrations.

A frothy little meringue of an adventure, with no heavy message to absorb. The author obviously had a ball writing this book, and it's just as much fun to read. Several times I went back and re-read a sentence, to savor the wonderfully descriptive language. The book contains an Afterword that I hoped would have information about the Khazars, but it turns out to be about the author himself.

After being disappointed with The Yiddish Policemen's Union I approached this one with less enthusiasm. Reading a few sections at a time in the New York Times didn't help either. And the title does nothing for it. Chabon should have stuck to his guns and called it Jews with Swords. But having read the full thing as one piece and not having to wait months for the ending I actually enjoyed this one.

The plot moved fast and kept me interested as did the characters, even if Zelikman and Amram came across (to me anyway) as Han Solo and Chewbacca clones. (Con men conned into helping the greater cause. I guess Jews with Lightsabers didn't work.)

Still give it a try, especially if like me you were turned off by his last one. And hope that Mr. Chabon tries to find a better filmmaker than Mr. Dodgeball if the movie rights are optioned.

Having read "The Thirteenth Tribe" by Arthur Koestler I was keen to learn more about the life and times of Khazaria. Thinking I was going to read a historical novel, I was thoroughly disappointed.
As it was, the plot was stretched to breaking point, the writing was jerky and the author seemed as clueless as I am about the era and the places.
All in all an insipid brew. It would have better as a comic book/graphic novel.

This book reminded me of Voltaire's Candide because the writing style never let me forget that this is a story not to be taken seriously, but unlike Candide, either it is not a satire, or the satirical references passed over my head. Some reviewers regarded it as a straight-out adventure story, set in a real, but largely forgotten, time and place in history. A map of that place and time, such as the maps in Eric Flint's 1632 and its sequels, would have helped the reader to follow the story.

I did rather enjoy the droll chapter titles, but by and large the story just didn't resonate with me; I did manage to read the entire book, and it probably deserves more stars than 3, but I can't honestly say I found it so.

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I enjoyed this historical adventure. It's about a time, place and people that I know little about, interesting to learn about the Khazars. The story moves along quickly. The style of writing and description is very much the style of classic adventures, but often very wordy, sometimes I'd lose track of the gist of the sentence from beginning to end. I read this on my e-reader, and the illustrations were surprisingly clear and a pleasant surprise. I actually enjoyed this book more than Chabon's other stories - but it is totally different from them, so be prepared.

This was my first encounter with Chabon, so I came to this book "clean," no previous exposure. It's a fun ride, a definite diversion from my usual reading. Once I got used to the syntax and vocabulary, it was to my reading a fun albeit predictable and formulaic story, with characters not developed to their full potential. I still recommend it as a quick diversion, and lexicological workout.

The book is a challenging exercise in vocabulary, both English and foreign. I note the application of italics to introduce foreign terms is inconsistent, and I urge Del Rey to review this before you go final with your publishing. The writing style also is, ah, non-traditional. This is not Nabokov's verbal gymnastics, but here's the title of Chapter Nine: "On Anxieties Arising from the Impermissibility, However Unquestionable, of an Elephant's Rounding out a Prayer Quorum." On the vocab: I like learning a new word or two, but not dozens in the opening pages. At first it was distracting, then plain annoying. Early on it seemed to me the book would slip into the trite and ridiculous verbiage of the romance novel. That was my greatest fear as I slogged through the first 25 pages. Happily, this was not the case.

Once I got into it and grew accustomed to the writing style, by page 40 or so, it read quickly and I was done with it in a few hours.

The setting is different and interesting, somewhere around 1000 A.D., somewhere between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, down Azerbaijan way. That's a great setting for the mishmash of peoples, language and cultures in the story, and it works.

I was surprised to be reminded of the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales. Both of the protagonists are hardened men, once good guys who've descended into less reputable existence after suffering tragedy, loss, injustice, etc. They're basic decency comes through as the story matures, colored with the tragedy and cruelty that led them to where they are now. Just as Josey did, they pick up flawed yet lovable stragglers and mutts along the way, and the merry group matures and coalesces as their mutual adventure unfolds.

Character development is where this book falls short. We get the required background on the two gentlemen, but not enough. They take action which to me was out of character, not explained adequately by the depth of character offered in the novel. The novel is short at 196 pages, and for Chabon to have devoted another 30-40 pages to develop these two men--and the prince (who plays an increasingly important role)--would have been the best service to the reader, and would not have bogged down the story.

There's violence in the book, but it's not that bad. There's none of the up-close, detailed, extended gore and excess a la Bret Easton Ellis or Chuck Pahlaniuk. There are descriptions of blood and gore, murdered matrons with dead babies in their arms, dead military men lined up, the stench of burning flesh, etc., the grisly and real stuff of Middle Ages warfare. There is precious little sex, with it coming right at the end of the tale, and it is neither graphic nor lurid; "workmanlike" would be the best description of how it comes across.

I'd say this book is appropriate for the 15+ age range for content and story, but I think the syntax and vocabulary challenges would be immediate turn-offs; advanced readers only. For educators, this would be a good assignment for creative writing classes, and for Honors English. Its vocab would be a great challenge, and the book a good showcase for alternative writing styles.

And the illustrations. Overall, my reaction is flat; I can take them or leave them. They didn't add to my enjoyment of the story, nor did they tarnish it; they are not essential to the story. The illustrations harken back to a time when "grown-up" books still had pictures in them, and I like this approach. But, if the addition of the illustrations has increased the cost of the book by any more than a dollar, then they need to stay out. I liked the page borders at the opening of each chapter--nice touch.

Yes, this copy is an advance uncorrected proof, but still the professional editor in me screamed every time I saw the word "stripling," dozens of times, unforgivably repetitive whenever the prince was described. At one point the word was used 14 times within 8 pages. Sure, this is what Chabon has written, but this kind of distractive repetition--although the word does take on a much deeper meaning later in the book--became annoying. The editor(s) has let this happen, and Del Rey needs to scrub the book for variations in word choice for this one, and others. Del Rey: gimme a call sometime, and we'll talk editing.

Strangely enough, I found the afterword to be more compelling than the novel. I see three elements. First, it's Chabon's musing on the sorry nature of the Jew in current literature/fiction, with this book his personal attempt to rehabilitate modern Jewish action-hero-ness. The afterword also struck me as a needless apology to readers who would be angry and turned-off by fiction apparently so divergent from his previous work. This implied apology came off as weak and fawning. And lastly, the afterword was Chabon's explanation of why he's gone so far off his beaten path: in search of literary adventure and the challenge of the new. The placement of this short essay as an afterword is more or less the right choice, as using it as a foreword would sully the novel to come. Despite its intellectual stimulation, I think none of this was needed. If Chabon needs to explain himself so deeply, post it to the blog, write an article about it, or give an interview; there's no need to cloud your novel with this content.

Bottom line: once you settle into the syntax and vocab, it's an easy story that moves fast. It's entertaining, and I recommend it.

While this novel is definately not a thought provoking masterpiece, of the kind attributable to a Salmon Rushdie, Italo Calvino, or Borges, it is not meant to be. This novel is an adventure, not an abstract art, but solidly entertaining and intelligent throughout. While the concept of Khazar Jews is not widely known, beyond racists that use it as a reason to hate Ashkenazi Jews. While genetics has disproven this use of Khazar Jews, the story of this interesting culture has been reborn by Chabon, to his credit. If you want a story with insights into a unique culture, plenty of entertaining action, and comedy. You will enjoy this lighthearted, but intelligent read.

This was my first encounter with Chabon, so I came to this book "clean," no previous exposure. It's a fun ride, a definite diversion from my usual reading. Once I got used to the syntax and vocabulary, it was to my reading a fun albeit predictable and formulaic story, with characters not developed to their full potential. I still recommend it as a quick diversion, and lexicological workout.

The book is a challenging exercise in vocabulary, both English and foreign. I note the application of italics to introduce foreign terms is inconsistent, and I urge Del Rey to review this before you go final with your publishing. The writing style also is, ah, non-traditional. This is not Nabokov's verbal gymnastics, but here's the title of Chapter Nine: "On Anxieties Arising from the Impermissibility, However Unquestionable, of an Elephant's Rounding out a Prayer Quorum." On the vocab: I like learning a new word or two, but not dozens in the opening pages. At first it was distracting, then plain annoying. Early on it seemed to me the book would slip into the trite and ridiculous verbiage of the romance novel. That was my greatest fear as I slogged through the first 25 pages. Happily, this was not the case.

Once I got into it and grew accustomed to the writing style, by page 40 or so, it read quickly and I was done with it in a few hours.

The setting is different and interesting, somewhere around 1000 A.D., somewhere between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, down Azerbaijan way. That's a great setting for the mishmash of peoples, language and cultures in the story, and it works.

I was surprised to be reminded of the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales. Both of the protagonists are hardened men, once good guys who've descended into less reputable existence after suffering tragedy, loss, injustice, etc. They're basic decency comes through as the story matures, colored with the tragedy and cruelty that led them to where they are now. Just as Josey did, they pick up flawed yet lovable stragglers and mutts along the way, and the merry group matures and coalesces as their mutual adventure unfolds.

Character development is where this book falls short. We get the required background on the two gentlemen, but not enough. They take action which to me was out of character, not explained adequately by the depth of character offered in the novel. The novel is short at 196 pages, and for Chabon to have devoted another 30-40 pages to develop these two men--and the prince (who plays an increasingly important role)--would have been the best service to the reader, and would not have bogged down the story.

There's violence in the book, but it's not that bad. There's none of the up-close, detailed, extended gore and excess a la Bret Easton Ellis or Chuck Pahlaniuk. There are descriptions of blood and gore, murdered matrons with dead babies in their arms, dead military men lined up, the stench of burning flesh, etc., the grisly and real stuff of Middle Ages warfare. There is precious little sex, with it coming right at the end of the tale, and it is neither graphic nor lurid; "workmanlike" would be the best description of how it comes across.

I'd say this book is appropriate for the 15+ age range for content and story, but I think the syntax and vocabulary challenges would be immediate turn-offs; advanced readers only. For educators, this would be a good assignment for creative writing classes, and for Honors English. Its vocab would be a great challenge, and the book a good showcase for alternative writing styles.

And the illustrations. Overall, my reaction is flat; I can take them or leave them. They didn't add to my enjoyment of the story, nor did they tarnish it; they are not essential to the story. The illustrations harken back to a time when "grown-up" books still had pictures in them, and I like this approach. But, if the addition of the illustrations has increased the cost of the book by any more than a dollar, then they need to stay out. I liked the page borders at the opening of each chapter--nice touch.

Yes, this copy is an advance uncorrected proof, but still the professional editor in me screamed every time I saw the word "stripling," dozens of times, unforgivably repetitive whenever the prince was described. At one point the word was used 14 times within 8 pages. Sure, this is what Chabon has written, but this kind of distractive repetition--although the word does take on a much deeper meaning later in the book--became annoying. The editor(s) has let this happen, and Del Rey needs to scrub the book for variations in word choice for this one, and others. Del Rey: gimme a call sometime, and we'll talk editing.

Strangely enough, I found the afterword to be more compelling than the novel. I see three elements. First, it's Chabon's musing on the sorry nature of the Jew in current literature/fiction, with this book his personal attempt to rehabilitate modern Jewish action-hero-ness. The afterword also struck me as a needless apology to readers who would be angry and turned-off by fiction apparently so divergent from his previous work. This implied apology came off as weak and fawning. And lastly, the afterword was Chabon's explanation of why he's gone so far off his beaten path: in search of literary adventure and the challenge of the new. The placement of this short essay as an afterword is more or less the right choice, as using it as a foreword would sully the novel to come. Despite its intellectual stimulation, I think none of this was needed. If Chabon needs to explain himself so deeply, post it to the blog, write an article about it, or give an interview; there's no need to cloud your novel with this content.

Bottom line: once you settle into the syntax and vocab, it's an easy story that moves fast. It's entertaining, and I recommend it.

While this novel is definately not a thought provoking masterpiece, of the kind attributable to a Salmon Rushdie, Italo Calvino, or Borges, it is not meant to be. This novel is an adventure, not an abstract art, but solidly entertaining and intelligent throughout. While the concept of Khazar Jews is not widely known, beyond racists that use it as a reason to hate Ashkenazi Jews. While genetics has disproven this use of Khazar Jews, the story of this interesting culture has been reborn by Chabon, to his credit. If you want a story with insights into a unique culture, plenty of entertaining action, and comedy. You will enjoy this lighthearted, but intelligent read.

"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 had maligned the giant African with such foulness and verve."
Also some great figurative language:
"his eyes womanly as a camel's"
I also enjoyed the titles of the chapters:

On Discords Arising from excessive Love of a Hat

On the Melancholy duty of Soldiers to contend with the messes left by Kings

On the Belated Repayment of the gift of a Pear

In short, this novel is high-quality fun.

The story of the Jewish kingdom of the Khazars is a fascinating piece of history. The Khazars were a collection of semi-nomadic tribes that wandered through the Caucasus region of what is now Russia. Khazaria, loosely thought of as the isthmus-like land mass located between the Black and Caspian Seas, was an ideal site for merchants and wandering traders. Khazaria was buffeted on three sides by the Caliphate's Islamic forces to the south, Byzantium's Greek Christian forces to the southwest, and the barbarian Kievan Rus forces to the north. In an act of geopolitical realpolitik the Khagan, leader of the Khazars, converted to Judaism at some point in the seventh century in order to maintain a neutral balance of power in the region. The Jewish Khazars maintained dominance in the region from around the latter part of the 8th century until the early part of the 11thcentury at which point the Kievan Russians, who had converted to Christianity and aligned themselves with the Byzantines, overturned the Khazar's rule. The story of the ancient Khazars is an intriguing one that makes for a fascinating historical study. They were the sole independent Jewish state ever to exist outside of contemporary Israel. There have been some good books, both fiction and non-fiction, about the Khazars including: The Jews of Khazaria,Dictionary of the Khazars (M), and The Wind of the Khazarsthat provide a wealth of information on this little known piece of history.

Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road" is set in and around Khazaria during this time period. It is a good adventure; well-told and fast paced. The two gentlemen of the road are Zelikman and Amram. Zelikman, is young, thin, and pale. Originally from Regensburg in what is now Bavaria, Germany, Zelikman has broken with his family and wanders the trade routes of the Middle Ages looking for adventure. Amram is older and bigger. Originally from Africa, Amram wanders the trade routes looking for his daughter who was stolen from his village. They are traveling companions and occasional con-artists living off their wits and their fighting skills. Soon after the story opens, Zelikman and Amram unwittingly find themselves in the midst of a struggle for control of the Khazar Empire. They take custody of a young prince, Filaq, skinny and too young (apparently) to shave, but strong-headed and feisty. Filaq wants nothing more than to avenge the death of his father, the deposed ruler and restore his family to the throne. Amram and Zelikman, bickering all the way face one crisis after another as they travel closer to the capital of the Khazars where they and Filaq will meet their fate.

"Gentlemen of the Road" is a good adventure story. Originally serialized in the Sunday New York Times Magazine (in fifteen installments) each chapter ends with something of a cliff-hanger. Chabon does a nice job keeping the pot boiling and he also does a nice job of developing the back-story of Zelikman, Amram, and the other major characters. The story's biggest flaw, in my opinion, is the absence of any background information about the Kingdom of the Khazars. Any reader unfamiliar with the history of the Khazars is likely to be either surprised or puzzled at the various references to Jewish rulers (Khagans and Beks), expressions and practices that appear throughout the story. In an afterword to the book Chabon mentions that the original working title for "Gentlemen of the Road" was "Jews with Swords" but noted that it only seemed to make people laugh at the seeming incongruity of the title. While I understand Chabon's point in this regard I think the reaction he received to his working title underscores that importance of putting his adventure in some context, even if in an introduction or preface.

That said, "Gentlemen and the Road" is still a good story, written with style by someone in command of his craft. It is well worth reading at a solid 3.5 stars. L. Fleisig

Gentleman of the Road: A Tale of Adventure is the first novel I have read by Michael Chabon. Although I found the author's command of the English Language superior, I thought the novel was bogged down with archaic and purely academic words.

Your average reader of mass market media would not be familiar with a sizable percentage of the words in Chabon's novel, which makes reading it a laborious, rather than a lovely, process.

I grabbed for my dictionary more than once while reading this novel. I applaud Mr. Chabon for attempting to elevate the reader's vocabulary, but it is a shame that in doing so he severely taxes their patience. More importantly, everytime he uses a word that is so uncommon, so not a part of everyday language, he pops the reader right out of the story. If I have to grab for my dictionary, I am thinking of the word and not the plot, characters, setting.

I did find the setting unique and wholly interesting. I also appreciated the humor sprinkled throughout the book.

On the whole, I would not recommend this book. Reading it felt more like participating in a spelling bee and less like losing myself in fine literature.

Michael Chabon is one of my favorite authors. Each story is interesting, deep, thoughtful, and extremely literate (keep your dictionary close at hand if you want to broaden your vocabulary). This story was exciting and suspenseful. I was entralled throughout. Highly recommended.

Michael Chabon's literary output has provided him a strong cache of goodwill from his publishers, giving him the freedom to put out this trifle of a book with overly-stylized language and poorly-sequenced action sequences. While some say this harkens back to the glorious days of adventure writing, I found it to be devoid of charm or suspense.

Read Dumas' masterworks "The Three Musketeers," "The Count of Monte Cristo," and "The Man in the Iron Mask" if you'd really like an old-style adventure yarn.

Yes, indeed this is an adventure tale as advertised. The illustrations play a key role. As a child I read many such adventure stories. I was always pleased when a book included illustrations as this one does. Books without illustrations were definitely suspect and were at a disadvantage. I believe that this episodic adventure story set in the Khazar empire of one thousand years ago is perfect for those of the right age. Keeping to the illustration criterion, I rate this novel five stars.

Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road is an amusing romp, a tale Chabon obviously had a great time constructing. The story, originally a fifteen part serial published in the New York Times Magazine, is an odyssey of sorts told with a swashbuckling tone. The adventure of a few travelling associates in a land far away and long ago is witty and clever, with plenty of snappy wordplay. It is the type of novel that I perhaps would tire of after too many pages, but this slim volume has it about right. Each chapter is its own little adventure, complete with the requisite serial cliff-hanger. Much fun. Enjoy.

Michael Chabon is an excellent writer and storyteller. His The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay justly deserved the Pulitzer Prize. In this short, fast paced adventure novel Chabon takes us back in time to a little known era where we meet two wanderers and adventurers, Zelikman and Amram. Indeed, they are unlikely companions with the melancholy, eccentric, thin German Zelikman, and the huge African Amran wandering the roads and living by their wits. Very quickly in the book they run across another unlikely character, Filaq, progeny of a deposed ruler who seeks to avenge a father's death and restore the throne to its rightful owner. The two friends, not always enthusiastically, attach their fate to Filaq's, and thus the adventure unfolds.

Chabon, as noted, is an excellent writer and the characters in this novel are extremely well drawn and enjoyable to follow. The action, pace, and writing of the novel is quick, witty, and engaging. Frankly, in this case, Chabon takes a flawed novel and makes it enjoyable anyway with his characterization and pleasing prose style.

There are two flaws with this novel, however, that make it less than what it could have been. First, the story is set in an era that this reader knows little about so it was sometimes difficult to grasp the big picture of what was going on politically or geographically without some background information. The second, more serious flaw, is that the linkage between chapters or scenes were either missing or obscure, giving the flow of the book, especially in the later chapters, a disjointed feel. It almost read like a comic strip with stand alone chapters that didn't always make clear linkages to what went on before. Of course it all comes together eventually, but made the novel less enjoyable.

Overall, this was a pleasant novel to read, but somewhat disappointing at the same time.

The narrative comes off as arrogant, the little illustrations strewn about did little to nothing for the story, and - most importantly - the story falls short, coming across much more shallow than a novel with such interesting subject matter should have allowed. Chabon does have a knack for word choice and his skill as a writer is definitely not in question, but 'Gentlemen of the Road's only pervasive struggle was that of not saying "Forget it." and picking up whatever David McCullough work happens to be on the coffee table.

The Pulitzer Prize winner turns his hand to historical fiction with "Gentlemen of the Road," a swashbuckling novel first serialized in the "New York Times Magazine." The story is set in medieval Khazaria, a fictional Jewish kingdom on the Caspian Sea, where an unlikely pair of rogues try to eke out a dishonest living. Chabon has played around with genre fiction before (see "The Final Solution"), but it often seems as if his heart isn't in it. It's not always clear whether the work is supposed to be parody or homage. "Gentlemen of the Road" is an interesting departure for the author, but not a very satisfying one.

Politcal correctness not only concerns race but ethnicity as well. I read Chabon's novel "Gentlemen Of The Road" and assumed the author was Jewish but I never was told, not even in other reviews. Does it matter? Certainly it does not change the quality of the writing but I do think it somewhat explains the style of the writing and the exploits of the characters. Chabon admits that his original title of the book struck others to whom he confided the title as an oxymoron and even throughout the book he avoids where possible actual swordfights and slaughter, he merely tells us. Is this because he is Jewish or from ignorance as to how swordfighting was carried out at that time? The time is cast as the mid tenth century, part of the Dark Ages where not much is known about life at that time, little writing exists detailing clothing, furniture, housing, food, etc. the common details of life at that time. Army life was what? How did it travel, what were the logistics, training, pay?
The two main characters are jewish and obtained money by fraudulent means at first, by looting secondarily (looting also means stealing).
Looting is much more rewarding than fraud, and even safer. Once that is pointed out, it is ignored, our characters have plenty of money now. Their fraud starts out the book and through it they are introduced to another character, a son of the country's ruler. Things become a little chaotic here, but the two men wind up as guardians of the son dedicated to seeing him returned to power in his own country. This bond is strong and when they lose contact with Filaq they chase after him, encounter the Viking raiders, pass through raided Muslim towns, reach the capital city of the country and encounter an elephant, learn some new things about Filaq and rearrange the governance of the country although I never knew what the new ruling order was.
The author uses uses many words I did not know, and my dictionary did not carry their meanings, either. I had to guess at the meaning, I don't know how well I understood them but they were not necessary for an understanding of the book. Some of the words were obsolete. some were foreign, but I do not think any were made up by the author. My big complaint about the writing was the lack of connectedness throughout, I think the book was too short and the author should have taken us through all the steps. Instead we got installments, perhaps the fault lay in the fact that it was first presented in chapter form in a newspaper and I assume taken directly from there aand put in book form instead of tidying up in a more straightforward narrative form. Still it was an interesting read despite the mentioned drawbacks.

I made it halfway through before giving up. When not confusing, the sentences were so long that I had to re-read them to understand what was being said. William Burroughs is easier to understand than this mash-up of...well, something.

As an avid reader, I thought the book would be entertaining, not dull and disappointing.

This book tries too hard. I had never read anything by Michael Chabon before, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Apparently, the answer is that he writes like a bureaucrat with a mouthful of mush, including irrelevant descriptions, and more inapt (and inept) analogies than you can shake a stick at.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't have a problem with irrelevant description. And even though most of my reviews are of fiction that is more flatly commercial, I love Charles Dickens, who is the king of both irrelevant description and the analogy.

The problem is that Chabon made me roll my eyes. For instance, when Chabon says that the man's dagger searched for the other man's voicebox--really? A search?

Writing beautifully is one thing. But writing in a way that obfuscates what you mean--I don't understand how that is writing beautifully. Chabon tries so hard to write in a literary fashion that I feel that the story he's telling gets lost. Personally, I didn't find this worth my time.

Going by the glowing reviews and recommendations, I thought I would be getting a breathtaking adventure that would keep me up at night as I just HAD to know what happened next. Hardly. While I will give kudos to author Chabon for setting his story in a part of the world we Westerners don't often get to read about, I would have liked to have gotten more involved in the setting. Learned more about the area, it's people and history. But because of the brevity of the book (more novella than novel) there wasn't time. Nor did I form any attachment to the cookie-cutout heroes Zelikman or Amram. My biggest complaint was it was SO predictable. I knew what twists and turns were coming. I knew what was going to happen before I turned the page. I was disappointed with the whole thing.

This is an adventure story, but Chabon buries it in unnecessarily ornate language. As a result, the plot line, which is crucial to the development of suspense-action novel, gets constantly lost. Where is the plot? Chabon burdens this novel under strains it can't support. The result at best is tedious. At worst, it is just poor writing.

If you follow my reviews, you know that I ardently proclaim Michael Chabon as America's greatest contemporary writer. Sometimes he demands a bit more effort on my part as a reader, but he's never outright disappointed me.

Until now.

I truly hate to say this, but Gentlemen of the Road was utterly incomprehensible and, worst of all, completely dull.

Forgive me, Mr. Chabon, but I do not recommend anyone read this book.

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

Wildly simple, astonishingly complex and impossible to put down, this little tale will be revisited many times, especially when I'm looking for a brief respite from the absurdities of modern life. Thank you Michael!

In spite of rave reviews and several friends and family members who insisted I had to read this author's work I never did. Or rather I tried, got frustrated and read something more to my liking. Sadly this book did not break that pattern.

Even though I read it I'm not so sure I could tell you what "Gentlemen of The Road" was about, except for two friends, a journey and a quest. Unfortunately that description fits about half of all books ever written. This is a story set in history, not historical fiction, and as a historical fiction junky I require more details to understand and really absorb a book. This did not provide them.

Long story short-I didn't like it. You might. Two Stars.