Michael Chabon, Gentlemen of the Road

Man, talk about basically my ideal book--Michael Chabon writes a "swords-and-horses" adventure. I'm tellin' ya, I thought I'd died and gone to readin' heaven when I found this down t' th' Barnes and Noble.

Seriously. I was poking around, thinking, as I so often do, I'd really like some trash...some sci-fi, or fantasy, or a good zombie novel*...something exciting and super-entertaining that won't make any of those pesky intellectual demands on me...but, of course, virtually all that stuff is so godawful, and so terribly written that I can barely stand to read it. So I wander over to the more serious books, and I think Hm. I don't guess there's a Michael Chabon book I haven't read... And I go to the relevant section and...voila! (or viola as my high school yearbook put it)...there it was! Gentlemen of the Road.

Long story short, I enjoyed Gentlemen of the Road very much--it's an adventure story for people who'd like good writing with their excitement. A couple of engaging, understated characters, some really great bits of writing, and a smart, lively, amusing story that never slips into outright fantasy.

Meh, as I've said many times, I don't have a good mind for literature, and I don't have the training or conceptual apparatus required to say anything genuinely enlightening about novels...but I really liked this one. It's no Wonderboys (but then what is?), but it's a damn fine read, according to me. Pick this sucker up--you'll be glad you did.


* There is exactly one good zombie novel: Max Brooks, World War Z. All the other ones are just godawful.