|
Loading... Gentlemen of the Roadby Michael Chabon
LibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
won't like
will probably not like
will probably like
will like
will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. It's not that I didn't like the book. I did. But I'm not good with the swashbuckling. However, Michael Chabon is pure genius. (  ) alissamarie | Oct 25, 2009 |  It's not that I didn't like the book. I did. But I'm not good with the swashbuckling. However, Michael Chabon is pure genius. ( ) alissamarie | Oct 25, 2009 | It's not that I didn't like the book. I did. But I'm not good with the swashbuckling. However, Michael Chabon is pure genius. ( ) alissamarie | Oct 25, 2009 | Michael Chabon weaves a great story in Gentlemen of the Road. The opening scenes, while somewhat reminiscent of the classic James Garner / Louis Gossett movie, Skin Game, takes place in a much earlier time and ends up playing a minor role in the tale that unfolds. It does set the tone as a theme for the novel, however, as there is enough deception and identity confusion worthy of a classic Shakespeare comedy. Given the historic setting and the battle scenes, this is hardly an outright comedy. Chabon introduces enough light elements in a masterful way sp you can enjoy the comic relief, yet no lose sight of the severity of the story. If the author is uneven about anything, it is his treatment of minor characters. Secondary characters are not as well developed as the main characters are, we know just enough about them to allow them to do their job, but this is well within reason. If these characters had been flesh out more completely, the story would have been bloated. This slim little book proves once again, as the author did with The Final Solution, great books do not have to be heavy tomes and Chabon demonstrates elegantly that fewer well chosen words is preferable to many words that do not really add anything to the story. This is not a fantasy story but it may appeal to readers of that genre as the setting of the story is in a long ago, far away land. Adventure story lovers should enjoy this as well as the entire story is of a grand adventure to restore a rightful ruler to the kingdom. This is worthy of a good solid four star rating. (  ) PghDragonMan | Oct 3, 2009 | This is one of Chabon’s more forgettable books, written in the style of an old-fashioned adventure story. It is entertaining enough during the reading but doesn’t have sticking power once the book is put down. ( ) sturlington | Sep 27, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0345501748, Hardcover)Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, sprang from an early passion for the derring-do and larger-than-life heroes of classic comic books. Now, once more mining the rich past, Chabon summons the rollicking spirit of legendary adventures–from The Arabian Nights to Alexandre Dumas to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories–in a wonderful new novel brimming with breathless action, raucous humor, cliff-hanging suspense, and a cast of colorful characters worthy of Scheherazade’s most tantalizing tales.They’re an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as he is with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa A.D. 950, living as they please and surviving however they can–as blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers, cheerfully separating the gullible from their money. No strangers to tight scrapes and close shaves, they’ve left many a fist shaking in their dust, tasted their share of enemy steel, and made good any number of hasty exits under hostile circumstances. None of which has necessarily prepared them to be dragooned into service as escorts and defenders to a prince of the Khazar Empire. Usurped by his brutal uncle, the callow and decidedly ill-tempered young royal burns to reclaim his rightful throne. But doing so will demand wicked cunning, outrageous daring, and foolhardy bravado . . . not to mention an army. Zelikman and Amram can at least supply the former. But are these gentlemen of the road prepared to become generals in a full-scale revolution? The only certainty is that getting there–along a path paved with warriors and whores, evil emperors and extraordinary elephants, secrets, swordplay, and such stuff as the grandest adventures are made of–will be much more than half the fun. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:54 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
