Booknotes 5.21

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Michael Chabon, published 2007, science fiction, 480 pages. An alternate history murder mystery with writing that crackles and sparks. Earthy bits aside, I rather liked it and look forward to reading more Chabon.

Hitler, by Joachim C. Fest (translated by Richard and Clara Winston), published 1973, biography, 1,500 pages. After spending that much time in that headspace I felt like I needed a mental shower, but it was still worthwhile to me (I’d never read anything in depth on Hitler himself). Tragic and disturbing, as expected. Interesting how obsessed he was with people not knowing who his family was, and his mania for beating architectural records, and his plans for introducing polygamy, and all the cake gobbling in the bunker at the very end. The insomnia and keeping court all night long reminded me of Stalin. “Though later on he was always involved in close social relationships, always surrounded by a host of people, his biography is eerily empty of other human beings.” What a toll isolation — and mental illness and drugs — can take on the world. “Hardly ever has a centering of all power in a single person ended in such total and blatant disorganization.” Which sounds familiar. (As did several other things in this book. One wonders if they’re consciously cribbing or if evil is just monotonously uncreative.)

Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell, published 2020, historical fiction, 390 pages. Whew. A harrowing and heavy meditation on grief, brutal knowing roughly what’s to come (the novel’s subtitle is “A Novel of the Plague”) and then stumbling through the aftermath. I cried a fair amount during the last third or so. Recommended for those in the mood. The choice not to ever mention the name Shakespeare (or even William) in the text reminded me of Wolf Hall and I felt it worked reasonably well here, too.

Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, by Lucy Worsley, published 2022, biography, 440 pages. Liked it but didn’t love it. I knew Christie had been married to an archaeologist later in life but didn’t realize what a big part of her life archaeology was during those years. It had also somehow escaped me that the person who adapted her novels into plays was Christie herself. Planning to read Laura Thompson’s 2007 biography of her at some point.