The Final Solution: A Story Of Detection | Michael Chabon

The Final Solution: A Story Of Detection | Michael Chabon | A classic

books:

The Final Solution...

	The Final Solution: A Story Of Detection Michael Chabon, 2004 - 131 pages average customer review:based on 91 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Not even the world's greatest detective could deduce the horror of the holocaust

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.

for more information click here

A classic

Wow! While on a long trip, I listened to this book on a CD. Narrated by Michael York, perhaps it was the accent that brought the story and the language alive to me. What grabbed me was not the promise of the detective story or the tantalizing title, but just the pure beauty of the language. To think, he is an American, writing a story set in 1944 in England. Chabon writes like a natural born Englishman, not missing a beat. The book however is just too short, and that is the only complaint I have. It did feel as if my CD was abridged in places, but of course it wasn't.

The book made me go out a buy a First edition of this book, its a keeper.
Chabon is a master.

for more information click here

Deep, beautiful, thought-provoking, amazing

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.

for more information click here

A Final Mystery

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.

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

products you might be interested in