Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Just finished, just started
Just finished Terry Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant, which was a real treat. Sam Vimes is my favorite Pratchett character, so it was delightful finding a Vimes novel I hadn’t read yet (although The Night Watch may still be my fave Diskworld novel). Pratchett, like Christopher Moore, is so very very good when he’s on his game. Which he is, most of the time. Both authors have an uncanny knack for balancing humor, suspense, and poignancy. I admire these guys far more than I do any of the “serious” authors I read.
Just started Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road, his nod to the swords and swashbuckling stories of Michael Moorcock. Only since this is Chabon, his rogues are both Jewish and they dream of Khazar, “the fabled kingdom of wild red-haired Jews on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, the Jewish yurts and pinnacles of Khazaria.” This is my second Chabon novel (The Yiddish Policeman’s Union was my first), so from my N of 2, I would have to declare that what Chabon really is, is not a “serious author,” heaven forbid, but a Jewish fantasist. Think of Borges writing novels. About Jews. There you go, that’s Chabon for you.
D.
