Don't Read This #1 - The Final Solution - A Novel of Detection

Being a fledging writer myself, I'm hesitant to openly criticize the work of another author.

However, I'll make a rare exception in the case of Michael Chabon's novella "The Final Solution".

Because there are so many outstanding books available to read, I generally try a shorter work of an author that interests me before taking on some of their lengthier efforts.

Chabon had come to my attention years before when he won his Pulitzer prize for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and he's considered to be one of the young bright lights in today's literary scene.

So, in all fairness, I picked up this book with some pretty lofty expectations in mind - I expected to be "WOWED".

I wasn't. This was the hardest 130 page piece of writing I've ever endured, and I don't mean that in a good way. Verbosity to the point of inducing laughter. Pages and pages of narrative that go nowhere. Adjectives piled upon still more adjectives, creating a verbal muck of impenatrable bulk and unnecessary complexity. The mind-numbing chapter written from the parrot's point of view!?! The ridiculous metaphors and the painfully silly similes. I'm sorry, but it was that bad.

Chabon supposedly wrote this as a homage to the Sherlock Holmes stories, but seemed to forget that the equally complex Holmes tales were generally about 100 pages shorter. Why? Because that's all Doyle needed to effectively tell his stories!

I couldn't help but think of this as simply a case of a successful writer reading too many of his own press clippings. The phrase that kept coming to my mind as I slogged through this mire was "literary masturbation" - as there was indeed a great deal of self-love evident.

It's clear this person has a lot of talent, as some of the word choices are very interesting. And they don't just mail out Pulitzer Prizes to just anybody, so clearly there are a LOT of people who see something I don't here. But perhaps someone should remind Mr. Chabon that Ernest Hemingway wrote his perhaps his cleanest and most perfect novella, "The Old Man and the Sea" AFTER he had won his Noble Prize. It IS possible to ignore those press clippings and to simply just get on with telling the damned story.