The frozen chosen

Finished reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union a few mornings ago. Love to say I polihed the entire thing off on my Chicag trip, but I didn't. That's two novels in less than a month. Way too much fiction for me, Krakauer needs to write another epic about stupid people doing stupid things in nature.

I don't know what to say about Chabon's novel without giving too much away, so stop reading if you plan on reading that any time soon. Or ever. I was looking forward to getting into this book - some are surprised I've never read Kavalier and Clay because of my reputation as some kind of comic book geek, I guess, thought I haven't been one for a long time now, but anyway.

The New Play is, in it's way, historical fiction, and so is this. What if a) a zone was established around Sitka, Alaska in the late 30s as a refuge for displaced Jews and b) the war that established Israel in 1948 was lost? That's the premise for what is otherwise a detective novel, which takes place in 2007 in the "District of Sitka." The New Play is about improv comedy in the 1950s, and that's all I'll say about that. But reading someone else play fast and loose with reality as we know it was awfully liberating.

{{{ SPOILER }}}

Our main character, Meyer Landsman, divorced, living in a flophouse, and a detective for the District Police. He and his ex-wife, a police administrator, were expecting their first child, a boy named Django (and that was on our list) who was tested to possibly have an additional chromosone. Possibly an "unviable pregnancy." They chose to terminate the pregnancy, and it has tormented Landsman ever since.

It was impossible to read this without recalling the tests, all the confusing tests, about Calvin, whether he had spina bifida, why he was smaller than he should have been for his age, and my wondering what the point of no return was - not legally, but emotionally, morally, ethically, practically, humanely, you get the picture.

After the abortion, he approaches a doctor who bluntly tells him there didn't appear to be anything abnormal about the fetus. "Not that there wasn't anything wrong with it," he added.

I am not what some choose to call "Pro-Life." But I am a strong believer in potential and how life is imbued by hope, and promise. At first I thought the novel was just kind of cheeky - it's hard to take this northern refuge district seriosuly, it's like a two million person Cicely, and everyone is Joel. Nu? And yet there was a deep sadness, this fragility, everything about to crack and collapse - leavened by irreverent humor.

Which, I guess, from what I have witnessed in my life, must be what it's like to be Jewish.