|
| The Final Solution: A Story Of Detection | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Chabon
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $4.41
You Save: $12.54 (74%)
New (8) Used (12) from $4.41
Avg. Customer Rating:  91 reviews
Sales Rank: 897774
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 131
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7
ASIN: B000BPG2LK
Publication Date: October 31, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Eagerly awaited new novella by the much -acclaimed Michael Chabon, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Advertures of Kavalier and Clay. In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, prose magician Michael Chabon conjured up the golden age of comic books; intertwining history, legend, and storytelling verve. In The Final Solution, he has condensed his boundless vision to craft a short, suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that re-imagines the classic 19th-century detective story. In deep retirement in the English countryside, an 89-year-old man, vaguely recollected by locals as a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine-years-old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African grey parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of German numbers the bird spews out - a top-secret SS code? The keys to a series of Swiss bank accounts perhaps? Or something more sinister? Is the solution to this last case - the real explanation of the mysterious boy and his parrot - beyond even the reach of the once-famed sleuth? Subtle revelations lead the reader to a wrenching resolution. This brilliant homage is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 86 more reviews...
 Chabon's Exquisite Take on the Detective Story November 16, 2004
72 out of 83 found this review helpful
Michael Chabon's The Final Solution, A Story of Detection is an exquisite book. Chabon, who reexamined the golden age of comics in the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay, takes up the detective novel.
Final Solution is set in the Sussex Downs, in Southern England in the summer of 1944. The Allies have just invaded Normandy but the war is far from over. An 89-year old man, retired to a life of quiet bee-keeping, sits looking out his window and spies a young boy strolling along some railroad tracks with a large gray parrot on his shoulder. The old man deduces that the young boy is about to do himself in and drags himself out of his chair and makes his way to the boy. The boy, Linus Steinman, turns out to be a young Jewish-German refugee, recently escaped from the horrors of occupied and resettled in England by a refugee agency. He is mute and generally uncommunicative. The only sounds emanating from the direction of the boy come from the extraordinarily loquacious parrot who comes out with an apparently never-ending stream of numbers, spoken in flawless German.
It is the talking parrot and the meaning of the random numbers that form the heart of the mystery of the Final Solution. Chabon then introduces us to the rest of his cast of characters. The mute Linus lives in a small boarding house owned by the Reverend and Mrs. Panicker. Mr. Panicker, of Malayan origin, seems to have lost his faith and seems merely to be treading water. Mrs. Panicker seems unloved and unwanted except for the meal she provides her boarders, until the mysterious Mr. Shane intervenes in an argument between Mrs. Panicker and her ne'er do well son. Mr. Shane, despite claiming to be in the dairy equipment business seems far more intriguing than his occupation suggests. The parrot incites interest and speculation on all concerned. What do those numbers mean?
Speculation and the possibility of untold wealth at the end of the random number mystery invariably lead to the murder of one of the characters. Additionally, the mysterious parrot has been stolen. Of course, the bumbling local constabulary immediately focuses on the wrong party. Into the breech steps the old man. It turns out the 89 year old bee-keeper was once a world famous detective. Still smoking a pipe and still mocking constables, the old man goes about seeking a solution to the crime.
Chabon does not provide the name of this old man but it seems clear that he could be none other than the great Sherlock Holmes. Readers of Sherlock Holmes know that Holmes retired to Sussex Downs to spend his remaining years as a bee keeper. The title of the book, Final Solution, provides another clue. Although clearly relevant to the as yet undiscovered horrors of the Holocaust implicit in Linus profound silence, it also calls to mind A.C. Doyle's The Final Problem, the famous Holmes tale where Holmes was thought to have died after falling at the Reichenbach Falls.
Although short, only 131 pages, Chabon has invested his characters with depth and nuance. His portrayals of both the old detective, Linus, and Mrs. Panicker are compelling. He even manages to invest Bruno the parrot with insight into the `human drama' unfolding before him.
This is an excellent book. Be prepared to read it in one sitting. It is that good.
exquisitely compact and realized January 8, 2005
45 out of 52 found this review helpful
Exquisite is the best word I can come up with to describe The Final Solution, in the sense of something whose reward is so much larger than its size- a gem, or one of those delicate hors d'oeuvres whose taste lingers so finely in your mouth you don't want to eat or drink for a while.
It might be best to describe what The Final Solution is not. It isn't "Sherlockian" in the sense of an attempt to write another Conan Doyle story. It isn't a mystery in the sense that solving the "crime" is the focus of the story. Anyone looking for those will probably be disappointed.
It is, however, a beautifully written, often melancholy or elegiac work, with a love of character and language and atmosphere.
The story takes place in 1944. Holmes is a retired 89-year-old beekeeper, the war still drags on in horrific fashion, Hitler's greatest crimes are becoming known. In the midst of Holmes' solitary life drops a mute nine-year-old Jewish boy and his numbers-spouting parrot, both refugees from Germany. When a local man is killed and the parrot taken, Holmes is asked by the local police to assist. He does, but not for possibly great matters involved (the parrot's recitations might be codes, might be bank numbers, etc.) but to reunite the boy and his sole friend. Along the way we see Holmes' fabled mind at work, but also see the slow rebellion of his aging body. We begin to wonder too, with Holmes, if in this world of war and genocide if there remains a place for such order and reason as he symbolizes, if lines can still be traced through application of cause and effect, reason and sense.
The book is just over a hundred pages long, so Chabon doesn't delve heavily into such things for pages and pages, but it is enough to cast a sort of sepia, sad light over the work as a whole. The language is beautiful throughout, and the characterization of Holmes sharply poignant and loving. It is a quick read in its brevity and relative simplicity of plot, but the tone and atmosphere slow you down a bit (in a good way) and the language and characterization make you want to linger even more. Highly recommended.
 Arrogance of purpose barely supported by a meaningless plot December 29, 2004
11 out of 20 found this review helpful
As a huge fan of Holmes and Conan Doyle I was excited to read this book. Three sorry hours later I'm left with an awful taste in my mouth.
In the first place, Chabon and his Final Solution are caked in arrogance and pompous pretense. From the near masturbatory descriptives that do nothing to enrich the story, to the tangent-filled sentences stuffed to overflowing with endless commas and semicolons, Chabon proves himself a writer more in love with his own vocabulary and reputation than with connecting to the reader. Even after scraping away the cakey layers of New Fiction dalliance, I found the plot itself unworthy of the Holmes legacy. Everything from the backstory to the numerous characters to the big solution itself is over-described and under-explained.
You can barely call this story a mystery, but if not that, then what is it? The characters are cardboard placeholders for real people, so it's not a human drama. There is no action. There is no humor. Perhaps the most fitting description for the book is a handbook for potential beekeepers, confused about how to harvest honey, which Chabon then padded to 131 pages by surrounding it in garbage.
The most egregious offense of Michael Chabon's is his arrogant presumption that somehow he is capable of writing the final Sherlock Holmes story. Even the title speaks of this pathetic pomposity. Perhaps no one told him that Arthur Conan Doyle DID finish Holmes, even finish him off. Twice! Maybe Chabon never read Holmes at all - otherwise he might've have been capable of writing a competent caper.
As it stands, the worst book I've read in 2004, and a sad blight on a great legacy. The recent New Yorker article on the mysterious death of a Doyle biographer was more powerful, engaging, and fascinating than this by a measure of 20. If you want a truly modern take on the influence of Holmes, read A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. Or wait for Kafka on the Shore.
 The Old Man... January 5, 2005
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
The Final Solution finds Sherlock Holmes (never named, but always referred to as "the old man") an 89-year-old recluse who lives in the country and cares for nothing anymore except bee-keeping. Then, one day, a young boy with a parrot on his shoulder strolls into his life.
This is a very modest story: the safety of the free world does not rest on the outcome. It does not rely on previous Sherlock Holmes literature: Dr. Watson and Lestrade are not here; we do not find out what happened to the old man since his retirement. Chabon's style is so distinctive, we always are aware that we are reading him and not Arthur Conan Doyle; but, as Chabon is one of my favourite writers, that is not a bad thing. However, he is true to the character: I am sure that he must have read all of the real Holmes stories and gives us valuable insight into his mind at the end of his life. This is an entertaining read and would interest any fan of Sherlock Holmes or Michael Chabon.
The Literary Sherlocks July 6, 2005
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
What a joy it has been of late for us Sherlockians. Not only has there been a batch of new scholarly Holmes-related books to digest and debate--among them THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES--but we've also been blessed with three very interesting and top-notch pastiches. What makes this trio of recent novels so unique is that they come from unlikely writers, individuals who fall more into the literary category than the mystery genre. I am, of course, referring to the three-headed prong that is Caleb Carr (THE ITALIAN SECRETARY), Michael Chabon (THE FINAL SOLUTION), and Mitch Cullin (A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND).
As I decided to read all three books back to back, I shall comment on them in the order in which they were read. For better or worse, I started with the one that I believed would be the most satisfying of the trio: Caleb Carr's THE ITALIAN SECRETARY. However, while I found Carr's book engaging and fun for the most part, I was somewhat disappointed with it. In hindsight, my feelings might have more to do with my high regard for Carr's previous novels--such as THE ALIENIST--than it does with the actual quality of his Sherlock novel. In other words, had THE ITALIAN SECRETARY been written by someone else, I might not have found myself feeling it lacked the strength and depth of story that I've come to expect from, yes, a Caleb Carr novel. So putting those thoughts aside, I will say that Carr's book is mostly well written and he has done a good job at capturing the spirit, intrigue, and style of Doyle. However, it fell a little flat toward the end, giving me the sense of a rushed job. Even so, both his Holmes and Watson are vivid and quite enjoyable, and I do hope he tries his hand at another Sherlock pastiche, taking his time to draw the story out rather than move it so swiftly to its conclusion. A somewhat slight but worthy read nevertheless.
Next up was Michael Chabon's THE FINAL SOLUTION, the Pulitzer-Prize winning writer's look at an unnamed Sherlock in retirement, set with World War II as the backdrop. This novella--not novel--is actually quite wonderful and the writing is fluid, lyrical, and overall rather excellent. To be frank, I wasn't expecting much from such a slim volume that offered us Sherlock as an elderly gentleman. But I was mistaken. It is an intelligent diversion, and, like Mitch Cullin's novel, brings the character into a modern age that somewhat confounds him. If I have any complaints, though, it is that Chabon made a point of never mentioning Sherlock by name (he is simply The Old Man), and, by doing so, skirted the character's history and much of his background, making him a bit one dimensional. The shortness of the book, too, didn't leave much room for the plot (which is, by the way, very interesting) or other characters to be developed at any great length. Still, there was enough here to hold my interest, and, in its own way, THE FINAL SOLUTION not only compliments Mitch Cullin's longer work but its themes and story also function as a kind of extended prologue to the last book in the threesome. A wonderfully written, thoughtful addition to Holmes literature that manages to pack a decent punch in too few pages.
Poor Mitch Cullin, I thought when I finally got around to his A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND. Besides holding the distinction of being "the best American novelist you`ve probably never heard of," his attempt to capture Sherlock followed in the shadows of both Carr and Chabon's efforts (although, by comparison, I'm willing to bet Cullin toiled on his book much longer than either of his contemporaries). And yet, of the three, his vision of Holmes is the most interesting and the best realized. The writing is superb, if not downright poetic at times. Most important to me, however, was that the elderly Sherlock of this novel has been humanized in a very realistic manner but yet, without question, still reads and sounds like Doyle's creation. That is no easy achievement, and one that should be applauded. In the hands of a lesser writer, this feeble version of Sherlock could easily be considered a bad joke, or, worse, a fraud. But Cullin has rendered him with such attention and, dare I say it, loving detail that I held no doubts about the character by the book`s end. It also helped considerably that this writer had clearly researched the Canon in order to keep his facts accurate. However, to say this is a mystery novel would be misleading, because it is actually something more than that. Yes, there is a mystery here--mysteries, in fact--but they are of the grand human scale (Hiroshima, war, memory, isolation, loss of loved ones) rather than the parlor room variety, and as such they are much harder to solve. The best of the batch, and a masterful literary effort that is also a worthy addition to the Canon Pastiche.
--Beth Halloway
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
