The Final Solution

Posted by Phat Daddy

the final solution

the final solution by michael chabon
i thought sherlock holmes was dead - first the sly ol dirty bastard takes a nosedive off reichenbach falls - or so we're led to believe - then he pops up again fully healed - then he works for the british in 'his last bow' and retires gracefully to the countryside - but not so fast my sherlockian smerlockians - chabon picks up the archetype years later as a physically ailin but mentally sailin (like on smooth caribbean waters) old geeser chillin in the south of england and solving crimes like only he can - arthritis included

there's tons of authors out there who picked up on sherlock holmes and played with his past and his future - but not many who can do it convincingly - or well - in their own style - too many writers try to imitate conan doyle - and the rest take sherlock too far out of his contextual milieu to make their stuff worth the time of day necessary to sit down and read the tripe - but chabon picks up the character farther down the road than most - leaves just enough essentials to satisfy the notoriously itchy baskervillians - and puts his own inimitable style on one of the central figures of the western canon - (yeah harold bloom i'm talkin to ya)

the writing is typical chabon - murky but rewarding - while this bad boy is short it's not the type of thing you're gonna sail through - sure you might finish it in one sitting but then you'd miss out on the grace and the convoluted eloquence that won chabon the damn pulitzer (in cavalier and klay mentioned somewhere recently but damn near impossible to wade through without smokin a dubee or two first) - this is the best chabon i've ever read - its the only chabon i've ever read - and i would highly recommend it - there's only one or two writers who can do sherlock well - chabon is one of them - so read the book already muthafukas