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Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure | 
| Author: Michael Chabon
Creator: Andre Braugher
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $3.24
You Save: $21.71 (87%)
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Rating:  102 reviews
Sales Rank: 508919
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.2 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 0739357891
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781415944585
ASIN: 0739357891
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, sprang from an early passion for the derring-do and larger-than-life heroes of classic comic books. Now, once more mining the rich past, Chabon summons the rollicking spirit of legendary adventures–from The Arabian Nights to Alexandre Dumas to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories–in a wonderful new novel brimming with breathless action, raucous humor, cliff-hanging suspense, and a cast of colorful characters worthy of Scheherazade’s most tantalizing tales.
They’re an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as he is with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa A.D. 950, living as they please and surviving however they can–as blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers, cheerfully separating the gullible from their money. No strangers to tight scrapes and close shaves, they’ve left many a fist shaking in their dust, tasted their share of enemy steel, and made good any number of hasty exits under hostile circumstances.
None of which has necessarily prepared them to be dragooned into service as escorts and defenders to a prince of the Khazar Empire. Usurped by his brutal uncle, the callow and decidedly ill-tempered young royal burns to reclaim his rightful throne. But doing so will demand wicked cunning, outrageous daring, and foolhardy bravado . . . not to mention an army. Zelikman and Amram can at least supply the former. But are these gentlemen of the road prepared to become generals in a full-scale revolution? The only certainty is that getting there–along a path paved with warriors and whores, evil emperors and extraordinary elephants, secrets, swordplay, and such stuff as the grandest adventures are made of–will be much more than half the fun.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 97 more reviews...
 What it lacks in ambition, it more than makes up for in fun and adventure. June 26, 2009
Joshua Mauthe (Nashville, TN)
I enjoyed Chabon's early work; pieces like Wonder Boys are wonderful pieces of drama that really show off his talent for establishing characters and their psychologies. However, this second wave of work, filled with more experimentation and playfulness - from the neo-noir stylings of Yiddish Policemen's Union to the Holmes homage The Final Solution - maintains all of Chabon's literary talent while giving the work a higher level of simple, pure enjoyment. The fact that he creates such wonderful worlds while smuggling in literature? Even better. Gentlemen (I prefer Chabon's admitted original title, Jews with Swords) is a quick read, but its short length is packed with adventures, wonderful environments, surprising twists, and characters who come to live perfectly. A classic adventure novel in the tradition of everyone from Dumas to Errol Flynn, Gentlemen plunges the reader into a 10th century struggle in the desert and creates a tale that's pure fun. I can't say enough how enjoyable it is, and how much I recommend it. What it lacks in the ambition of something like Union, it more than makes up for in joy and adventure.
Kings of the road May 14, 2009
simple sellers
This is a departure of what I usually read. Its about these two misfits in the middle ages ,who are forced to be theives, because of their religion and race. One is a Jew,who loves hats and the other is a black man.
They are trying to help this kidnapped slave ,who is actually a prince get back to his family.
It kind of reminded me of the Prince Valiant Cartoons that I read in the papers for years and the cartoons to go with the story are awesome.
The writing style is bizarre and cumbersome at first ,but its a short story if you like Robin Hood and that sort of thing.
 The Road Not Taken (2 and 1/2 stars) January 2, 2009
Brian Markowski (Cedar Rapids, IA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There's a lot of fun in "Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure". Michael Chabon, author of the well known and well written The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, wants to take us down a path of rollicking adventure and he does so in an elegant and poetic way. His attempt to write a Dickens-est serial (the book not only was first published in chapter segments for a periodical- but it's also written in a rather formal style) is both ambitious and charming. Sadly it does not work for a mass audience.
The story is not unfamiliar, two "soldiers of fortune" find themselves caught up in circumstances seemingly beyond their control. Their adventure starts when the hulk-ish black African Jew named Amram, and a rail thin Frankish Jew named Zelikman offer (for a fee) safe passage for a displaced prince . Things quickly get out of hand as the pair get caught up in a series of battles, armies, Vikings, and the siege of an ancient Jewish Kingdom called Kazar. It's a slightly over complicated plot that layers adventure over adventure until the reader is somewhat overwhelmed. The old English style of writing does not help clear the fog of the multiple adventures either, in fact it often exasperates it. Add to this an over load of 10th century mid-east political history and tons of characters. A reader looking for some nice little escapism might find them-selves quickly in over their head.
The book itself is a bit misleading. Paging though it, it looks like a young adult adventure story. There is an excellent assortment of hand drawn etchings, the story seems simple, and the tale is one that any young boy, or girl, might fancy; but in Chabon's attempt to capture the style of Dickens or Dumas, something seems lost to the casual reader. I stress that "Gentlemen..." is extremely well written, but I can't tell who it's written for. It's not for kids, it's not for escapist readers, or casuals readers. It's a story that's suppose to be fun, but all the fun seems zapped out of it by too much research on the authors part (or at least too much research seeping into the story) and it's overly complicated prose. Had Chabon perhaps pulled back a bit the writing might not have been as sharp, but the story might have shined a lot brighter.
 "On Discord Arising from the Excessive Love of a Hat" December 29, 2008
Pooneil the Paranoid Android (Madison, Wisconsin)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The blurbs on the back cover compare "Gentlemen of the Road" to Alexandre Dumas and Edgar Rice Burroughs -- an old fashioned adventure story, short, fast paced, and easy to read. In its specifics it more closely resembles the Fafrhd and Grey Mouser series of stories by Fritz Leiber: a similar luxury of language and verbal wit, and a pair of juxtaposed wandering heroes, one giant and one small and quick. Our heroes here are Zelikman, a gaunt Frankish healer often described as a scarecrow, and Amram, a towering Abyssinian with a massive Viking axe.
There are two basic things that make this book a little better than your average adventure novel. The first is the historical setting, the steppes of Central Asia in the tenth century A.D. There are Khazars and Rabanites, elephants and marauding Rus, Jews and Muslims and a smattering of languages. As far as I'm aware no one has ever attempted to set a story in such a place, outside of Borodin's opera "Prince Igor". It's exotic enough to elicit a certain otherworldly excitement, but grounded in reality and history that keeps the romance from taking over entirely. Mr Chabon has done his research and rendered a complete world, believably populated by a variety of characters and cultures.
The second thing that makes this little book so worthwhile is the skill that Mr Chabon brings to its creation. He is known as a big-ticket bestselling literary author, and some people would say this sort of genre exercise is below him; however, it's precisely because he's got serious literary chops that he can pull off the plotting and style of "Gentlemen of the Road". He slips into the obscure words and old fashioned style with ease, and it's a pleasure to read every word of the book. Mr Chabon has not tried to turn a genre adventure into a literary tome; instead he's tried his damnedest to write the best adventure he can. And he succeeds: "Gentlemen of the Road" is a fun book, and it's easy to imagine seeing a sequel or three on the shelves at some point.
Mr Chabon has already come up with a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and a science fiction detective story. I for one am hoping that he keeps this up and even starts a trend among other "literary" writers.
actually literature December 17, 2008
Timothy J. Smith (Burdett, New York USA)
I'm writing this because I'm surprised at the number of negative reviews. This is not an escapist novel (of which I've enjoyed many); it is not Gray Mouse and Farquard marching alongside Conan. It's a short, classic and classy piece of good writing. Admittedly, it took me a little while to fall into the mood and rhythm of this book, but once I did, I found it a respite from the movie-paced light pieces of writing filling the bookstores today. So, if you like to read with a cup of tea in hand, and not a double-shot of espresso, I think you'll enjoy this book and find that after you've read it, you enjoy it even more!
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