Gentlemen of the road

a tale of adventure

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Michael Chabon: Gentlemen of the road (Hardcover, 2007, Del Rey/Ballantine Books)

Hardcover, 204 pages

English language

Published Feb. 11, 2007 by Del Rey/Ballantine Books.

ISBN:
978-0-345-50174-5
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OCLC Number:
154689273

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4 stars (1 review)

In the Kingdom of Aran, in the Caucasus Mountains in 950 A.D., two adventurers wander the region, plying their trade as swords for hire, until they become involved in a bloody coup in the medieval Jewish empire of the Khazars as bodyguards for a fugitiveprince.

14 editions

A classic adventure tale

4 stars

I hadn't read any Michael Chabon novels before and chose this one purely for its historical setting as I hoped it would fit nicely alongside a couple of other recent reads: Ibn Fadlan's travel memoirs of Western Asia in the Viking era and Edouardo Albert's humorous Conrad Monk And The Great Heathen Army adventure tale. Gentlemen Of The Road is closer to Conrad Monk in style, although not as funny, however it does feel based in a solid historical reality and I could appreciate that Chabon had certainly done his research.

The story is a classic adventure tale which gallops across medieval Khazaria at such a pace that I did sometimes find myself left behind. At its heart is a wonderful friendship between two men, apparently as different in physical appearance and temperament as it is possible to be, yet perfectly suited to each other and utterly loyal. They get …

Subjects

  • Fiction
  • History

Places

  • Aserbaidschan
  • Azerbaijan