In his afterword to this book, Michael Chabon talks about his original name for this story, Jews With Swords, as an attempt to refute the idea of Jews throughout history as a passive, non-violent people. The title may have changed, which is all to the good I think, but the concept is still central to this ripping yarn. Chabon channels the spirits of many pre-20th century writers to create a thrilling, witty and wonderful adventure – I can definitely detect Cervantes, and a hint of Voltaire’s Candide, but you would have to be a lot better read than I am to do catalogue the many authors than must have inspired this book.

The setting is the Caucasus mountains, around 950AD. The gentlemen of the title are the Frankish Jew Zelikam, a skilled surgeon, thief and adventurer with the apperance of a “black-hatted scarecrow”; and his partner in crime, the Abyssinian giant with a Viking axe (affectionately known as ‘Defiler of All Mothers’), Amram. We first encounter them staging a fight to the death in an out-of-the-way inn, to earn a share of the betting that will inevitably result. They are showmen, thieves, mercenaries and anything else that will make money, though they seem to be down on their luck – and when a chance encounter leads them in to the service of a member of the royal family fleeing the Jewish kingdom of the Khazars after a violent change of government, they may not feel their luck is much improving. Against their better judgment, they find themselves increasingly embroiled in an adventure to steal back an empire, and they bicker constantly along the way.

Everything about this book is a homage to a simpler time: its brevity (196 pages in paperback), its beautiful illustrations, its very nature as a rough-and-tumble adventure story with twists and turns, setbacks and advances, all set in a part of the world that will seem fantastical indeed to modern readers. That’s not to say it’s the easiest read in the world – it took me a little while to get in the swing of the lyrical style of dialogue and exposition – but it is wonderfully written. The quarrels of our heroes reveal much about their deep affection for one another, their bond of trust – and they’re very funny to boot, while many of the lesser characters are a real treat.

As other reviewers have said, reading this book captures something of the joy you felt when you first truly connected with a story of adventure, excitment and derring-do – it may not bear direct comparison to whichever writer first floated your boat, but it made me feel that way while I was reading it, and I enjoyed it immensely, though I appreciate it’s very different from everything else Michael Chabon has published. A wonderful tribute to the joy of a good tale, well told.

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