Alternate History Versus Science Fiction
I finished Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union today. I liked it, although I think it overdid it perhaps a little with its sheer Jewishness—it takes place in an entirely Jewish state, one whose inhabitants are all highly aware of their Jewishness in ways I’ve never encountered in real life. It’s not quite caricature, and it’s definitely a loving portrait in many ways, but it felt like Chabon figured out how to convey “a Jewish atmosphere”, and conveys it, and then hires a trucking company to keep on conveying it from his mind to yours, while you’re trying to follow the plot. I suddenly wonder if At Swim-Two-Birds strikes the non-Irish in a similar way, given that it’s steeped (very steeped) in Irishness. In any case, Chabon’s novel is a good one, and a good read, but my question is: is it science fiction?
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