Author: Michael Chabon
Dates read: April 8, 2010 - April 11, 2010 (4 days)
Pages: 131
Still behind, but made progress with another short read. When I was looking for another short book to read, this one interested me because I’d never read anything by Michael Chabon and was curious to since several of my friends love his writing.
This novella is a tiny mystery that takes place in Sherlock Holmes’s twilight years. While it never expressly identifies the ornery old man that used to solve mysteries in London, it’s very clear that the once-famous detective protagonist is indeed Holmes. In the midst of his quiet retirement, he comes across a mute young boy with a startlingly beautiful African grey parrot that rattles off strings of numbers in German. It’s soon revealed that the boy escaped Nazi Germany, which begs the question: What do the numbers mean? Are they a secret Nazi code? Could they be connected to a Swiss bank account? It’s not long before the parrot disappears and a body is found. The authorities turn to the protagonist and ask him to help them one last time with the case, which he does purely because he wants to return the distraught young boy’s pet.
I went into this novella expecting more of a mystery since I knew that the never-identified character was meant to be Sherlock Holmes, but what it actually turned out to be was more of a series of character vignettes. The point of view shifts around to various people involved in the case and even jumps to the parrot’s point of view in one chapter, so the thrust of the work is ultimately primarily characterization. I was a bit disappointed not to have a good mystery (the solution to the case is pretty mundane), but all of the points of view were interesting enough to sustain such a short piece of work. It creates a very vivid snapshot of the lives of the characters during the few days it takes place over, their various points of view combining to give a better and more detailed picture of the world of the story than could be achieved through one character or even a third person narrator.
