Talk:The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Requested move
The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel → The Yiddish Policemen's Union – "A Novel" is not part of the title; it is an explanatory tag appended to many novel titles. Placing "A Novel" on the title page of novels is a publishing convention, so the phrase often appears as part of the title in library and bookseller catalogues. But in ordinary usage "A Novel" is not considered part of the title. -- Shelf Skewed  Talk  22:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Examples of the title appearing in reputable sources without "A Novel" included as part of the title:

-- Shelf Skewed  Talk  04:26, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The publisher's page: Note that "A Novel" appears below the title and is nowhere included as part of the title.
 * Cleveland Plain-Dealer, interview with the author in which Chabon is quoted giving the title as The Yiddish Policemen's Union
 * Kirkus review
 * Amazon.co.uk
 * etc. etc.
 * Moved --Stemonitis 07:25, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a lot of effort put into something that seems really inconsequential to me! Suppose a blockbuster movie comes out with the same title, do we revisit this issue and get mired in a sea of internet links? Cuvtixo 16:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No, the correct title is The Yiddish Policeman's Union, not The Yiddish Policeman's Union: A Novel, and when I requested what I thought should have been a noncontroversial move Stemonitis more or less challenged me to prove that the former was in fact the title. So I did. If there is an identically titled film version, the WP article title will be The Yiddish Policeman's Union (film). No sea of links. -- Shelf Skewed   Talk  18:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Historical basis
If anyone wants to write an article on the King-Havenner Bill that inspired the novel, there's an excellent series of four articles from the Anchorage Daily News published in 1999.--Pharos 00:16, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Not Reservation: Temporary nature of "Sitka settlement"
I have not finished the book yet, but it seems highly important to the plot that the "reservation" is a temporary, 60-year "lease," that is about to expire. This is referenced often in the book as the "Reversion." I am going to take out the word "reservation" which is linked to dictionary-like entry in the Wikipedia. I think "refugee settlement" is better, but if someone has a better term... Cuvtixo 16:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Plot
Shouldn't this article have something about the plot of the story, not just the background? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.87.64.140 (talk) 00:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The plot summary is full of mistakes (I've just read the book). Perhaps somebody who is good at such things could do a better one?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by GRoe (talk • contribs) 09:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

More Comments on "Plot summary"

"Landsman lies, saying that he will, and is released." Shouldn't it be "Landsman says he will, and is released."

"... suddenly realizes its similarity to a chessboard that Hertz Shemetz had set up in his house ..." I did not catch that this point was explicitly expressed.

"... Mendel was in a heroin induced stupor ..."

I would reorder the end of this section to:

"Bina and Landsman decide to date again and are planning for their future in America. The book ends with Landsman contacting a friendly American newspaperman with the story, undoing his promise to say nothing of the conspiracy." Though I am not sure about the "future in America" part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.43.16 (talk) 10:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the chess game/puzzle, on p4 it says "On the bedside table Lasker kept a chessboard. It looked like he had a game going, a messy-looking middle game ..." On p304 Landsman sees Uncle Hertz's chessboard set up and asks if he is playing a correspondence game. Hertz replies it is not a game, he is just "fooling around". Not until p400 does Landsman realise "it wasn't a chess game ... it was a problem."

So - I am just going to reverse the order in the plot summary from problem/game to game/problem. SpoolWhippets (talk) 10:52, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Description of POD speculation and original research?
I would say the description of how the world is supposed to have changed is (a) speculative and (b) 'original research'

Hpengwyn (talk) 10:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it is indeed "speculative", but it is a description of the author's speculation: the alternate history that establishes the novel's fictional world.-- Shelf Skewed  Talk  11:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Where does he say this? If it were a better book I would go through and find all the evidence for the alternate world being at all coherent, but I will settle for page numbers from someone else :-) Hpengwyn (talk) 20:06, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have rewritten the passage, removing everything that is not specifically stated in the book.JTrundle (talk) 18:51, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Film Adaptation
Producer Scott Rudin can not have purchased film rights 5 years (2002) before the book itself appeared, in 2007. [Nikos Al]

It is entirely possible, and actually common, to purchase the film rights to a to-be-published book. When a popular and successful author (Chabon's The Pittsburgh Mysteries was already a bestseller) announces his or her intention to write a new story, it makes perfect sense for a studio to bet on the property's future popularity and attempt to purchase it before "bestseller" status drives up the competition (and thus the price) for those rights. 69.174.87.20 (talk) 15:22, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Except neither of the two articles cited even mentions this yet to be published book. Good catch Nikos.

'Yiddish expression "from here to Hotzenplotz"'
could someone add the Yiddish for this Yiddish expression?--Richardson mcphillips (talk) 12:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

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