Conclusion Analysis and Final Thoughts

After finishing the book I was left on kind of a cliff hanger. Although Landsman ends up solving the case after hard work and determination we see him in a spot where it seems like he has gained nothing from this whole experience. After all of the progress he has made throughout the book, it seems as if Landsman is constantly becoming more and more aware of this issue and his depression. I thought that by the end of the novel he would gain everything he had lost but nothing really ends up working out for him except finally talking to Bina about their whole situation. After all this time we find out that Landsman has been causing his own misery constantly beating himself up over the broken off marriage with him and Bina. The entire time he thought he did the right thing breaking up with her because he believed he failed her and he thought that she had wanted this. After all of this misery he had been putting himself through, mainly about this break up, it all end with him getting back with the girl. What is interesting thought is one of the last lines of the book is “Landsman has no home, no future, no fate but in Bina” (399). Thinking that after getting the girl, Landsman would finally take himself out of this depressing life he had been living and finally find his way in life and become this well off person with a successful re-marriage. With this line at the end it left me thinking that this whole journey Landsman had been going on understanding himself better only really led him to getting back the girl who he lost.

Revealing the end of the mystery ultimately ruins the book but the murderer is definitely not who I had expected it to be. Throughout the novel Chabon provides so many different clues and people it could virtually have been anyone. Although the mystery makes the book more suspenseful the whole ordeal with Landsman’s life and problems really make the reader get into the mind of Landsman and see his unfit way of living.

Overall I think it was an excellent book. The whole mystery combined with the religious aspect really made the book worthwhile and interesting. The entire book was very humorous and almost all of the people in the story had a defining personality that separated them from the rest. I really liked that fact that Chabon completely changed history in order to write this book. He looked at history from an alternate perspective and put the Jews in a tough situation as they always end up getting put in. I think that he wanted to show people what kind a community would have looked like after the war, had it been in America. I also liked the whole belief of Mendel Shpilman being this Messiah. It really dove in to a religious myth or legend that Judaism is all about. I think that by mixing religious belief and historical fact, with a little bit of mystery sprinkled in, Chabon ultimately achieves success in making this an entertaining, suspenseful, and worthwhile novel.