Hoofdstuk 2. the Yiddish Policemen's Union

Home , Ayelet Waldman, Maps and Legends, Michael Chabon

Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte

The Promised Land of salmon and furs

Counterfactual history and Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Evelien Corveleyn

Promotor: Dr. Pieter Vermeulen

Masterpaper voorgedragen tot het bekomen van de graad van Master in de Vergelijkende Moderne Letterkunde

2011

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to thank my promoter Dr. Pieter Vermeulen for his interesting ideas, constructive criticism, useful comments and corrections. With his guiding hand I travelled back to counterfactual history, explored the difficult relations between Israel and the Palestinian people, and had the opportunity to analyze the extraordinary novel and mind of a magician of words. Secondly, I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Philippe Codde, whose inspiring course and contagious enthusiasm have convinced me to conduct further research in the field of Jewish American Literature. And thirdly, I would like to thank everyone else who has advised and encouraged me while I was writing this dissertation.

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Table of Contents

Introduction...... 7

Hoofdstuk 1. Michael Chabon and his Maps and Legends ...... 10 1.1 Genre fiction ...... 11 1.2 Epic fantasy ...... 13 1.3 Science fiction ...... 14 1.4 Telling lies ...... 16

Hoofdstuk 2. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union...... 19 2.1 Plot outline...... 22

Hoofdstuk 3. Counterfactual history ...... 27 3.1 Differences between historical and fictional worlds ...... 28 3.1.1 Discourse level ...... 30 3.1.2 Counterfactual history as fiction ...... 30 3.2 Historical fiction ...... 31 3.2.1 Fictional and fictionalized entities ...... 32 3.2.2 Degrees of historical-knowledge recovery ...... 32 3.2.3 Crossing borders ...... 33 3.3 Counterfactual thinking ...... 33 3.3.1 Types of counterfactuals ...... 34 3.3.2 Causality ...... 35 3.3.3 Plausibility ...... 37 3.4 Counterfactual fiction ...... 39 3.4.1 Transworld identity ...... 41 3.4.2 Similarities traditional fiction ...... 41 3.4.3 Popular literature ...... 42 3.5 Counterfactual history ...... 42 3.5.1 Individuality ...... 45

3.5.2 Subjectivity ...... 46 3.5.3 Constraints ...... 47 3.6 Evolution of counterfactuals in narrative discourse...... 49 3.7 Other examples of narrative counterfactuals ...... 54

Hoofdstuk 4. The Promised Land of salmon and furs...... 57 4.1 Counterfactual history ...... 58 4.2 Chess motif ...... 63 4.3 Narrative clues about the counterfactual past ...... 65 4.3.1 Israel and Reversion ...... 66 4.3.2 Immigration European Jews...... 68 4.3.2.1 Doomed city ...... 70 4.3.2.2 Islands and Indians ...... 72 4.4 Other recurring motifs...... 73 4.4.1 Storytelling ...... 73 4.4.2 Penguins ...... 75 4.4.3 The United States ...... 76 4.5 Jewish identity ...... 77 4.5.1 Imaginary Yiddish ...... 78 4.5.2 Humor and respect ...... 80

Conclusion...... 82 Bibliography ...... 85

Introduction

What if… there was a Jewlaska? A Jewish settlement in Alaska founded sixty years ago to house millions of European Jewish refugees; a city called Sitka, on Baranof Island, where the inhabitants speak Yiddish and swear in English. What if… this settlement saved four million Jews and only two million were killed during the Holocaust? And what if… only weeks before the territory will be reverted to the United States, the Messiah is found murdered in a cheap hotel room?

These are the premises of Michael Chabon‘s remarkable novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union; a hard-boiled detective story set in the present but based on a counterfactual history. This dissertation will try to investigate what drove Michael Chabon to include a counterfactual history in his novel and what he tried to accomplish with it. Especially his treatment of Yiddish and Jewish identity are unusual in this respect and will therefore also be discussed in this thesis.

After this short introduction, the first chapter will briefly touch upon Michael Chabon‘s professional career as a novelist, before turning to the discussion of his collection of essays, Maps and Legends. The essays comment on Chabon‘s views on reading and writing. They will reveal why Chabon would want to combine the odd genre of counterfactual fiction with a hard-boiled detective story. As the front cover of his collection of essays tells us, his readings and writings can be situated ―along the borderlands‖ of literature. The main subject in these expositions is genre fiction, ranging

from epic fantasy to science fiction. The references to the creation of golems, the telling of lies and the trickster figure will also be discussed.

The second chapter will introduce Michael Chabon‘s novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. First, it will be explained how his novel came about. One of Chabon‘s motives was his own American Jewish identity and the search for ―a world of his own.‖ These aspects are clearly represented in the novel. The discovery of the phrasebook Say It in Yiddish then helped him construct the remarkable counterfactual world surrounding the Jewish characters. Secondly, the plot outline will be set out and links will be made with the work of hard-boiled detective writer Raymond Chandler.

In the third chapter the research field of counterfactual history will be explored. This part of the dissertation is based on the works of Lubomír Doležel, Niall Ferguson and Hilary Dannenberg. They primarily try to emphasize the usefulness of counterfactual thinking and history in historical research. This chapter will be divided into smaller parts to discuss the different aspects of counterfactual history. These will elaborate on the differences between historical and fictional worlds, historical fiction, counterfactual thinking, counterfactual fiction, counterfactual history and the evolution of counterfactuals in narrative discourse. Different characteristics and types of counterfactuals will be touched upon, with a particular interest in the phenomena causality and plausibility. All these elements will try to provide a better understanding of the field of counterfactual history in consideration of the analysis of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. The chapter will conclude with a few other literary and cinematographic examples in which counterfactuals are used, including Philip Roth‘s The Plot Against America.

The actual analysis of Michael Chabon‘s novel will be given in the fourth and last chapter. The different aspects of counterfactual history which will have been discussed in the previous chapter, will then be investigated in the light of the novel itself. Other major themes within The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – for example Israel, Jewish identity, nostalgia and Native Americans – will also be analyzed. The discovery of different motives will then try to connect the different themes and layers of the novel.

By the end of this dissertation, I hope that the reader will have gained useful insights in Michael Chabon‘s views on genre fiction, the useful and less useful characteristics of counterfactual history and its use in fictional and non-fictional contexts, and, of course, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, which proves to offer a lot more than meets the eye.

Hoofdstuk 1. Michael Chabon and his Maps and Legends

Lies tell the truth; but the truth they tell may not be that, or not only that, which the liar intends.

(Chabon 2008, 72)

Michael Chabon is what you could call an atypical writer. He has written novels, screenplays, short story collections, essay collections, a book for young adults, and he has even co-written the story for the movie Spiderman 2. As D. G. Myers notes, Chabon, like Graham Greene, ―divides his labors into two categories – ‗literary fiction‘ (his preferred term) and entertainments that he calls ‗unabashed fantasies‘‖ (2008, 580). The second category includes his books Summerland and Gentlemen of the Roads. The completed manuscript of his first book, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, served as his master thesis. The novelist Harris MacDonald, who was his adviser at the time, was so impressed that he sent the manuscript to his own agent. At the time, the book got the largest advance ever paid for a first novel; Chabon was only twenty-five. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001 for his third novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which deals with themes like the Holocaust, homophobia, friendship, McCarthyism, and the relationship between art and political resistance.

1.1 Genre fiction

According to J. Madison Davis ―his books show a remarkable ability to be comfortable in exploiting the delights of genre writing and yet incorporate enough imaginative variation on the genres to be taken seriously by the literary establishments‖ (2008, 10). His combined interest in genre fiction and in serious literature is documented in a book called Maps and Legends, which is, as the back cover tells us, ―a love song in 16 parts – a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing, with subjects running from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy‖ (Chabon 2008).

Maps and Legends gives us as readers a good introduction to Chabon‘s views on genre and genre fiction. He is in favor of a return to the basics of storytelling, leaving the canonized literature on the background, but maintaining a ―wide-ranging affection.‖ He acknowledges that popular fiction has obtained negative connotations these days, as intelligent and educated people cannot be seen anywhere near entertainment. ―They must handle things that entertain them with gloves of irony and postmodern tongs,‖ he remarks with a bitter sense of humor. One of the main reasons why people tend to distrust entertainment is its tendency to be ―easily synthesized and mass-produced.‖ Chabon continues that ―its benefits do not endure, and so we come to mistrust them, or our taste for them‖ (2008, 4). Another reason which Chabon puts forward is the alleged passivity of entertainment. The intense exchange between reader and writer, or more generally between entertainer and public, got lost somewhere along the way, especially since the introduction of the Internet. According to Chabon, the most efficient genre for reconnecting the writer and the reader is the short story. Nevertheless, as a short story writer, he is aware of the pitfall of restricting oneself to one particular genre. Maps and Legends proves to be a useful attempt to explain the genre awareness among authors.

One of the problems in this context is the term ‗genre‘ in itself. In the heyday of short story writing you still had a whole catalogue of genres to choose from: ―the ghost story; the horror story; the detective story; the story of suspense, terror, fantasy, science fiction, or the macabre; the sea, adventure, spy, war, or historical story; the romance story‖ (Chabon 2008, 6). Due to the introduction of the new mass media, the choices have

become more limited. The ―more plot-centered literary genres‖ got the upper hand and genres like science fiction or the hard-boiled detective story disappeared to the background, to the regret of Michael Chabon. Genre has simply become a mere ―marketing tool‖ (Chabon 2008, 7-8).

In ‗Trickster in a Suit of Lights,‘ one of the essays in Maps and Legends, Chabon explains to us why genre fiction is excluded from canonical literature: ―a genre implies a set of conventions – a formula – and conventions imply limitations (the argument goes), and therefore no genre work can ever rise to the masterful heights of true literature, free (it is to be supposed) of all formulas and templates‖ (2008, 8). However, the most important aspect of these conventions, according to Chabon, is that they are meant to be flouted, mocked, inverted, broken and ignored. Writers should not lose sight of ―the cycle of innovation, exhaustion, and replenishment.‖ In this respect he turns to the example of Walter Benjamin and his essay ‗The Storyteller,‘ which makes the distinction between the ―trading seaman,‖ who employs ―miracle tales, legends, and tall stories from abroad,‖ and the ―resident tiller of the soil,‖ who depends upon ―the sharp-witted wisdom tales, homely lore, and useful stories of a community.‖

Benjamin implies that the greatest storytellers are those who possess aspects, to some extent, of both characters, and I was thinking that it might be possible to argue that in the world of the contemporary short story the ‗naturalistic‘ writers come from the tribe of the community-based lore-retellers, while the writers of fantasy, horror, and sf1 are the sailors of distant seas, and that our finest and most consistently interesting contemporary writers are those whose work seems to originate from both traditions (Chabon 2008, 11).

This brings us back to the point Chabon tried to make earlier. Conventions need to be broken; the boundaries of genres need to be crossed. Writers should not be afraid to move around in no man‘s land, ―the places between genres‖; they should be allowed to play around in a landscape of fantasy and invention. But, as Chabon notes, the most important boundary that needs to be crossed is ―the one that lies between wild commercial success

1 Science fiction.

and unreserved critical acclaim‖ (2008, 13). These ideas about authorship and fiction are also reflected in Chabon‘s own work.

The first short story Chabon ever wrote was a Sherlock Holmes tale with the narrative voice of Dr. Watson. This reminds him that popular fiction tends to have ―this open-ended quality,‖ which invites the reader ―to continue, on his or her own, with the adventure‖ (2008, 44). Therefore, he continues, each work of literature could be understood as ―fan fiction.‖ Chabon admits that he therefore never quite understood the notion of the anxiety of influence, defined by Harold Bloom.

Through parody and pastiche, allusion and homage, retelling and reimagining the stories that were told before us and that we have come of age loving – amateurs – we proceed, seeking out the blank pages in the map that our favorite writers, in their greatness and negligence, have left for us, hoping to pass on to our own readers – should we be lucky enough to find any – some of the pleasures that we ourselves have taken in the stuff we love; to get in on the game. All novels are sequels; influence is bliss (Chabon 2008, 45 - own emphasis).

1.2 Epic fantasy

Another genre that is believed to be located in the no-man‘s land of literature is epic fantasy. However, it should not be located in the outskirts of literature, according to Chabon: ―it is from the confrontation with mystery that the truest stories have always drawn their power‖ (2008, 55). Although the history of epic fantasy started off with Milton‘s masterpiece Paradise Lost, it has lost its appeal during the last decades. Epic fantasies tend to be understood as stories for children, and if they are not particularly meant for children, the label ‗fantasy‘ scares most adult readers away. In this context Chabon analyses Philip Pullman‘s The Golden Compass, which draws from Milton‘s Paradise Lost. In The Golden Compass, like in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, history has taken a different course. For example, ―the Holy See was transferred from Rome to Geneva‖ and ―at some point John Calvin became pope‖ (Chabon 2008, 59). Furthermore, science is viewed as ―a subject fit for philosophers and above all theologians – the study of fundamental particles is known there as experimental theology.‖ Further on, it also

becomes clear that the story relies on the ―many-worlds hypothesis:‖ ―an endlessly ramifying series of possibility-worlds, diverging and diverging again with each alteration in state, each tiny choice made, each selection of B over A: this may or may not be physics, but it is indisputably storytelling‖ (Chabon 2008, 61).

All these different characteristics only add up to the difficulty of categorizing this novel, and the other novels within the series His Dark Materials. Chabon states that ―Pullman‘s use of such avant-garde scientific notions as the multiverse and dark matter might incline one to slap the label of ‗science fiction‘ onto his work along with ‗epic fantasy,‘ ‗YA2,‘ and ‗alternative-world fiction‘‖ (2008, 61). Chabon signals one problem in his analysis of the novel. Some of its characters are rather inhuman, while the story proclaims to be about humanity. This is an issue which Chabon himself has had to deal with during his own writing.

That‘s the trouble with Plot, and its gloomy consigliere, Theme. They are, in many ways, the enemies of Character, of ‗roundedness,‘ insofar as our humanity and its convincing representation are constituted through contradiction, inconsistency, plurality of desire, absence of abstractable message or moral. […] Plot is fate, and fate is always, by definition, inhuman‖ (Chabon 2008, 71 - own emphasis).

1.3 Science fiction

Chabon could not postpone mentioning the genre of science fiction. Most of his writing is more or less situated within this genre, although, as might have become clear by now, he would not like to put a particular label on his work. Stories about the end of the world, and its aftermath, in particular are quickly regarded as science fiction. This subgenre, post- apocalyptic science fiction, is one of the few subgenres within science fiction that can be explored by mainstream writers ―without incurring too much damage to his or her credentials for seriousness,‖ according to Chabon (2008, 96). When a mainstream writer

2 Young adult fiction.

uses this mode of science fiction, critics will often refer to it as a ‗parable‘ or ‗fable,‘ instead of science fiction. This is not really problematic since the genre is often used as a means of satire on society anyway. Post-apocalyptic science fiction also has a tendency towards naturalism, which makes it more attractive to curious readers, ―without risking the stain of geekdom.‖ The possibility of the end, or destruction, of the world has only grown in the twenty-first century, and with it the interest in post-apocalyptic writings. In any case, science fiction remains risky business for a mainstream writer, as this quote by Alan Cheuse about Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road illustrates: ―I‘m always thrilled when a fine writer of first-class fiction takes up the genre of science fiction and matches its possibilities with his or her own powers‖ (Chabon 2008, 98). Chabon confesses that ―most science fiction seemed to be written for people who already liked science fiction; I wanted to write stories for anyone, anywhere, living at any time in the history of the world‖ (2008, 137).

The sense of nostalgia lingers in Chabon‘s essays. Years of mass production, marketing and new media have left their traces in the literary field. With his expositions, Chabon wants to preserve the wide-ranging catalogue of genres which was so important to him when he started writing.

The erasure of the past and its replacement by animatronic replicas, politicians‘ narratives, and the fictions of advertisers, coupled with the explosive proliferation of new inventions and altered mores, ought to have produced a boom time for honest mourners of the vanished. Instead we find ourselves haunting the margins of a world loud with speculators in metal lunch boxes and Barbie dolls, postmodernists, and retro-rockers, quietly regretting the alternate chuckling and sighs of an old-style telephone when you dialed it. We are not, as our critics would claim, necessarily convinced that things were once better than they are now, nor that we ourselves, our parents, or our grandparents were happier ‗back then.‘ We are simply like those savants in the Borges story who stumble upon certain objects and totems that turn out to be the random emanations and proofs of the existence of Tlön. The past is another planet; anyone ought to wonder, as we do, at any traces of it that turn up on this one (Chabon 2008, 123-4).

Reflecting on his own work, he compares his writings to a golem, ―a man of clay brought to life by enchantment […] by means of magic formulas, one word at a time‖ (2008, 152). Especially the consequences of writing and making a golem come to life seem similar to Chabon. In his essay ‗The Idea of the Golem‘ Gershom Scholem states

that ―like all major creation it endangers the life of the creator – the source of danger, however, is not the golem… but the man itself‖ (Chabon 2008, 153). It is the way in which golems ―break free from their creators, grow to unmanageable size and power, refuse to be controlled‖ that reminds Chabon of his own work.

1.4 Telling lies

Throughout Maps and Legends, Michael Chabon links the writing of fiction not only to the making of golems but also to the telling of lies. For him, it is all about ―the inevitable fate of liars to be swallowed up or crushed by their lies; and the risks inherent both in discounting the power of outright fiction to reveal the truths of a life, and in taking at face value the fictions that writers of memoir present as fact‖ (2008, 205). In the end, the secret of successful fiction (and good lies) is the combination of invented details and real ones. There is however also a big difference between fiction and lies. While reading fiction, the reader is aware of the invented nature of the story, while the one listening to a lie is not. The pleasure of reading therefore comes from this awareness and the willingness to believe it anyway; the author and the reader create a sense of reality together. Of course there are always people who take fiction (too) seriously. Chabon gives a funny example in ‗Golems I have known,‘ the last essay of Maps and Legends.

On the signing line after the first public reading I did from my novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, which presents among other deceptions an entirely fictitious, entirely Jewish modern-day city of Sitka, Alaska, an apparently intelligent and literate woman approached me to say that she had been to Sitka on a cruise and was astonished to learn now that she had somehow missed seeing all of those Jews up there. She didn‘t remember any of the tall buildings either. She was not challenging me on my facts, and she was not joking. She was simply wonderstruck by her own failure to have seen all of that from the deck of her cruise ship. Listening to me read the first chapter of the novel – fully advertised as such by me in my opening remarks – was enough to make her doubt her own recollections, to accept my sophisticated lie over the crude but veracious fragments of her own memory (2008, 209-210).

Chabon admitted feeling surprised, satisfied and triumphant at the same time. He understood that ―at the most fundamental level,‖ he had indeed ―been trying to deceive

her, along with every reader the novel would ever find, into the most passionate and foolish belief‖ (2008, 210). At that moment, and every time he takes up his pen, Chabon becomes the famous trickster figure, moving ―along the knife-narrow borderland between those two kingdoms, between the Empire of Lies and the Republic of Truth.‖

Hoofdstuk 2. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

“And Palestine? When Messiah comes, all the Jews move back there? To the promised land? Fur hats and all?” “I heard Messiah cut a deal with the beavers,” Berko says. “No more fur.”

(Chabon 2007, 127)

When asked about the story behind The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon says it all started with the discovery of a phrasebook, Say It in Yiddish, edited by Beatrice and Uriel Weinrich. This is undoubtedly true, but in fact it started a long time before that remarkable discovery.

For a long time now I‘ve been busy, in my life and in my work, with a pair of ongoing, overarching investigations: into my heritage – rights and privileges, duties and burdens – as a Jew and as a teller of Jewish stories; and into my heritage as a lover of genre fiction (2008, 158).

We have already discussed his investigation into genre fiction extensively in the previous chapter, but his search for a ―world of his own,‖ as an American Jew, is still untouched. His search, and those of millions of other Jews, can be related to the search of the Jewish people for their ideal homeland. Chabon states that ―history has proven that we will never be happy or safe, never be able to fulfill ourselves as a people, without a country of our own‖ (2008, 160). During the early days of Zionism the search was rather

active; speculations were being made about countries in Africa and Australia, ―any place where nobody would mind, or notice, or care.‖ Since then the ideal homeland has never been located and is, according to Chabon, as imaginary as the Promised Land.

This is where the discovery of Say It in Yiddish opened up even more questions in Chabon‘s investigation. The phrasebook is part of a series Say It in… books, including Say It in French, Say It in Swahili, and Say it in Hindi, which were designed to help tourists with an unknown language. When Chabon discovered Say It in Yiddish he didn‘t quite believe the book was real: ―[i]t was like a book in a story of Borges, unique, inexplicable, possibly a hoax.‖ What struck him the most was that it proclaimed to contain ―up-to-date practical entries:‖ ―[t]he Weinreichs have laid out, in painstakingly categorized numerical entries, the outlines of a world, of a fantastic land in which it would behove you to know how to say, in Yiddish: 250. What is the flight number? 1372. I need something for a tourniquet. 1379. Here is my identification. 254. Can I go by boat/ferry to - ?‖ (Chabon 1997, 67). He started wondering about what the exact purpose of the phrasebook could have been, when there is not even a particular country where you could use Say It in Yiddish.

A few years later Chabon wrote a controversial essay about the phrasebook, ‗Guidebook to a Land of Ghosts,‘ imaging a world, or a country, where it could be put to good use. Since there is still a noticeable amount of people who speak Yiddish, the essay was soon considered as offensive and denigrating. Patricia Cohen notes that Chabon was attacked ―for mocking the language and prematurely announcing its demise‖ (2007, 6). However, the country he invented, Yisroel or Alyeska, was the immediate starting point for The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

I can imagine a different Yisroel, the youngest nation of the North American continent, founded in the former Alaska Territory during World War II as a resettlement zone for the Jews of Europe. (I once read that Franklin Roosevelt was briefly sold on such a plan.) Perhaps after the war, in this Yisroel, the millions of immigrant Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Austrian, Czech and German Jews held a referendum, and chose independence over proffered statehood in the United States. The resulting country would be a far different place than Israel. It would be a cold, northern land of furs, paprika, samovars, and one long day of summer. It would be absurd to speak Hebrew, that tongue of spikenard and almonds, in such a place.

This Yisroel – or maybe it would be called Alyeska – I imagined at the time as a kind of Jewish Sweden, social-democratic, resource rich, prosperous, organizationally and temperamentally far more akin to its immediate neighbor, Canada, than to its more freewheeling benefactor far to the south. Perhaps, indeed, there might have been some conflict, in the years since independence, between the United States and Alyeska (1997, 68; 2008, 168).

Nevertheless, Chabon was rather heartbroken when his essay was received badly. But one reviewer complained that he was still being too nice and that he should take Philip Roth, who was already a source of inspiration to Chabon at that moment, as an example in this respect. As a novelist, Roth explores the Jewish and American identities of the characters in his work in a rather provocative manner. In addition, he has also written two counterfactual novels, The Counterlife and The Plot Against America, which will be discussed further in section 3.7. Chabon thought about this remark and decided that he was driven by the wish of being a ―nice Jewish boy.‖

Because if you are a nice Jewish boy, as Rav Philip Roth has conclusively proven, you are also, on some level, a mazik: there‘s a devil in you, driving you to say, and to do, and to write things that you know you must or ought not say, do, or write (Chabon 2008, 179).

Eventually, he decided to write those things he knew he should not write: ―if I could outrage a few people with one little essay – how many could I piss off with an entire novel?‖ (2008, 179).

And that is how The Yiddish Policemen’s Union was born. And indeed, it managed to ―piss off‖ a lot of people. D.G. Myers stated that ―if his novella was inappropriate the reason is that Chabon had never given a moment‘s thought to the question of appropriateness, and not much more to what he was trying to say. His conceptions of genre and style were too rigid to allow for much beyond genre-bending and stylistic play‖ (Myers 2008, 583). Luckily for Chabon, others described his novel as brilliant and spectacular. According to Davis, ―The Yiddish Policemen’s Union incorporates almost all the ingredients of the traditional hard-boiled detective novel faithfully and without condescension, proving the continuing vitality of the form, while it takes the form into a brilliantly imaginative realm of alternate history‖ (Davis 2008, 10).

As Davis points out, the novel is set in an alternative version of reality. In this world, sixty years before the main story of the novel begins, the Slattery Report of 1940 was voted to be implemented. The report, produced by Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior in the Roosevelt administration, included a plan to rescue Jewish European refugees who were being prosecuted by the German government in the run-up of the Second World War. The United States would provide land in Alaska for the Jews to live on for the next sixty years. In reality, the report caught the attention of Roosevelt, but was eventually turned down in Congress. The novel deals with this ‗small‘ misfortune by slightly changing the historical record. The turning point from real history can be pinpointed to the death of Anthony Dimond, a member of Congress in charge of Alaska territory, who was supposedly responsible for the Slattery Report being turned down. In the novel, we read that he got run over by a taxi. Subsequently, the narrator informs us, the Alaskan Settlement Act was not killed in committee, as happened in actual history. A temporary settlement for European Jews was set up in Sitka, a city located on the Alaskan coast. Thanks to this settlement ‗only‘ two million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, instead of the six million that were killed in reality. This fact also distinguishes Chabon‘s novel from other alternative histories about the Holocaust. In The Yiddish Policemen’s Union the Holocaust still happened and not all the European Jews were saved. As it will be discussed further in section 4.3.1, the settlement was only temporary; after those sixty years Reversion would set in and the United States would reclaim the Alaskan territory inhabited by the Sitka Jews.

2.1 Plot outline

Already on the first page we meet the protagonist of the story, homicide detective Meyer Landsman, and the body whose death he will be investigating for the rest of the novel. Chabon proves that first impressions are everything: from the very beginning of the novel Landsman is being depicted as an alcoholic, insomniac, workaholic, poor but honest man, and the reader will keep associating him with these characteristics for the rest of the novel. Curiously enough, this is exactly how Raymond Chandler depicted the ideal detective in his essay ‗The Simple Art of Murder.‘ The perfect detective should also be sympathetic

and nonjudgmental and should hate dishonesty and hypocrisy, according to Chandler, who is famous for his own hard-boiled detective stories. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union ―seems like a conventional Chandleresque novel but Chabon takes his novel to a higher plane through the use of an alternative history, a frequent device of science fiction‖ (Davis 2008, 11).

The dead body of the young man in room 208 of the Hotel Zamenhof, ―a crap-ass hotel‖ (Chabon 2007, 3) where Landsman has been staying since the death of his sister Naomi, is first identified as Emanuel Lasker. Next to the body lies a cardboard chess set; apparently the victim was in the middle of a game when he got shot. Later on in the story, Landsman and his partner Berko Shemets will discover that the body is actually Mendel ‗Menachem‘ Shpilman. Mendel is the son of the Verbover rebbe Heskel Shpilman, the head of a group of Hasidic Jews who run a criminal organization in and around Sitka— The Alaskan Godfather, you could say. Furthermore, many people believed that Mendel was the new Tzaddik ha-Dor, the Messiah, who is born once in every generation.

Since Reversion will take place in only a few weeks, and Sitka General will be dissolved, Bina Gelbfish - Landsman‘s ex-wife - was ordered to close any open cases before the Burial Society, the transition task force, will visit the precinct. Since Landsman and Berko still have eleven open cases, they are not allowed to start investigating Mendel Shpilman‘s case, and it gets filed as a cold case. By now the reader can already predict that Landsman will disobey orders, and he convinces Berko to help him.

They start their search in The Einstein Café, known as a meeting place for amateur chess players. They meet Alter Litvak, who knew Landsman‘s dad, Isidor, and two suspicious looking Verbovers. Landsman and Berko get more and more interested and they decide to continue their search on Verbov Island, the home of the Verbovers. Once they arrive, they meet with Zimbalist, the boundary maven, who is in charge of the eruvin3

3 An eruv (plural eruvin) is a symbolic area around Jewish homes and communities. An eruv allows Jews to carry certain objects (like keys, tissues, dogs, baby carriages) out of their houses on the Sabbath, which would otherwise be forbidden by the Torah.

on Verbov Island. He is the one who identifies the body as Mendel Shpilman, the son of the rebbe.

The three of them set out to meet the Verbover rebbe. When they are finally allowed to see him, they are surprised to see and hear that the rebbe is not in the least surprised about the death of his son. Over twenty years ago, on the day of his wedding to the daughter of the Shtrakenzer rebbe, Mendel disappeared. The Verbover rebbe never saw or heard from his son again: ―[m]y son has been dead to me for many years, Detective. Many years. I tore my clothes and said kaddish4 and lit a candle for his loss long ago‖ (Chabon 2007, 140).

While investigating Mendel‘s case further, Landsman obtains additional information about another open case, whereupon he leaves to investigate the lead. Without back-up, Landsman arrives at the place where the suspect was last seen. Not surprisingly he gets shot, but manages to shoot and kill two suspects of two open cases. Unfortunately, Bina pulls his badge and gun, which makes it even harder for Landsman to continue his investigation about Mendel Shpilman.

Against all odds, he manages to talk to Mendel‘s mother, Batsheva Shpilman. She tells Landsman about the day of Mendel‘s wedding. After Mendel had disappeared, he came back once more, to say goodbye to his mother. Since then she has only heard from him occasionally, when he was in trouble or needed money, ―circumstances that, in Mendel‘s case, may his name be for a blessing, tended to coincide‖ (Chabon 2007, 226). The last time she heard from her son was six months ago. He told her that he was going to disappear and that he would not be able to call her. She heard a loudspeaker on the background which leads Landsman straight to Yakovy airport.

At the airport, he discovers that his sister Naomi, who was a professional pilot, flew Mendel to Peril Strait the night before her plane crashed into Mount Dunkelblum. He also finds out that somebody with a lot of power went into his sister‘s file and removed the

4 A prayer as part of the Jewish mourning ritual.

flight plan from her fatal flight. Another pilot tells Landsman that there is an honor ranch in Peril Strait, called Beth Tikkun, where ―religious Jews that get hooked on drugs and whatnot‖ (Chabon 2007, 243) can retreat. Reasons enough for Landsman to check it out.

When he arrives at the centre, he meets Dr. Roboy and Dr. Fligler and he pretends that he has an addiction and wants to be cured. Unfortunately, they quickly see through his cover. He ends up cuffed to a bed frame in a tiny cell. He manages to escape and flees the scene. The Tlingit Inspector Willie Dick comes to his aid and shows him an even more remarkable find than Beth Tikkun: a green patch of land filled with cows, two things which Sitka Jews have not seen in ages. There is one extraordinary cow among the other Ayrshires cows, a red heifer, which is a pretty scarce traditional sin offering. Since it has become clear to Landsman and Berko that the United States are also involved, they decide to visit Hertz Shemets, Berko‘s father and the first Jew to enter the FBI.

Hertz tells them that the Verbovers are planning to resurrect the Temple of Jerusalem, so the Jewish people can move back to their homeland once Reversion sets in. To resurrect the Temple, they first need to blow up the Dome of the Rock, which is the shrine that was built to cover up the ancient Temple. Once it is out of the way, and the Temple is revealed, the red heifer will be offered. The myth says that the Messiah will then be obliged to come. The plan was to hold Mendel at the ranch, cure him from his drug addiction, and bring him to Jerusalem once the shrine was gone. Instead he escaped with the help of Naomi, who got killed for doing so. Now the Messiah himself is murdered, the Verbovers still want to go on with the plan. Landsman and Berko also find out that Alter Litvak used to work for Hertz Shemets as an expert in demolition. Landsman and Berko connect the dots and start the search for Alter Litvak.

While they are interrogating Alter Litvak, who tells them he got a mission from the president of the United States to resurrect the temple of Jerusalem, they hear that the Dome of the Rock has been attacked. While the Verbovers are partying, Bina tries to arrest them. But when the American secret services show up, it is them who get arrested. In the interrogation room, Landsman cuts a deal with Cashdollar. He will not tell anyone about the involvement of the United States if they give him back his gun, badge, and all the necessary papers to stay in Sitka after the Reversion. In addition, Cashdollar confesses

that his predecessor ordered for Naomi to be killed, but that they had nothing to do with the murder of Mendel.

By the end of the novel, Berko‘s father admits helping Mendel Shpilman commit suicide. He waited until Mendel was down on heroin, and shot him in the head. After this surprising confession, the novel ends on a happier note and reminds us of a true Hollywood story. Bina and Landsman get back together and they decide to tell the press the whole story after all. An open but happy ending.

Hoofdstuk 3. Counterfactual history

To fully understand the meaning of the counterfactual history in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, this chapter will elaborate on counterfactual history as a research field. Theorists and historians like Lubomír Doležel, Niall Ferguson and Hilary Dannenberg, who have published several works on this subject, believe that counterfactual reasoning can be useful in historical research. This chapter will try to point out the main characteristics of counterfactual histories, in fictional and non-fictional settings, with a particular interest in the difference between these fictional and non-fictional settings. In addition, this chapter will also give an overview of the evolution of the use of counterfactual histories in narrative texts.

3.1 Differences between historical and fictional worlds

For me, history is the total of all possible histories. […] The only error, in my view, would be to choose one of these histories to the exclusion of all others. That was, and always will be, the cardinal error of historicizing

(Braudel, cited in Doležel 2010, 33)

Counterfactual history, and history in general, is narrative in nature. Nevertheless, a distinction between fictional and historical worlds should be made. The question Lubomír Doležel asks himself is ―whether the possible worlds of history and fiction are identical in their function and global structure or show some marked differences in these respects‖ (2010, 33). He believes that there are quite a number of differences, but according to him the four most important ones are the functional differences, the basic structural differences, the agential constellations and the treatment of incompleteness.

As for the functional differences between historical and fictional words, Doležel argues that ―fictional worlds are imaginary alternates of the actual world,‖ while ―historical worlds are cognitive models of the actual past‖ (2010, 33). In other words, history uses a narrative framework for constructing an accurate image of the past without being fictional. At the same time, every historical world remains, like its fictional counterpart, a subjective construct. ―Its author is a person with his or her individual persuasions, scope of knowledge and focus, ideological position, theoretical framework,‖ Doležel continues. While this is undoubtedly true, people tend to rely more often on a historian‘s story rather than on a fictional text dealing with the same subject.

One of the causes is the basic structural difference between historical and fictional worlds. The historian can test his hypothesis to real and reliable sources, while a fictional story is mainly based on the inventions of the writer‘s mind. In philosophical terms, this is an epistemological concern: there is no way of knowing or justifying ―beliefs of what might have happened. […] The merely possible is not something we can test, and it is not something we can use the techniques of historians to analyze‖ (Bulhof 1999, 145).

Doležel states that ―the fiction makers are free to call into fictional existence any conceivable world. The borderline between physically possible and physically impossible worlds presents no obstruction to their imagination‖ (2010, 35). Historians on the other hand are forced to use only physically possible worlds, which accounts for the second difference between historical and fictional worlds.

There is also a major difference between the agents of fictional and historical worlds, which bring us to the third difference, agential constellations. A peculiar genre in this respect is historical fiction. One of its features is the interaction between fictional persons and counterparts of historical persons. But precisely this feature makes the world of historical fiction a fictional world and not a historical world. According to Doležel ―fiction makers practice a radically nonessentialist semantics; they can alter all, even the basic, individuating properties of the actual-past persons when transposing them into a fictional world.‖ On the other hand, ―the persons of historical worlds bear documented properties‖ (Doležel 2010, 36-37). Because the traits of these historical characters are based on documents, they can be incomplete and fragmented as opposed to fully developed fictional characters.

The fourth and last major difference between fictional and historical world is their specific treatment of this incompleteness. ―The fiction writer is free to vary the number, extent, and functions of the gaps; his choices are determined by aesthetic (stylistic) and semantic factors‖ (Doležel 2010, 37). The gaps in fictional texts are created by the writer, as a part of the world he is creating. They are therefore ―ontic‖ in nature; they cannot be filled because there is simply nothing to fill them with. In contrast, the lacunae in historical worlds are ―espistemic‖ in nature; the gaps are the result of the limitations of human knowledge. Once historians discover new elements concerning one of their subjects, they can subsequently fill in the gaps. If the gaps cannot be filled, ―the historian is challenged to ‗fill‘ them by plausible conjectures‖ (Doležel 2010, 39). When this happens, they will clearly identify their speculations as mere speculations, and assign them with a degree of probability by means of expressions like ―perhaps, it is possible, it is probable, conceivably, […] ‖ (Trevor-Roper cited in Doležel 2010, 39) and so on.

3.1.1 Discourse level

Next to the four major differences, there is also a difference on the discourse-level between the two types of worlds. Doležel explains that fictional worlds are ―products of poiesis. By writing a text the author creates a fictional world that was not available prior to this act‖ (2010, 41). Furthermore, ―fictional texts lack truth value; they are neither true nor false‖ (Gottlob Frege, cited in Doležel 2010, 41), which will be an important argument in our discussion about counterfactual history. Fictional texts are in a certain sense ―liberated from truth valuation.‖ Historical worlds on the other hand are products of ―noesis, of knowledge acquisition.‖ They serve as models of the actual world and therefore need to be true; they are constative (they describe a world that really existed) while fictional texts are performative (they bring a new world into existence).

3.1.2 Counterfactual history as fiction

One of the most important points Doležel tries to make is that ―all worlds of counterfactual history, whether constructed by historians or by fiction makers, whether their function is cognitive or aesthetic, are semantically fictional‖ (Doležel 2010, 122 - own emphasis). They cannot be seen as a representation of the past, because the counterfactual history never existed. Counterfactual history always starts with a false proposition, such as ―Martin Luther King was not killed,‖ ―The United States of America did not intervene in World War II,‖ or ―Napoleon did not die at Sancta Helena but escaped to America.‖ It can be likely, probable or plausible, but it will always be false. But, ―the falseness of counterfactual statements about the past presupposes the existence of factual, that is, true, statements about the past,‖ such as ―Martin Luther King was killed.‖ There wouldn‘t be historical counterfacts without real historical facts.

However, if the counterfactual premise is situated within the construction of a fictional world, it cannot be considered true or false any more. No truth conditions can be imposed on fiction. The definition of fiction allows the fiction writer to freely create a world in his imagination, without any constraints. It is up to him or her to make the world as fictional or as reality-based as he or she wants to. It should however be noted that for the fictional world to be convincing, the author should try to be consistent in his construction of that

fictional universe, even when he or she is free to start from any premise he or she wants. This can be seen as the only constraint posed on a fiction writer while constructing his fictional world.

As all of the differences between historical and fictional worlds show us, it all comes down to ―the freedom of the fiction maker and the constraints imposed on the historian‖ (Doležel 2010, 39). But, according to Doležel it is important to understand that ―historical reconstruction does not re-create the past in actuality but in represented possibility."

3.2 Historical fiction

As it was mentioned before, history in itself tends to be narrative in nature. It has always been said that ―the historian‘s primary role is to impose a narrative order on the confusion of past events‖ (Ferguson 1999, 64). In fact, one of the primary reasons why we think in a counterfactual way is because we have a certain ―urge for narrative liberation from the real world‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 110). In reality, this means imposing a new kind of determinism on the past: ―the teleology of the traditional narrative form.‖ According to Aldes Wurgaft, history could benefit from counterfactual history because of its ―ability to show us possibilities beyond the horizon of teleology‖ (2010, 368).

The telos of history has always been the present; it is the ending-point in historical discourse. In this respect, the historical story could also be written or narrated from the end to the beginning, like in a traditional fictional narrative. But, as Ferguson states, ―the past – like real-life chess, or indeed any other game – is different; it does not have a predetermined end. There is no author, divine or otherwise; only characters. […] There is no plot, only endings, since multiple events unfold simultaneously, some lasting only moments, some extending far beyond and individual‘s life‖ (1999, 68). Musil also believes in the non-teleological course of history: ―the end is unknown at the beginning of the journey: there are no rails leading predictably into the future, no timetables with destinations set out in black and white‖ (Ferguson 1999, 70).

3.2.1 Fictional and fictionalized entities

Historical fiction is composed of two domains: ―[t]he first domain is made of fictional entities that do not have counterparts in the actual past. The second domain, which is, in fact, the defining feature of the genre, is constituted by fictional entities that have counterparts in actual historical agents, historical events, past economic, political, and cultural conditions, physical settings, and so on‖ (Doležel 2010, 84). Although both domains are fictional, Doležel uses the terms ―fictional entities‖ and ―fictionalized entities‖ for respectively the first and second domain. The fictional agents can be divided into two other groups: a group of agents who bear the name of a historical person who really existed, and a group that does not have that privilege. The proper names have obtained a peculiar status in this respect: they do not simply refer to the historical person and they are not just a name, but they assign all the connotations of this historical person to the fictional character, even when this character has almost nothing to do with the real historical figure.

3.2.2 Degrees of historical-knowledge recovery

According to Doležel there are ―three degrees of historical-knowledge recovery in the reception of historical fiction.‖ The first degree of historical-knowledge recovery occurs when the author of the historical fiction only invokes known knowledge of the past. This way the reader can distinguish real from fictional entities and fictional from fictionalized entities. Therefore the reader can evaluate the history as ―accurate, mythologizing, legendary or counterfactual.‖ The second degree takes place when the reader wants to know more about the fictional world described in the text. Inspired by the work of historical fiction the reader will conduct further research and expand his knowledge of the subject. The third and last degree occurs when ―the fictional world is confronted with contemporary historical worlds that reconstruct the same period, events, and so on‖ (2010, 86). This last method treats fictional works as historical documents and it constrains the specific freedom of fiction. Historical fiction is in no way useful to give an adequate historical (and therefore true) view of the actual past.

3.2.3 Crossing borders

In postmodern fiction, authors do not aspire to give an accurate account of the past. Their actual aim is to transgress the borders of history and deliver alternative histories. Doležel states the following:

In this respect, and in this respect only, postmodern historical fiction is like falsified history, the major distinction between them being that falsified history serves perverse political purposes, while postmodern historical fiction is an aesthetic game of unleashed imagination. The ultimate result is the creation of a richer, more varied, often more exciting past (2010, 88).

Chabon crosses the borders between genres with great ease, but with The Yiddish Policemen’s Union he proves he an also transgress the borders of history. His counterfactual history undoubtedly creates a ―richer, more varied, often more exciting past,‖ as Doležel notes.

3.3 Counterfactual thinking

Counterfactual thinking has gained recognition in the past decades. It is now seen as a fundamental characteristic of the human mind, for example by Fauconnier and Turner who state that ―our species has an extraordinary ability to operate mentally on the unreal‖ (cited in Dannenberg 2008, 110). Counterfactual thinking enables us to construct alternative scenarios for what really happened and by doing so to discover the importance of a particular event in our lives or in world history. The phenomenon appears in most instances in the form of counterfactual conditionals, e.g. ‗If he had told me what he knew, I wouldn‘t have made the wrong decision‘ or ‗If she had studied more, she wouldn‘t have failed the test.‘ They express a certain need of humans to ―ponder possible actions that might have prevented an actual event from happening or brought about a different actual event‖ (Doležel 2010, 102). We can think counterfactually before acting, considering the possible outcomes of our actions before they have happened, or after, evaluating what has happened.

In the most basic definition, a counterfactual is generated by ―creating a nonfactual or false antecedent. This is done by mentally mutating or ‗undoing‘ a real-world event in the past to produce an outcome or consequent contrary to reality‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 111). The term ‗outcome‘ or ‗consequent‘ indicates the result of the change after a period of time. In addition, people tend to mentally change an extraordinary experience more spontaneously than an everyday event. Therefore, Dannenberg states, ―counterfactuals are often generated in dramatic or exceptional situations, and traumatic or negative outcomes in particular tend to trigger counterfactuals‖ (2008, 111). In this respect, it is a small step from changing the outcome of a personal experience to altering a historical event. Furthermore, ―negative events are also more likely to capture the attention […] than positive ones‖ (Olson, Roese and Deibert, cited in Dannenberg 2008, 125). This is what is called ‗negative coincidence.‘ In this way counterfactuals can ―intensify the reader‘s emotional response to tragic plots.‖ But it can also be the other way around: tragic plots are also more likely to generate counterfactual ―replotting‖ by the reader, ―even if no counterfactual is articulated in the fictional discourse‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 126).

3.3.1 Types of counterfactuals

There are of course different types of counterfactuals. One of the main distinctions that can be made is the difference between downward and upward counterfactuals. Downward counterfactuals are those which imagine a worse outcome than in reality, and upward counterfactuals invent a better outcome, an improvement of reality. Next to this first difference, a distinction can also be made between ―self-focus‖ and ―external focus.‖ They both refer to a counterfactual ―in which the self is the central focus but either as a perpetrator (self-focus) or as a victim (external) of circumstances‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 112). A third distinction, between ―behavioral‖ and ―characterological counterfactuals,‖ indicates whether ―a person‘s behavior or character is the focus of the counterfactual mutation.‖ Characterological counterfactuals ―merely condemn the self rather than provide insight into specific actions by which the outcome might be changed‖ (Mc Mullen, Markman, and Gavanski, cited in Dannenberg 2008, 112). However, in counterfactual fiction this distinction will be one between ―story and character-based counterfactuals.‖

It is not difficult to imagine that certain emotions accompany counterfactual premises. Emotions like satisfaction and regret are the most frequent ones. According to Dannenberg, ―upward counterfactuals constructing a better possible world stimulate regret, whereas downward counterfactuals of a world that could have been much worse create satisfaction‖ (2008, 112). Still, regret remains prevalent because people tend to ponder more on something they did not do, than on something they actually did do. Because this feeling is so frequent, there are different types of regret. Two of them are ―hot regret‖ and ―wistful regret.‖ This distinction depends on whether ―regret is experienced intensely but briefly in response to a transiently important event that is then quickly forgotten or whether a deeper emotion is harbored as a result of a long-term preoccupation with ‗roads not taken‘ in life‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 113).

3.3.2 Causality

In addition to the emotions, causality is also a very important factor in counterfactual thinking. Because counterfactual statements cannot be empirically tested, the discovery of causal relationships is of utmost importance. According to Bulhof, ―cause and counterfactuals are in fact a two-way street:‖ we use a counterfactual to prove that something was in fact the cause of something else, and we use the fact that something was a cause of something else to prove the truth of the counterfactual (1999, 150). Furthermore, Aldes Wurgaft notes that Walter Benjamin was one of the first to understand that a historian should not ―tell the sequences like counting the beads of a rosary‖ but should understand the present in relationship to the past. ―It is precisely such a relationship between past and present that counterfactual history can help us to cultivate,‖ states Aldes Wurgaft (2010, 378).

Paradoxically enough, Benjamin also believed that historical materialism - which he understood as a critical engagement with the past - should ―break those causal connections that historicism establishes between different historical moments.‖ However, Benjamin seems to mean that historians should try to appreciate the ―present-ness‖ of a historical moment, disconnected from the previous knowledge they have about the outcome. According to Benjamin, a specific moment in history bears its own meaning within itself, it is a ―monad.‖ It should only be interpreted with reference to the moment itself and the

interpreting historian. According to Aldes Wurgaft, Benjamin therefore proposes a ―total suspension of causal considerations.‖ This is in stark contrast with counterfactual history, which ultimate aim is to learn more about causal relations (Aldes Wurgaft 2010, 380).

As Bulhof states, ―the study of history is not merely a study of what happened. It is a study of why something happened‖ (Bulhof 1999, 147). If we would only focus on what happened, we would miss the causes and therefore the importance of key events. We would only have a juxtaposition of different events in history. Counterfactuals are therefore used to reveal certain causal relationships within history. Dannenberg states that

[t]he use of causally based arguments within counterfactuals is a key strategy in the creation of immersive narrative, which simulates real-world cognitive explanatory patterns in the presentation of fictional events. Many counterfactuals thus satisfy the basic human cognitive desire for systems of causal connection, and this can be seen as a contributory factor to the significance of their pervasive presence in people‘s mental lives. Counterfactuals are thus deeply meaningful mental operations precisely because they enable the human mind to construct cogent causal connections within narrative sequences that make sense of life (Dannenberg 2008, 114).

Some historians might be more careful about causality because they want to believe that their subjects were motivated by inscrutable, personal decisions rather than them being another element in an endless causal chain. According to Aldes Wurgaft, ―we want to emphasize the agentive sides of our protagonists, never reducing their ideas to mere reflexes of social and cultural conditions‖ (2010, 365).

Worlds which are constructed in a logical and causal way will make the reader believe that the fictional world is actually the real world, because the discovery of causal links is fundamental in the human process of making sense of things. In addition to this, imagining that things could have gone differently only adds to the ―apparent reality of actual events in the fictional world, making it seem to be an autonomous system as opposed to fictional construct‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 122). This results in an important difference between discursive and narrative forms of counterfactual fiction. The discursive forms, ―manifest in the counterfactual essay, seek historically logical and closed causal chains‖ while the narrative forms ―deal with more entertaining aspects of counterfactual speculation‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 117).

Counterfactual historical worlds in narrative fiction are completely autonomous worlds. The narrator believes that the fictional world he describes is real, because for him it is the actual world. In most fictional narrative discourse the counterfactual world is therefore not a hypothesis but a fact. Because of this, the narrator does not elaborate on any details about the fictional past. For him history is history, and he does not need the history of his fictional universe to tell the story he wants to tell; especially when the story is set in the present, the past does not really matter. So in many cases the details about the historical counterfactual are only implied by the narrator, because the main focus is on the narrative plot. In other words, the narrators tend to withhold the causal links that lead to the fictional present. This is a powerful narrative creation because it plays with the reader‘s desire for causal explanation. The reader enters the story in medias res and has to try to figure out the counterfactual past that leads to the fictional present. It is therefore the reader who ―brings the historical frames to the text and undertakes the cognitive operations of differentiation and identification of transworld relations between the explicit counterfactual world of the text and the implicit real-world one from which it deviates‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 127-128).

3.3.3 Plausibility

According to some logicians counterfactuals should be evaluated on the basis of their plausibility and not their truth value. Tim De Mey and Erik Weber for example state that most professional historians try to follow a certain set of rules which enhances the plausibility of their reasoning. One of the most established rules is the ―minimal-rewrite- of-history rule‖ which makes the historians ―specify antecedents that require altering as few well-established historical facts as possible‖ (De Mey and Weber 2003, 28).

Rescher and Adams therefore suggest ―arranging counterfactuals on a scale defined by the degree of their probability in the actual world‖ (cited in Doležel 2010, 103). David Lewis on the other hand believes that counterfactual conditionals can be considered true ―at some possible world different from the actual world‖ (Doležel 2010, 103). But since this line of thought is not generally accepted and there would be no way of verifying the

plausibility of such a conditional, we will restrict ourselves to the typology proposed by Doležel, based on the premise of Rescher and Adams.

The continuum ranges from values one to zero. Value one stands for fully plausible counterfactual conditionals and value zero for implausible counterfactuals. The four most important points on the scale are

(1) ―Fully plausible counterfactuals are confirmed by hard evidence from the actual world: ‗If Oswald did not kill Kennedy, then someone else did.‘ It is a historical fact that President Kennedy was killed. If the main suspect, Oswald, did not commit the crime, then somebody else did.‖ (2) ―Plausible counterfactuals are confirmed by some evidence from the actual world: ‗If Hitler had won the war, the Germans would have settled the Slavic East.‘ Historical evidence of existing plans and experimental resettlements makes it highly probable that the Nazis would have pursued this course of action had they achieved victory in World War II.‖ (3) ―Implausible counterfactuals have a consequent that is highly improbable in the actual world: ‗If Oswald did not kill Kennedy, somebody else would have‘ The idea that Kennedy‘s life had to end by his being killed is quite far-fetched. […]‖ (4) ―Totally implausible counterfactuals gave a consequent of zero probability. […] The most typical case of this kind is anachronisms that violate the chronology of events: ‗If Napoleon had had a couple of tanks he would have won the battle of Waterloo‘‖ (Doležel 2010, 103- 104).

Another distinction which can influence the plausibility of the counterfactual history is the distinction between ―short-term‖ counterfactuals and ―long-term‖ counterfactuals. Short-term counterfactuals stand for alterations of one particular event and the immediate possible consequences. Long-term counterfactuals on the other hand consider the consequences of the alteration after a certain period of time. However, the more time passes after the adjustment, the more we start speculating and the less we are sure of our speculations. Nevertheless, especially the long-term counterfactuals will be of great importance to our research question since Michael Chabon constructs a possible world decades after the counterfactual decision to transfer the European Jews to Alaska.

3.4 Counterfactual fiction

Counterfactual thinking and counterfactual fiction are most frequently mentioned while discussing science fiction. Science fiction and counterfactual historical narratives are seen as alternate, or alternative history. Alternate history ―is sometimes used in contradiction to ‗parallel history‘ or ‗parallel worlds‘ to refer to a frame in which many alternate worlds can be simultaneously held, sometimes interacting with each other‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 117). The big difference however between science fiction and counterfactual historical fiction is that ―science fiction projects a future that differs substantially from the actuality of the author‘s present; counterfactual historical fiction modifies the past to project a present that differs substantially from the actual state of affairs‖ (Doležel 2010, 107).

A special relationship between science fiction, which invents a future world, and counterfactual history, which invents a past world, is created when the reader reads a science fiction book at a moment in time after the fictional future time of the text. Then the fictional future world becomes a counterfactual world of the past. An example of this is Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Since 1985 this text cannot longer be seen as a possible future world but has to be understood as a counterfactual historical narrative.

Counterfactuals are especially popular in the form of stories about time travelers. Time travelers often create the causal links between the multiple worlds of the text. In most science fiction stories their actions change an element of the past which generates a different outcome in the course of history. One of the most remarkable examples in this respect is Ray Bradbury‘s A Sound of Thunder, which tells the story of a time traveler who accidentally steps on a prehistoric butterfly and thus changes the entire course of history. Apparently butterflies are a popular motif in this specific field of research, because in chaos theory it is assumed that one beat of a butterfly wing can, under the right conditions, cause a storm after a certain period of time. In other words, small causes can have big consequences. This phenomenon is called ‗the butterfly effect‘.

‗Chaos‘ in chaos theory does not stand for anarchy; as Ferguson notes, ―it does not mean that there are no laws in the natural world‖ (1999, 77). Everything that happens in

the world only seems chaotic because the laws are so complex; it is impossible for anyone to correctly predict what will happen in the future. Small events can have huge consequences, which are in most cases unpredictable. Although it is impossible to predict the future and everything seems chaotic, there is still a certain structure which governs this world. Events are always triggered by ―initial conditions.‖ Precisely these conditions are the subject matter of counterfactual history. ―There are countless possible conditions; and in order to be able to examine the possibilities in our search for the true conditions of a trend, we have all the time to try to imagine conditions under which the trend in question would disappear‖ (Popper, cited in Ferguson 1999, 80).

When we discuss science fiction and counterfactual history, the possibility of multiple worlds comes to mind. According to Dannenberg, ―there are single and multiple-world forms of ontological hierarchy, depending on whether the ontological system of the fictional world admits the possibility that more than one world can be actual‖ (2008, 120). She distinguishes three main tendencies:

(5) ―The realist ontological hierarchy.‖ In reality there is only one world, so in the realist ontological hierarchy there can also be only one world. The counterfactual world is therefore the only real world of the text. (6) ―The semirealist ontological hierarchy.‖ A very good example of this is science fiction. There can be several real worlds within the text, but they are connected in a plausible and causal way. (7) ―The antirealist ontological hierarchy.‖ Again, there are several actual worlds, but this time they are not interconnected in a logical way. Analogical relationships instead of causal relationships determine the different worlds.

Next to the difference between science fiction and counterfactual fiction, Doležel also directs our attention to the differences between the historical aspect and the fictional aspect of counterfactual fiction. I will use examples from The Yiddish Policemen’s Union to clarify Doležel‘s prototypical differences. The first difference Doležel proposes can also be read as a short definition of the genre of counterfactual historical fiction: ―[t]he fictional world deviates from the historical world because at some point in the near or distant past an event contrary to well-attested historical facts occurred.‖ For example, in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, the proposal by Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior under Roosevelt, to help the refugees from Hitler‘s Europe and bring them to Alaska was passed instead of turned down. Secondly, ―the fictional world is characterized

by a social and political order that is substantially different from the order of the corresponding historical world.‖ For example, in 1948 the three-month-old republic of Israel was destroyed. And thirdly, ―the fictional world is furnished by objects that are not found in the actual historical world.‖ In the case of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, we can think of the supposedly inhuman prison in Ellensburg, Washington, and the Jewish settlement in Sitka.

3.4.1 Transworld identity

When characters have counterparts in another world, the term ‗transworld identity‘ is used. Here we can observe another difference between science fiction and counterfactual history. Dannenberg states that ―in realist fiction counterparts are hypothetical versions of characters constructed by counterfactual speculations,‖ while ―in science fiction counterparts can be alternate versions of a fictional character in a transworld journey narrative,‖ and ―in historical counterfactuals a counterfactual historical figure‘s counterpart is located in real-world history.‖ Characterological counterfactuals, which have been discussed before, ―automatically generate different character versions, since the antecedent itself concerns a hypothetical alteration in character.‖ Therefore, characterological counterfactuals do not produce ―full transworld identicality between a character and his or her counterfactual counterpart‖ (2008, 121-122).

3.4.2 Similarities traditional fiction

Another characteristic aspect of counterfactual historical fiction is that the fictional characters - not the fictionalized characters - act within a detective story, adventure story or science-fiction story, strikingly similar to their counterparts in traditional fiction. Aspects like ―personal relationships, struggles and quests‖ are treated with equal importance. But these narrative patterns tend to diminish the probability of the historical setting. ―The most prominent of these narrative stories,‖ according to Doležel, ―is the story of the rebel and his failure.‖ This will become even more clear when we will discuss The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and in particular the adventures and life of the main character, detective Meyer Landsman.

3.4.3 Popular literature

All the previous characteristics ―link counterfactual historical fiction closely to popular literature‖ (Doležel 2010, 110). This is in all probability one of the reasons why counterfactual history as a research subject within the human sciences is not regarded highly. As E.H. Carr famously but dismissively put it in the most widely read modern plea against the use of counterfactuals What is History?, historians frequently regard counterfactual history as ―a mere parlour-game with the might-have-beens of history, a red herring.‖ E.P.Thompson has even gone so far as to compare counterfactual fictions as ―mere ‗Geschichtswissenschlopff’, unhistorical shit‖ (Ferguson 1999, 4-5).

3.5 Counterfactual history

It may be a bad habit to rewrite history as it never was, to alter the course of major events so as to imagine what might have happened. But although a sleight-of-hand like this may be an illusion, it is not pointless. In its own way, it measures the weight of events, episodes and actors who were believed, or believed themselves, to be responsible for the entire course of history.

(Fernand Braudel, cited in Doležel 2010, 116-7)

Doležel observes that ―actual human history drags counterfactual history along as its shadow.‖ Notwithstanding, the use of counterfactual and alternative conditionals have proven their usefulness if we want to understand the course of history completely. According to Johannes Bulhof, ―they help identify causes and hence help explain events in history. They are used to defend judgments about people, and to highlight the importance of particular events‖ (1999, 145 – own emphasis). It is only when we assess what historical characters could or could not have done differently that we can describe them as for example a good or bad leader.

If we use modal arguments to support our assessments about important causes, it is easy to see that we would use them to make judgments in history. We judge the actions of people, as well as the people themselves, not merely by what they did, but by what they could have done (Bulhof 1999, 157).

In a way counterfactuals provide the past with all its possibilities and monitor how history would have proceeded in case of any one of these possibilities. However, historians can never gather all the possible alternatives and therefore understand the complete human history. Nevertheless, as it was discussed earlier, it remains crucial to understand the importance of the plausibility of these possibilities. History simply cannot work with, for example, anachronisms, as in the example of Napoleon‘s tanks.

Another kind of counterfactual history which has ―hardly or any cognitive significance‖ is purely imaginary counterfactual history. These histories appeared very frequently in the postmodern era. The traditional historical novel

fills in the ‗dark areas‘ of history, that is, those aspects about which the ‗official‘ record has nothing to report without contravening actual written history. By contrast, the postmodernist use of history and of real-world historical figures involves stark contradiction of the historical record, illicit merging of history and the fantastic, and the use of blatant anachronisms. […] Either it supplements the historical record, claiming to restore what has been lost or suppressed; or it displaces official history altogether (Dannenberg 2008, 118).

According to Collins, ―the counterfactual imagination is in fact rather limited‖ (2007, 248). Apparently counterfactuals can be categorized in only a few types. Collins refers to the work of Brian Lowe, who studied five hundred books within the counterfactual history genre. His findings are as following:

32% of the books are of military origin: ―if a war of battle had gone differently;‖ 25% political: ―if a close election or legislative decision had gone differently;‖ 15% individual leadership: ―if a famous individual had died sooner, or lived longer;‖ 11% religious: ―if a religious leader like Luther had died at a different time;‖ 7% technological: ―if a particular technology had or had not been invented;‖ 6% migration: ―if a particular migration had not happened;‖ 4% miscellaneous

(Collins 2007, 248)

It is striking that economic changes are not a subject of counterfactuals. This can be explained by the fact that economic processes cannot be pinpointed to one specific historical event, but rather as the outcome of a concurrence of different conditions.

The method used for constructing a counterfactual world of the past is quite simple: ―take counterparts of historical persons and get them involved in nonfactual, undocumented, imaginary political and/or military actions.‖ (Doležel 2010, 114) However, the individual is only interesting if he or she is or was a ―leader of social, historically relevant acting or as an occasional agent of historically significant events.‖ But even then it is unlikely that one single person is the single cause of a great event.

A famous example in this respect is the theory of Cleopatra‘s nose. It is a reductive theory that emphasizes a trivial change with enormous consequences. Blaise Pascal believed that if Cleopatra had had an uglier nose and therefore a less seductive appearance and personality, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony would not have been romantically interested in her. Marc Antony would not have lost the Battle of Actium; he would not have killed himself in despair; Cleopatra would not have killed herself and Egypt would have remained most powerful, instead of being assimilated in the Roman Empire. Another example could be the statement of Peter Gray, who believed that psychoanalysis ―would have been taken more seriously if it‘s founder had not been a Jew‖ (Ferguson 1999, 15). These examples are very frequently used to demonstrate the uselessness of counterfactual reasoning by emphasizing its humorous connotation.

Randall Collins seems to be quite cagey towards counterfactual historians. He believes that they base their arguments on only two assumptions. The first one is that there are two kinds of ―arenas‖ in society: one which has rapid turning points, like the military, political and religious field, and one which has not, like the economic, cultural and organizational field. Furthermore, the first ―arena‖ tends to dominate the second one. The second assumption historians make according to Collins is that they believe that ―political patterns are determined by single, dramatic events (a military victory, an election, the presence of a particular leader), and that these political patterns, once set, determine economic patterns and, presumably, cultural ones‖ (2007, 250). Collins for his own part believes that ―the notion that history comes to a stop, that everything can be frozen at a

particular moment makes for dramatic storytelling, but it is a rhetorical device, not a serious sociological analysis.‖ He notes that historians make two mistakes in this respect: they assume that ―casual conditions are pinpointed, rather than spread out across a wide range of situations that make up a structural pattern, and they assume that causality is rigidly linear rather than stochastic‖ (Collins 2007, 252).

3.5.1 Individuality

Another trope which historians frequently use is the historical individual who (by being killed or not being killed) makes all the difference. Collins notes that by using this trope they assume that ―we already know what that individual will do, the individual is a fixed essence.‖ Because we know the qualities which these historical persons had before they died or were killed, we assume that these qualities would have dominated the rest of their lives too. We assign the counterfactual Hitler, Churchill and Luther with so-called ―Hitleresque, Churchillian or Lutheran‖ qualities. Collins presents three arguments against this method:

(1) ―Individuals play roles in large-scales public processes that are not very unique.‖ (2) ―Charisma arises in troubled times, in conditions of social crisis, in disruption of the old social order.‖ In fact, charisma is a means of social movement mobilization. There is no charisma without a crowd. The speaker receives his energy from the crowd and then channels it back into the crowd. Therefore, ―charismatic leaders are replaceable.‖ (3) ―All individuals, not just charismatic leaders, are socially formed. The individual decision has consequences only because it takes place in the midst of social structures.‖ (Collins 2007, 256-259)

The Russian formalist theorist Osip Brik even believed that ―if Cervantes had not lived, nevertheless Don Quixote would still have been written.‖ According to the formalist theory, literary works are a result of a concurrence of plots and rhetorical tropes, and these devices travel from text to text. Authors use these devices because they have come to them through history and tradition. They change and adapt them to their will but in the end they remain the same (Collins 2007, 259).

This is not only the case with literary works but also with mental thoughts. Politicians‘ thoughts are ―part of a longer chain of symbolic utterances.‖ The thoughts consist of parts of conversations which the particular politician had with other persons, with himself, and conversations he or she will have in the future. According to Collins, ―a politician considers a decision by using concepts circulating in a social network; he or she formulates ideas by a personal style of thinking that has been shaped by the emotional energies of his or her special trajectory through a series of interaction ritual chains‖ (Collins 2007, 261-262).

3.5.2 Subjectivity

Not only the imagination has its influence on the counterfacts, as ―the author‘s contemporary political and religious preoccupations‖ (Ferguson 1999, 11) play an important part as well. Some instances tell us more about the modern views on history than about the actual history as it was. Ferguson calls this ―retrospective wishful thinking‖ (1999, 11). According to Aldes Wurgaft, historians who dedicate their work to the life of Walter Benjamin tend ―to save him from his misfortune and mistakes for their own, essentially ahistorical reasons, and their use of counterfactuals usually says more about their own personal motivations than about Benjamin himself‖ (2010, 368).

According to Collingwood, ―historians could write only from the vantage point, and with the prejudices of their own present‖ (Ferguson 1999, 49-50). This can be seen as a mild form of determinism - which counterfactual history tries to escape - but it definitely ―excluded any discussion of counterfactual alternatives.‖ In the 1950s and 1960s there was even a close relationship between anti-determinism in historical research and political conservatism. E.H. Carr for example was known to be a socialist historian, which would explain his aversion of counterfactual history and defense of determinism. He believed that ―everything that happened has a cause or causes, and could not have happened differently unless something in the cause or causes had also been different‖ (Ferguson 1999, 53). But this statement paradoxically shows his acceptance of counterfactual history. As if he suddenly discovered this ambiguity in his course of thought, he continues by stating that ―the historian‘s task is simply to explain why one course was eventually

chosen rather than another and to explain what did happen and why‖ (Ferguson 1999, 54). Nevertheless, even Carr could not help using a counterfactual conditional when he thought of whether ―Lenin, if he had lived through the twenties and thirties in the full possession of his faculties, would have acted less tyrannically‖ (Ferguson 1999, 55).

It has however been proven that counterfactual history can help us to avoid the ―pitfall of historical analysis‖ which Michael André Bernstein and Gary Saul Morson call ―backshadowing.‖ It is ―the tendency to see the historical events only in light of their eventual denouement carried to the degree that a moment‘s primary significance is simply its contributions to a later, more ‗critical‘ moment: every story is dominated by one such telos.‖ It is again very clear that certain historians which are in favor of the use of counterfactuals are so because of their aversion of the teleology imposed on history. It might be true that, because we already know the consequences of a certain historical event, it is almost impossible to see that historical event disconnected from the outcome. But Bernstein and Morson propose ―sideshadowing‖ as a countermeasure to backshadowing. Historians can ―sideshadow‖ by ―foregrounding a specific event by emphasizing the possible trajectories that extend from it. Sideshadowing restores a sense of possibility even to a story whose outcome we already know‖ (Aldes Wurgaft 2010, 370).

3.5.3 Constraints

One possible problem which we have already briefly mentioned, arises when fictional propositions about the past are considered as real historical evidence. The questions which surfaces in Doležel‘s exposition is whether ―fictions provide knowledge, and if so, under what conditions?‖ Some believe that fiction is a true representation of the world and therefore communicates ―knowledge about human affairs, the human psyche and human history‖ (Doležel 2010, 124). But the contrary has been argued. Niall Ferguson‘s collection (1999), according to Doležel ―the foundational work of the new conception of counterfactual history‖, has formulated a list of constraints for counterfactual propositions to be submitted to. They strive to ―tame fictionality‖ and aim for a high cognitive value of the counterfactuals.

The constraints are formulated on the basis of three criteria. First of all, ―the counterfactual has to be ‗plausible,‘ ‗probable,‘ or ‗credible.‘‖ Anachronisms should be avoided. Secondly, ―the plausibility or probability of a counterfactual has to be determined in its appropriate context, that is, the context preceding the actual historical event. The historian must place him- or herself in the position of the contemporaries to whom the various possible alternatives were still available, for whom the selection was not closed by the actualization of one of them.‖ And thirdly, ―the possible alternatives have to be preserved in some sort of record‖ (Doležel 2010, 125). Only those alternatives that were probable in the past are worth considering.

Therefore, Ferguson is not in favor of long-term counterfactuals, for they are a clear example of ―unconstrained imagination.‖ The best type of counterfact, according to Ferguson, is one which refers to an action that was actually considered - and recorded - but not performed, by prevention or failure. For example, the counterfactual ―What if Nazi Germany had defeated the Soviet Union?‖ can be supported by ―German plans for the Germanization of Central and Eastern Europe and from experimental ‗ethnic cleansing‘ that was actually carried out in Poland‖ (Doležel 2010, 125). When the right counterfactual conditions are found, Ferguson believes they need to be used in order to say anything about the past ―without invoking covering laws, if only to test our causal hypothesis‖ (Ferguson 1999, 81). They are not mere fantasy, ―they are simulations based on calculations about the relative probability of plausible outcomes in a chaotic world (hence ‗virtual history‘)‖ (Ferguson 1999, 85).

The past was once the future, and people from the past must have thought about what the future would bring, just like we do. They must have considered multiple possibilities, just like we do. And some of them must have written some of these possibilities down. Of course we know that only one of their possibilities has come true, but for contemporaries all the possibilities were equally possible. Exactly those alternatives are useful in understanding the past and offer an additional cognitive value, according to Ferguson. Furthermore, we should ―attach equal significance to all the outcomes thought about,‖ just as they did. We should even assign more importance to outcomes which they did anticipate than those which they did not anticipate. But, we should always keep in mind

that ―what actually happened was often not the outcome which the majority of informed contemporaries saw as the most likely‖ (Ferguson 1999, 88).

Putting all of the points previously discussed together, the main question is which counterfactual questions should be asked. We can argue that counterfactual assertions can only be used in historiography when they are constructed with the help of a ―controlled imagination.‖ Only then can they acquire a sufficient cognitive value. Alternative worlds formulated with uncontrolled and free imagination should therefore not be used as historical evidence, but can nevertheless work within a fictional framework, as, for example, in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. But as we will see further on, the background story of this book can be considered as much more than just fiction, for the intention of Harold Ickes was real - and recorded. There are nevertheless a large number of possible counterfactual questions that can be asked. However, as we have seen, in practice there is only a small amount of questions that would be useful when asked.

3.6 Evolution of counterfactuals in narrative discourse

In contrast to the other two authors whose works were used as the basis for this chapter on counterfactual history, Hillary Dannenberg (2008) provides us with an overview of the evolution and history of counterfactuals in narrative texts. Her aim is to show her readers that counterfactuals can have various functions within a text and that those functions evolved together with the evolution of narrative texts themselves. Counterfactuals only started to appear when the novel had established itself as the dominant literary genre. In Renaissance fiction counterfactuals were merely used as a rhetorical device in speeches. From the eighteenth century onwards however, they were increasingly used as ―a key realist strategy both in the representation of characters‘ consciousness and in heterodiegetic narration‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 137). However, after a while - especially in the twentieth century - counterfactuals were used autonomously in the context of alternate history, to contradict a historical fact. When science fiction then became a full genre, counterfactuals abandoned their use as ―a prop of realism‖ once and for all.

In Renaissance texts counterfactuals mostly appeared in speeches of the characters. They were only used to prove the impressive power of the gods and the pointlessness of counterfactuals. The Renaissance authors and readers still believed in the teleological nature of history; history could not have enfolded itself in any other way. You simply had to accept the authority of the gods. However, the counterfactuals were also very frequently used to ―highlight the intellectual and rhetorical sophistication of key characters and to focus the attention on the role of individual characters‘ actions within the overall development of the plot‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 183). Although the plot remained highly deterministic, the ability to think in a counterfactual way was proof of an intellectual and enlightened mind.

One of the forms in which counterfactuals were used by the characters in the eighteenth century was the fictional autobiographic narrative. Self-focused counterfactuals are used to make the cognitive processes of the autobiographical character more visible. They formulate both ―short-term responses to exceptional circumstances and long-term evaluations of ‗roads not taken.‘‖ Dannenberg observes that the example of Richardson‘s Pamela is very remarkable in this respect. The work in itself is very class-conscious, and as a result of this Richardson only gives Mr. B. ―the rhetorical sophistication of extensive counterfactualizing‖ (2008, 187). This seems to agree with what we discussed earlier, the fact that the ability to think in a counterfactual way was proof of an intellectual and educated mind. In Clarissa, which was published about eight years later, Richardson gives both the heroine Clarissa and Anna Howe, both educated and articulate young women, the ability to counterfactualize.

After a while the narrators started to articulate the counterfactual thoughts instead of the characters. Henry Fielding was one of the first to experiment with this. A large part of his ―overt heterodiegetic narratorial style‖ consisted of externally focused counterfactuals. Most of the counterfactuals, in for example Tom Jones, appear in the form of asides, commenting on possible alternative branches in the action. These subsidiary counterfactuals have a ―cumulative effect:‖ ―they subtly reinforce the comparative actuality (reality) of the narrative world in contradistinction to less actual possibilities; by sketching unactualized possibilities, they assert that events ‗really did happen‘ like this

and not in any other way‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 190). Next to this Fielding also cleverly uses counterfactuals to ―foreground his role as world-creating author.‖

Counterfactuals become more and more functional in the nineteenth century. Thomas Hardy, for example, uses upward counterfactuals to ―intensify the sense of tragedy‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 199). This is especially striking in his novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Tess already imagines a different outcome for the tragic love story between her and Angel Clare at the very beginning of the novel. It is only a very brief counterfactual thought, which will be elaborated once they finally do meet each other, but it already offers the reader the possibility to create an alternative course of events. Like in most of Thomas Hardy‘s works, the novel is full of missed opportunities which invite the reader to construct a happier outcome, but especially the one at the beginning leaves its impression on the rest of the tragic plot.

In the nineteenth and twentieth century the belief in the ―divinely preordained course‖ of history is abandoned, and as a result the use of counterfactuals drastically increases. The thought that history could have been ―radically different‖ prevails. The first novels in the nineteenth century who employ alternate histories are of course still cautious. They still find themselves within the realm of realism and ―do not attempt to construct fully autonomous alternate worlds‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 200). As a result there is always a link to actual history present. Dannenberg states that counterfactual history was then considered as a sort of ―secret history‖ within the lager official history. In due time the counterfactuals were being narrated as actual events and their alternative nature was no longer emphasized, for example in Edmund Lawrence‘s It May Happen Yet: A Tale of Bonaparte’s Invasion of England.

The more radical experiments with alternate historical worlds are reserved for the genre of science fiction in the beginning of the twentieth century. One of its main characteristics is the construction of multiple possible worlds in one text, as we have seen before. Dannenberg states that ―real-world history is therefore represented as just one of many equally actual alternative‖ (2008, 205).

Another area of research which evolved out of the growing interest in counterfactuals was historiographic metafiction. Especially Linda Hutcheon wrote renowned works about the subject. Historiographic metafiction concerns itself with historiographic referentiality and with the fact that we cannot access what has happened in the past any more. As Julian Barnes states, the past is ―a distant, receding coastline, and we are all in the same boat‖ (Barnes, cited in Dannenberg 2008, 218). According to Hutcheon, history and fiction are both discourses and because they both write the past, they ultimately also construct it. Because of its constructed character, history therefore loses a part of its truth value. However, ―Hutcheon does not deny actual existence to the past; she does not reduce it to the status of the text‖ (Doležel 2010, 89).

Some historiographic metafictions ―embed multiple alternate historical narratives or counterfactual biographies of real-world historical figures within the text‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 218). The main difference between normal counterfactual histories used in science fiction and historiographic metafiction, is that the latter uses them to prove to the reader that one particular historical character cannot be held responsible for changing the entire course of history. As we have seen earlier, that is precisely what science fiction tries to put forward when describing time travelers who change history by, for instance, stepping on a rare kind of insect.

According to Ackroyd, ―belief becomes the crucial criterion for the distinction of historical versions: counterfactual history is only counterfactual by virtue of its being identified as such‖ (cited in Dannenberg 2008, 219-220). He and Dannenberg both agree on the fact that authority is attributed to historical texts in a rather random matter. The human desire for ―cognitive security‖ makes us trust only those texts with a sense of authenticity or authority. But as it is fairly easy to attribute this extra value to a text, this desire has proven to be quite illusory.

In conclusion, counterfactual thinking is a typical ability of the human mind but counterfactual histories only started appearing in Renaissance fiction. The speeches which used the counterfactuals gradually made way for real alternate storylines. However, in the first stage this was only a small device in the great realm of realism. First, they were only enounced by the narrator, then by the more intellectual characters, and eventually every

character could pronounce counterfactual thoughts. Authors like Fielding, Richardson, and Hardy all participated in the early stage of the evolution of counterfactual history. In the course of the twentieth century complete alternate histories started to develop, later making way for the genre of science fiction. Then it was only a small step to the cultural mainstream of the late twentieth century and twenty-first century.

3.7 Other examples of narrative counterfactuals

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

(Robert Frost, cited in Ferguson 1999, 71)

This short part will deal with a few other examples of stories based on counterfactual premises that can be situated in the mainstream literature and popular culture of the twenty-first century.

Philip Roth has already been mentioned as one of Chabon‘s literary examples. He has written several awarded novels which deal with a variety of themes like the question of authorship and American-Jewish identity. Two of these novels, The Plot Against America and The Counterlife, are based on a counterfactual premise.

The Plot Against America was published a few years before The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. It creates a fictional world where the American aviator Charles Lindbergh defeated Roosevelt in the election of 1940 and ―lead the United States onto an isolationist path‖ (Schmunk, 2004). Subsequently, Anti-Semitic activities increase quickly, inspired by the events in Germany. The difference with Chabon‘s novel is that ―the novel‘s historical plotting ultimately bends history back to the real-world course of events in the 1940s‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 221). However, the last chapter of The Plot Against America contradicts its own happy ending by emphasizing the ―continuing volatility of race relations in American society‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 222). Rosenfeld states that ―the fact that Roth, one of America‘s most celebrated and accomplished writers, chose to write a work of alternate history […] affirms the genre‘s arrival into the American cultural mainstream‖ (cited in Dannenberg 2008, 222).

The Counterlife is one of Roth‘s first novels. The story is not based on a counterfactual history as in The Plot Against America, but is nevertheless based on different versions of

the life of Nathan Zuckerman, Philip Roth‘s alter ego, and his brother Henry. In this novel, the counterfactual premise is used to depict multiple variants of Jewish cultural identity. There are no clues as to which version of Zuckerman‘s life is the real one; a ―constant process of counterfactual reversals‖ leaves the readers guessing which variants are the counterfactual fantasies and which are the actual character versions (Dannenberg 2008, 213-214).

Counterfactual premises also occur in movies. An early example is Frank Capra‘s It’s a Wonderful Life. On Christmas‘ Eve, George Bailey‘s guardian angel shows him how his community would look like if he had not been born. The story depicts a downward counterfactual world, which makes George realize he has a good influence on his town after all.

Another remarkable example in this respect is the movie The Butterfly Effect. The title refers to the phenomenon in chaos theory which was already discussed before, which states that small initial events can have enormous consequences. By travelling back to the past, the main character Evan Treborn tries to change the course of his and his friends‘ lives. The movie thus presents several counterfactual views of the present, but most of them turn out to be downward counterfactual views, even though Evan only has good intentions for changing the past.

These examples, and many other, prove that there are several ways to deal with a counterfactual premise. Some deal with a counterfactual history while others portray different counterfactual versions of a character‘s life. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is undoubtedly situated in the first group. The next chapter will analyze the different aspects of its counterfactual history.

Hoofdstuk 4. The Promised Land of salmon and furs

These are strange times to be a Jew.

(Chabon 2007, 4)

As noted before, the story of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is set in the present but based on a counterfactual history. In 1939, Roosevelt‘s Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes proposed setting up a settlement on Alaskan territory for the prosecuted European Jews. The proposition, called the Slattery Report, made it to Congress in 1940 but was rejected. However, in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, the proposition got accepted, thus opening up the district of Sitka to the European Jewish refugees. This counterfactual history is only occasionally implied by the narrator, leaving the reader guessing as to what really happened in the counterfactual past.

It is not surprising that the narrative voice does not elaborate about the past. For him (or her), the omniscient third person narrator, the fictional world of the story is the only possible world. The past of that world is rather unimportant to him, since he does not need it to tell the story he wants to tell successfully. The main focus is on the narrative plot, as we are dealing with a detective story. The narrator therefore tends to leave out any causal links between events, even if the exploration of such links is one of the goals of

counterfactual history in a non-fictional setting. This only enforces the desire of the readers for an explanation and triggers their thoughts about what might have happened.

In addition, one of the basic aspects of fiction, as opposed to history, is that the author is free to be as incomplete or complete as he or she wants to. The gaps in the story serve a particular purpose; in the case of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union it is clear that Chabon deliberately leaves these gaps unaddressed since he wants his readers to think and guess while the story gradually takes its form. However, some believe that this might not be as deliberate as it seems. Dubrow states that ―one does not read a Chabon novel to learn how the narrative will conclude. Chabon is one of the most accomplished prose stylists of his generation but, as previous novels have proven, plot is neither his highest priority nor his forte‖ (2008, 145). In other words, Dubrow believes that the gaps in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union serve an aesthetic (stylistic) purpose rather than a semantic one.

4.1 Counterfactual history

Chabon does not only cross the boundaries between different genres, but also between history and alternative history. His counterfactual construct can even be regarded as plausible, since there is hard evidence that Harold Ickes actually suggested opening up Alaskan territory for the Jewish refugees. The only aspect that makes Chabon‘s counterfactual world less plausible is the fact that the fictional present is situated sixty years after the alteration in history. Long-term counterfactuals are considered far less plausible since the years that have passed only increase the speculations and the uncertainty of the speculations. Nevertheless, Chabon does seem to agree with the ultimate requisite of alternative history: believing that small events can have enormous consequences. The rather small event of Dimond‘s counterfactual death changed the extent of the Holocaust, the end of World War II, the lives of two generations of European Jews and Tlingit Indians and the future of Israel in the novel.

As we have seen before, certain theorists believe that one particular historical event or character cannot be held responsible for changing the future course of history. Historical

events are a concurrence of circumstances rather than an individual, isolated event caused by a single person. They would not assume that the translocation of the European Jews to Alaska only depended on the refusal or approval of Anthony Dimond. In this case we can even be sure that it was not. Other representatives of Congress did not approve either. However, Chabon did not write The Yiddish Policemen’s Union to claim that Dimond was indeed the only obstacle of the Slattery Report. Chabon‘s novel is in the first place fiction, only depending on a counterfactual history for the frame of the story. He simply invented a place where the inhabitants still spoke Yiddish as their mother tongue, and proceeded from there. The fact that a similar political proposal had been made in the past, supported Chabon‘s original idea.

In the chapter on counterfactual history it was noted that negative events and experiences are more likely to be the subject of counterfactual thinking, history and fiction. This ‗negative coincidence‘ is said to intensify the emotional response of the reader. Therefore, the upward counterfactuals (inventing a better outcome than reality) appear more frequently than their opposite, the downward counterfactuals. However, in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union this distinction cannot be made that easily. At the time of the establishment of the interim Jewish settlement in Alaska, the counterfactual story could have been seen as an upward counterfactual, saving four million Jews from their death in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. But when we take a closer look at the world they live in today, at the dark and gruesome Sitka on the verge of Reversion, leaving the Jews once again without a home and without a Messiah, it could be argued that the story has taken a downward turn during those sixty years since the first boats arrived in Alaska. This should not however be too surprising, since this downward evolution constructs a city where a hard-boiled detective story can take place. As Raymond Chandler states in his essay ‗The Simple Art of Murder,‘ the world of a detective story should be ―a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost rule cities‖ (Myers 2008, 583). According to Myers, the name ‗Verbover‘ is derived from the Bobover Óasidim, ―the nineteenth-century Galician dynasty largely destroyed in the Holocaust and resurrected in Borough Park.‖ Since ―Óasidic dynasties are to the Jews what mafia crime families are to Italians‖ the link with the Verbovers in Chabon‘s novel is easily made.

In addition, Chabon admitted that the name ‗Mendel‘ is also based on a real person‘s name. Patricia Cohen states that ‗Mendel‘ came from ―the son-in-law of Joseph Isaack Schneersohn, Menachem Mendel Schneerson [sic], whom many within the Chabad- Lubavitch sect believe was the messiah‖ (Cohen 2007). This is an example of a fictional character who takes over the name of a real historical character, and the connotations attached to that particular name, but whose life is entirely fictional. Other examples of this kind of fictional agents in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union are Harold Ickes, Anthony Dimond, Emanuel Lasker, Tartakower and Jan Timman. Harold Ickes was the Secretary of the Interior in the Roosevelt Administration, but in reality he was not successful regarding the Slattery Report; Anthony Dimond was responsible for the failure of that same Report, but he was not killed by a taxi driver; the name Emanuel Lasker, originally referring to a real chess player like Tartakower, serves as a pseudonym for Mendel Shpilman; and while Jan Timman is a famous Dutch chess genius, he did not lose the world championship to Melekh Gaystik, since the latter is a fictional character and the real world championship of 1980 was won by Anatoly Karpov. One of the basic characteristics of a story based on a counterfactual history is that fictional characters interact with fictionalized characters, like Ickes, Dimond and Timman. Only Melekh Gaystik really interacts with the fictionalized Jan Timman, but fictional characters like Meyer Landsman, Berko and Hertz Shemets, Bina Gelbfish, and so on, live their fictional lives due to the fictionalized historical personages like Ickes and Dimond.

However, the characters of the detective story act and behave in the same manner as characters of a detective story set in normal history would. They have the same personal relationships, difficulties and quests. Even popular detective storylines reappear in counterfactual stories. The story of the rebel and his subsequent failure occurs quite frequently within hard-boiled detective stories, and also in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. In the beginning of the novel the readers will view Landsman as the rebel on his way to his downfall, but as the story continues Mendel Shpilman begins to fit the description more and more. He was the rebel, leaving home and everything behind, but in the end he gets addicted to heroin and gets killed. It could be argued that Landsman and Mendel have more in common than meets the eye. They are both rebels, fleeing from the norms of society. However, Landsman still has a support system, his partner Berko, who

looks out for him and makes sure he (more or less) follows the right track. Mendel is not that lucky, even though he meets Naomi along the way.

According to Dubrow, not only the actions and behavior of the characters are rather similar to those of characters in non-counterfactual settings; the city of Sitka also seems strangely familiar to other metropolises in this world. There are the same distinctions between good and evil, cops and criminals, crowded city and deserted countryside, the wealthy and the poor, etc. Furthermore, in the city of Sitka you can also find ―the same tensions between the secular and religious, between the assimilated and the Orthodox‖ (Dubrow 2008, 145-146).

When we analyze The Yiddish Policemen’s Union further it is clear that Chabon‘s story has an external focus: a counterfactual ―in which the self is the central focus as a victim of circumstances‖ (Dannenberg 2008, 112). Landsman is clearly ―a victim of circumstances.‖ Not only those circumstances derived from the counterfactual world he is living in (the upcoming Reversion for example), but also the circumstances of his own personal life (the death of his sister Naomi, the end of his marriage with Bina, etc.). Nevertheless, the novel is not character-based but story-based. It is not Landsman‘s behavior or character that has been counterfactually altered, but the world, and thus the story, surrounding him.

The circumstances in which Landsman finds himself professionally and personally evoke certain feelings in Landsman. Regret is undoubtedly one of them. Regret also serves as one of the main emotions linked to counterfactual history. Counterfactual thinking and counterfactual history are often reactions to feelings of satisfaction or regret, as I noted before. Satisfaction occurs with downward counterfactuals, while regret is the reason for the construction of upward counterfactuals. However, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union does not fit these descriptions entirely. As we will see in section 4.3.2.1 the nostalgic and melancholic mood of the novel make it appear as a downward counterfactual world, while the original aim of inventing a safe haven for millions of Jewish refugees steers towards an upward counterfactual.

In Landsman‘s personal life he seems to experience a counterfactual moment himself, after he and Bina decide to abort their possibly disabled child5. Bina had asked Landsman to ask the doctor ―whether there was some use, some aim or study, to which the half- grown bones and organs might be put‖ (TYPU6, 376). However, Landsman stammers while trying to ask this difficult question, and the doctor assumes he wants to ask something else.

‗Whether there was any visible defect?‘ the doctor said. ‗No. Nothing at all. The baby appeared to be normal.‘ He remarked, too late, the look of horror blooming on Landsman‘s face. ‗Of course, that doesn‘t mean there was nothing wrong‘ (TYPU, 376).

He never told Bina what the doctor said. By the end of the novel he wants to tell her ―the story7 that has been telling him for the past three years‖ (TYPU, 375). It is clear that he suffers from a great sense of guilt and doubt. Even though it is not said explicitly in the narrative text, he seems to wonder what would have happened if he had told Bina; or what would have happened if they had not aborted their child; or what would have happened if he had tried to find out what happened to the little body, which ―was something he had neither the heart nor the stomach to investigate‖ (TYPU, 376). This passage could be read as a metafictional moment in the novel. Chabon lets his main character experience a moment of counterfactual thinking, to draw the readers‘ attention to the counterfactual history of the novel itself. But since it is not explicitly mentioned that Landsman indeed engages in a moment of counterfactual thinking, this is only a cautious assumption.

5 This event could also refer to Chabon‘s wife Ayelet Waldman, who wrote about her own decision to abort a child in the same situation (Lambert 2007, 2). 6 Michael Chabon (2007) The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. 7 Cf. section 4.4.1.

4.2 Chess motif

Chess is a recurring motif in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. According to Davis, ―using chess as a source of arcane clues is not uncommon in mysteries‖ (2008, 11). In addition, as mentioned before, Ferguson also refers to chess while arguing that the past is without telos, without a predestined ending:

The past – like real-life chess, or indeed any other game – is different; it does not have a predetermined end. There is no author, divine or otherwise; only characters. […] There is no plot, only endings, since multiple events unfold simultaneously (1999, 68).

In other words, the game of chess has the same characteristics as the past; characteristics which permit the construction of counterfactual histories. These histories go against the grain of determinism, the belief that everything is scheduled to happen in a certain way.

Mendel Shpilman was, next to the supposed Messiah, also a chess genius. When they find him dead in his hotel room, there is a cardboard chess game on his bedside table. The game of chess also links Mendel to the Zimbalist, who taught him how to play. In addition, it marks the beginning of Mendel standing up to his father, since playing chess was not allowed, and playing with strangers even less so. More importantly, it connects him to Landsman, who grew up with a father and uncle who both excelled in chess. The game drove Landsman away from his father, like it did with Mendel and his father, even though it was for different reasons. Landsman disliked the game after years of being forced to play, while Mendel loved the game so much he needed to rebel against his father in order to play.

In addition, it could be argued that Mendel was used by the Verbovers as one of their chess pieces in their game to regain the power in Israel. In this respect, Mendel, being the

Messiah, was not the king8 but a simple pawn; when he is murdered, the Verbovers still go on with their ‗game‘.

Since chess is such an important aspect of the novel, there are plenty of references to the game to be found in the narrative text. The game seems to be a constant factor in Landsman‘s thoughts. His room number, for example, provokes a rather poetic stream of consciousness which soon digresses to chess:

The door to his room hums its simple lyric: five-oh-five. It means nothing. Lights in the fog. Three Arabic numerals. Invented in India, actually, like the game of chess, but disseminated by Arabs (TYPU, 372 - own emphasis).

There is also a link between the game of chess and the death of Landsman‘s sister Naomi. After she helped Mendel escape from the ranch in Peril Strait, her plane crashes9 into Mount Dunkelblum. Arthur Dunkelblum happened to be a Belgian chess master, who played from the 1920s until the 1970s.

Another example can be found when Landsman is being interrogated by what looks like an American secret service. They want to find out what he knows or believes to know about the American involvement in the attack on the Dome of the Rock. Once again, their questions remind him of chess:

Their questions are like the fundamental moves of the six different chess pieces, endlessly recombined until they number with the neurons in the brain (TYPU, 363 - own emphasis).

The motif of chess and the chess game seems to have rather negative connotations. Melekh Gaystik and Landsman‘s father killed themselves, Mendel Shpilman was murdered by Hertz Shemets (also a chess player) and Alter Litvak is the man behind the operation to blow up the Dome of the Rock. Chess is the cause of several problems, which is emphasized by Landsman himself by the end of the novel, when he discovers that the chess game on the bedside table actually stood for a problem:

8 The king is the most powerful chess piece. 9 Naomi‘s crash could also refer to the plane crash of the writer Amanda Davis, a close friend of Chabon.

‗It wasn‘t a chess game,‘ Landsman says after a moment. ‗On the board in Shpilman‘s room. It was a problem. It seems obvious now, I should have seen it, the setup was too freaky. Somebody came to see Shpilman that night, and Shpilman posed him a problem. A tricky one‘ (TYPU, 400).

As they all brainstorm about the possible meanings of Mendel‘s chess game, the only possible answer seems to be that the chess game, or the ―problem,‖ is linked to Mendel‘s personal life:

‗They call that Zugzwang,‘ Landsman says. ‗Forced to move. It means Black would be better off if he could just pass.‘ ‗But you aren‘t allowed to pass, are you? You have to do something, don‘t you?‘ ‗Yes you do. Even when you know it‘s only going to lead to you getting checkmated‘ (TYPU, 400).

When the chess clues begin to seem rather farfetched, Chabon inserts a humorous comment from Ester-Malke to lighten the mood. She seems tired from dealing with the drama from the investigation, especially now that the game of chess seems to be involved: ―‗Oh,‘ says Ester-Malke, rolling her eyes. ‗Chess‘‖ (TYPU, 404).

4.3 Narrative clues about the counterfactual past

Even though the counterfactual past is only implied by the narrator, there are a few moments in the narrative text where Chabon allows the narrator to reflect on the past. Subsequently, he gives the readers the clues they are so desperately looking for. When the narrator informs the reader of certain historical events, there seems to be a shift in focus, leaving the reader pondering about history for one moment, before turning back to the present. So in a way, for the reader, there are two investigations running through the novel: finding out what really happened in the counterfactual past, and solving the Mendel Shpilman case. According to Rimmon-Kenan, ―uncertainty is at the basis of the dynamics of reading‖ (cited in Rovner 2011, 148). Continuing on this quote, Rovner states that

Allohistory10 tends to share this principle with the detective-mystery novel; this may largely account for the prevalence of detective topoi […] in classic counterfactuals that deal with Jewish fate. […] Whether it is a crime or the past that is being examined, both are enigmas that the detective – and reader – must solve by accumulating and arranging incidental details (2011, 148).

As stated above, there are only a few instances in the text where the narrator allows us to have a quick peek at the counterfactual history of the story. The first one, and undoubtedly the most important one is already situated in the first chapter:

On the first of January, sovereignty over the whole Federal District of Sitka, a crooked parenthesis of rocky shoreline running along the western edges of Baranof and Chichagof islands, will revert to the state of Alaska. The District Police, to which Landsman has devoted his hide, head and soul for twenty years, will be dissolved. It is far from clear that Landsman or Berko Shemets or anybody else will be keeping his job. Nothing is clear about the upcoming Reversion, and that is why these are strange times to be a Jew (TYPU, 7).

This paragraph incorporates the moment when the reader understands that the fictional world of the story has taken a different course in history than our world. The reader is introduced to the phenomenon of Reversion, which evokes more questions than it solves. What is Reversion? What does it mean for the story? Where did it come from? All these questions will keep the reader on edge throughout the entire story. But since Reversion is so important to the fictional present, these questions will be answered when the main story unfolds.

4.3.1 Israel and Reversion

There is only one paragraph in the book which reveals the downfall of the counterfactual Israel leading up to the immigration of millions of Jews and the subsequent Reversion. There are several references to the doomed year of 1948, but only in the following paragraph do we find an explanation why it was such a terrible year for the Israeli Jews and why these are ―strange times to be a Jew.‖

10 Synonym for counterfactual history.

Nineteen forty-eight: Strange times to be a Jew. In August the defense of Jerusalem collapsed and the outnumbered Jews of the three-month-old republic of Israel were routed, massacred, and driven into the sea. As Hertz was starting his job at Foehn Harmattan & Buran11, the House Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs began a long delayed review of status called for by the Sitka Settlement Act. Like the rest of Congress, like most Americans, the House Committee was sobered by grim revelations of the slaughter of two millions Jews in Europe, by the barbarity of the rout of Zionism, by the plight of the refugees of Palestine and Europe. At the same time, they were practical souls. The population of Sitka Settlement had already swollen to two million. In direct violation of the act, Jews had spread up and down the western shore of Baranof Island, out to Kruzof, all the way up to West Chichagof Island. The economy was booming. American Jews were lobbying hard. In the end, Congress granted the Sitka Settlement ‗interim status‘ as a federal district. But candidacy for separate statehood was explicitly ruled out. NO JEWLASKA, LAWMAKERS PROMISE, ran the headline in the Daily Times. The emphasis was always on the word ‗interim.‘ In sixty years that status would revert, and the Sitka Jews would be left once again to shift for themselves (TYPU, 29 – own emphasis).

This is an important paragraph in the novel. It refers to several remarkable elements within the novel. First of all, the narrator mentions ―the slaughter of two million Jews.‖ This estimate is far less than the actual six million Jews who were killed in reality. It is also a clear counterfactual moment; the reader immediately realizes that he or she is dealing with a counterfactual history. However, Chabon chose not to save all the Jews, as many other counterfactual histories about the Holocaust do. In my opinion, this only adds up to the credibility of his counterfactual statement. The Holocaust still happened; Chabon just provided it with another denouement.

Secondly, a reference is made to the interim status of the Jewish settlement. The narrator of the story emphasizes the waiting of several characters and the people of Sitka; they are waiting for the end, you could say. This experience could be a reference to the difference between Christianity and Judaism, or the difference between the First and Second Coming. Christians believe that the Messiah has already come in the shape of Jesus, but the Jews are still waiting for the Messiah. The interim status of the settlement could therefore refer to the entire Jewish history as an interval between the First and Second

11 Reference to the Alpine, Saharan, and Siberian winds.

Coming; the Jews in reality wait for the Second Coming like the people of Sitka wait for the Reversion.

Thirdly, the doomed year of 1948 in the novel could also refer to the year of 1948 in our history. In 1948, the state of Israel was founded, but as a direct result of this the Palestinian people who already lived there were being displaced. This event is commemorated every year on the 15th of May, the day after the Israeli independence day. This year, the protests against the Nakba12, or the Catastrophe, ended in a bloodshed. Twelve Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.

In this respect, the Line in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, the border between the Tlingit Indians and the Sitka Jews, is also of great significance. The Line is almost certainly a reference to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. The border between Israel and the Palestinian territories has always been much-discussed and heavily guarded. Only recently has the President of the United States, Barack Obama, shown his support for the Palestinian demand that the borders of their future Palestinian state should be based on the borders of 1967, before the Arab-Israeli War. This would mean that a few areas which Israel conquered in 1967 would be regarded as Palestinian territory again.

In Chabon‘s novel, the republic of Israel did not survive. The Israeli Jews are forced to keep on searching for their ideal homeland. Their endless search and imaginary homeland will be discussed further in part 4.4 which elaborates on the aspect of Jewish identity in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

4.3.2 Immigration European Jews

The truth about the immigration of the European Jews is not all that clear from the narrative text. The first useful view on this part of Sitka‘s past is when the narrator tells the reader about how Hertz Shemets, Berko‘s father, arrives in Alaska in 1941.

12 The Palestinian term for the founding of Israel.

Not quite two years later, Hertz Shemets, his mother, and his kid sister, Freydl, arrived on Baranof Island, Alaska, with the first wave of Galitzer settlers. He came on the notorious Diamond, a World War I-era troop transport that Secretary Ickes ordered taken out of mothballs and rechristened as a left-handed memorial, or so legend has it, to the late Anthony Dimond, the Alaska Territory‘s nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives. (Until the fatal intervention on a Washington, D.C., street corner of a drunken, taxi-driving schlemiel named Denny Lanning – eternal hero of the Sitka Jews – Delegate Dimond had been on the verge of getting the Alaskan Settlement Act killed in committee) (TYPU, 27).

The Diamond is not the only humorous wink at the Slattery Report, Harold Ickes or Anthony Dimond. There are ―Ickes colleges‖ (TYPU, 291), a ―Harold Ickes Federal Building‖ and an ―Ickes Highway‖ (TYPU, 180) in Sitka. European Jews immigrating to Alaska had to carry an ―Ickes passport‖ (TYPU, 28) reminding them that they could not go anywhere else since the normal quotas on Jewish immigration remained in force. When they arrived they were brought to ―Camp Slattery‖ (TYPU, 28) in Sitka, in order to ‗acclimatize‘ for six months in huts and barracks.

Those first refugees mockingly called themselves Polar Bears, partly because the real polar bears and the expected Eskimos were nowhere to be found: ―No polar bears. No igloos. No reindeer. Mostly just a lot of angry Indians, fog and rain‖ (TYPU, 38). The settlement was just one big area of barren land, where even farming was impossible: ―when the Alaskan Development Corporation dispensed tractors and seeds and sacks of fertilizer to the fugitive boatloads, Jews of the District have dreamed and despaired of the Jewish farm‖ (TYPU, 291). Most of the usable lands are in the hands of the Tlingit Indians, and they did not get along with their new neighbors. Once in a while they did manage to get their hands on a green patch of land.

Every few years some utopian society or other would acquire a tract of green that reminded some dreamer of a cow pasture. They would found a colony, import livestock, pen a manifesto. And then the climate, the markets, and the streak of doom that marbled Jewish life would work their charm. The dream farm would languish and fail (TYPU, 291 - own emphasis).

This passage can be read as a clear reference to a kibbutz, the Hebrew word for a communal settlement. The first kibbutzim13 were established in 1909, thirty-nine years before the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Their founders were young Jewish pioneers, mainly from Eastern Europe, who came not only to reclaim the soil of their ancient homeland, but also to forge a new way of life. Their path was not easy: a hostile environment, inexperience with physical labor, a lack of agricultural know-how, desolate land neglected for centuries, scarcity of water and a shortage of funds were among the difficulties confronting them. Overcoming many hardships, they succeeded in developing thriving communities which have played a dominant role in the establishment and building of the state (Jewish Virtual Library, 2007).

As the passage from The Yiddish Policemen’s Union points out, in contrast with the kibbutzim, the colonies build by the Sitka Jews were destined to fail.

4.3.2.1 Doomed city

The ―streak of doom‖ is also very noticeable in the rest of Chabon‘s novel. The city of Sitka used to be rather glamorous, even though the first Jews who arrived in Alaska could not be more disappointed. But the city grew out to be ―a pinnacle of Jewish civilization in the north‖ (TYPU, 2). Unfortunately, after the World‘s Fair of 1977, the city slowly lost its shine. Landsman was fourteen at the time and still keeps a souvenir shot glass of the Fair to remind him of better days. The Safety Pin, ―the looping aluminum spike on its windswept island,‖ (TYPU, 48-49) also evokes its fair share of nostalgia in Landsman.

Now the view of Sitka is quite depressing: ―night is an orange smear over Sitka, a compound of fog and light of sodium-vapor streetlamps. It has translucence of onions cooked in chicken fat‖ (TYPU, 9). A few years after the World Fair the new world chess champion Melekh Gaystik shot himself in the head, leaving a note saying ―I liked things better the way they were before‖ (TYPU, 83). This feeling seems to prevail in others‘ thoughts too. Especially since the Reversion is closing in on the people of Sitka, many have fled the Jewish city.

13 Plural of kibbutz.

Only Verbov Island seems to have escaped the deterioration. The district even reminds the reader of Manhattan, N.Y.:

The women sport head scarves and glossy wigs spun from the hair of the poor Jewesses of Morocco and Mesopotamia. Their coats and long dresses are the finest rags of Paris and New York, their shoes the flower of Italy. Boys careen down the sidewalks on in-line roller skates in a slipstream of scarves and sidelocks, flashing the orange linings of their unzipped parkas. Girls hobbled by long skirts go along braided arm in arm, raucous chains of Verbover girls vehement and clannish as schools of philosophy. […] ‗Look at this place,‘ Landsman says. ‗It‘s hopping.‘ ‗Not one empty storefront.‘ ‗And more of these no-good yids than ever‘ (TYPU, 101).

Landsman cannot help but be suspicious towards the Verbovers. They must know something about the Reversion that the rest of the people do not know. Otherwise they would have packed everything they have and left by now. It all looks too much like a ―Disney shtetl‖ (TYPU, 106). Berko has picked up the rumor that the rebbe obtained green cards for everyone, but Landsman still does not believe that one man could have so much power. However, when the story unfolds, we discover that the Verbovers indeed knew something the rest did not: that they were going to transfer to Israel once the Dome of the Rock was out of the way.

Mendel Shpilman was the one who brought some of the spiritual wealth of Verbover Island to the rest of Sitka: ―there was something in Mendele. There was a fire. This is a cold, dark place, Detectives. A gray, wet place. Mendele gave off light and warmth‖ (TYPU, 141). Landsman feels a stab of jealousy every time he meets and interviews someone who was lucky enough to receive a blessing from Mendel; ―he thinks of all the times he must have walked right past Mendel, all the chances that he missed‖ (TYPU, 235). But eventually the dark city rubbed off on Mendel too. He left his home and Verbov Island, ―tendering his resignation‖ (TYPU, 226). The expectations of the Jewish people were too high, ―he could not be what that world and its Jews […] wanted him to be, what his mother and father wanted him to be‖ (TYPU, 226). He does not want to be the useful object they made of him anymore; they only wanted him to fit their purposes. He succeeds to escape for almost twenty years, but when Alter Litvak finds him again, ―they intend to restore him to practical use‖ (TYPU, 280). Escaping for the second time costs him his life. Naomi once said to Landsman that ―she hated Jews for their meek submission to fate, for the trust they put in God or the gentiles‖ (TYPU, 232), but the most Jewish Jew of them all, the Tzaddik Ha-Dor, did not agree

with his fate. ―Every Messiah fails the moment he tries to redeem himself‖ (TYPU, 335) Alter Litvak wrote, and apparently he was right.

4.3.2.2 Islands and Indians

According to Rovner, the use of islands in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union brings an additional meaning to the story. In reality, several islands were in the running to become the new Jewish homeland, for example Tasmania and Madagascar. ―Likewise,‖ Rovner states, ―the metaphor of an island apart suits the assertion of Jews being essentially Other in respect to non-Jews‖ (2011, 145). The islands therefore serve a double cause: non-Jews can isolate Jews by putting them on an island, but the Jews can also expand their ―separatist assertion of exceptionalism.‖ In the novel as in reality, the city of Sitka is situated on Baranof Island, Alaska, and close to Chichagof Island. Not only the islands, but also Alaska is a remote part of the world, ruled in the first place by the harsh weather. Fictionally transferring the Jewish people to Alaska underlines their solitary nature.

In this sense, the link with the Tlingit Indians is quite remarkable. Rovner believes that ―Native Americans are a Doppelganger for the Jews, a diasporic people, persecuted, proselytized and subject to genocide‖ (2011, 146). Even though this observation is undoubtedly true, there are nevertheless some remarkable differences between Jews and Native Americans that should be mentioned. The first important difference is that the Native Americans were killed for territorial reasons; they inhabited lands which the colonists wanted for themselves. The Jews on the other hand were killed for religious and political reasons; because they wanted to be somewhere other people already lived. In addition, due to the diseases which the colonists brought with them from the European mainland, the extent of the genocide of the Native Americans exceeds that of the Holocaust with large numbers. Another remarkable difference is that the Jews profile themselves as individualistic and exceptional, while the Native Americans, partly because they had no other choice, blended into the American population and culture. This could be seen as one of the reasons why the Jewish relationships with other cultures are so difficult.

Berko Shemets, Landsman‘s partner, incorporates both the Jewish and Indian side of Sitka. He is the son of a Tlingit mother and Jewish father. He converts to Judaism after the death of his mother during the Synagogue Riots. The Riots started when somebody threw

a Molotov cocktail in a Jewish synagogue that was built on a patch of land on the Tlingit side of the Alaskan territory. In the novel we learn that Berko‘s father, then an FBI agent responsible for the Jews not crossing The Line, was almost directly responsible for the Riots. Alter Litvak, who did the dirty jobs for Hertz, was the one who threw the Molotov cocktail. Dubrow notes that the relationship between the Jews and the Tlingit reminds the reader of the uneasy Christian-Jewish interactions in Eastern Europe, not too long before their supposed migration to Alaska (2008, 145). She continues that ―Jewish encounters with other cultures and communities have always resulted in provocative fusions‖ (2008, 146). This tension is also clearly noticeable in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

4.4 Other recurring motifs

4.4.1 Storytelling

By creating a fictional story based on a counterfactual history, Chabon also resists the determinism proposed by several historians. But more importantly, he wants to tell a story. A detective story to be exact; a genre he has only visited once before in The Final Solution, which ―tried to combine Sherlock Holmes with a Holocaust narrative‖ (Myers 2008, 582). Creating a second detective story, flavored with ―though-guy Yiddish‖ (Myers 2008, 583), asked for an additional effort on Chabon‘s part. Chabon notes that ―in many ways, the book was an exercise in restraint all around. The sentences are much shorter than my typical sentences; my paragraphs are shorter than my typical paragraphs. I wrote in a prose style that I had never written in before‖ (Chabon 2008, 214).

The importance of storytelling is also referred to in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, in particular concerning police and detective work. From the very beginning of their investigation, Landsman and Berko need to rely on stories of Mendel Shpilman, since they did not know him personally. For example, when Zimbalist identifies the body, Berko is quite shocked: ―Mendel Shpilman. Dear God. I heard some stories‖ (TYPU, 119). These ―stories‖ refer to Mendel being the Messiah and his blessings which cured or saved several people. Not only Zimbalist‘s friend was cured from cancer after he had

given Mendel‘s blessing to her, but others were also lucky enough to be blessed by the Messiah. These blessings of course serve as great stories.

There was a maid whose womb had been made barren by a botched operation in Cebu when she was a girl. Mendel took one of those dolls he made his sisters from felt and a clothespin, pinned a crayoned blessing between its wooden legs, and slipped it into her pocket. Then months after that, Remedios gave birth to a son. There was Dov-Ber Gursky, their driver, secretly ten thousand dollars in the wrong with a Russian finger-breaker. Mendel handed Gursky a five-dollar bill, unbidden, and said he hoped it might help. Two days later, a lawyer in St. Louis wrote to inform Gurksy that he had just inherited half a million from an uncle he never knew (TYPU, 215).

Further on in the story, Cashdollar firmly believes that it is the duty of law enforcement to ‗tell stories‘:

―This man, my predecessor. He used to say, ‗We are telling a story, Cashdollar. That‘s what we do.‘ […] ‗Tell them a story, Cashdollar. That‘s all the poor suckers want.‘ Only he didn‘t say ‗suckers‘‖ (TYPU, 364).

But in the end, the story seems to be too powerful to be controlled from the outside:

―The story, Detective Landsman, is telling us. Just like it has done from the beginning. We‘re part of the story. You. Me‖ (TYPU, 365).

The word ‗story‘ is also one of the last words of the novel. When it is clear that Bina and Landsman will give their marriage another try, Landsman decides to tell the press about the American involvement in the terrorist attack on the Dome of the Rock. He calls Brennan, the reporter who ended Hertz Shemets‘ career and says ―I have a story for you‖ (TYPU, 411). This is a remarkable open ending, leaving many paths of the novel undiscovered. It does however create a link with the beginning; Landsman will tell Brennan the same story as the narrator told us. The narrative text will repeat itself within its fictional context. We cannot say however that Landsman is the narrator of the story and thus creates a closed circle between the beginning and the end. The extradiegetic third person narrator is omniscient and treats Landsman‘s character as any other in the novel.

4.4.2 Penguins

Penguins are another recurring motif. It seems that even though there are no penguins to be seen in the dense area of Sitka, they keep returning in the narrative text to mock the high expectations of the Jews about the Alaskan territory. For example, one of the customers of the Polar-Shtern is a man called Penguin Simkowitz, ―a bottom-rung bet runner […] who mishandled a lot of somebody‘s money a few years back and was beaten so badly by shtarkers14 that it addled his brain and speech‖ (TYPU, 147). In addition, penguins, just like chess, seem to linger in Landsman‘s thoughts and dreams:

Landsman pursues Albert Einstein across the milk-white, chalk-white ice, hopping from square to shadowed square across relativistic chessboards of culpability and atonement, across the imaginary land of penguins and Eskimos that the Jews never quite managed to inherit (TYPU, 372 - own emphasis).

Not only Landsman, but Bina also seems to be reminded of the empty hopes to encounter penguins in the new homeland up in Alaska.

And Bina, sitting up in bed, propped on an elbow, watching him, sort of the way she watched those kids go after that hapless penguin piñata (TYPU, 399 - own emphasis).

However, the references to penguins seem to be most frequent with regard to ―the golden man in the penguin sweater who will not tolerate a mess‖ (TYPU, 269, 273). By the end of the novel, Landsman - and the reader - discovers that this man is Cashdollar, who seems to be the personification of the American government and secret services. He is followed by an army of Men in Black, even though they are not dressed as their name would suspect. Thick sweaters and baggy pants substitute for the suits, which could refer to the harsh Alaskan weather.

14 Tough guys.

4.4.3 The United States

Cashdollar is only one example of a whole string of references to the United States. His name is quite remarkable. When you split his name up into cash and dollar, it reveals the prime concerns of the United States in the novel. In addition, by emphasizing the involvement of the United States in the terrorist attack, Chabon attributes rather negative connotations to the US. It is not common for American authors to portray their home country as one of the perpetrators. This is only emphasized further by the lingering distrust of the Jewish population in Sitka for the Americans. Already at the very beginning of their settlement the European Jews dug tunnels under the city as a precaution for the moment when the Americans might turn on them.

‗A Warsaw tunnel,‘ Shpringer says. ‗They go all through this part of the Untershtat.‘ […] ‗When the greeners [sic] got here after the war. The ones who had been in the ghetto at Warsaw. At Bialystok. The ex-partisans. I guess some of them didn‘t trust the Americans very much. So they dug tunnels. Just in case they had to fight again. That‘s the real reason it‘s called the Untershtat‘ (TYPU, 22).

The Line which marks the border of the interim Jewish settlement reminds the reader of the border separating the United States and Mexico. American Jews living on the other side of the Line are even called mexicans.

He‘s Larry Spiro, a skinny, stoop-shouldered Jew from Short Hills, New Jersey. A mexican [sic], as the Sitka Jews call their southern cousins; mexicans [sic] call the Sitka Jews icebergers, or ‗the frozen Chosen‘ (TYPU, 238).

In addition, the immigration of the Jews on boats like the Diamond is rather similar to the waves of European settlers making their way to the United States by the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Camp Slattery could then be seen as the substitute for Ellis Island, N.Y., where the European immigrants arrived.

In the novel, President Kennedy married Marilyn Monroe, making her the first lady of the United States. This fact is only mentioned briefly; it is no surprise to the narrator of the story and in the end it has nothing to do with the story. Another fact which is only mentioned matter-of-factly is the bombing of Berlin in 1946. A nuclear bomb was dropped on Berlin, thus ending the Second World War which lasted a whole year longer than the Second World War in reality.

The telephone in Mrs. Shpilman‘s room which connects her instantly with a telephone in the rebbe‘s office could be understood as a reference to the red telephone connecting the White House of the United States and the Kremlin of Russia during the Cold War.

On a deal table sat a black telephone with no dial. If she picked it up, an identical phone would ring in her husband‘s office. In ten years of living in this house, she had used it only three times, once in pain and twice in anger (TYPU, 217).

Like the red telephone between the US and Russia, the black telephone in the Shpilman house has also only been used occasionally.

4.5 Jewish identity

Some would state that Chabon engaged in ‗retrospective wishful thinking‘ while writing The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Theorists and historians like Ferguson believe that authors write according to their ―contemporary political and religious preoccupations‖ and that they cannot escape ―the prejudices of their own present‖ (Ferguson 1999, 11, 49-50). In addition, because the novel is fictional and therefore a subjective construct, the author is guided by his own ―individual persuasions, scope of knowledge and focus, ideological position and theoretical framework‖ (Doložel 2010, 33). In the case of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union these remarks can be considered as true. From Maps and Legends it became quite clear that Chabon is interested and at the same time concerned about his Jewish religion and the search of the Jews for a new homeland. ―Next year in Jerusalem‖ is a popular saying when toasting on the New Year, which illustrates their seemingly endless search for a safe haven. Many Jews still feel like Bina in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union when she found out about the involvement of the US in the scheme of Alter Litvak: ―[w]e are here on sufferance. Houseguests‖ (TYPU, 375).

However, Chabon seems to join them in their search of the ideal Jewish homeland by creating his own fictional one while also pointing out the uselessness and the danger of this search. By the end of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, the Jews end up without a home once again, led by (empty) promises for a new home in Israel.

The Holy Land has never seemed more remote or unattainable than it does to a Jew in Sitka. It is on the far side of the planet, a wretched place ruled by men united only in their resolve to keep out all but a worn fistful of small-change Jews. For half a century, Arab strongmen and Muslim partisans, Persians and Egyptians, socialists and nationalists and monarchists, pan-Arabists and pan-Islamists, traditionalists and the Party of Ali, have all sunk their teeth into Eretz Yisroel and worried it down to bone and gristle. Jerusalem is a city of blood and slogans painted on the wall, severed heads on telephone poles. Observant Jews around the world have not abandoned their hope to dwell one day in the land of Zion. But Jews have been tossed out of the joint three times now – in 586 BCE, in 70 CE and with savage finality in 1948. It‘s hard even for the faithful not to feel a sense of discouragement about their chances of once again getting a foot in the door (TYPU, 17).

During the centuries in which the Jews kept looking for their ideal homeland, the idea of a home eventually turned into a kind of fata morgana. Chabon refers twice to this remarkable phenomenon in his novel. He mentions the ―mirror made of weather and light and the imagination of men raised on stories of heaven‖ (TYPU, 289) for the first time when, in 1897, the party of the Italian mountaineer Abruzzi saw ―a city in the sky‖ from the slopes of Mount Saint Elias. Ten years later, the explorer Peary tried to find Crocker Island which he and his men saw in the sky the day before. The second time the phenomenon is mentioned is when the Temple, built to scale, ―shimmers like a fata morgana‖ (TYPU, 331) in Buchbinder‘s scale model of the hilltop of Jerusalem.

4.5.1 Imaginary Yiddish

Chabon is not only creative regarding the content of his novel but the language use in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is also quite inventive. The novel is written in English, but soon the reader realizes that the characters are talking Yiddish to each other instead of English. There are however still a few Yiddish words in the text. To be exact, the words sound Yiddish; Chabon‘s Yiddish is as fictional as the rest of the story. This is one of the reasons why Chabon was criticized after the publication of his novel.

The characters use the word sholem for a gun, while sholem is the Yiddishization of the Hebrew word shalom, which means peace. According to Rovner this is a reference to ―the American Western and pulp idiom that refers to a gun as a ‗peacemaker‘‖ (2011, 145). Telephones are called shoyfers, the Yiddishization of shofar, which is ―a ram‘s horn blown in ritual practice to call Jews to assembly‖ (Rovner 2011, 145). In The Amazing

Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, beat cops were called pie hats; in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union Chabon translates his made-up term accordingly to latkes (pancakes).

On a more general level, Yiddish is the most popular language among Jews in Chabon‘s counterfactual present. Hebrew is only spoken by a small number of people, in contrast with the Hebrew language of our world. It thus seems that Chabon reversed roles between Yiddish and Hebrew in his counterfactual universe.

It sounded to him like the Hebrew brought over by the Zionists after 1948. Those hard desert Jews tried fiercely to hold on to it in their exile but, as with the German Jews before them, got overwhelmed by the teeming tumult of Yiddish, and by the painful association of their language with recent failure and disaster. As far as Landsman knows, that kind of Hebrew is extinct except among a few last holdouts meeting annually in lonely halls (TYPU, 286).

Our history tells us that the Zionists generally preferred to speak Hebrew, and refused to speak Yiddish. According to them, the Yiddish language was influenced by the Christian persecution. Once the republic of Israel was founded, many Zionists stopped speaking their mother tongues and changed their names to Hebrew equivalents. It thus seems that the narrator wants to portray the ones caught speaking Hebrew as direct descendants from the original Zionists, and therefore linking them with their plan to resurrect the Temple of Jerusalem. To emphasize this even further, the narrator points our attention to the fact that Cashdollar, an American accomplice in the Verbover plan, ―pronounces Shpilman‘s Hebrew name ‗Men-ashy‘‖ (TYPU, 364-365).

Even Landsman‘s name is an inventive wordplay. Myers (2008) points out that to call someone a landsman in Yiddish is to say ‗he is one of us.‘ Clearly, Landsman is not one of them. He is a Jew, but he is ―a mocking asshole‖ (TYPU, 37), as opposed to his partner Berko, who is ―a believer‖ (TYPU, 37).

There are however other inconsistencies in Chabon‘s novel regarding the vocabulary, rules and laws of the Jewish religion. According to Myers he confuses a talmid hakhem, ―a scholar of Jewish law, who is often a child prodigy,‖ with a zaddik, ―the mature leader of an Óasidic community who is distinguished less by scholarship than piety.‖ He also uses the terms tzaddik ha-dor and messiah ―as if they are interchangeable‖ but they are

not. Furthermore, ―he arranges a Óasidic wedding on the Sabbath‖ and ―he places customers in a kosher restaurant at adjoining tables, eating corned beef and cheese blintzes‖ (Myers 2008, 586). Myers clearly condemns Chabon for wrongly using these Jewish terms and habits. You could however also interpret this as a sense of parody. We should not forget that one of the main objectives was to continue writing on the idea of a new Yisroel, which already produced its fair share of controversy after the publication of his essay ‗Guidebook to a Land of Ghosts.‘ I do not believe that he wanted to be correct in his usage of these terms and habits. On the contrary, it would not be surprising if he deliberately made these ‗mistakes‘. Once again, fiction does not need to be correct. The author has the right to construct a fictional world and story as he or she wants to.

4.5.2 Humor and respect

Even though the atmosphere of the novel is rather grim, Chabon treats the Jewish aspects of his novel with a great deal of humor. A good example of this is one of Berko‘s witty comments: ―‗they keep on making new Jews,‘ Berko says, stirring a spoonful of jam into his glass. ‗Nobody is making places to put them.‘‖ (TYPU, 112). As becomes clear from this example, the humor in Chabon‘s novel seems to have a slightly bitter undertone, which agrees with the atmosphere of the novel. Another example is when, further on in the story, Landsman seems to have found a clever solution to the problem of the already crowded city: ―[y]ou want to go to the moon with me, Bina? I hear they still take Jews‖ (TYPU, 190). There are numerous examples of other humorous observations and one- liners, but Chabon also dares to show his respect for the Jewish people and their ―wide range and persistence of the race.‖

Jews who carry their homes in an old cowhide bag, on the back of a camel, in the bubble of air in the center of their brains. Jews who land on their feet, hit the ground running, ride out the vicissitudes, and make the best of what falls to hand, from Egypt to Babylon, from Minsk Gubernya to the District of Sitka. Methodical, organized, persistent, resourceful, prepared (TYPU, 155 - own emphasis).

Nevertheless, ―the bubble of air‖ again refers to the imaginary nature of their ideal homeland, which raises doubts as to whether we should read this paragraph in an ironical way.

In conclusion, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union seems to be much more than a hard- boiled detective story based on a counterfactual history. References are being made to a wide range of topics, from the game of chess to the political situation and history of Israel. But most importantly, the characters incorporate different aspects of Judaism, which could then carefully be linked to Chabon‘s own views on Jewish identity. In addition, his ―playful handling of language‖ and ―the accumulation of specific concrete detail, precisely rendered scenes, and nuanced character development‖ (Dubrow 2008, 145) only add up to the remarkable nature of this novel.

Conclusion

At the beginning of this dissertation, the discussion of Maps and Legends let us become acquainted with Michael Chabon‘s views on genre fiction. But more importantly, he told us about his search for his ―own world,‖ a search he shares with millions of other Jews. He also elaborated on how his novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union came about and how the discovery of the phrasebook Say It in Yiddish made all the difference. When he realized that the search for an ideal Jewish homeland was rather futile, he saw no better solution than to create his own Promised Land in his mind. His Alyeska saved four million Jews but after sixty years turned out to be a grim image of what it once was. When the future Messiah is murdered, all hope seems lost.

The analysis of the novel has tried to demonstrate that the counterfactual aspect of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union seems to hide behind the hard-boiled detective story of the novel, but that it is nevertheless very much present in different references and themes. Its counterfactual premise might not be plausible enough to contribute to historical research, but it is so confidently integrated in the novel that the reader has no difficulty accepting it as real. The willing suspension of disbelief is a key aspect in the narrative use of counterfactuals, and Chabon succeeded in transporting his readers from the real to the surreal with skilful precision.

But in the end, the novel is most remarkable for its treatment of the different aspects of Jewish identity. In particular the dark, nostalgic tone which dominates the novel draws the

attention of the reader. Due to the approaching Reversion the Sitka Jews will soon have to start looking for yet another homeland. In this respect, the ironic tone seems to point to the uselessness of the endless search for a new or ideal Jewish homeland. In addition, the main character mockingly experiences his religion and distrusts those who still believe fanatically in their faith, including the coming of the Messiah. The references to the difficult situation between Israel and the Palestinian territories then seem to raise doubts about the Jewish religion in general.

I do not believe however that Chabon wanted to offend any Jew with this novel. His aim could simply not have been to denigrate Judaism. The ironic tone is therefore almost always accompanied with a sense of humor and underlying respect. The use of the chess motif also seemes to lighten the mood. In my opinion, Chabon only wanted to draw the attention of the reader to certain irregularities within Judaism he himself, being a Jew, struggles with.

We cannot forget that Chabon had to construct a rather grim world to fit in this hard- boiled detective story. The counterfactual premise started out hopeful but needed to lose its shine for the story to be convincing. In the light of several terrorist attacks in reality the novel could not, in my opinion, have ended happily. This dissertation did not go as far as linking the novel to 9/11 but Chabon clearly gave the impression that his novel was not meant to be a fairytale.

Nevertheless, the end remains remarkable. Many questions are left unanswered. Where is Alter Litvak? Who is Cashdollar exactly? What will happen when Reversion sets in? Will the Temple of Jerusalem be resurrected successfully? And will there finally be an ideal Jewish homeland? Although some have argued that this might not have been deliberate, I believe that these questions remain unanswered for a reason. In counterfactual history as in normal history, paths remain undiscovered, roads untaken and choices unmade. Everyone has his own answers. The future of the counterfactual Sitka Jews and the Jews in reality is still unknown.

But as the Jewish-American writer Sarah Glidden has recently said in an interview as a result of the publication of her new comic book How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less,

[m]ore Jewish Americans are understanding that in order to make Israel into the place that they want it to be – a democracy, just state, at peace with its neighbors – in order to get there, you have to question it (De Redactie.be, 2011).

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