Roth's The Plot Against America and Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union may not seem to be immediately connected. Roth writes about events that could have taken place if Charles Lindbergh would have been elected the president of the U.S. in 1940. Without spoiling the story, I can reveal that a couple of years turn out to be pretty bad for the Roth family.
Chabon's book is a safe bet for a winner of the next Sidewise Award for Alternate History. There, the state of Israel collapsed shortly after its creation and much of its population find refuge in Alaska. A messiah would be needed to restore Israel.. and maybe one just appeared.
While at it.. Stephen Fry´s entertaining "Making History" indeed won the Sidewise Award. What would happen if we could not just kill Hitler before he raises to power, but simply make sure he´ll never be born? Just read the book, it´s worth it.
Chabon's idea of a Jewish state in Alaska is fiction, of course, but in G. Foden's book "Last King of Scotland" one learns that the Brits really considered providing a part of Uganda as a Jewish homeland after the 2nd world war.
The same book drily states that Doris Lessing's ex-husband, the ambassador of German Dem. Rep. to Uganda got killed when Idi Amin was dethroned.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
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