Does "Gentlemen of the Road" Qualify as New Weird?

That´s a catchy one -- or is it? I just read Michael Chabon´s delightful Gentlemen of the Road, a tribute to adventure stories ranging from Conan to Prince Valiant, also adding (obviously) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) and a tip of the hat to Michael Moorcock´s Elric to the mix (not only Chabon dedicates this book to Moorcock, he also describes one of his protagonists as an almost Albino swordsman - the difference being that Zelikman is only a very pale man, a Jewish Frank physician, and the story takes place in the Caucasus, circa A.D. 950. Together with the giant Abyssinian Amram, former soldier for the Emperor of Byzantium, Zelikman makes his living separating fools from their money, and fighting the occasional war (though not so cheerfully). Their travels take them from the Middle East to the fabled Khazaria in order to restitute a stripling to his rightful place as bek (on of the two supreme rulers of the Khazars).

Of course that, in a first moment, we can´t possibly label Gentlemen... as New Weird (nor would we want to do that), but this return to the Old Weird, so to speak, is symptomatic - but, as George Canguilhem (and probably Jacques Lacan) would say, not every symptom is necessarily bad. For instance, this is no "sword and sorcery" story, but, as Chabon himself says in the afterword, a "swords-and-horses" tale. And is takes place in our reality - if we can it so, for more than a thousand years have passed since that age. This is the weird element of the story that appeals so much to me - the inherent weirdness of the far past.

The illustrations by Gary Gianni are a treat - he´s currently drawing Prince Valiant comic strips, so you can see (and also through the example above) the high quality of his work.

Gentlemen of the Road is one of the fortunately now-not-so-rare novels which brings back the old without being too much nostalgic and at the same time without doing the sometimes tiresome revampings that are common today. It is weird, it is old, and it is also new. And, most of all, it is really good.