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The Yiddish Policeman's Union
Jun. 28th, 2007 08:57 amMichael Chabon. We're big fans. Clearly other people are as well, because I'd been on the waiting list at the library for a long time before it was my turn. I was horrified, then, to read the first couple of pages and find them almost a bad parody of the stereotype of hard-boiled detective novels.
I guess he got all of that out of his system pretty fast, and went back to crafting his usual wonderful turns of phrase. I'm a little over half-way through.It's an alternate history book, set in a Sitka that had become the substitute for the State of Israel after WWII (I'm not explaining it well - just go with it).
Jews everywhere is the point, and while what we're reading is English, we know that what everyone is speaking is Yiddish, except for brief occasions where it's specified that people are speaking "American." So it's a little weird that there are Yiddish words scattered across every page. I guess it's meant to add atmosphere. Mostly words I know, others I can get from context (although I then go and look them up later). And then suddenly he uses blintz as the singular for blintzes. What the heck? It should be blintse (which I would have spelled blintzeh but I looked it up).
Also what the heck - the products have fake brand names, as far as I know, except for a pink Hello Kitty bag. I know that Chabon has four young children - is this a response to a specific request?
Yesterday Hasids started figuring prominently in the book, my coincidence of the day because I watched "La Petite Jerusalem" in the morning.
http://www.kino.com/lapetitejerusalem/flash/index.html
I put it in the Netflix queue months ago, and it had been sitting on my night table for a couple of weeks. The good thing about the Netflix policy is that there's no due date. That can be a bad thing, too, because one is still paying by the month however many movies one watches.
I'm on my between-semesters break now, and while my daily plan includes trying to tidy and clean the house and do the reading for the beginning of next semester, I am not under daily pressure
to cram knowledge into my head, so I can start to catch up on movies.
I guess he got all of that out of his system pretty fast, and went back to crafting his usual wonderful turns of phrase. I'm a little over half-way through.It's an alternate history book, set in a Sitka that had become the substitute for the State of Israel after WWII (I'm not explaining it well - just go with it).
Jews everywhere is the point, and while what we're reading is English, we know that what everyone is speaking is Yiddish, except for brief occasions where it's specified that people are speaking "American." So it's a little weird that there are Yiddish words scattered across every page. I guess it's meant to add atmosphere. Mostly words I know, others I can get from context (although I then go and look them up later). And then suddenly he uses blintz as the singular for blintzes. What the heck? It should be blintse (which I would have spelled blintzeh but I looked it up).
Also what the heck - the products have fake brand names, as far as I know, except for a pink Hello Kitty bag. I know that Chabon has four young children - is this a response to a specific request?
Yesterday Hasids started figuring prominently in the book, my coincidence of the day because I watched "La Petite Jerusalem" in the morning.
http://www.kino.com/lapetitejerusalem/flash/index.html
I put it in the Netflix queue months ago, and it had been sitting on my night table for a couple of weeks. The good thing about the Netflix policy is that there's no due date. That can be a bad thing, too, because one is still paying by the month however many movies one watches.
I'm on my between-semesters break now, and while my daily plan includes trying to tidy and clean the house and do the reading for the beginning of next semester, I am not under daily pressure
to cram knowledge into my head, so I can start to catch up on movies.
