Sashimi with a Side of Fries
Adam Thirlwell: Michael Chabon, 16 August 2007
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
by Michael Chabon.
Fourth Estate, 414 pp., £17.99, June 2007,978 0 00 715039 7 Show More
by Michael Chabon.
Fourth Estate, 414 pp., £17.99, June 2007,
“... This is a miniature dictionary of the invented English in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon’s charming, flawed and exhausting new novel: bik (Yiddish: bull) – doorman latke (Yiddish: potato cake) – 1. police cap 2. policeman noz (Yiddish: nose) – policeman shammes (Yiddish: assistant to rabbi, beadle) – policeman sholem (Yiddish: peace) – gun shoyfer (Yiddish: horn) – cell phone shtarker (Yiddish: strong man, strong arm) – gangster; hard man Yiddish, it turns out, has not said its last word: it is still involved in the business of coinages and slippages ... ”