For days Landsman has been thinking that he missed his chance with Mendel Shpilman, that in their exile at the Hotel Zamenhof, without even realizing, he blew his one shot at something like redemption. But there is no Messiah of Sitka. Landsman has no home, no future, no fate but Bina. The land that he and she were promised was bounded only by the fringes of their wedding canopy, by the dog-eared corners of their cards of membership in an international fraternity whose members carry their patrimony in a tote bag, their world on the tip of the tongue.
“Brennan,” Landsman says. “I have a story for you.”
GLOSSARY
(Prepared by Prof. Leon Chaim Bach, with the assistance of Sherryl Mleynek)
alefbeys alphabet (esp. the Hebrew alphabet, which Yiddish employs)
bik (Rus., Sitka slang, lit. “bull”) bodyguard, heavy
bulgar type of traditional dance tune played by klezmorim
dybbuk parasitical spirit, a restless ghost that takes possession of a living soul
emes truth
feh (int.) yuck, ick
forspiel small reception held before a wedding at the home of the bride-to-be
freylekh type of traditional dance tune played by klezmorim
gabay assistant to the rabbi; in Chasidic life, private secretary or personal assistant to a rebbe
ganef thief, criminal
goy (pl. goyim) non Jew non-Jew, gentile, pl. goyim
haskomo an official letter of rabbinic approval
kaddish loosely, the Mourner’s Kaddish, a prayer sanctifying and praising God, recited in remembrance of the dead
kaynahora formula (shorthand for kayn ayn hora, “no evil eye”), prophylactically used after some good fortune or a happy outcome has been mentioned
kibitzer one who pesters by making unwanted comments
klezmorim musicians who play the lively instrumental dance music of Eastern European Jews
koyenim the priestly class of pre-exilic Israel
kreplach filled dumplings, typically boiled in soup
kugel a baked casserole, sweet or savory, usually made from potatoes or noodles
latke (Sitka slang; lit., “pancake”) uniformed patrolman, beat cop; in joking reference to the patrolman’s flat crowned hat
luftmensh (lit. “air-man,” pl. luftmenshen) dreamer, a space case
macher big shot, important or self-important person
maven expert, guru
mazel (lit. “astrological sign”) luck
mikvah bath used by observant Jews for ritual immersion and purification
momzer bastard
noz (Sitka slang; lit., “nose”) cop
nu so, well, as I feared, please go on, what’s up?
oy (int.) oh, as in oy, vey
oy, vey (int., lit “oh, woe”) oh, no; shorter form of oy, vey iz mir “oh, woe is me”
patzer (Ger., chess slang, lit. “blunderer”) lousy chess player
papiros cigarette
pisher (lit., “pisser”) squirt, young pup
purimspiel comic play presented at Purim, early spring holiday that is a Jewish variant of the “feast of fools,” in which the parts of Queens Vashti and Esther are typically played by men in drag, one of them often a rabbi or other dignitary
rebbe master, mentor; leader of a Chasidic movement
shammes (Sitka slang, lit., “sexton of a synagogue”) police detective
Shavuous Jewish holiday celebrating the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai
shaydl wig worn by married Jewish women who follow the Laws of Tznius (modesty)
sheygets non-Jewish male
shiva ritual period of intense mourning observed by Jews for seven days after burial
shkotz (form of sheygets, lit., “gentile boy”) rascal
shlemiel sad sack, loser, hump
shlosser (Sitka slang, lit., “mechanic”) hit man
sholem (Sitka slang, lit., “peace”) gun; ironic bilingual pun on American slang “piece”
Shoyfer (lit., “ram’s horn,” ritual musical instrument) brand of tselularer telefone (Sitka slang: tselke) manufactured in the District of Sitka
shoymer (Sitka slang, lit. “watchman” and fig. “one who fulfills the requirement that a body be watched over between death and burial”) member of the government task force overseeing the reversion of the District of Sitka to Alaskan state sovereignty
shpilkes nervous energy, “on pins and needles”
shtarker (Sitka slang, lit. “gangster”) strongman
shtekeleh (Sitkaism, lit., “a little stick”) local variant on the Filipino donut or “bicho bicho”
shtetl village, small town
shtinker (Sitka slang) informer, stool pigeon
shul synagogue
Shvartser-Yam the Black Sea
shvitz (short for shvitzbad, lit. “sweat bath”) a steam bath, a Turkish bath
slivovitz plum brandy
smikha rabbinic ordination
tallis prayer shawl
patsh tanz type of traditional dance tune played by klezmorim
tekiah (Heb., “blast”) one of three prescribed sounds to be played on the shofar at High Holy Days
tefillin pair of small boxes, each containing a miniature scroll of sacred text, which an observant Jewish man binds each morning to his forehead and to one arm by means of leather straps
tzaddik righteous one
Tzaddik Ha-Dor “the righteous one of his generation” ; a potential Messiah
Untershtot (Sitkaism, lit. “downtown”) the oldest, central neighborhood of Jewish Sitka
vorsht (Yid. musician’s slang, lit. “sausage”) clarinet
yekke a German Jew
P.S.
Insights, Interviews & More…
About the author
Meet Michael Chabon
Read on
Guidebook to a Land of Ghosts
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Meet Michael Chabon
MICHAEL CHABON was twenty-four years old when he wrote his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, in a crawl space illuminated by a single naked bulb; he did so seated on a folded chair perched ruinously atop a steamer trunk. “I found that if I held very still, typed very chastely, and never, ever, rocked back and forth, I would be fine.” Written to fulfill his master’s requirement at University of California, Irvine, the novel became a national bestseller. “There’s a delicacy as well as sheer abundance here,” declared the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “a high-style elegance reminiscent of Cheever or even Fitzgerald.”
He next worked five years on Fountain City, a novel about the construction of the perfect baseball stadium. His manuscript did not, however, correspond to his idea of the perfect novel. He ditched it.
He completed a draft of his second novel, Wonder Boys, in less than seven months. The Washington Post Book World dubbed him “the young star of American letters, ‘star’ not in the current sense of cheap celebrity but in the old one of brightly shining hope.” The book’s adaptation to the screen starred Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, and Frances McDormand.
Chabon’s success traces to three requirements: talent, luck, and discipline. “Discipline,” he says, “is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.”
His third novel made quite a ripple. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay unfolds the tale of two boys who create a comic superhero, the Escapist, against the backdrop of New York City’s cultural and commercial life in the thirties and forties. The sweeping narrative closes in on a number of themes, among them the Holocaust, McCarthyism, homophobia, friendship, and the relationship between art and political resistance. The New York Post food columnist Pia Nordlinger called the book “an excellent novel that deserves every award and palm frond it has garnered.” Most conspicuous amid these fronds and awards was the Pulitzer Prize, which The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay won in 2
001. A signed first edition recently cropped up on eBay; it priced at three hundred dollars and bore an almost illegible inscription, the spasmodic irregularity of which suggested great perturbation or duress.
Chabon wrote his follow-up novel, Summerland, for young adults. The novel casts back to an adolescent boy’s Technicolor world of baseball and fantasy. Chabon “spins some typically lovely turns of phrase and ideas,” said Time Out, “while never talking down to his younger audience: there’s neat, uncondescending wit, death, even intimations of sex—not something you get in Harry Potter.”
In The Final Solution (2005), Chabon condensed his boundless vision to create a short, suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that reimagines the classic nineteenth-century detective story. “The writing,” observed the Baltimore Sun, “is everything that Chabon’s fans expect—gorgeous, muscular, mildly melancholic … wonderfully executed.”
Chabon published his fourth novel—the one you are holding—in May of 2007. “In many ways, the book was an exercise in restraint all around,” he told Men.Style.com. “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.”
His next novel, Gentlemen of the Road, appeared serially in the New York Times Magazine before publication (Del Rey Books, October 2007). Publishers Weekly called the book “a terrifically entertaining modern pulp adventure replete with marauding armies, drunken Vikings, beautiful prostitutes, rampaging elephants, and mildly telegraphed plot points that aren’t as they seem.”
He is also the author of two collections of short stories, A Model World and Other Stories and Werewolves in Their Youth. His story “Son of the Wolfman” was chosen for the 1999 O. Henry Prize collection and for a National Magazine Award.
Chabon lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, novelist Ayelet Waldman, and four children. He is “handsome, brilliant, and successful,” wrote Waldman in a New York Times article. “But he can also be scatterbrained, antisocial, and arrogant. He is a bad dancer, and he knows far too much about Klingon politics and the lyrics to Yes songs.”
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
READ ON
Guidebook to a Land of Ghosts
by Michael Chabon
The following essay, reprinted courtesy of the author, appeared in the June/July 1997 issue of Civilization and the October 1997 issue of Harper’s magazine.
PROBABLY THE SADDEST BOOK that I own is a paperback copy of Say It in Yiddish, edited by Uriel and Beatrice Weinreich. I bought it new, in 1993, but the book was originally published in 1958. According to the back cover, it’s part of the Say It book series, with which I’m otherwise unfamiliar. I’ve never seen Say It in Swahili, Say It in Hindi, or Say It in Serbo-Croatian, nor have I ever been to the countries where any of them might come in handy. As for the country in which I’d do well to carry a copy of Say It in Yiddish, naturally I’ve never been there either. I don’t think anyone ever has.
* * *
“When I first came across Say It in Yiddish, on a shelf in a big chain bookstore in Orange County, California, I couldn’t quite believe that it was real.”
* * *
When I first came across Say It in Yiddish, on a shelf in a big chain bookstore in Orange County, California, I couldn’t quite believe that it was real. There was only one copy, buried in the back of the language section. It was like a book in a story by Borges: unique, inexplicable, possibly a hoax. The first thing that really struck me about it was, paradoxically, its unremarkableness, the conventional terms of its self-promotion. “No other phrase book for travellers,” it claimed, “contains all these essential features.” It boasted of “over 1,600 up-to-date practical entries” (up-to-date! ), “easy pronunciation transcription,” and a “sturdy binding—pages will not fall out.”
What were they thinking, the Weinreichs? Was the original 1958 edition simply the reprint of some earlier, less heartbreakingly implausible book? At what time in the history of the world was there a place of the kind that the Weinreichs imply, a place where not only the doctors and waiters and trolley conductors spoke Yiddish but also the airline clerks, travel agents, and casino employees? A place where you could rent a summer home from Yiddish speakers, go to a Yiddish movie, have your bridge repaired by a Yiddish-speaking dentist? If, as seems likelier, the book first saw light in 1958, a full ten years after the founding of Israel—which turned its back once and for all on the Yiddish language, condemning its native speakers to a headlong race for extinction with the twentieth century itself—then the tragic dimension of the joke looms larger and makes the Weinreichs’ intentions even harder to divine. Say It in Yiddish seems an entirely futile effort on the part of its authors, a gesture of embittered hope, of valedictory daydreaming, of a utopian impulse turned cruel and ironic.
The Weinreichs have laid out, in painstakingly categorized numerical entries, the outlines of a world, of a fantastic land, in which it would behoove 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______?
The blank in the last of those phrases, impossible to fill in, tantalizes me. Whither could I sail on that boat/ ferry, in the solicitous company of Uriel and Beatrice Weinreich, and from what shore?
* * *
“I dream of two possible destinations.”
* * *
I dream of two possible destinations. The first might be a modern independent state very closely analogous to the state of Israel. Call it the state of Yisroel: a postwar Jewish homeland created during a time of moral emergency, located presumably, but not necessarily, in Palestine. Here, perhaps, that minority faction of the Zionist movement that favored the establishment of Yiddish as the national language of the Jews was able to prevail over its more numerous Hebraist opponents. There is Yiddish on the official currency, of which the basic unit is the herzl, or the dollar, or even the zloty.
There are Yiddish-speaking color commentators for soccer games, Yiddish-speaking cash machines, Yiddish tags on the collars of dogs.
I can’t help thinking that such a nation, speaking its essentially European tongue, would, in the Middle East, stick out among its neighbors to an even greater degree than Israel does now. But would the Jews of a Mediterranean Yisroel be impugned and admired for having the kind of character that Israelis, rightly or wrongly, are taken to have, the classic sabra personality: rude, hardheaded, cagey, pushy? Is it living in a near-permanent state of war, or is it the Hebrew language that has made Israeli humor so barbed, so cynical, so untranslatable?
I can imagine a different Yisroel, the youngest nation on 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 is a cold, northern land of furs, paprika, samovars, and one long, glorious day of summer. It would be absurd to speak Hebrew, that tongue of spikenard and almonds, in such a place.
* * *
“By taking us to Yisroel, the [authors of Say It in Yiddish] are, in effect, taking us home, to the ‘old country.’ To a Europe that might have been.”
* * *
These countries of the Weinreichs are in the nature of a wistful toy theater, with miniature sets and furnishings to arrange and rearrange, all their grief concealed behind the scrim, hidden in the machinery of the loft, sealed up beneath trapdoors in the floorboards. But grief haunts every mile of the places to which the Weinreichs beckon. Grief hand-colors all the postcards, stamps the passports, sour
s the cooking, fills the luggage. It keens all night in the pipes of old hotels. By taking us to Yisroel, the Weinreichs are, in effect, taking us home, to the “old country.” To a Europe that might have been.
In this Europe the millions of Jews who were never killed produced grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. The countryside retains large Yiddish-speaking pockets, and in the cities there are many more for whom Yiddish is the language of kitchen and family, of theater and poetry and scholarship. A surprisingly large number of these people are my relations. I can go visit them, the way Irish Americans I know are always visiting second and third cousins in Galway or Cork, sleeping in their strange beds, eating their strange food, and looking just like them. Imagine. Perhaps one of my cousins might take me to visit the house where my father’s mother was born, or to the school in Vilna that my grandfather’s grandfather attended. For my relatives, although they will doubtless know at least some English, I will want to trot out a few appropriate Yiddish phrases, more than anything as a way of reestablishing the tenuous connection between us. In this world Yiddish is not, as it is in ours, a tin can with no tin can on the other end of the string.
What is this Europe like, with its twenty-five, thirty, or thirty-five million Jews? Are they tolerated, despised, ignored by, or merely indistinguishable from their fellow modern Europeans? What is the world like, never having felt the need to create an Israel, that hard bit of grit in the socket that hinges Africa to Asia? What phrases would I need to know in order to speak to these millions of unborn phantoms to whom I belong? Just what am I supposed to do with this book?
Michael Chabon Page 40
