Read The Yiddish Policemen’s Union a 2007 book by Michael Chabon which most sadly coïncided with the Hamas terrorist attack on 07 October and the ensuing Israeli indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza strip… Indeed, this book is a Yiddish noir novel, but set in an alternate reality where European Jews settled in Alaska rather than in Palestine at the end of WW II in 1946. The story mixes detective work on top of personal issues, as usual in a noir novel, but piles upon this sectarian conflicts, upon the threat of a new exile, upon Zionism, upon chess as a way of life, upon philosophical threads, upon local gastronomy… While the end part is not very convincing (and involves more terrorism within Palestine), the construct is fascinating at the many levels explored by the author. The central, secular, character Meyer Landsman is deeply elaborated and most humane, his surrounding family as well, the murder enquiry is mostly convincing, the dialogues are witty and funny (despite or because of their involving a lot of Yiddish terms, whose lexicon I only discovered after completing the book), the reflections on the paradoxes of a transplanted state centred on a religion are unfortunately sounding quite suited for the current times, the ongoing relation to chess is fundamental, and the imperfect fight of Landsman against fanaticism and predetermination is one to root for. No wonder that the book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best SF Novel, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, altogether!
Archive for satire
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union [book review]
Posted in Books, pictures with tags Alaska, book review, books, Denali National Park, First Nations, Hugo Awards, Israel, Locus Award, Nebula Awards, Palestine, refugees, satire, Slattery report, Tlingit, US politics, WW II, Yiddish on December 21, 2023 by xi'anthe secret history of the Lord of Musashi [book review]
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel with tags book review, Eiji Yoshikawa, Japan, Japanese literature, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Miyamoto Musashi, Paris, samurai, satire on March 9, 2023 by xi'an
This 1931 book, The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi (武州公秘話) by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, is a 
hilarious pastiche of Japanese historical novels. I saw it in a Paris bookstore near my son’s and bought it without realising how much of a gem it is! I actually thought it was connected with the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, whose life is novelised by Eiji Yoshikawa at about the same time, but the connection is most tenuous, if any. This novel is about the fascination of a brilliant young samurai for noseless severed heads (!), so-called “woman-heads”, and their cleansing by young women, which turns into an erotic fetishism. And pushes him to first acquire such a head, although he only manages to bring the nose (!!), and then seduce the spouse of his former lord by cutting his nose, spouse whom he contacts through the most unromantic route to her apartment! While (according to Bing!) collecting noses of fallen enemies was common at the time of the Sengoku period and while (according to ChatGPT!) Sasaki Kojirō, the defeated protagonist of the last duel of Miyamoto Musashi, is rumored to have cut his own nose after his duel (in the versions where he does not die), I see the book (which I quickly read) as a great satire of more austere historical novels of the time. I will most certainly seek other tales of Tanizaki in a near future!!!
appel du 18 juin
Posted in Statistics with tags 18 juin 1940, appel du 18 juin, BBC, Charles de Gaulle, comics, De Gaulle à la plage, French resistance, Jean-Yves Ferri, satire, Winston Churchill, WW II on June 18, 2020 by xi'an
a day of mourning
Posted in Books with tags Charlie Hebdo, Charpentier, freedom of speech, fundamentalism, Je suis Charlie, leçons de ténèbres, Salman Rushdie, satire, totalitarism on January 8, 2015 by xi'an
“Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.” Salman Rushdie
