The random page test

Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman's Union, page 172:

The Filipino-style Chinese donut, or shtekeleh, is the great contribution of the District of Sitka to the food lovers of the world. In its present form, it cannot be found in the Philippines. No Chinese trencherman would recognize it as the fruit of his native fry kettles. Like the storm god Yahweh of Sumeria, the shtekeleh was not invented by the Jews, but the world would sport neither God nor the shtekeleh without Jews and their desires. A panatela of fried dough not quite sweet, not quite salty, rolled in sugar, crisp-skinned, tender inside, and honeycombed with air pockets. You sink it in your paper cup of milky tea and close your eyes, and for ten fat seconds, you seem to glimpse the possibility of finer things.

The hidden master of the Filipino-style Chinese donut is Benito Taganes, proprietor and king of the bubbly vats at Mabuhay. Mabuhay, dark, cramped, invisible from the street, stays open all night long. It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers and shlemiels, whores and night owls. With the fat applauding in the fryers, the exhaust fans roaring, and the boom box blasting the heartsick kundimans of Benito's Manila childhood, the clientele makes free with their secrets. A golden mist of kosher oil hangs in the air and baffles the senses. Who could overhear with ears full of KosherFry and the wailing of Diomedes Maturan? But Benito Taganes overhears, and he remembers.

You know, there are far worse ways to spend time in your 20s than reading Isaac Babel.

Also, put a bit of canela in with the powdered sugar. Trust me on this.

Comments

[The New York City Math Teacher]

So, I didn't steer you so far wrong, eh?

I think I will have a tongue/corned-beef sandwich with daikon pickle, doppelbock, and a paan.

[Carlos]

V. good book. I didn't like Kavalier and Clay all that much, but Chabon's setting -- Yiddish Alaska -- allowed his natural exuberance room to play without being obnoxious.

And Dennis Brennan has a significant role ATL. Way to go, Dennis! (You, NYCMT, would be laughing at my lesser borealic winter experience.)

Even the cover is a sweet piece of graphic design.

[Dennis Brennan]

A friend just mentioned my alter ego to me-- I'll have to find the book. (My friend described the Dennis Brennan in the book as a "loser, yellow-journalist type").

I don't grep the blog for my name, I'm just catching this now.

[Bernard Guerrero]

Alright, you got me. Off to Amazon....

[Dennis Brennan]

Finally got around to buying the book. (I normally don't buy hardcovers, I'm cheap like that.)

Pulitzer-prize winners are now writing alt-hist. Who knew.

Chabon lays on the Chandler pretty heavily, to be sure, but I like Chandler.

[Carlos]

Chabon also lays on the Babel: the whole shtarker mythos, Benny Krieg and the gangsters of Odessa. Good stuff. (Oddly similar to Chandler, and Hemingway too, which has to be convergence -- a reaction against the late imperial adventure novel? probably.) But it's the quirky stuff that sealed the deal for me.

And I hear Roth is in the running for the next Nobel, unless they can find a poorly translated eastern European poet.

(No, I don't have much to say about Lessing. never warmed to her work, although a book of the Shikasta series is based on the architecture of the Alhambra, which in retrospect makes it interesting enough for a re-read.)