Book recommendation

[rhu]

"Born to Kvetch" by Michael Wex. (ISBN 0312307411). In the spirit of the book [1], and in accordance with my long-standing plan to post ratings of things on a "kvetch" scale [2], I give this book 1 out of 5 kvetches.

What's wrong with this book? Two things, really. One is that Wex is both a professor and a stand-up comedian, and sometimes he forgets which voice he's writing in. The other is that sometimes he'll join two topics with a very tenuous connection, so you don't realize that he's changed subjects until you're a bit confused and have to backtrack.

But it's a funny, insightful book. I should also warn you that if you're not Jewish you should be prepared for a frank discussion of how the less than sterling quality of Jewish-Gentile relations over the past two thousand years has colored the Yiddish language. That's not a kvetch.

1 - As Wex points out, in Yiddish culture it's horribly rude to compliment someone else. It's tantamount to invoking the evil eye. One always insults or complains, and one praises with faint damns.

2 - My assumption is that all things can be measured against the ideal, and things worth reviewing ought to be reasonably close to the ideal to be worth the time, so a review is more useful by indicating how the subject falls short of the ideal, rather than itemizing the things that are right with it.