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Yiddish for Pirates
Set in the years around 1492, Yiddish for Pirates recounts the compelling story of Moishe, a Bar Mitzvah boy who leaves home to join a ship's crew, where he meets Aaron, the polyglot parrot who becomes his near-constant companion.
From a present-day Florida nursing home, this wisecracking yet poetic bird guides us through a world of pirate ships, Yiddish jokes and treasure maps. But Inquisition Spain is a dangerous time to be Jewish and Moishe joins a band of hidden Jews trying to preserve some forbidden books. He falls in love with a young woman, Sarah; though they are separated by circumstance, Moishe's wanderings are motivated as much by their connection as by his quest for loot and freedom. When all Jews are expelled from Spain, Moishe travels to the Caribbean with the ambitious Christopher Columbus, a self-made man who loves his creator. Moishe eventually becomes a pirate and seeks revenge on the Spanish while seeking the ultimate booty: the Fountain of Youth.
This outstanding New Face of Fiction is filled with Jewish takes on classic pirate tales--fights, prison escapes, and exploits on the high seas--but it's also a tender love story, between Moishe and Sarah, and between Aaron and his "shoulder," Moishe. Rich with puns, colourful language, post-colonial satire and Kabbalistic hijinks, Yiddish for Pirates is also a compelling examination of mortality, memory, identity and persecution from one of this country's most talented writers.
From a present-day Florida nursing home, this wisecracking yet poetic bird guides us through a world of pirate ships, Yiddish jokes and treasure maps. But Inquisition Spain is a dangerous time to be Jewish and Moishe joins a band of hidden Jews trying to preserve some forbidden books. He falls in love with a young woman, Sarah; though they are separated by circumstance, Moishe's wanderings are motivated as much by their connection as by his quest for loot and freedom. When all Jews are expelled from Spain, Moishe travels to the Caribbean with the ambitious Christopher Columbus, a self-made man who loves his creator. Moishe eventually becomes a pirate and seeks revenge on the Spanish while seeking the ultimate booty: the Fountain of Youth.
This outstanding New Face of Fiction is filled with Jewish takes on classic pirate tales--fights, prison escapes, and exploits on the high seas--but it's also a tender love story, between Moishe and Sarah, and between Aaron and his "shoulder," Moishe. Rich with puns, colourful language, post-colonial satire and Kabbalistic hijinks, Yiddish for Pirates is also a compelling examination of mortality, memory, identity and persecution from one of this country's most talented writers.
342 pages, Hardcover
First published April 5, 2016
145 people are currently reading
2100 people want to read
About the author
Gary Barwin
47 books91 followersGARY BARWIN is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of 21 books of poetry, fiction and books for children. His bestselling novel [Book: Yiddish for Pirates] won the 2017 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and was a Governor General’s Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist and has recently been longlisted for the Leacock Medal. His latest poetry collection is No TV for Woodpeckers His work has appeared widely in journals, including Poetry (Chicago), The Walrus and the Paris Review blog. A finalist for the National Magazine Awards (Poetry), he is a three-time recipient of Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year, and has also received the Hamilton Arts Award for Literature. He is was Writer-in-Residence at Western University and the London Public Library and is currently Art Forms Writer-in-residence for at-risk youth and will be Writer-in Residence at McMaster University and the Hamilton Public Library in 2017-2018. Barwin lives in Hamilton, Ontario and at garybarwin.com
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January 8, 2021
Initially, I began reading Yiddish for Pirates under the presumption that it would be all that the Giller Prize nominee reviews had promised. Critics raved! "Rollicking". "Wordplay, adventure, humour!" Lips upturned and enthusiasm in full gear, my introduction to Moishe and Aaron were full blast delightful.
As the five hundred year old parrot floats on a piece of a sunken ship's plank after the ship he and Moishe meet on is attacked, he muses, hoping to see seagulls because their presence will mean being near to shore. Not smart, though, his noisy idiot brothers:
"A story. Once there was a meshugener who was so brainless he thought he needed a new brain. On the way to the market he met a merchant who offered him the choice of three bird brains he had for sale.
'It's true that they're not very big, but that's good: they're very portable, and not too heavy so they won't strain the neck, ' he said.
'Great,' said the brainless one. 'How much?'
'Five kopecs, fifty kopecs, and five hundred kopecs.'
'They all look the same,' the meshugener said. 'Why such different prices?'
'The first is the brain of a nightingale. Good singer but not too smart. The second belonged to a parrot. Very intelligent, spoke six languages.'
'And the last?'
'A seagull's. The most expensive.'
'I didn't know that seagulls were that clever.'
'They're not. The brain's never been used.' "
SO...Fourteen year old Moishe rescues Christopher Columbus from soggy death, and with the verbose African grey parrot Aaron, the boy and his bird begin a series of adventures, on land and sea, which result years later rejoining Columbus in the discovery of the New World and search for the Fountain of Youth.
If we regard Yiddish for Pirates as a grand canvas painted with a broad brush, we can read the novel as a judgement of the kind of power imbalances that lead to persecution: race, religion, etc. It is also a commentary on the effects of colonialism, which came with European exploration. That large canvas is imprinted with the footwork - and flight- of the two main protagonists, Jewish, in a hostile late 14th century world.
That's the canvas... But I had my own footwork. Now, I am a goy who knows from bupkis this Yiddish stuff and not even much about Jews, except the horrible 20th century stuff, Passover, latkes: the potato pancake recipe "borrowed" from my Ukrainian ancestors and Purim, because my multinational Jewish/Arabic/Moroccan/FrenchCanadian/Cree friend has found his heart of faith and a synagogue home and invited me for a Purim dinner.
Somewhere I read that Yiddish for Pirates would be meaningful and every other adjective, despite my being Yiddish-less. ....Okay? Or no?
So here is what I think and feel about author Gary Barwin's novel Yiddish for Pirates:
There is a deep cultural and religious connection in the novel,with being Jewish. The interpretation of this book will rely greatly on the layers that each reader is able to permeate. Being a gentile is a serious disadvantage.
This book has all of the darkness of the Holocaust. But here, the reminders are of being enslaved in Egypt, the pogroms of Vilnius or Lithuania, the Inquisition and expelling of Jews from Spain. The deep anger and sorrow is cloaked in a concatenation of Yiddish irony, crooked caricatures of Satanic Christian padres and finger pointing belligerence draped in fantasy, magic realism and a world of Barwin's lexiconjury.
(Lexiconjury and concatenation are just a couple of the very new words I learned.)
This book is a big joke; it is a work of genius. It is wry. It's humour is elitist - truly. It is a snicker at a different kind of outsider, the goy, the gentile, while wrapping its Jewish fellows with a familiar comic hug. It is almost sacrilegious; coyly set in a fictional past, every Christian "dig" must be viewed through the self effacing mockery of the Yiddish parrot, Aaron. It is a slightly disturbing Jewish version of Canterbury Tales, taking to task betrayal among them, the Jewish spies of the Inquisition, the daunting travails of a people needing home and of course, the stupidity and cruelty of supposed "Christians". The author carries the Jewish pathos of his people with him in the tsuris (trouble), humour and history in this tale.
"We are Jewish wherever we are and with whatever we have....the first time the word - Jew - was used? ....The Book of Esther....Persia...
Since the beginning they have tried to kill us Jews... but God gives... a drey, a twist, we aren't destroyed. ... And so we survive. ...Though we must hide."
I had to work HARD with this novel. I DID need to find out about Yiddish - the mixed-use Mediaeval language of limited vocabulary layered upon itself for expression and wit- and I looked for lists and more lists to help me understand. I would be nothing more than an alter kaker (old fart), farmisht (confused) and farkakte (screwed up). Feh. (Bah!) Emmes. (The truth!).
Hebrew vocabulary. I looked. More than 'a tittle on on the mainmast's "i".' I wanted to get the joke, the pun. Page 267. Oy vey. Checking the Yiddish only to find obscure vocabulary buried with a Yiddish "play on words", many times. The joke is on me if this goy didn't find it!
"...a kind of exhilaration as the lamden old salts felt, once again, the wind blowing against their abraded yardang faces." Pg. 187.
....Maybe you know which is rabbinical Yiddish and the other obscure English?
Food... in metaphor... what did that word mean? Cholent, tsimmes, lobscouse, adafina... the latter hidden under coals to give the Sabbath analogy more heft than a mere magic trick which saved the captured from flames. And...one of those is NOT Hebrew!
To be Jewish is to KNOW the poet laureate Judah Halevi. The joke? Do you know Rumi, Whitman, King David (Psalm 23?) or Charles Bukowski? I do...I read...but I have never known Judah Halevi. A Gentile again...
Page 173. And the true wordsmithery... I am agog. An orchestra swelling with the perfect timbre of one note; a thrilled breath. A perfect sentence, a story.... Read on:
"From amidst a shroud of mist, the face of Isabella appeared, a pious Ozymandias looking faithfully into the future." (The portrait of Isabella, in process of being painted.)
....Do not pass GO. Find a reference to the Greek king. Read the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley http://www.potw.org/archive/potw46.html. Be amazed by Barwin's sentence!
And the puns..."My shorn feathers grew back though I kept them under my wing. Strabo and Liliana would not know I was a flight risk.” And: “A sailor who was injured and lost and arm or a leg received additional money. Severance pay.”
Moishe and Aaron see the curse of the Spaniards visited upon the "Indios" of the New World, as they travel with Columbus. As the privateer of his own ship with a motley ragtag crew, Moishe shares his loyalty and Yiddish with them, searches for treasure and Aaron continues to narrate philosophically on their fantastical journey until its conclusion.
In a Macleans magazine interview, Oct. 18, Gary Barwin underscored the sense that his novel has evoked in me: the hidden, the cloaked, the deep and darker side shown about being Jewish. I haven't seen any reference in any reviews to this aspect of his book. But HE said it.
"To quote the poet Steve Venright, it’s all “lexiconjury,” pulling surprises out of the dark of a hat. Of course, some of the things that come out have preoccupied you in deep ways, whether you knew it or not. And sometimes, the writing is duplicitous and trickster-like—makes you consider if you actually mean what you want to say." Brian Bethune, interview
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/...
Yiddish for Parrots is a strenuous read. It is sturdy, imaginative, intelligent literary fiction. It is demanding. If you don't have the prerequisites for it - Jewish, Yiddish, excellent vocabulary, good historical background - or the patience to research sufficiently to increase your intellectual grasp... this probably isn't the book for you. If you are up for an interesting mental challenge, I highly recommend this unusual piece of writing.
I won this book from Penguin-RandomHouse Publishers in a Goodreads Giveaway, one of six Giller prize nominee offerings. The opinions expressed in this review is uniquely my own.
Yiddish helper! Link: http://kehillatisrael.net/docs/yiddis...
As the five hundred year old parrot floats on a piece of a sunken ship's plank after the ship he and Moishe meet on is attacked, he muses, hoping to see seagulls because their presence will mean being near to shore. Not smart, though, his noisy idiot brothers:
"A story. Once there was a meshugener who was so brainless he thought he needed a new brain. On the way to the market he met a merchant who offered him the choice of three bird brains he had for sale.
'It's true that they're not very big, but that's good: they're very portable, and not too heavy so they won't strain the neck, ' he said.
'Great,' said the brainless one. 'How much?'
'Five kopecs, fifty kopecs, and five hundred kopecs.'
'They all look the same,' the meshugener said. 'Why such different prices?'
'The first is the brain of a nightingale. Good singer but not too smart. The second belonged to a parrot. Very intelligent, spoke six languages.'
'And the last?'
'A seagull's. The most expensive.'
'I didn't know that seagulls were that clever.'
'They're not. The brain's never been used.' "
SO...Fourteen year old Moishe rescues Christopher Columbus from soggy death, and with the verbose African grey parrot Aaron, the boy and his bird begin a series of adventures, on land and sea, which result years later rejoining Columbus in the discovery of the New World and search for the Fountain of Youth.
If we regard Yiddish for Pirates as a grand canvas painted with a broad brush, we can read the novel as a judgement of the kind of power imbalances that lead to persecution: race, religion, etc. It is also a commentary on the effects of colonialism, which came with European exploration. That large canvas is imprinted with the footwork - and flight- of the two main protagonists, Jewish, in a hostile late 14th century world.
That's the canvas... But I had my own footwork. Now, I am a goy who knows from bupkis this Yiddish stuff and not even much about Jews, except the horrible 20th century stuff, Passover, latkes: the potato pancake recipe "borrowed" from my Ukrainian ancestors and Purim, because my multinational Jewish/Arabic/Moroccan/FrenchCanadian/Cree friend has found his heart of faith and a synagogue home and invited me for a Purim dinner.
Somewhere I read that Yiddish for Pirates would be meaningful and every other adjective, despite my being Yiddish-less. ....Okay? Or no?
So here is what I think and feel about author Gary Barwin's novel Yiddish for Pirates:
There is a deep cultural and religious connection in the novel,with being Jewish. The interpretation of this book will rely greatly on the layers that each reader is able to permeate. Being a gentile is a serious disadvantage.
This book has all of the darkness of the Holocaust. But here, the reminders are of being enslaved in Egypt, the pogroms of Vilnius or Lithuania, the Inquisition and expelling of Jews from Spain. The deep anger and sorrow is cloaked in a concatenation of Yiddish irony, crooked caricatures of Satanic Christian padres and finger pointing belligerence draped in fantasy, magic realism and a world of Barwin's lexiconjury.
(Lexiconjury and concatenation are just a couple of the very new words I learned.)
This book is a big joke; it is a work of genius. It is wry. It's humour is elitist - truly. It is a snicker at a different kind of outsider, the goy, the gentile, while wrapping its Jewish fellows with a familiar comic hug. It is almost sacrilegious; coyly set in a fictional past, every Christian "dig" must be viewed through the self effacing mockery of the Yiddish parrot, Aaron. It is a slightly disturbing Jewish version of Canterbury Tales, taking to task betrayal among them, the Jewish spies of the Inquisition, the daunting travails of a people needing home and of course, the stupidity and cruelty of supposed "Christians". The author carries the Jewish pathos of his people with him in the tsuris (trouble), humour and history in this tale.
"We are Jewish wherever we are and with whatever we have....the first time the word - Jew - was used? ....The Book of Esther....Persia...
Since the beginning they have tried to kill us Jews... but God gives... a drey, a twist, we aren't destroyed. ... And so we survive. ...Though we must hide."
I had to work HARD with this novel. I DID need to find out about Yiddish - the mixed-use Mediaeval language of limited vocabulary layered upon itself for expression and wit- and I looked for lists and more lists to help me understand. I would be nothing more than an alter kaker (old fart), farmisht (confused) and farkakte (screwed up). Feh. (Bah!) Emmes. (The truth!).
Hebrew vocabulary. I looked. More than 'a tittle on on the mainmast's "i".' I wanted to get the joke, the pun. Page 267. Oy vey. Checking the Yiddish only to find obscure vocabulary buried with a Yiddish "play on words", many times. The joke is on me if this goy didn't find it!
"...a kind of exhilaration as the lamden old salts felt, once again, the wind blowing against their abraded yardang faces." Pg. 187.
....Maybe you know which is rabbinical Yiddish and the other obscure English?
Food... in metaphor... what did that word mean? Cholent, tsimmes, lobscouse, adafina... the latter hidden under coals to give the Sabbath analogy more heft than a mere magic trick which saved the captured from flames. And...one of those is NOT Hebrew!
To be Jewish is to KNOW the poet laureate Judah Halevi. The joke? Do you know Rumi, Whitman, King David (Psalm 23?) or Charles Bukowski? I do...I read...but I have never known Judah Halevi. A Gentile again...
Page 173. And the true wordsmithery... I am agog. An orchestra swelling with the perfect timbre of one note; a thrilled breath. A perfect sentence, a story.... Read on:
"From amidst a shroud of mist, the face of Isabella appeared, a pious Ozymandias looking faithfully into the future." (The portrait of Isabella, in process of being painted.)
....Do not pass GO. Find a reference to the Greek king. Read the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley http://www.potw.org/archive/potw46.html. Be amazed by Barwin's sentence!
And the puns..."My shorn feathers grew back though I kept them under my wing. Strabo and Liliana would not know I was a flight risk.” And: “A sailor who was injured and lost and arm or a leg received additional money. Severance pay.”
Moishe and Aaron see the curse of the Spaniards visited upon the "Indios" of the New World, as they travel with Columbus. As the privateer of his own ship with a motley ragtag crew, Moishe shares his loyalty and Yiddish with them, searches for treasure and Aaron continues to narrate philosophically on their fantastical journey until its conclusion.
In a Macleans magazine interview, Oct. 18, Gary Barwin underscored the sense that his novel has evoked in me: the hidden, the cloaked, the deep and darker side shown about being Jewish. I haven't seen any reference in any reviews to this aspect of his book. But HE said it.
"To quote the poet Steve Venright, it’s all “lexiconjury,” pulling surprises out of the dark of a hat. Of course, some of the things that come out have preoccupied you in deep ways, whether you knew it or not. And sometimes, the writing is duplicitous and trickster-like—makes you consider if you actually mean what you want to say." Brian Bethune, interview
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/...
Yiddish for Parrots is a strenuous read. It is sturdy, imaginative, intelligent literary fiction. It is demanding. If you don't have the prerequisites for it - Jewish, Yiddish, excellent vocabulary, good historical background - or the patience to research sufficiently to increase your intellectual grasp... this probably isn't the book for you. If you are up for an interesting mental challenge, I highly recommend this unusual piece of writing.
I won this book from Penguin-RandomHouse Publishers in a Goodreads Giveaway, one of six Giller prize nominee offerings. The opinions expressed in this review is uniquely my own.
Yiddish helper! Link: http://kehillatisrael.net/docs/yiddis...
July 27, 2016
Nu, you’re in the mood for something a bisl umgeveyntlekh? Something shpanendik that makes you lakhn and shvitsn just a bisl? Then Yiddish for Pirates is the book for you! I speak the emes truth. When it comes to words, Gary Barwin is a mayster balmelokhe. His ritmish sentences and beautiful loshn will leave you farklemt despite the fact that mensch are being struck down on all sides. And was there ever a narrator with more chutzpah than Aaron? Keyn mol nisht! Go on, read the bukh. You won’t badoyeren. Azoy!
November 6, 2015
I was asked to blurb this book and was delighted to do so: "What an accomplishment! What an imagination! The wit, the wordplay, and the subversive humour make this a thoroughly original and delightful novel.”
March 15, 2017
I can't really recommend this book, it's not bad enough to warrant one star, but it wasn't good enough for me to bother finishing. I've been chipping away at this book for weeks and can't bring myself to finish it, so I'm going to have to bite the bullet and just give up on it.
I can see that it would be appealing to certain people, but I found it to be lacking a lot of things I enjoy in books. It's promoted as a swash-buckling adventure on the high seas, but there really isn't a lot of that - there are huge gaps between the action scenes and a lot of the best bits seem to happen "off screen" so to speak. As one example, the main character runs off into the jungle stark raving mad only to be the captain of his own pirate ship at the beginning of the next chapter.
The story basically follows a young boy who escapes persecution, goes on adventures into the unknown, searching for the fountain of youth and eventually becomes a pirate while trying to find the love of his life who was ripped away from him. That's about as generic as you can get, so there's nothing particularly special about the story.
The book's big hook is that its narrator is the guy's immortal parrot and that his narration is just littered with random Yiddish words and phrases. The strongest part of the book is the parrot's banter with the reader, and in that regard I found it to have a very Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy feel to it. These bits have nothing to do with the (lack of) story and are generally pretty clever and amusing; if the book was cut down to a short story focusing on this it would have been much more enjoyable.
The problem with this is the random Yiddish - it's dropped in randomly and even with context it's sometimes hard to understand what was meant. This pulled me out of the story constantly as I would have to reread a line to try and figure it out, but eventually I just skimmed those sections entirely. I get that it's right there in the title, but it could have been done a lot more seamlessly, and should have added a little flavour to the book rather than distract you from actually reading it.
Overall it's an unremarkable book that's quirks can't make up for the generic story, odd pacing and sometimes jarring vocabulary.
I can see that it would be appealing to certain people, but I found it to be lacking a lot of things I enjoy in books. It's promoted as a swash-buckling adventure on the high seas, but there really isn't a lot of that - there are huge gaps between the action scenes and a lot of the best bits seem to happen "off screen" so to speak. As one example, the main character runs off into the jungle stark raving mad only to be the captain of his own pirate ship at the beginning of the next chapter.
The story basically follows a young boy who escapes persecution, goes on adventures into the unknown, searching for the fountain of youth and eventually becomes a pirate while trying to find the love of his life who was ripped away from him. That's about as generic as you can get, so there's nothing particularly special about the story.
The book's big hook is that its narrator is the guy's immortal parrot and that his narration is just littered with random Yiddish words and phrases. The strongest part of the book is the parrot's banter with the reader, and in that regard I found it to have a very Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy feel to it. These bits have nothing to do with the (lack of) story and are generally pretty clever and amusing; if the book was cut down to a short story focusing on this it would have been much more enjoyable.
The problem with this is the random Yiddish - it's dropped in randomly and even with context it's sometimes hard to understand what was meant. This pulled me out of the story constantly as I would have to reread a line to try and figure it out, but eventually I just skimmed those sections entirely. I get that it's right there in the title, but it could have been done a lot more seamlessly, and should have added a little flavour to the book rather than distract you from actually reading it.
Overall it's an unremarkable book that's quirks can't make up for the generic story, odd pacing and sometimes jarring vocabulary.
September 15, 2016
O Moishe is out at sea again, farmisht like the
farkrimter sky,
He's a skinny ship on a farkakteh sea, with no friends
to sail nearby,
the rum bites and crew shakes, their shikkereh spume
a-flying
and the seagulls kak on the dreck-slick deck, and
always their meshugeneh crying.
In case the title got you to wondering, this is what Yiddish for Pirates sounds like; at least from the mouth of a five hundred-year-old multilingual African Grey Parrot who has noshed from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and once sat upon the shoulder of the dread pirate Moishe the Captain. This parrot, Aaron to Moishe's “Moses”, narrates a classic seafaring tale of plunder and derring-do – five centuries after the fact – and like a Borscht Belt comic, most of what he says should be accompanied by an encouraging rim-shot. Hey now! Aaron's narration utilises clever wordplay, plenty of quips that are of the Take my wife...please! variety, but there are also many many stories of the A priest, a rabbi, and a shaman walk into a bar... sort, and it's all totally charming: it's the love of language that elevates this narrative to something special, and like all good comedy, the yuks are masking deeper pain; you can laugh or you can cry, boychick.
Yiddish for Pirates begins with Aaron describing how he and Moishe – a young boy who ran away from his shtetl home to seek adventure on the high seas – were first thrust together during an attack that left the pair adrift in the ocean. The tone is quippy and ironic as they wash ashore, meet up with a young Christopher Columbus, and are sent by the would-be adventurer on an errand to Seville. As they near the city, and noting a festive atmosphere, Moishe sees what he at first takes to be a parade of clowns:
They trudged barefoot, arrayed in red, yellow or black sacks covered in a bestiary of demons emerging from amid the lewd tongues of painted flame, pointed and insane. Each clown surmounted with a peaked hat emblazoned with still more fire. Some robes were drawn-and-quartered by a gash-red cross, as if Father-Son-and-Holy-Ghosted by sword. Man, woman and child, each carried a green or yellow candle, and walked with a noose around the neck, macabre neckties dressing them with a grim and dark formality. At the end of the procession, several men, beaten until barely more than stew, carried in cages pulled by mules.
Ah, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Jews are being gathered and burned at the stake. From here, Moishe (but call him Miguel now) is drawn into plots and subterfuge, has a run-in with the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, is commanded to accompany Columbus on the Santa Maria by Queen Isabella, and in the New World, watches (and participates) as the Spaniards extend their special brand of avaricious and murderous xenophobia to a whole new continent; it's not like the Indos have souls. Despite the jokes, this book is bloody; and despite meeting Moishe as a boy (and somehow thinking he would retain his innocence), he becomes every inch the pirate. Yet, when Moishe and a band of other misfits commandeer their own sloop and begin to plunder the Spanish ships of their treasures – and books – it's easy to cheer him on as he seeks the mythical Fountain of Youth, for love and vengeance.
I flew up to the mainmast spar and watched. Sometimes he who watches and remembers is the best soldier. Hope without memory is like memory without hope. I planned to be an alter kaker talking a kak-storm of memories, an old bird who was also a book.
Books and remembrance are important motifs in Yiddish for Pirates, and it's heartening to know that even after the pogroms and expulsions, the segregating ghettos and the multigenerational slayings, a garrulous Yiddish-speaking parrot could keep the story of a young boy from the shtetl alive. You laugh or you cry, boychick. (I would rate this three and a half stars, and am rounding up.)
July 4, 2017
DNF. Oy fuckin vey.
Final straw was the three-page-apart menage a trois of parrot sex, geographical boner metaphors, and the most bizarre reference to Lay's (yes the Yahweh damned potato chip) I will ever encounter. Barwin has enough wit to write every sentence with an edge and not nearly enough to realize that this makes every sentence a fucking chore. This is certainly not helped by the fact that the overall story reads a bit like a rejected young adult novel. Don't read this. Or do, I'm not some all knowing Jewish immortal parrot telling you how to live your life.
Final straw was the three-page-apart menage a trois of parrot sex, geographical boner metaphors, and the most bizarre reference to Lay's (yes the Yahweh damned potato chip) I will ever encounter. Barwin has enough wit to write every sentence with an edge and not nearly enough to realize that this makes every sentence a fucking chore. This is certainly not helped by the fact that the overall story reads a bit like a rejected young adult novel. Don't read this. Or do, I'm not some all knowing Jewish immortal parrot telling you how to live your life.
January 11, 2017
I loved this book. It cracked me up. The story, narrated by a parrot, was entertaining and novel --Lots of twists and turns embellished with historical connection and relevance, ( Columbus, Indigenous issues, expulsion of Jews from Spain . And then there's the Yiddish! I thought I had a pretty good understanding of 'literary' Yiddish, but wow, there is so much nuance in that language! I'm ready for a full dictionary.
Best of all, written by a Canadian author.
Best of all, written by a Canadian author.
October 28, 2020
A page turner and a swash buckling delight!
Read
August 27, 2016A rip-roaring romp of a book, with more yiddish punning than you could squeeze into a knish. Great fun, some sly historical tomfoolery that reminded me a bit of Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, and a full-on education in smart-mouthed parroting. It's a picaresque, so if you want major soul-searching emotional development you might be a bit disappointed, and some characters are dispatched before I could really get to know them, but this is a wild ride well worth the price of admission. Nu? So read!
October 4, 2017
Meh. Good bits but very long
December 28, 2016
Barwin has a way (which is to play) with words and I enjoyed every page of this fun read.
February 21, 2017
I found this book incredibly disappointing. It was one lame joke after another with a story that went on and on and on and just did not finish.
June 15, 2019
I read the title and couldn't resist, and boy this was wild from start to finish. Incoherent and awkwardly vulgar, yes, and the narrative voice took some getting used to, yet at the same time it was historical, grave, hopeful and honest. For some reason there was a gay parrot sex scene and stolen quotes from authors like Shakespeare and Wilde, which came off sort of cheap. Still, I wouldn't say I regret picking it up; 2.5 stars it is. Just because I'm a slut for pirate content.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 5, 2024
Super fun, lots of word play with some hard-to-follow (for some at least) intermixed Yiddish and swashbuckler speech, but it was poetic and enjoyable to read and the context carried the story. I did learn some new terms. Also had some observations on the nature of human, or perhaps just colonial human, and violence and trauma and the cycle we're all stuck in now, from a pivotal 400+-yr-old perspective. And a parrot narrator!
September 3, 2018
Barwin is witty and has a clever use of language, but his sentences are so thick they become both disorienting and a chore to dissect. The storyline itself is achingly repetitive, my attention often waned.
May 31, 2021
Hmmmm individual lines are quite funny, but I had a hard time getting into the overall story. I thought the few women characters were also treated rather unceremoniously. I really liked the little blurb at the end though.
January 30, 2018
No book has ever made me want to climb out my window, move to Spain, and become a Yiddish pirate more than this book has. It’s weird and clever and brilliant, and I will love it forever. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
June 14, 2020
Clever writing, but convoluted plot. The "dad" puns actually got a bit old
October 26, 2022
what an entertaining farkakteh novel of yiddish intrigue.
October 6, 2024
Wot a bit of fun!
July 20, 2019
A great read in a very unique narrative voice. A great adventure that leave you thinking.
June 26, 2017
Fantabulous!
Read
April 9, 2021Stellar! What a read! All the reasons I ever read are delivered - plus anticipated surprises: STORY: adventure, imagination, connection to life/ history / philosophy; AMAZING writing - aphorism after aphorism well placed; allusion after allusion - sparkling with connection; beautiful, pointed satire; hilarious. So 'jewish' - the humour and the yiddish sounds and feels like home, - even the horrors and atrocities are pulled threads to of the dark bits of passed on memory . . . What a romp for the heart and the mind. Fantastic. Shakespearean wordplay.
December 13, 2019
November 20, 2019 - December 8, 2019
The three stars given to this book is not indicative of its quality but rather its effort.
Readability is one star. Imagination is 5. Storyline is barely 2.
Behold (a humurous yiddish-style rant below):
My book: Aaron is the parrot of a Jewish historian specializing in the affliction of the Jews during the Spanish Inquisition and their moral quest for hope and something worth living for and believing in. The bird happens to drink too much shabbos wine one night when the ramblings of his master remind him of a story once told long ago *fades into twinkly music as the reader is made to envision a young man upon a ship sailing the Spanish waters*.
I liked this book. I would not read it again. I would recommend it as a joke to fellow yiddish-ists. Not a serious read and not as uplifting as one would hope.
Meh. Could be worse.
2019
The Bear and the Nightingale
The Hazel Wood
Olivia Twist
To Kill a Kingdom
Save the Date
Ever the Hunted
The Fortune Teller
The Empress
Thunderhead
Heart of Iron
The Reluctant Queen
The Night Gardener
Stealing Snow
The Price Guide to the Occult
Space Opera - DNF :(
The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: The Apocalypse Suite
Ink and Bone
The Sisters of the Winter Wood
The Star-Touched Queen
Courting Darkness - DNF :(
The Hidden Power of F*cking Up
Girls Made of Snow and Glass
Magic of Blood and Sea
The Second Mountain
A Curse So Dark and Lonely
All Systems Red
My Sister, the Serial Killer
The Wicked King
Artificial Condition
Animal Farm
Archenemies
By Light Alone
The Queen of Sorrow
Little Darlings
The Psychology of Time Travel
Yiddish for Pirates
The Chef's Secret
The three stars given to this book is not indicative of its quality but rather its effort.
Readability is one star. Imagination is 5. Storyline is barely 2.
Behold (a humurous yiddish-style rant below):
My book: Aaron is the parrot of a Jewish historian specializing in the affliction of the Jews during the Spanish Inquisition and their moral quest for hope and something worth living for and believing in. The bird happens to drink too much shabbos wine one night when the ramblings of his master remind him of a story once told long ago *fades into twinkly music as the reader is made to envision a young man upon a ship sailing the Spanish waters*.
I liked this book. I would not read it again. I would recommend it as a joke to fellow yiddish-ists. Not a serious read and not as uplifting as one would hope.
Meh. Could be worse.
2019
The Bear and the Nightingale
The Hazel Wood
Olivia Twist
To Kill a Kingdom
Save the Date
Ever the Hunted
The Fortune Teller
The Empress
Thunderhead
Heart of Iron
The Reluctant Queen
The Night Gardener
Stealing Snow
The Price Guide to the Occult
Space Opera - DNF :(
The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: The Apocalypse Suite
Ink and Bone
The Sisters of the Winter Wood
The Star-Touched Queen
Courting Darkness - DNF :(
The Hidden Power of F*cking Up
Girls Made of Snow and Glass
Magic of Blood and Sea
The Second Mountain
A Curse So Dark and Lonely
All Systems Red
My Sister, the Serial Killer
The Wicked King
Artificial Condition
Animal Farm
Archenemies
By Light Alone
The Queen of Sorrow
Little Darlings
The Psychology of Time Travel
Yiddish for Pirates
The Chef's Secret
November 13, 2016
https://ayearofbooksblog.com/2016/11/...
“Hello? If you want the story of a life, don’t wait for your alter maker old gramps over there to wake up. Maybe he’ll never wake. But me? Listen to my words. They tell some story. Because I remember. Sometimes too much, but I remember”
We all know that I read a lot – a great deal of CanLit, historical fiction and diverse novels BUT, this is the first novel that I have ever read that has been narrated by…. a parrot! This story is told by an African parrot named Aaron, who is living at The Shalom Home for the Aged. Not only does he share an adventurous tale but he is a gay and immortal parrot that speaks Yiddish!
“What’s it about? Pirates. Parrots. Jews. Jewels. The Inquisition. Gefilte fish. Gold. A girl.”
Yiddish for Pirates is a story of Moishe, a young boy who flees his family home to work on a ship. He escapes with his life from the Spanish Inquisition as Jews are exterminated andscreen-shot-2016-11-07-at-6-12-01-pm burned on stakes. He ends up travelling with Columbus searching for land and for gold with Aaron his constant companion, riding on his shoulder. This pair, along with their crewmates search the high seas for treasured Hebrew Books looking for immortality.
Swashbuckling adventure novels are generally not my genre of choice but I do enjoy historical fiction. I did not have a lot of previous knowledge relating to the Spanish Inquisition and was shocked by the violence of the times. As the parrot shared the history of their adventures, he spouted a lot of Yiddish words including a sense of humour which reflected Barwin himself, as evidenced at the Between the Pages Giller Event.
“Perhaps if the hearty forts of my gastrointestinal talented cremates could be coordinated in a methane philharmonic, our sales might curve”
img_1860Barwin has woven the history of persecution, piracy and the Spanish Inquisition with adventure and satire. It was not a fast read for me but I did enjoy it and found myself chuckling as I recalled the author’s enthusiastic voice following the Between the Pages event. The author, who lives down the highway in Hamilton, was not the winner of the 2016 Giller Prize but being on the shortlist is a fantastic honour which has likely encouraged more readers to enjoy this novel!
“A story is a great city, and words are its citizens, jostling and kibitzing in its busy streets”.
“Hello? If you want the story of a life, don’t wait for your alter maker old gramps over there to wake up. Maybe he’ll never wake. But me? Listen to my words. They tell some story. Because I remember. Sometimes too much, but I remember”
We all know that I read a lot – a great deal of CanLit, historical fiction and diverse novels BUT, this is the first novel that I have ever read that has been narrated by…. a parrot! This story is told by an African parrot named Aaron, who is living at The Shalom Home for the Aged. Not only does he share an adventurous tale but he is a gay and immortal parrot that speaks Yiddish!
“What’s it about? Pirates. Parrots. Jews. Jewels. The Inquisition. Gefilte fish. Gold. A girl.”
Yiddish for Pirates is a story of Moishe, a young boy who flees his family home to work on a ship. He escapes with his life from the Spanish Inquisition as Jews are exterminated andscreen-shot-2016-11-07-at-6-12-01-pm burned on stakes. He ends up travelling with Columbus searching for land and for gold with Aaron his constant companion, riding on his shoulder. This pair, along with their crewmates search the high seas for treasured Hebrew Books looking for immortality.
Swashbuckling adventure novels are generally not my genre of choice but I do enjoy historical fiction. I did not have a lot of previous knowledge relating to the Spanish Inquisition and was shocked by the violence of the times. As the parrot shared the history of their adventures, he spouted a lot of Yiddish words including a sense of humour which reflected Barwin himself, as evidenced at the Between the Pages Giller Event.
“Perhaps if the hearty forts of my gastrointestinal talented cremates could be coordinated in a methane philharmonic, our sales might curve”
img_1860Barwin has woven the history of persecution, piracy and the Spanish Inquisition with adventure and satire. It was not a fast read for me but I did enjoy it and found myself chuckling as I recalled the author’s enthusiastic voice following the Between the Pages event. The author, who lives down the highway in Hamilton, was not the winner of the 2016 Giller Prize but being on the shortlist is a fantastic honour which has likely encouraged more readers to enjoy this novel!
“A story is a great city, and words are its citizens, jostling and kibitzing in its busy streets”.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 23, 2017
While the concept and story are unique and fascinating (pirates and talking parrots - where can you go wrong?), this book was unfortunately rather poorly executed. It is clear that the author has a background in poetry because his focus is definitely on abstract description of scenery, characters, and scenarios. While at times these descriptions can be interesting and creative, a lot of the time I found that they were unclear and disrupted the flow of the story.
The actual plot would have been exciting except that it took so long for anything to actually happen, and it was often such a struggle to decipher what was happening that any possibility for suspense was lost.
It is also worth noting that there is absolutely no character development whatsoever at any point in the story. In fact, none of the characters really have any kind of unique personality, even the narrator himself. This not only makes it hard to care about them, but it also makes it hard to tell them apart.
Finally, I would like to point out that not only were there numerous typos in this text, but there were also several historical inaccuracies that really bothered me. I won't name them all because I don't want to give away the plot but the one that bothered me the most happened near the beginning of the novel. It involves Isabel of Castile using the phrase "all over the globe" pre 1492. While the concept of a round earth did exist at that point it was certainly not taken seriously in Catholic Spain, and the first circumnavigation of the globe by Magellan and Elanco didn't take place until a hundred years later. To me this is a pretty glaring error, considering the fact that exploration and discovery/colonization of the new world is such a major element in this book. I would have thought an editor would have caught that one.
In conclusion, although I liked the concept and the integration of Yiddish into the dialogue and narration, as a whole this book was a flop. It's odd because it seems like a lot of people really liked it, but I really don't understand why. It's possible that I just don't get it, but for me it was a disappointment.
The actual plot would have been exciting except that it took so long for anything to actually happen, and it was often such a struggle to decipher what was happening that any possibility for suspense was lost.
It is also worth noting that there is absolutely no character development whatsoever at any point in the story. In fact, none of the characters really have any kind of unique personality, even the narrator himself. This not only makes it hard to care about them, but it also makes it hard to tell them apart.
Finally, I would like to point out that not only were there numerous typos in this text, but there were also several historical inaccuracies that really bothered me. I won't name them all because I don't want to give away the plot but the one that bothered me the most happened near the beginning of the novel. It involves Isabel of Castile using the phrase "all over the globe" pre 1492. While the concept of a round earth did exist at that point it was certainly not taken seriously in Catholic Spain, and the first circumnavigation of the globe by Magellan and Elanco didn't take place until a hundred years later. To me this is a pretty glaring error, considering the fact that exploration and discovery/colonization of the new world is such a major element in this book. I would have thought an editor would have caught that one.
In conclusion, although I liked the concept and the integration of Yiddish into the dialogue and narration, as a whole this book was a flop. It's odd because it seems like a lot of people really liked it, but I really don't understand why. It's possible that I just don't get it, but for me it was a disappointment.
May 12, 2021
Set around 1492, this story tells the tale of a young man named Moishe who loves maps and adventure. Because of his love, he joined a ship’s crew where he befriends a parrot named Aaron who becomes his companion. The two travel together across seas from Spain to the Caribbean on different adventures, all the while searching for the Fountain of Youth. This novel was very slow paced; for a novel that is set at sea and is on an adventure it just felt like the story dragged. The plot had peaks and valleys; at times it would be intriguing but then it would lose the reader’s interest. The addition of Yiddish words and phrases, while probably gave value to readers who know and understand Yiddish, left readers who don’t confused and just unable to connect fully to the story and the characters. This is probably where the reader lost the spark of this novel and what made it so unique. The characters were fascinating, but hard to connect to. The reader also found that point of views shifted multiple times between the main character and the narrator causing confusion as to who was talking. The fact that the narrator was a bird was really compelling to read. The reader wanted to like this, but this novel feels as if it’s tailored to a specific market and this reader isn’t that target audience. The reader can appreciate what the author was trying to create, but this wasn’t for them.
September 15, 2016
Surprisingly, this story told by a 500-year old talking parrot that speaks Yiddish is almost plausible.
We start in the 1400s, with the Inquisition in full swing and Jews being exiled, maltreated and killed. Of course there would be a resistance movement, and in fiction it's no surprise to see a character who somehow survives no matter what. Why should he NOT end up meeting Columbus and going to sea, and becoming a pirate, and looking for the Fountain of Youth? Why shouldn't there be a ship full of Yiddish pirates?
You'll find this heavy going if your past reading hasn't been shprinkled with a bissel Yiddish. But I grew up with MAD Magazine, and that was enough.
The parrot cracks wise more than occasionally, and there are some colourful similes and metaphors, some of the laugh-out-loud kind, and always informed by the dark, snarky, almost Russian sense of humour.
Not for everyone, but entertaining for some, including me.
ADDED: And yes, I laughed when I noticed that one ship had a bosun named Higgs.
We start in the 1400s, with the Inquisition in full swing and Jews being exiled, maltreated and killed. Of course there would be a resistance movement, and in fiction it's no surprise to see a character who somehow survives no matter what. Why should he NOT end up meeting Columbus and going to sea, and becoming a pirate, and looking for the Fountain of Youth? Why shouldn't there be a ship full of Yiddish pirates?
You'll find this heavy going if your past reading hasn't been shprinkled with a bissel Yiddish. But I grew up with MAD Magazine, and that was enough.
The parrot cracks wise more than occasionally, and there are some colourful similes and metaphors, some of the laugh-out-loud kind, and always informed by the dark, snarky, almost Russian sense of humour.
Not for everyone, but entertaining for some, including me.
ADDED: And yes, I laughed when I noticed that one ship had a bosun named Higgs.
May 3, 2016
This novel is narrated by a parrot. A parrot who speaks many languages, one of which is Yiddish. My command of Yiddish is non existent aside from the odd phrase/word picked up however so catching a rhythm where words weren't defined was a little difficult at first but, much like starting A Clockwork Orange, I got it. Aaron the parrot is a fascinating narrator, a little bit more fascinating that the story he tells but only just. Aaron tells you of "his shoulder", Moishe, a Jewish boy who runs away, has adventures, and becomes a pirate. This is all during the Spanish Inquisition by the way. In Spain. Not a good place for Moishe.
It's a fascinating book to read because it's really something new and interesting. The perspective and the story is also done differently too. Hearing something new is always a fun thing.
It's a fascinating book to read because it's really something new and interesting. The perspective and the story is also done differently too. Hearing something new is always a fun thing.
November 5, 2016
"Yiddish for Pirates" by Gary Barwin has its share of tragicomedy. Its narrator is a 500 year-old African parrot, who keeps telling Yiddish jokes -- while his mainly Jewish pirate crew scuttles about the Caribbean after escaping from the Spanish inquisition, with the help of Christopher Columbus. Yet the book is devastating in its description of European pogroms against Jews and the viciousness of Spanish colonization of New World Indian communities. I must admit that the book lagged for me as yet more pirate attacks took place, with yet more people gutted and stabbed. But there is no question that the novel is highly imaginative and full of literary references (to Shakespeare's "The Tempest," for example.) Plus the parrot has great chutzpah! A short-list nominee for the 2016 Giller Prize for Canadian fiction.
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