Much as the Eskimos utilize scores of words to subdivide myriad types of snow, Yiddish speakers possess a variation of “idiot” to suit every occasion. There’s the guy who has his dinner interrupted by a lapful of steaming soup courtesy of a clumsy waiter. There’s the aforementioned waiter who sets the soup on a collision course with the man’s groin. And then there’s the chap who leads his country into a disastrous war based on false information.
If you’re among the 30-odd percent of Americans who think George W. Bush is doing a heck of a job, then you will not enjoy “Yiddish with George and Laura,” a devastatingly funny mock-children’s book by Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman. Come to think of it, you will not enjoy this review, either. Luckily for you, however, this article has a clear exit strategy. But, please, do peruse the other stories in the paper. The writers worked so very hard on them.
“Yiddish with George and Laura” follows Weiner and Davilman’s first book, “Yiddish with Dick and Jane” — and this Kennebunkport romp is also written in the style of the readers boys and girls old enough to remember Howdy Doody time grew up with. This book, however, is not meant for elementary readers but those who probably have copies of the New Yorker or the Nation strewn across their coffee table alongside urgent fundraising requests supposedly written by Al Gore himself.
The postcard-sized book makes its political slant quite clear on the first page. There’s a watercolor portrait of our leader standing in front of the White House and the presidential helicopter, waving and flashing his familiar Randle P. McMurphy-post-electroshock grin. Below, the text reads: “See George. He is our president. He lives in a fancy white house and is a big shmegegge.”
And the hits keep coming:
“George loves his job. He gets to take a lot of vacations. He gets to do special things for his family and friends. ‘Not bad for an ex-shikker,’ he thinks.”
The Ex-Shikker-in-Chief rounds up his family and heads to southern Maine to visit Bar and Poppy for No. 41’s birthday party. Now, many books have fairly simple synopses — “Leopold wakes up, walks around Dublin, then goes home” pretty much sums up “Ulysses” — but “George and Laura” really is just a chance to unfurl derogatory Yiddish terms upon the entire Bush clan.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The book may not get any better than a two-page spread featuring a cantankerous discussion between W and his three brothers, Jeb, Neil and Marvin:
“‘I was elected twice,’ says George. ‘I was given a mandate.’
“‘You do not even know what a mandate is, George,’ says Jeb. ‘You think it is when two faygelahs go to the movies.’
“… ‘Do not listen to them, George,’ says Neil. ‘They do not know what it is like to run a country.’
“‘And now we never will,’ says Jeb. ‘You have ruined it for the rest of us.’
“‘Oh yeah, Jeb and Marvin?’ George says. ‘You can kish mir in tuchas.'”
Weiner and Davilman’s prose, which largely serves as a set-up for Yiddish punchlines, can grow dull and heavy. But, then again, it isn’t as if the “Dick and Jane” books of yore were known for their rapier wit, so the stripped-down text is par for the course.
“Dick and Jane” books also weren’t known for their brilliant art, so in this measure Weiner and Davilman’s tome far exceeds the source material. Larry Ruppert’s watercolors of the Bush horde as well as family friends such as Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Ann Coulter are a joy — assuming the fact that folks like these are all easily recognizable everyday figures isn’t so depressing it ruins everything for you.
“Yiddish with George and Laura,” by Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman (110 pages, Little, Brown and Co., $14.99).