The Village of Little Pletzl-on-the-Zump
- Publisher
- Baronel Books
- Initial publish date
- Dec 2022
- Category
- Satire, General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781778213731
- Publish Date
- Dec 2022
- List Price
- $13.60
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
Pletzl, the story, weaves around the lives of a bizarre Yiddish-speaking community of 613 people living for hundreds of years in a village somewhere in the south of France, completely isolated, exclusively in their world, without a care or a familiarity with their surroundings. They speak a distinctive Yiddish dialect called Frantsoydish. The storyline humorously exaggerates, with innate satire, cultural diversity fears and demonstrates we can make fun of ourselves, irrespective of where we come from.
Pletzl’s community is suddenly faced for the first time with a foreigner, a ‘goy’ Twm, who by accident, arrives in Little Pletzl suffering from TGA, transient global amnesia.
Pletzl’s eccentric characters include Feyervaser, the owner of Shenken the distillery who suffers from Anatidaephobia, the fear that the warty-faced Muscovy Ducks in Little Pletzl’s pond were continually looking at him; Chef Glucke, the wife of the late Michelin Chef Nahum, of blessed memory, who died on a Friday morning tasting some cooked chicken feet that had become lodged in his throat; Mayor Sandek, who had been elected under the guise of ‘He who knows least talks most”; The Zhōu family of Chinese fame; and then there was Yitzhak, a very deaf 91-year-old with one of the best Jewish law and jurisprudence minds in the village, who becomes a self-proclaimed orthodox Jewish guru and spiritual vegan advisor to the youth of the village.
About the author
Contributor Notes
Alan L. Simons is an author, writer, and social advocate. He was born and educated in London, England, where he worked for various newspapers before immigrating to Canada. As a diplomat, he served as the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Rwanda to Canada, in the post-genocide era. He lectures and writes on issues relating to religion in politics, antisemitism, intolerance, hate, Islamophobia, conflict, and terrorism. The Village of Little Pletzl-on-the-Zump is his sixth published book.
Excerpt: The Village of Little Pletzl-on-the-Zump (by (author) Alan L. Simons)
“Toltse played the zamphona, a strange-looking medieval six-string instrument, while Henda enthusiastically accompanied her sister on a gemshorn, a primitive flute. Henda had a unique way of welcoming the guests. As they entered her home she would shout to her sister, ‘Toltse, hide the silver!’ Toltse, on the other hand, had the task of bidding the guests goodnight by saying to them, ‘Thank you for leaving!’ As far as the sisters’ sheep shearing experiences; I’ll come to this a little later.”
“Feyervaser, the owner of Shenken the distillery, was by all accounts, a decent enough fellow. Except he had a serious disorder. He suffered from Anatidaephobia. The fear that all the warty-faced Muscovy Ducks in Little Pletzl’s pond, facing the distillery, were continually looking at him. Sadly, over the years, as more Muscovies joined their waddling friends, Feyervaser’s condition became steadily worse. He hardly ventured out of Shenken’s front door, the door that faced the pond, and therefore he took his leave, when sober, by climbing out of a back window which made his life somewhat more complicated. “
Editorial Reviews
"A literary metamorphic masterpiece." "Delicious fun for the zany-mind. I laughed out loud."
