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Good as gold - II

The difference between crime and public service is more of station than of substance.

When I was small, there were many poor people, and rich were the enemy. Now rich are still there, poor are also enemy.

Any society worth its salt, will stop itself from self destruction. We are not doing it. So we are not a society at all or we are not worth our salt.

Such quotes are numerous in the book and are more and more sarcastic.

Bruce Gold is trying to write a book on Jewish experience in America but he hardly remembers anything about his childhood.  So he asks his elder brother Sid - the same Sid who always tries to pull his legs.

Sid remembers. He is new to school and English language is new to him. So he speaks it in a funny accent. Other children in the school imitate him and he does not even realize he is being made fun of.

Even in the neighborhood other children let him play with them. But often treat him very cruelly. He does not complain for the fear of losing his playmates.

During lunch hour in the school, Sid does not know where he is supposed to eat his lunch. He runs and comes to a field, sits there in front of a railway track and eats his lunch. He has no friends in the school.

When Gold hears these from Sid, for the first time, he empathizes with his big brother.

But this need not be Jewish experience. It can be yours or it can be mine.

 Gold wants to go to Washington. For that he must court a perverted, insecure woman Andrea and get the recommendation of her father. Connover, Andrea's father is anti-semitic and insults Gold too much.  To make matters worse, his contact with white house Ralph, never clearly says anything, does not take him to meet the president, does not say what post he will be getting.

But Ralph and his colleagues borrow the phrases of Gold without completely understanding them, thinking that by using those words they also sound very smart.

If you want to read some satirical book, this book will not disappoint you. 


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