Borgel is a book for middle grade readers by Daniel Pinkwater, first published in 1990.
The story follows the adventures of Melvin Spellbound, a kid, and his many-times-great uncle Borgel, who's one hundred and eleven years old and lives with Melvin's family. After Melvin gets to know Borgel for a while, they embark upon an interdimensional tourist trip through Time-Space-and-the-Other. Over the course of the adventure, they visit many lands and meet many people, including a godlike popsicle.
This book got some unwanted publicity when a heavily rewritten passage was used as part of a standardized test on 8th grade reading comprehension and was frequently quoted in news articles about the controversial tests.
Tropes contained in Borgel:
- Alter Kocker: Borgel's father, an old man who speaks only in Yiddish-accented yells, and hails from The Old Country. In the audiobooks, Pinkwater gives him a strong Yiddish accent.
- Ambiguously Related: No one is quite sure how Borgel is related to the Spellbound family. The only one who might have known, an aunt in Cleveland, is deceased. The family settle on "uncle" because they aren't sure how to classify him otherwise.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: At the end of the story, Freddie becomes the Great Grivnizoid, a godlike cosmic energy source, after eating the Great Popsicle
- Beast Man: Milly and Glugo are large, green, upright gorillas with human-like intelligence and personalities, who live in a dimension other than earth.
- Brain Uploading: Evil Toad's Great Popsicle is a computer simulation of his brain in the form of a paper mache popsicle
- Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Chef Chow's Hot and Spicy Oil, a condiment used in folklore to kill a giant. Borgel mentions that it's unsafe to store large quantities of it in one place.
- Cargo Cult: Many characters worship and respect the Great Popsicle. Justified, as the Great Popsicle is the godlike essence of pure love in the form of a popsicle.
- Classical Music Is Cool: Before Borgel moved in with the family, Melvin though classical music was un-fun because his boring older siblings played instruments as part of their perfection regime. But then Borgel introduces Melvin to Mozart and classical radio, and Melvin finds that he loves it.
- Cool Old Guy: Borgel. Introduces the protagonist to all kinds of fun interests, like classical music and interdimensional travel.
- Cool Uncle: Borgel claims to be Melvin's uncle, though their exact relationship is unclear. While most of Melvin's family are stuffy and lame, Melvin finds Borgel far more fun to hang out with, and Borgel has lots of fun interests and obscure knowledge.
- Cthulhumanoid: Grivnizoids in their true from look like a cross between a humanoid tree and an octopus, as they are covered with tentacles.
- Dog Food Diet: The protagonist and his dog Fafner are trapped at an interdimensional root-beer stand with nothing to eat but root beer floats for a month, to their increasing despair. When they find a bag of dog kibble in the car, both are overjoyed to subsist on the dog food. The narrator describes it as nutritious and excellent with root beer.
- Everything Sounds Menacing In German: Or at least more important. Freddie wrote a book-length essay on Popsicles (Popsikellen: Geist und Wissenschaft) entirely in German, just to prove that he was serious about the topic.
- Fire and Brimstone Hell: Literally The Theme Park Version. Hell is portrayed as a flashy theme park with long lines to get in.
- Good Is Boring: What Melvin thinks of Milo and Martha his older siblings.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Borgel's relationship with his father. In The Old Country, people are too poor for things like food or affection, and have to scrape by on squashed skunks and blows to the head.
- Interdimensional Travel Device: Borgel's car can travel though time-space-and-the-other. An essential device for any time tourist.
- Kids Driving Cars: After being stuck at the root beer stand for a month and becoming increasingly fed up, the preteen protagonist finds the car keys. He decides to drive away and try to contact Borgel, and eventually picks him up on the side of the highway. He drives through interdimensional space completely fine, without any previous experience driving.
- Meaningful Name: Zig-zagged with the Toad family. Hapless Toad claims that his name is a family name with no intended meaning, but he's surly, unpleasant, and not very bright, living up to his name. However, his father, Evil Toad, was described as a great man and genius who everyone who knew him had great respect for.
- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Borgel pretends to speak Freddie's language and attempts to utter a number of phrases of small talk. What he actually said was that he was a politically corrupt sardine who wanted to eat the tires off of motorcycles.Borgel: I said that?
Freddie: Like a native. - The Old Country: Where Borgel comes from. It's also in Another Dimension.
- Poverty for Comedy: The Old Country is a place of comic poverty, where kids get hit on the head instead of three meals a day (rich kids just get hit on the head instead of lunch), everyone has cardboard boxes instead of furniture, and raw potatoes are the only thing available to eat. Borgel's favorite (and only) childhood toy was a peach pit, which was sold to some rich kids. The entire economy there involves looking for squashed skunks in fields, and selling them.
- Punctuation Shaker: Pak Nfbnm*, aka Freddy.
- Road Trip Plot: Most of the book involves Melvin and Borgel driving around from place to place (and across dimensions) along The Interstate. They only develop their goal of seeing the Great Popsicle about halfway through, and Borgel isn't very committed to it.
- Shapeshifter Default Form: Freddie is a monstrous Grivnizoid but presents as a small older man most of the time.
- Spoof Aesop: In Borgel's stories. They're all parodies of educational fables, but have morals like "Never bet on an eggplant" or "Animals are stupid" that don't really convey any real message.
- Starfish Aliens: Arnold the Amorphoid Fleshopod, a nauseating blob covered in tiny tentacles and pimples, like the other members of his species.
- Talking Animal: Fafner the dog begins to talk after they exit Earth's dimension
- What a Piece of Junk: Borgel's car. It's about seventy years old, the country that made it went out of business, it exudes clouds of smoke, and Borgel has to hotwire it in order to get it to start. But it travels through time-space-and-the-other, and goes up to two times the speed of light.
- The Unpronounceable: Borgel's real last name sounds nothing like MacTavish, but even less like anything else.
- Unreliable Narrator: Borgel admits he made up his life story when Melvin questions him but some aspects of it are shown to be real.
- Uplifted Animal: Fafner the dog gains the ability to talk after they leave earth and start traveling through Time-Space-and-the-Other.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: At the end of the book, Freddie becomes the Great Grivnizoid and takes on the role of the Great Popsicle after eating it.
