The Interpretation of Cakes by Allan Tegg

Paul Schimmel

Published by Puncher and Wattmann Sydney. 2023

ISBN:   978-1-922571-95-3

It seems unlikely you will have ever read another novel quite like ‘The Interpretation of Cakes’; I certainly hadn’t. 

It is a zany mixture of wisdom and eccentricity. Something of the dual nature of the text is perhaps captured in this quote from the prologue. An old man approaches the persona of the author, who in reality works as a psychotherapist, and says:

“You must know of Isaak Brodsky, The Interpretation of Cakes, and Cake-analysis” to which the persona of the author replies “You mean Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, and psychoanalysis.” I laughed, indicating I understood we were mucking around.

“Isaak Brodsky was a patisserie owner in the Pest Jewish quarter early last century,” he said, not bothering to hide his contempt. “He understood there was no such thing as a simple cake purchase. You buy the pastry that reveals who you are, at the deepest level.”

The story proceeds from here. The author/persona decides to go to Budapest to find out more about Isaak Brodsky. He discovers that Isaak’s father Yaakov had suffered a mental breakdown in his pastry shop, and the shop has been taken over by Isaak.

Throughout the novel runs a theme of tension between the conscious, rational and controlling mind and the unconscious mind which has different and largely incompatible agendas, mirrored in the tension between the cake shop and society. Chapter 1 begins: “Every cake shop sits in the centre of a powerful tension. On one side is the owner’s personality - which ultimately finds expression in the cakes he chooses to sell. On the other, are the expectations of the surrounding social environment.”

Cakes become a royal road to the unconscious. Throughout the novel the author interpolates his experiences as a therapist with patients, as in chapter 2:

“At the first sign of emotional pain, they run to the intellect and plead, ‘Get me out of here, I’m dying.’ Bloody sooks! And what does the great rational mind say? ‘Let’s go on a diet.’ ‘We’ll get up early and exercise.’ ‘Let’s think positive thoughts.’ The intellect! What an amateur!”

Enter Hershko Kubrinszky “the First Cake-analytic Patient” and an angry man who wants not to be so angry. He decides to treat himself to a Dobos Torte and enters Isaak’s shop requesting one. Isaak says to him, “Mr Kubrinszky, for you, the Dobos Torte would be a backward step. You must have a Punch Cake” and his reason, “because you need to have more fun.” “Hershko sneers.  ‘Fuck that for a joke.’ He smashed the cake and stormed out.”

Other customers come into Isaak’s shop. There is Keila Davidovitis who loses control of her bladder and pees on the shop floor, and the 18 year old Aliza Lovy who wants to experience goosebumps when she is with boys like all her friends do. Isaak doesn’t realise it, but he is already falling in love with her.

After meeting Isaak’s family, we are back in the cake shop and Hershko comes in again. Isaak is angry with him, and tries to fight with him but in the end there is rapprochement between them.

Through the many convolutions of the plot, the various threads of the story begin to feel so disparate that the reader is left wondering how they might come together or if they can come together at all, but at the end of the book the author exerts his authorial licence and they do so in a charming way.

It is Isaak’s last day in his cake shop. The author serendipitously brings a multitude of people together. The first customer is the studious Laszlo, who calls in a group of students who are passing, but Isaak is anxious about things getting out of hand which they soon do. A group of old ladies enters the shop, followed by a group of angry men, then Isaak’s mother. Keila Davidovitis turns up, and then Hershko Kubrinszky arrives with a group of musicians who start to play. 

“The customers formed two circles, one male, one female. The dancers lifted their arms in the air and grasped their neighbours’ hands.” Isaak suddenly realises the band had stopped playing. He looked up and saw his sister and Aliza standing before him.” Finally, Isaak’s father arrives.

In the epilogue the author’s persona is trying to find out the fate of the Brodsky family who may have settled in Sydney. In a Sydney cake shop he orders a Dobos Torte and the young man behind the counter says “The Dobos would be a backward step. You should buy a Punch Cake. You need to have more fun” and the story has come full circle.

One of the strengths of the book is the compendious research the author has undertaken as well as a visit to Budapest. The detail of the localities leaves the reader feeling he or she is there in reality.

The Interpretation of Cakes is a tour de force.