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The Magic Barrel
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction
Bernard Malamud's first book of short stories, The Magic Barrel, has been recognized as a classic from the time it was published in 1959. The stories are set in New York and in Italy (where Malamud's alter ego, the struggling New York Jewish painter, Arthur Fidelman, roams amid the ruins of old Europe in search of his artistic patrimony); they tell of egg candlers and shoemakers, matchmakers, and rabbis, in a voice that blends vigorous urban realism, Yiddish idiom, and a dash of artistic magic.
The Magic Barrel is a book about New York and about the immigrant experience, and it is high point in the modern American short story. Few books of any kind have managed to depict struggle and frustration and heartbreak with such delight, or such artistry.
Bernard Malamud's first book of short stories, The Magic Barrel, has been recognized as a classic from the time it was published in 1959. The stories are set in New York and in Italy (where Malamud's alter ego, the struggling New York Jewish painter, Arthur Fidelman, roams amid the ruins of old Europe in search of his artistic patrimony); they tell of egg candlers and shoemakers, matchmakers, and rabbis, in a voice that blends vigorous urban realism, Yiddish idiom, and a dash of artistic magic.
The Magic Barrel is a book about New York and about the immigrant experience, and it is high point in the modern American short story. Few books of any kind have managed to depict struggle and frustration and heartbreak with such delight, or such artistry.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
About the author
Bernard Malamud
130 books449 followersBernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer (also filmed), about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 194 reviews
January 9, 2018
The first seven years *****
A shoemaker wants a better life for his daughter. And he doesn't think that reading more books can give her that.
The mourners ****
If you don't care about the people in your life, don't be surprised people don't care much about you.
The girl of my dreams ***
A self-loathing, aspiring writer starts a correspondence with a mysterious lady writer.
Angel Levine ***
God sends a black jewish angel to a despairing, suffering man. The Book of Job in Harlem, NYC.
Behold the Key ****
To behold or not to behold, that's the question in this story of house-hunting in Rome, Italy.
Take Pity ****
A man wants to help a poor, embittered widow who suffered her whole life, but she refuses to accept his help for herself and for her children. The man feels powerless and frustrated ; he didn't expect offering help to a friend could be this tough.
The prison ***
A man's life can be his prison. If you can't help yourself, you can't help others.
The lady of the lake ****
A young man denies he's a Jew to win the love and approval of a beautiful Italian girl.
A summer's reading ***
A lazy dropout plans to read books to educate himself, and gains the respect from his family and neighbors.
The bill ***
A janitor doesn't pay his debt to the owners of a local store. This has consequences.
The last Mohican **
A man who travels to Italy to study the painter Giotto, is being harassed by a poor, jewish refugee.
The loan **
A man asks an old friend for a loan. Lend your money and lose yourfriendwife.
The magic barrel ****
An aspiring rabbi asks the help of a marriage broker to find a wife. A match made in heaven or in hell ?
May 7, 2014
I count myself among the blessed for I have visited New York City. I stayed in a YMCA building and shared a bunk with a petite, taciturn Spanish girl whose cropped pale hair and brown skin put a spell on me that mixed itself into the city's spell of joy and sorrow, the spell that made me want to sing and burst into tears because the soul I had never believed in knew it had come home. So inside and behind and underneath Malamud's stories I feel my New York, even when they travel.
And inside and behind and underneath all of these stories is also the Holocaust. While this is occasionally called upon to invoke solidarity, its spectre only brings pain. In 'The Loan' a baker is begged by her husband to let him help a friend 'or what is money for?'. Forced by poverty to constantly check his spending, she breaks down and repeats her own litany of suffering as a refugee: it divides rather than fostering fellowship. Malamud is an author who plays those shimmeringly vivid adverbs and images like aces at just the right moment and here he gives us burnt loaves: 'blackened bricks - charred corpses'. A waste without redemption.
The baker is not the only woman whose situation Malamud paints with compassion. He draws attention to men who treat women as chattel, who scapegoat them, objectify them, ignore their advice. Though none of the tales have women protagonists, almost all of them have women as agents: resisting, speaking, controlling their own stories, and often directing mens' fates.
I become less and less sure what 'magical realism' is meant to capture. Malamud's stories deal with pinched urban lives, struggles to make ends more-or-less meet, or carefully planned respites disrupted by unexpected demands on hard-earned, limited savings; they are grounded in the mundane material, a banality that characters try to escape from into writing, study, art, fantasised romance. The escape never succeeds as planned, but sometimes there is an intrusion of unreality, an escape unlooked for, a modest little god apologetically climbing down from the machinery, bringing a cobbled together miracle.
In my favourite story, 'The Angel Levine', the divine literally enters to intervene in the life of a man whose misfortunes are piled high on him. Surprised by the presence of a black man in his flat, he is further astonished to find that he is a Jew, and incredulous that he is the angel he prayed for. Unable to believe, he dismisses him. The protagonist must confront his own racism, venturing twice into Harlem as instructed, seeing Levine carousing, drunk, yet beloved of god and holy. When asked why god sent a black angel to him, Levine only says 'it was my turn to go'. His miracle is finally effortless - it is not he who must work for it, but the doubter, the reader, and Malamud.
I interpret these stories as critiques of prejudice subtley inflected by complex histories of loss, upheaval and privation, meetings where commonalities and divisions are hidden or misunderstood. The icing on this wholesome cake is the euphoric, mystical spirituality that occasionally surges up from wounded, jaded, rational hearts, and makes folk run wild in the street after the ghost of a dream.
And inside and behind and underneath all of these stories is also the Holocaust. While this is occasionally called upon to invoke solidarity, its spectre only brings pain. In 'The Loan' a baker is begged by her husband to let him help a friend 'or what is money for?'. Forced by poverty to constantly check his spending, she breaks down and repeats her own litany of suffering as a refugee: it divides rather than fostering fellowship. Malamud is an author who plays those shimmeringly vivid adverbs and images like aces at just the right moment and here he gives us burnt loaves: 'blackened bricks - charred corpses'. A waste without redemption.
The baker is not the only woman whose situation Malamud paints with compassion. He draws attention to men who treat women as chattel, who scapegoat them, objectify them, ignore their advice. Though none of the tales have women protagonists, almost all of them have women as agents: resisting, speaking, controlling their own stories, and often directing mens' fates.
I become less and less sure what 'magical realism' is meant to capture. Malamud's stories deal with pinched urban lives, struggles to make ends more-or-less meet, or carefully planned respites disrupted by unexpected demands on hard-earned, limited savings; they are grounded in the mundane material, a banality that characters try to escape from into writing, study, art, fantasised romance. The escape never succeeds as planned, but sometimes there is an intrusion of unreality, an escape unlooked for, a modest little god apologetically climbing down from the machinery, bringing a cobbled together miracle.
In my favourite story, 'The Angel Levine', the divine literally enters to intervene in the life of a man whose misfortunes are piled high on him. Surprised by the presence of a black man in his flat, he is further astonished to find that he is a Jew, and incredulous that he is the angel he prayed for. Unable to believe, he dismisses him. The protagonist must confront his own racism, venturing twice into Harlem as instructed, seeing Levine carousing, drunk, yet beloved of god and holy. When asked why god sent a black angel to him, Levine only says 'it was my turn to go'. His miracle is finally effortless - it is not he who must work for it, but the doubter, the reader, and Malamud.
I interpret these stories as critiques of prejudice subtley inflected by complex histories of loss, upheaval and privation, meetings where commonalities and divisions are hidden or misunderstood. The icing on this wholesome cake is the euphoric, mystical spirituality that occasionally surges up from wounded, jaded, rational hearts, and makes folk run wild in the street after the ghost of a dream.
July 20, 2012
Superb, beautifully crafted stories of marriage brokers, lovelorn shoemakers, angels and innocents abroad.
Nearest to my heart was A Summer's Reading, in which a high school dropout gets no respect til one day he tells a neighbor that he will read 100 books in one summer. Suddenly, others are smiling and gazing kindly at him. As the summer passes, he reads nothing, and his own self confidence begins to falter. The story ends with this wonderful paragraph:
One evening in the fall, George ran out of his house to the library, where he hadn't been in years. There were books all over the place, wherever he looked, and though he was struggling to control an inward trembling, he easily counted off a hundred, then sat down at a table to read.
Nearest to my heart was A Summer's Reading, in which a high school dropout gets no respect til one day he tells a neighbor that he will read 100 books in one summer. Suddenly, others are smiling and gazing kindly at him. As the summer passes, he reads nothing, and his own self confidence begins to falter. The story ends with this wonderful paragraph:
One evening in the fall, George ran out of his house to the library, where he hadn't been in years. There were books all over the place, wherever he looked, and though he was struggling to control an inward trembling, he easily counted off a hundred, then sat down at a table to read.
May 1, 2023
13 tablouri in care absurdul se impleteste cu realitatea.
13 ipostaze in care sunt descompuse framantarile sufletesti si fragilitatea umana.
13 povestiri a unor evrei chinuiti, scapati de ororile naziste si ajunsi in cartierele marginase ale New York-ului.
"... caci ce altceva ii adusese faptul ca era evreu, in afara de dureri de cap, complexe de inferioritate si amintiri dureroase?"
13 ipostaze in care sunt descompuse framantarile sufletesti si fragilitatea umana.
13 povestiri a unor evrei chinuiti, scapati de ororile naziste si ajunsi in cartierele marginase ale New York-ului.
"... caci ce altceva ii adusese faptul ca era evreu, in afara de dureri de cap, complexe de inferioritate si amintiri dureroase?"
July 1, 2021
Bernard Malamud's short story "The Magic Barrel" from his short story collection of the same name about a busy rabbinical student, Leo Finkle, who enlists a matchmaker, Pinye Salzman, as he becomes convinced that a rabbi should be married. But Leo is a scholar, an introvert, with no facility with women. The matchmaker is poor, with a "magic barrel" full of (greasy, aging) index cards with information about available women, all of it exaggerated, about women whose families have (long ago) enlisted the matchmaker to help them get their daughters married.
Leo actually meets one of these women, Lily Hirschorn, who understands that the rabbinical student is something like a saint, so we can see lies are being told on both sides of the process. But her questions about his devotion to God trouble him. He isn't truly devout; he's a scholar. But Leo dismisses the matchmaker again and again, realizing that love and passion are crucial to the process of marriage. He must only marry someone he loves and will love him.
Spoilers ahead.
The matchmaker comes back, this time with photographs, and at one point the rabbinical student finds one photo he thinks captures the kind of person he might learn to love, some kind of vulnerability:
“Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. He had a vivid impression that he had met her before, but try as he might he could not place her although he could almost recall her name, as he had read it in her own handwriting."
But the matchmaker tells Leo that this woman is off the table, not available: It's a picture of his (estranged) daughter!
“She is not for you. She is a wild one--wild, without shame. This is not a bride for a rabbi."
But Leo seems determined, caught by the image of this woman:
"Only such a one could understand him and help him seek whatever he was seeking. She might, perhaps, love him. How she had happened to be among the discards in Salzman's barrel he could never guess, but he knew he must urgently go find her.”
How? Magic? The power of love? Leo decides to commit his life to both goodness (inspired by Lily's questions for him)and love; he convinces Salzman to have him meet with his daughter. Immediately afterwards Salzman offers up prayers for the dead (or in this case, his estranged daughter, who has been dead to him).
So: A comic tale that ends in a surprising turn of emotions as the two sort of comically pathetic men see that they both share a kind of anguished need for love. With the possibility of a small shard of hope thrown in through the twist at the end. I love it and find it very moving.
A co-production between LA Theater works and the National Jewish Theater, recorded before a live audience at Chicago’s Guest Quarters Suite Hotel in July 1992.
Leo actually meets one of these women, Lily Hirschorn, who understands that the rabbinical student is something like a saint, so we can see lies are being told on both sides of the process. But her questions about his devotion to God trouble him. He isn't truly devout; he's a scholar. But Leo dismisses the matchmaker again and again, realizing that love and passion are crucial to the process of marriage. He must only marry someone he loves and will love him.
Spoilers ahead.
The matchmaker comes back, this time with photographs, and at one point the rabbinical student finds one photo he thinks captures the kind of person he might learn to love, some kind of vulnerability:
“Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. He had a vivid impression that he had met her before, but try as he might he could not place her although he could almost recall her name, as he had read it in her own handwriting."
But the matchmaker tells Leo that this woman is off the table, not available: It's a picture of his (estranged) daughter!
“She is not for you. She is a wild one--wild, without shame. This is not a bride for a rabbi."
But Leo seems determined, caught by the image of this woman:
"Only such a one could understand him and help him seek whatever he was seeking. She might, perhaps, love him. How she had happened to be among the discards in Salzman's barrel he could never guess, but he knew he must urgently go find her.”
How? Magic? The power of love? Leo decides to commit his life to both goodness (inspired by Lily's questions for him)and love; he convinces Salzman to have him meet with his daughter. Immediately afterwards Salzman offers up prayers for the dead (or in this case, his estranged daughter, who has been dead to him).
So: A comic tale that ends in a surprising turn of emotions as the two sort of comically pathetic men see that they both share a kind of anguished need for love. With the possibility of a small shard of hope thrown in through the twist at the end. I love it and find it very moving.
A co-production between LA Theater works and the National Jewish Theater, recorded before a live audience at Chicago’s Guest Quarters Suite Hotel in July 1992.
February 8, 2019
The Magic Barrel
Dal barile magico di Bernard Malamud escono fuori tanti bei personaggi , di quelli che ti restano bene impressi in mente,per la sua maestria nel saper illuminare certi particolari ,che già da soli raccontano tutta una psicologia.
Rapide e vivide descrizioni, come quella del sensale Salzman ,per esempio
di corporatura minuta ma dignitosa,portava un vecchio cappello e un soprabito troppo corto e stretto per lui. Puzzava decisamente di pesce, che mangiava con grande avidità, e quantunque gli mancassero alcuni denti, la sua presenza non era sgradevole, per l'atteggiamento amabile che formava un curioso contrasto con gli occhi funerei. la voce, le labbra, la barba a ciuffo, le dita ossute erano animate,ma bastava concedergli un attimo di requie perché i suoi miti occhi celesti rivelassero un abisso di tristezza.
O quella del profugo Susskind,l'ultimo moicano, agile e svelto nei suoi calzoni alla zuava
o quella dell'angelo Levine ,l'angelo nero del Bronx, con il suo completo logoro
o quella dello pseudoagente immobiliare del racconto più divertente della raccolta Ecco la chiave , ambientato a Roma , Vasco Bevilacqua
un italiano capelluto, che stringeva in mano una cartella logora,era fermo sul marciapiede ,al sole.I suoi capelli puntavano in tutte le direzioni.Gli occhi erano miti, non tristi, ma lo erano stati
In queste short stories troviamo vite umili, trascorse in piccole botteghe del Lower East Side , vite sferzate da una dura fatica, da prove dolorose, dall'indigenza, dai fallimenti, dall'amarezza di situazioni ingiuste ...uomini che sperano ancora in ciò che non hanno e lottano con grande energia e caparbietà per difendere quel poco che hanno (come Kessler ,che resiste stoicamente al suo sfratto )
È una bellissima raccolta , che è stata premiata nel 1959 con il National Book Award,
con degli incipit - che attacchi!- che riescono a farti entrare in 3-4 righe nel mondo di ogni racconto; sono piccole storie ,certo, di un'altra epoca, ma che non senti affatto lontane
(affascinanti ,poi, le ambientazioni italiane ,Roma e le sue bellezze ,il lago Maggiore con le sue isole dalla lussureggiante vegetazione e dai profumi inebrianti )
4 stelle piene
Dal barile magico di Bernard Malamud escono fuori tanti bei personaggi , di quelli che ti restano bene impressi in mente,per la sua maestria nel saper illuminare certi particolari ,che già da soli raccontano tutta una psicologia.
Rapide e vivide descrizioni, come quella del sensale Salzman ,per esempio
di corporatura minuta ma dignitosa,portava un vecchio cappello e un soprabito troppo corto e stretto per lui. Puzzava decisamente di pesce, che mangiava con grande avidità, e quantunque gli mancassero alcuni denti, la sua presenza non era sgradevole, per l'atteggiamento amabile che formava un curioso contrasto con gli occhi funerei. la voce, le labbra, la barba a ciuffo, le dita ossute erano animate,ma bastava concedergli un attimo di requie perché i suoi miti occhi celesti rivelassero un abisso di tristezza.
O quella del profugo Susskind,l'ultimo moicano, agile e svelto nei suoi calzoni alla zuava
o quella dell'angelo Levine ,l'angelo nero del Bronx, con il suo completo logoro
o quella dello pseudoagente immobiliare del racconto più divertente della raccolta Ecco la chiave , ambientato a Roma , Vasco Bevilacqua
un italiano capelluto, che stringeva in mano una cartella logora,era fermo sul marciapiede ,al sole.I suoi capelli puntavano in tutte le direzioni.Gli occhi erano miti, non tristi, ma lo erano stati
In queste short stories troviamo vite umili, trascorse in piccole botteghe del Lower East Side , vite sferzate da una dura fatica, da prove dolorose, dall'indigenza, dai fallimenti, dall'amarezza di situazioni ingiuste ...uomini che sperano ancora in ciò che non hanno e lottano con grande energia e caparbietà per difendere quel poco che hanno (come Kessler ,che resiste stoicamente al suo sfratto )
È una bellissima raccolta , che è stata premiata nel 1959 con il National Book Award,
con degli incipit - che attacchi!- che riescono a farti entrare in 3-4 righe nel mondo di ogni racconto; sono piccole storie ,certo, di un'altra epoca, ma che non senti affatto lontane
(affascinanti ,poi, le ambientazioni italiane ,Roma e le sue bellezze ,il lago Maggiore con le sue isole dalla lussureggiante vegetazione e dai profumi inebrianti )
4 stelle piene
August 7, 2022
A wonderful collection of short stories set in the Jewish community of 1950’s New York. Nothing dramatic happens in them, they are tales of the every day concerns that make the comedy and tragedy of life. Malamud gets to the eternal truths of human behaviour and the human condition and it is proof that people don’t change, just the technology does. There are two stories that two stories that are essentially catfishing, albeit by via letter and professional matchmaker, a man who believes that his perfect home in his ideal area and within budget is out there somewhere if he just looks hard enough (he’s not looking in London so he might be right for all I know), and an unpaid debt that accrues initially through kindness and then through abuse of that kindness.
The writing is beautiful and the speech is almost in a Yiddish dialect, omitting prepositions and changing the word order which brings the characters to life. Some sentences are pure poetry, like the final sentence of the first story which sees a shoe mender return to work in the hope of winning the affection of his boss’s daughter,
“[he] was already seated at the last, pounding leather for his love.”
A masterclass in short story writing which anyone who enjoys the genre should add to their wishlist.
The writing is beautiful and the speech is almost in a Yiddish dialect, omitting prepositions and changing the word order which brings the characters to life. Some sentences are pure poetry, like the final sentence of the first story which sees a shoe mender return to work in the hope of winning the affection of his boss’s daughter,
“[he] was already seated at the last, pounding leather for his love.”
A masterclass in short story writing which anyone who enjoys the genre should add to their wishlist.
December 31, 2010
This book made me long for the warm swaddle of classroom discussion. Not that there's anything manifestly "difficult" about Bernard Malamud's writing; he writes in clear, straightforward prose about the most fundamental and universal ideas and emotions. But he is the kind of writer who writes toward themes, and whose seemingly simple stories are packed with layers of meaning and symbolism. This is particularly evident in the endings of his stories, which are often pointedly enigmatic, strange, abrupt, puzzling and haunting. They would be perfect for the classroom setting, where teacher-led discussions can spend big chunks of time teasing out meaning from the text, volleying interpretations and possibilities. In high school and college I got fairly good at this game of find-the-subtext literary whack-a-mole, but in recent years my skills have atrophied, I can't swing that mallet quickly or accurately enough. If reading fiction critically is a menage a trois of narrative, aesthetics, and thematics, then I have more or less mastered the first two and too often ignore the third. On some level this is probably fine — we have to be selective about what we process in the art we absorb, or else we would go insane trying (and failing) to understand everything. But I do miss those academic acts of collaborative detection, especially because I didn't really appreciate them when I had access to them. You don't know what you got till it's gone, and so forth.
If I had read Malamud's National Book Award–winning collection The Magic Barrel in such an atmosphere, we probably would have talked about how several of these stories, written in the 1950s, contain grief-stricken echoes of the Holocaust, his Jewish characters victims of a kind of identity-based PTSD. We may also have discussed how Malamud is less interested in the reality of Jewish life than in the metaphorical potential of Jewish identity: avatars of human suffering who struggle daily with the pain of living in an unjust world. We might have theorized about the strange mix of empathy and cruelty with which Malamud treats his characters and has them treat each other. We probably would have spitballed some thoughts about why a full three of these thirteen stories by a Jewish American author are set in Italy, of all places, and why he populates those stories with educated young men instead of the impoverished old-world geezers of his New York tales. And we would circle back to the big "why" questions of those endings, questions I am woefully unprepared to answer. Like a Malamud protagonist — just imagine me as an elderly Jewish shopkeeper or baker — I'll just have to move forward in spite of my ignorance and confusion, stumbling toward some kind of acceptance, even if it turns out to be a false kind.
If I had read Malamud's National Book Award–winning collection The Magic Barrel in such an atmosphere, we probably would have talked about how several of these stories, written in the 1950s, contain grief-stricken echoes of the Holocaust, his Jewish characters victims of a kind of identity-based PTSD. We may also have discussed how Malamud is less interested in the reality of Jewish life than in the metaphorical potential of Jewish identity: avatars of human suffering who struggle daily with the pain of living in an unjust world. We might have theorized about the strange mix of empathy and cruelty with which Malamud treats his characters and has them treat each other. We probably would have spitballed some thoughts about why a full three of these thirteen stories by a Jewish American author are set in Italy, of all places, and why he populates those stories with educated young men instead of the impoverished old-world geezers of his New York tales. And we would circle back to the big "why" questions of those endings, questions I am woefully unprepared to answer. Like a Malamud protagonist — just imagine me as an elderly Jewish shopkeeper or baker — I'll just have to move forward in spite of my ignorance and confusion, stumbling toward some kind of acceptance, even if it turns out to be a false kind.
February 3, 2018
Notes on a (Narrow) Slice of Life
So who could say that Bernard Malamud didn't write well ? Not me. He writes very well indeed. These 13 stories, mainly about first-generation Jewish immigrants in America, but also about visitors to Italy from America, capture so much of life in a society where one is an outsider---that feeling of "being here but not here", or of living in a country, but not belonging. The wasted ex-coffee salesman, the harassed landlord, the loner rabbinical student, they all seem to pulsate with failure, with uncertainty, and fatal mistakes. Ah, this is a book about life all right, but it's a book in which the vision is almost tunnel vision. Every single story, without exception, deals with people who cannot rise to their own imaginations of themselves. They meet frustration, failure, death or disappointment, they are deflected from any purpose they might have once had. They are melancholy shades of fruitless endeavor. Does even one reach his ambition ? (They are all male.) No, the student doesn't find a house in Rome, the would-be art critic abandons his research, the would-be lover lies about his Jewish origins and loses the beautiful girl, the buyer on credit never pays back, the so-called reader never reads, the shoemaker allows his daughter to marry an unsuitable man. Only once, after humiliating an angel to tears, does an old man admit his mistake and save his wife from death, and this occurs in the only fantasy among the thirteen. Most of the characters lose, their labors come to naught, they grow wiser, but sadder. I would assume that Malamud himself felt an outsider everywhere, comfortable nowhere. If that is not true, his dreams must have been filled with worry, because this is a most melancholy collection. Does anyone smile ? Does anyone laugh ? Does anyone dash down the street radiant with love ? No. Life is full of personal shortcomings, a bald spot, a stubborn rejection of family, an inability to swim or make money. Frustration and lies run rampant--people certainly do shoot themselves in the foot again and again. Life is a tragedy, life always ends in disappointment-these are truths told in half the literature of the world, but there is more to our humble existence than that. Even when Malamud writes a humorous story, it is filled with underlying doubt in human nature, concentrating on the tendency of people to try to be what they are not. If you want thirteen superb stories to illustrate that sad point of view, here they are. If you think life is more of a mixed bag, then perhaps this book will only depress you.
So who could say that Bernard Malamud didn't write well ? Not me. He writes very well indeed. These 13 stories, mainly about first-generation Jewish immigrants in America, but also about visitors to Italy from America, capture so much of life in a society where one is an outsider---that feeling of "being here but not here", or of living in a country, but not belonging. The wasted ex-coffee salesman, the harassed landlord, the loner rabbinical student, they all seem to pulsate with failure, with uncertainty, and fatal mistakes. Ah, this is a book about life all right, but it's a book in which the vision is almost tunnel vision. Every single story, without exception, deals with people who cannot rise to their own imaginations of themselves. They meet frustration, failure, death or disappointment, they are deflected from any purpose they might have once had. They are melancholy shades of fruitless endeavor. Does even one reach his ambition ? (They are all male.) No, the student doesn't find a house in Rome, the would-be art critic abandons his research, the would-be lover lies about his Jewish origins and loses the beautiful girl, the buyer on credit never pays back, the so-called reader never reads, the shoemaker allows his daughter to marry an unsuitable man. Only once, after humiliating an angel to tears, does an old man admit his mistake and save his wife from death, and this occurs in the only fantasy among the thirteen. Most of the characters lose, their labors come to naught, they grow wiser, but sadder. I would assume that Malamud himself felt an outsider everywhere, comfortable nowhere. If that is not true, his dreams must have been filled with worry, because this is a most melancholy collection. Does anyone smile ? Does anyone laugh ? Does anyone dash down the street radiant with love ? No. Life is full of personal shortcomings, a bald spot, a stubborn rejection of family, an inability to swim or make money. Frustration and lies run rampant--people certainly do shoot themselves in the foot again and again. Life is a tragedy, life always ends in disappointment-these are truths told in half the literature of the world, but there is more to our humble existence than that. Even when Malamud writes a humorous story, it is filled with underlying doubt in human nature, concentrating on the tendency of people to try to be what they are not. If you want thirteen superb stories to illustrate that sad point of view, here they are. If you think life is more of a mixed bag, then perhaps this book will only depress you.
November 9, 2020
Malamud iyi yazıyor, bu kesin. Gerçekten bir oturuşta okunabilecek akıcı öyküler, ama bu seçkideki hikayeleri hatırlayacağımı sanmıyorum. Poe’nun “single effect” dediği şeyi bu öykülerde bulamadım. “Matem Tutanlar” ve “Gölün Hanımı” en sevdiklerim oldu.
Malamud’un dili roman yazmaya daha uygunmuş gibi geldi bana. Bu yüzden Tamirci ve Çırak’ı okuyacağım.
Malamud’un dili roman yazmaya daha uygunmuş gibi geldi bana. Bu yüzden Tamirci ve Çırak’ı okuyacağım.
March 15, 2015
I personaggi che Bernard Malamud ci presenta nella sua prima raccolta di racconti non possono essere propriamente definiti degli eroi, eppure sono tutti in qualche modo dei combattenti, impegnati in una lotta costante con la vita.
C'è il vecchio Kessler, che si batte per non essere sfrattato; Tommy, un ragazzo pieno di sogni che vorrebbe sfuggire al tedio e alla miseria del proprio quartiere; Carl Schneider, che corre da una parte all'altra di Roma alla ricerca di un appartamento per sé e la sua famiglia; Henry Levin, che fa di tutto per conquistare la bella ragazza dell'isola del Dongo.
Ne Il barile magico Finkle descrive Stella dicendo che "gli dava un’impressione di giovinezza – fiori di primavera – ma anche di vecchiaia: un senso d’essere stata consunta fino all’osso, sciupata;".
Non riuscirei a descrivere meglio l'umanità mostrataci da Malamud, un'umanità spezzata dalla vita, ma che non si arrende e spera ancora, come Henry Freeman, "in ciò che non aveva, ciò che pochi al mondo ottenevano e a cui molti non osavano pensare: nell’amore, cioè, nell’avventura, nella libertà."
I racconti preferiti:
- La ragazza dei miei sogni
- Ecco la chiave
- La dama del lago
- L'ultimo moicano
- Il barile magico
C'è il vecchio Kessler, che si batte per non essere sfrattato; Tommy, un ragazzo pieno di sogni che vorrebbe sfuggire al tedio e alla miseria del proprio quartiere; Carl Schneider, che corre da una parte all'altra di Roma alla ricerca di un appartamento per sé e la sua famiglia; Henry Levin, che fa di tutto per conquistare la bella ragazza dell'isola del Dongo.
Ne Il barile magico Finkle descrive Stella dicendo che "gli dava un’impressione di giovinezza – fiori di primavera – ma anche di vecchiaia: un senso d’essere stata consunta fino all’osso, sciupata;".
Non riuscirei a descrivere meglio l'umanità mostrataci da Malamud, un'umanità spezzata dalla vita, ma che non si arrende e spera ancora, come Henry Freeman, "in ciò che non aveva, ciò che pochi al mondo ottenevano e a cui molti non osavano pensare: nell’amore, cioè, nell’avventura, nella libertà."
I racconti preferiti:
- La ragazza dei miei sogni
- Ecco la chiave
- La dama del lago
- L'ultimo moicano
- Il barile magico
May 1, 2016
Con "Il commesso" non avevo potuto gustare appieno la potenza narrativa di Malamud: ero stata sopraffatta dall'infinita tristezza del romanzo.
Qui, ne "Il barile magico", ho avuto la possibilità di gustarlo appieno.
Undici racconti, in cui ogni parola non è scritta a caso. Scorci di vita, resi sublimi dall'abilità di Malamud. E anche se sono tristi, è l'alternarsi dei racconti che la smorza e fa emergere la bravura di questo scrittore.
Qui, ne "Il barile magico", ho avuto la possibilità di gustarlo appieno.
Undici racconti, in cui ogni parola non è scritta a caso. Scorci di vita, resi sublimi dall'abilità di Malamud. E anche se sono tristi, è l'alternarsi dei racconti che la smorza e fa emergere la bravura di questo scrittore.
November 15, 2019
Bottom line first. Bernard Malamud is a writer of fine tightly, crafted prose. The subject matter and emotional content are not likely to be of interest to younger readers. The Magic Barrel is not light summer beach read short stories. If one considers the mood, these are more appropriate for late fall and its increasing darkness. Something like a short story version of singing the blues. There is little objectionable in the way of sex, violence or crude language.
A lot of my decision to read Bernard Malamud’s, The Magic Barrel had to do with my having not read this author before. Getting into the stories I could not shake the feeling that he was speaking to 2019 in ways he could not have planned.
At the thin side, I had read about how much several others could not appreciate “New Yorker” modern fiction where nothing happens. On a larger scale there is so much in the air about the threat of immigrants.
I do not know if Bernard ever published in the New Yorker, but he was one of a generation of New York Area Jewish writers (many from nearby New Jersey, but close enough) who wrote of their community’s impoverished or near impoverished immigrant experience. It can be said that little happens, but we see deeply into the emotional lives of the men who figure at the center of all 13 stories. Besides Jewish immigrants Magic Barrel includes a few stories of young American men in Italy, also in financial straits and dependent on the locals.
Malamud’s stories can be moralistic or romantic or even amusing. The latter is humorous in the sense of calamity on calamity until the reader either collapses under the weight or sees the pilling on as an elaborate joke. Risking a spoiler these are all sad stories. Loneliness, poverty, fear, lack of confidence, psychic and cultural dislocation are the predominate themes.
A lot of my decision to read Bernard Malamud’s, The Magic Barrel had to do with my having not read this author before. Getting into the stories I could not shake the feeling that he was speaking to 2019 in ways he could not have planned.
At the thin side, I had read about how much several others could not appreciate “New Yorker” modern fiction where nothing happens. On a larger scale there is so much in the air about the threat of immigrants.
I do not know if Bernard ever published in the New Yorker, but he was one of a generation of New York Area Jewish writers (many from nearby New Jersey, but close enough) who wrote of their community’s impoverished or near impoverished immigrant experience. It can be said that little happens, but we see deeply into the emotional lives of the men who figure at the center of all 13 stories. Besides Jewish immigrants Magic Barrel includes a few stories of young American men in Italy, also in financial straits and dependent on the locals.
Malamud’s stories can be moralistic or romantic or even amusing. The latter is humorous in the sense of calamity on calamity until the reader either collapses under the weight or sees the pilling on as an elaborate joke. Risking a spoiler these are all sad stories. Loneliness, poverty, fear, lack of confidence, psychic and cultural dislocation are the predominate themes.
May 25, 2015
Treze histórias sobre gente pobre e humilde - na sua maioria judeus - que lutam pela sobrevivência, ou por um pouco de felicidade. Histórias tristes de gente a quem a vida não sorri, contadas de uma forma terna e comovente.
. Um homem que, tal como a figura bíblica de Jacob, trabalha durante anos, a troco de muito pouco, por amor à filha do seu patrão...;
. Um velhinho que sofre uma ordem de despejo do seu senhorio...;
. A surpresa (desagradável) de um escritor que se enamora de uma mulher pelo que ela escreve...;
. A recompensa de um homem a quem desabam em cima todos os males do mundo...;
. A luta de um estrangeiro em Roma para encontrar uma casa para a sua família...;
. Quando o amor, (ou apenas a generosidade?) leva a ultrapassar limites...;
. Uma menina que roubava chocolates...;
. Como uma pequena mentira pode impedir a felicidade...;
. As penas de um jovem que (não) lê...;
. O preço a pagar por quem compra fiado...;
. Um vagabundo que precisa de um fato...;
. O reencontro entre dois velhos amigos...;
. Um jovem que procura um casamenteiro mas a quem não agrada as pretendentes disponíveis, acabando a apaixonar-se pela que não devia.
"Bernard Malamud escreveu quatro ou cinco dos melhores contos da literatura americana que eu alguma vez li [e alguma vez lerei]" Philip Roth
. Um homem que, tal como a figura bíblica de Jacob, trabalha durante anos, a troco de muito pouco, por amor à filha do seu patrão...;
. Um velhinho que sofre uma ordem de despejo do seu senhorio...;
. A surpresa (desagradável) de um escritor que se enamora de uma mulher pelo que ela escreve...;
. A recompensa de um homem a quem desabam em cima todos os males do mundo...;
. A luta de um estrangeiro em Roma para encontrar uma casa para a sua família...;
. Quando o amor, (ou apenas a generosidade?) leva a ultrapassar limites...;
. Uma menina que roubava chocolates...;
. Como uma pequena mentira pode impedir a felicidade...;
. As penas de um jovem que (não) lê...;
. O preço a pagar por quem compra fiado...;
. Um vagabundo que precisa de um fato...;
. O reencontro entre dois velhos amigos...;
. Um jovem que procura um casamenteiro mas a quem não agrada as pretendentes disponíveis, acabando a apaixonar-se pela que não devia.
"Bernard Malamud escreveu quatro ou cinco dos melhores contos da literatura americana que eu alguma vez li [e alguma vez lerei]" Philip Roth
January 10, 2021
Riconoscersi nella tragedia, poi decidere da che parte stare.
Meglio: che persona diventare. Ma diffondere idee moraleggianti, diceva Malamud, è proprio quello che non si deve fare: «Lo scrittore non deve predicare, ma scrivere al meglio delle proprie abilità con l’obiettivo finale di nobilitare l’uomo e combattere le forze di disumanizzazione della nostra società». L’uomo, secondo Malamud, è una creatura misteriosa. Che senso ha, si chiedeva, scrivere un romanzo che non prova a spiegare l’uomo? Che senso ha, scrivere, senza cercare se stessi?
Un approfondimento qua: Bernard Malamud, un angelo ebreo e l’uomo spiegato bene
Meglio: che persona diventare. Ma diffondere idee moraleggianti, diceva Malamud, è proprio quello che non si deve fare: «Lo scrittore non deve predicare, ma scrivere al meglio delle proprie abilità con l’obiettivo finale di nobilitare l’uomo e combattere le forze di disumanizzazione della nostra società». L’uomo, secondo Malamud, è una creatura misteriosa. Che senso ha, si chiedeva, scrivere un romanzo che non prova a spiegare l’uomo? Che senso ha, scrivere, senza cercare se stessi?
Un approfondimento qua: Bernard Malamud, un angelo ebreo e l’uomo spiegato bene
April 19, 2013
I picked up a copy of this book a few years ago, on a whim, at Goodwill. It was an old library copy, so old that the publisher was Farrar Straus and Cudahy Inc. At the time I'd never heard of Malamud before, but the cover (designed by Milton Glaser) was striking with its colorful and clunky illustrations of flowers (yellow), chalices (orange), keys (green), stars (again with the yellow) and chairs (again with the green) set against a pink background. And for fifty cents? Why not, I said. What's fifty cents now, I asked then, but maybe insurance against boredom in the future, maybe? And so it was. And I like the story embedded in the very book itself: the due date card with names of patrons past. In pencil on the title page was the exact date the book officially entered the city collection: Aug. 6 1958. Checkouts were modest, around two to three a year, except for 1971, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1981 and 1982 - years the book sat undisturbed (sitting shelfa)...but don't listen to me, just treat yourself. You'll see. They're good. I mean, as Jhumpa Lahiri writes in her introduction (this I read online, found on the Internet), "Now that I have read them, I cannot believe there was ever a time I had not."
August 6, 2013
(4.3/5.0) Intensely readable with old fashioned roots, Bernard Malamud is like the depressed Jewish grandfather I barely remember having.
March 5, 2023
4.5 stars. A very good collection of thirteen short stories. I enjoyed all the stories with my favorites being ‘The First Seven Years’, ‘The Lady of the Lake’, and ‘The Magic Barrel’.
In ‘The First Seven Years’ a shoemaker and his old reliable, honest, hardworking employee expresses an interest in the shoemakers nineteen year old daughter.
In ‘The Lady of the Lake’, a young American Jew seeks romance in Italy. He calls himself Henry Freeman rather than his real name, Henry Levin, and denies he is Jewish.
In ‘The Magic Barrel, Leo Finkle, after six years of study, decides to get married. He goes to Salzman, a marriage broker, who offers Leo women with money and family connections.
This book won the 1959 National Book Award.
In ‘The First Seven Years’ a shoemaker and his old reliable, honest, hardworking employee expresses an interest in the shoemakers nineteen year old daughter.
In ‘The Lady of the Lake’, a young American Jew seeks romance in Italy. He calls himself Henry Freeman rather than his real name, Henry Levin, and denies he is Jewish.
In ‘The Magic Barrel, Leo Finkle, after six years of study, decides to get married. He goes to Salzman, a marriage broker, who offers Leo women with money and family connections.
This book won the 1959 National Book Award.
June 6, 2022
Average rating: 3.19 stars
October 16, 2010
I pulled this off of a list of books that Donald Barthelme recommended to his students. What Barthelme learned from Malamud is clear, and I would say that it's some of Barthelme's finer qualities. Every one of Malamud's stories hits the ground running. In a few sentences he makes fully formed characters with desires, motives and conflicts. I sympathized within a page of knowing them. Many of the stories tend towards heartbreaking, but there is such an agility to the writing, and so many small surprises that only sometimes does that heartbreak seem too heavy. There is an underlying optimism that is closely connected to the heartbreak (be it correlation or causation).
The personal and historical context of Malamud seems to play a big role in this collection as well. As a Jewish writer working not long after World War II, Malamud (and the rest of the world) obviously had some big issues to wrestle with. The only point I want to make about that is that he deals with this on a small scale, putting a lot of weight behind fairly minor, everyday exchanges. I think there's a lot of charm to that approach.
The personal and historical context of Malamud seems to play a big role in this collection as well. As a Jewish writer working not long after World War II, Malamud (and the rest of the world) obviously had some big issues to wrestle with. The only point I want to make about that is that he deals with this on a small scale, putting a lot of weight behind fairly minor, everyday exchanges. I think there's a lot of charm to that approach.
October 27, 2015
People don't write short stories with such simplicity and clarity anymore. Like parables from the bible, for a generation of Jewish men and women still reeling from the horrors of the holocaust and trying to make the best of immigrant life in America, or brief jaunts abroad. The characters, ordinary folks who tend grocery stores, clean buildings, fix shoes, always seem to run up against a single opponent, who may also be well meaning, and serves as the guard between them and their simple dreams. To stay in an apartment or find a new one. To find a wife and/or love. To pay for a tombstone or support a store. To write in peace. These are not grand dreams, which is precisely what makes these stories so heartbreaking and poignant to read, even 60 years later.
September 2, 2021
I almost removed this collection of short stories from my TBR list because my local library did not have a copy, but then I remembered how good THE FIXER was and bought a used copy very cheap. I'm so glad I did, because Malamud's short stories are top-notch. They are sometimes funny, often deep and generally mysterious. The first story, THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS, is the best in the collection. THE PRISON, and THE MAGIC BARREL, are close seconds. All thirteen of the stories are good, but half of them are exemplary. Some, or most, of the endings are mysterious, but only one of them could I not understand (TAKE PITY). I read the story twice and still couldn't understand what happened, to my satisfaction. Several interpretations are possible.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
July 15, 2017
Antologia di racconti di Bernard Malamud, che, nonostante la forma breve, mostrano i temi principali e cari all’autore.
Alcuni davvero interessanti avrei voluto vederli sviluppati di più.
Alcuni davvero interessanti avrei voluto vederli sviluppati di più.
April 12, 2023
As strong as Malamud's writing in novels is, his perfectionism and his slightly strange, almost "translated" sounded phrasing really shines in his short stories, most of which are just several pages long and focus on Jewish and other ethnic immigrants barely scraping by in the Depression-, WW2- and Postwar-era U.S. The stories often have a sort of fable-like, even quasi-Magical Realist approach where one chance (or fated?) decision, often an act of rash kindness, leads to the ruin of one or more people, really highlighting the precariousness of existence, even in a booming economy, for so many people. Stories like "The Bill," "The Loan," "The First Seven Years," the title story, all have this understated, quiet heartbreak about them, while also retaining a wry sense of humor and turning on a sense of irony that at times recalls O. Henry and at others Kafka or Beckett. No less an authority on short fiction than Flannery O'Connor once described Malamud as the greatest short story writer of them all, and the works included in this, his first collection, go a long way toward supporting her assertion.
July 26, 2023
I picked up this book off a stoop in downtown Brooklyn not knowing anything about it or the author. I was pleasantly surprised to find out a majority of the short stories inside this book were located in NYC post WWII, mostly in Manhattan. While I was put off by some of the stereotyping of certain characters, it felt like stepping into the past, which I found refreshing. While some of the short stories fell a little short, I would happily open it back up and read some sections again.
November 25, 2023
Dull moralism, occasional flashes of brilliant prose. The Italian stories are especially rough.
March 16, 2012
I am not particularly a fan of short stories. I like novels because they go on long enough for me to sink into the story, the characters, the ideas. When I read a whole book of short stories, I feel I am getting interrupted too often and become annoyed. But Bernard Malamud, whose first two novels have been impressive and made me a fan, won the National Book Award for this collection in 1959, making it "required reading" on my list for that year. Sometimes My Big Fat Reading Project feels like a college syllabus; in fact it is a self-created one, making it a reading college with one student where the professors are all authors so I don't mind.
As it turned out, the stories in The Magic Barrel were amazing. I was fully engaged from the first page and finished the collection feeling satisfied by each story. Because they were not related except for their variations on the theme of Jewish life in America, instead of a buffet I felt I was having a series of complete meals created by a versatile chef.
I was raised in a Lutheran family though I gravitated to Jewish kids as I was growing up. While I can't say having those friends make me any kind of expert on what it means to be Jewish, I suppose I developed an affinity for Jews and escaped the peril of seeing a Jewish person as part of a generality or stereotype.
I say this because great writing about an aspect of life, such as religious or national or racial origins, also dispels stereotypes and enriches the understanding of a reader who is not a member of that religion, nation or race. I think what Malamud does that is so powerful is give the reader the experience of being Jewish through the individual consciousnesses of his characters and thereby overcomes the sense of otherness which prejudice and oppression drape over such individuals. He performs his own magic.
September 25, 2020
3/5 Stars (%67/100)
This is review is about "The Magic Barrel" not the other stories in the book.
Leo Finkle is a bright young man studying to be a rabbi. He is so focused on his studies and cannot spend any time on other things. Someone suggest to him that he should get married via a matchmaker. He chooses the matchmaker Pinye Salzman, but he is a shady guy with mysteries.
At first, the story seems to appear as a quest to find love but it quickly turns into its roots once more: find your faith and believe in God. However, in the story, finding God and belief is through humans. Through relationships between humans and love one can discover God’s love. As we have seen in the story, it is not easy and it will not come without a hefty price. Leo himself does not even realise that he is in need of love. He wants to get married in order to find a bigger congregation.
After his interactions with Salzman, he realizes just how lonely he is and how much he needs Stella’s love. The story is also about Salzman’s unhappy life as he disowned his own daughter and works as a matchmaker. When you think about it, it is ironic that faith can only be found through love from a woman, something worldly. Therefore, I put this title (To Believe or To Live, the title of my essay) to emphasize that you cannot completely have both: you either choose belief and turn to God or you choose to live with love in this world. In any case, the story is more than what it seems. It is not only about love or faith.
This is review is about "The Magic Barrel" not the other stories in the book.
Leo Finkle is a bright young man studying to be a rabbi. He is so focused on his studies and cannot spend any time on other things. Someone suggest to him that he should get married via a matchmaker. He chooses the matchmaker Pinye Salzman, but he is a shady guy with mysteries.
At first, the story seems to appear as a quest to find love but it quickly turns into its roots once more: find your faith and believe in God. However, in the story, finding God and belief is through humans. Through relationships between humans and love one can discover God’s love. As we have seen in the story, it is not easy and it will not come without a hefty price. Leo himself does not even realise that he is in need of love. He wants to get married in order to find a bigger congregation.
After his interactions with Salzman, he realizes just how lonely he is and how much he needs Stella’s love. The story is also about Salzman’s unhappy life as he disowned his own daughter and works as a matchmaker. When you think about it, it is ironic that faith can only be found through love from a woman, something worldly. Therefore, I put this title (To Believe or To Live, the title of my essay) to emphasize that you cannot completely have both: you either choose belief and turn to God or you choose to live with love in this world. In any case, the story is more than what it seems. It is not only about love or faith.
July 3, 2023
Înțelepte, amare, amuzante ici-colo, cu iz de parabole, dar fără a fi didactice, povestirile astea m-au legănat și ținut aproape, sosind la timpul potrivit.
Neîntrecut talentul de a istorisi al evreilor de pretutindeni!
Neîntrecut talentul de a istorisi al evreilor de pretutindeni!
April 22, 2011
Malamud writes with perfect emotional tone in these stories. I didn't care so much for "The Tenant," but I loved these stories. These stories just have this quiet subtlety which lets the emotion ring through in such a natural seeming way. It really is marvelous, absolutely perfect. Haunting, beautiful, human. I could read them again and again.
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