The Magic Barrel

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 sin......more

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 wo......more

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 er......more

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 t......more

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......more