The Magic Barrel: Stories

by Bernard Malamud

Other authorsJhumpa Lahiri (Introduction)

Paperback, 2003

Status

Available

Call number

801 MAL

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collections

ADULT COLLECTION, 801 Folklore (formerly 398)

Publication

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2003), Edition: Reprint, 240 pages

Description

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction Introduction by Jhumpa Lahiri 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 struggleing 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.… (more)

Media reviews

National Book Foundation

What a masterpiece of compression—yet with the lightness and swiftness of a Rembrandt sketch.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Akunsak

What I liked best was the sense of living 60 years ago or so, that the references and common practices in the world were a bit different than today. Still with these folks living in the past, they are universally just like we are, their worries are so specific and exactly like ours. I am not

explaining this well, but imagine that I was able to think just like the tailor Manischevitz, and wonder if the earth was giving me a test. Fantastic stuff.

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LibraryThing member Kristelh

Reason Read: TIOLI, ROOT

I received only the short story The Magic Barrel and that is what I am reviewing. The story is of a young man who has been busy in college and has no social life. He contacts a marriage broker, Salzman to remedy this problem. Salzman offers a young window (rejected), an

older lady, school teacher, and a young girl with a lame foot. Finkler rejects all of these. He eventually agrees to meet the school teacher and comes to the realization that he has never loved any one even God. Later he finds a small picture of a young girl that he falls in love with and insists that she is the one. Salzman tells him that she is not the one. Later he agrees to let them meet (he is her father) and the girl is dressed in a red dress and white shoes. Her father is behind the wall saying the prayer of the dead. The ending is ambiguous. Is this girl trouble, is this the new generation of Americans, or was it a trick of the father to marry off his daughter.

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