Customer Reviews

The Complete Stories

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Called the modern master of the short story, Malamud has won two National Book Awards and the Pulitzer Prize (for the Fixer). The Complete Stories is a collection of short stories -- bound by a central theme. All are about individuals faced with moral decisions or confronted by societal limitations. You'll find that the stories in this book highlight the mundane and the absurd.

I was touched by the characters in the book because they are so human. I was amused, angered, and felt great pity for these fictional people. I rarely read fiction, so few authors seem to me able to "get it right". Malamud has it right. The characters react like normal people. They are alive with conflict. Like the rest of us, they sometimes make poor choices and may live unfulfilled lives.

One of my favorite stories is Riding Pants. In "Riding Pants" we meet Herm, who is the sixteen year old son of a butcher. Herm lives alienated by the world around him. Riding is the only joy in his life. Like a small child's security blanket, his riding pants bring him solace. Frustrated by his son's refusal to accept his world, his father takes a drastic step.

If you want fairy tale endings and beautiful people riding into the sunset, this may not be the best book for you. If you want to taste life from the eyes of another, perhaps discovery a truth about yourself. Read The Complete Stories. This is an excellent book!!!

I heard about the writer during the Nextbook.org book readings in Chicago. I have never read any of Malamud's work previously. Curious to learn about how he perceived life of immigrants, Jewish underclass and life struggles in general, I have decided to read his complete collection of short stories. It was pure delight to read these short stories not only because of their intense content, bu also because it gave complete insight of the Malamud's growth as a writer. One can see how his writing and style is changing and evolving over time. It becomes better and better with writer's personal maturity. I would stongly recommend this writer to anyone who wants to read about Jewish culture, learn about life of immigrants in the period between 1930s-1960s. Now I am looking forward to read Malamud's other work.

Malamud has written some of the most noted stories of the second half of the American twentieth century. His famous 'The Magic Barrel'with its broken characters broken Yiddish sufferings disappointments and strange poetic intensity is perhaps the most well- known and emblematic of his general approach as a writer. Malamud is a man of the precise word, the carefully drawn artistic touch, the minor note of beauty which suddenly pains. Malamud is the person of sympathy with the sufferings of his own characters, and with the ideology that this suffering is what makes them most human . In another sense the suffering is what defines the Jews and is where Judaism too becomes emblematic of what humanity is. Malamud travels in different worlds for his stories in the Italy of Fidelman , and in the far off Western regions of America where Jews are very rare and distant strangers. Of the many different kinds of encounters in his story he makes his own poetic universe, touched with small irony, and with a Yiddish bittersweetness.
These are stories for those who love the high art of small tones and intuitions of one of the finest story- writers of his time.

I picked this book up because I liked the cover and I thought, however right or wrong, that a publisher would release a collection of this length to only a quality writer. I was not wrong; this man is a master. I have read "The First Seven Years" at least fifteen times, and I have my classes read it all the time. I wish I could have met Malamud.

Malamud is a wonderful storyteller. He creates compelling characters and vivid settings in every story. He brings people and places to life in just a few sentences. My favorites are the early stories, very short stories set in New York in the late 40s and early 50s. At the end of each story I wished he had written more, but wondered if the characters would have been less interesting if he had. There are many excellent longer pieces as well.

I know how people get when they review books on amazon.
People like sounding smart, and they slap together a "thoughtful" review that is actually just every single book they have ever read and a drawn comparison about five pages of the novel or whatever, and it tells you nothing about the book.

I'm a college student, and a teacher of mine recommended me an author who won the Pen Malamud award. Big fan of that guy, so: hey? Why not check out Malamud?

The complete stories are perfect. If not every story, then almost every story is exactly "right" and there really isn't another word for it.

It's just an entirely "perfect" book. I haven't read any of his novels yet, but I plan on it now, and I honestly can't imagine a more pleasurable reading experience than just sitting down for three or four days and doing nothing but reading this book.

Malamud's stories capture and bring alive the post world war years in New York City, with Jews as the central characters. I came to these stories after I exhausted all of Malamud's novels. For those who are not familiar with Malamud, wherever you start, his novels or these short stories, you will be grateful you did.

Malamud has a way with narrative so that at the first word you are hooked and you can't put the book down till the story is over. His prose style is smooth and transparent, and his characters are idiosyncratic. My favorite stories were The German Refugee, Man in the Drawer, Black Is My Favorite Color, Zora's Noise and Rembrandt's Hat. But all of them are worthwhile.

This is the first time I read Malamud based off a recommendation from my well read grandfather. I asked him who are the best modern Jewish fiction writers. Bellows, Roth, and Malamud are definitely the best he noted. I was very impressed by the depth of all of the characters introduced in this novel and I was especially pleased at the constant reappearance of an artist down on his luck but completely in love with making art. And that is exactly what Malamud does - create art.

Many of his characters are the outcast types that feel like outsiders hardly understand them and their passions (we've all felt that way at times haven't we?) Many of the protagonists are writers, artists, store owners, janitors - an ordinary walk of life. I recommend this book despite the incoherency of the last couple short stories - but don't worry the 50something before it are wonderful.

Nobody comes close to Bernard Malamud as master of the short story in the 20th Century. As roll-overs from the 19th Century Thomas Mann and Henry James come pretty close but only pretty close.Its easier to write late Victorian and mal du siecle
stories than the less formalized stories of the common man who
frequents Malamud tales of the grubby depression-shocked heros
of the 30s and 40s.