Isaac Bashevis Singer’s first collection of stories, Gimpel the Fool, is a landmark work that has attracted international acclaim since it was first published in 1957. In Saul Bellow’s masterly translation, the title story follows the exploits of Gimpel, an ingenuous baker who is universally deceived but who declines to retaliate against his tormentors. Gimpel and the protagonists of the other stories in this volume all inhabit the distinctive pre–World War II ghettos of Poland and, beyond that, the larger world created by Singer’s unforgettable prose.
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Editorial Reviews
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“Extraordinarily beautiful… It’s the integrity of the human imagination that Singer conveys so beautifully.” --Alfred Kazin, The New Leader
“Singer is a genius. He has total command of his imagined world.” –Irving Howe, The New Republic
“A peerless storyteller, Singer restores the sheer enchantment with story, with outcome, with what-happens-next that has been denied most readers since their adolescence.” –David Boroff, Saturday Review
“Singer is a genius. He has total command of his imagined world.” –Irving Howe, The New Republic
“A peerless storyteller, Singer restores the sheer enchantment with story, with outcome, with what-happens-next that has been denied most readers since their adolescence.” –David Boroff, Saturday Review
Language Notes
Text: English, Yiddish (translation)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Two of the greatest stories of all time,
By
This review is from: Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories (Hardcover)
This book of four stories contains two that I consider among the best Singer ever wrote, and among the best of all time, 'Gimpel the Fool' and ' The Spinoza of Market Street'. Gimpel is the eternal innocent, the good person who life and its cruelty continually mock and humiliate without ever managing to destroy his goodness and faith. He is the 'fool' who in his goodness and faith is holier than us all. A Jewish Quixote but one without heroic pretensions one instead filled with kindness and love even when he is being laughed at and made a fool of.
'The Spinoza of Market Street' is the story of an impossible love. It is the story of redemption and rebirth of body and soul through human kindness and caring. It is the story of an old philosopher lost in his dreams of Spinoza who is nursed back into life as man by a caring lonely unattractive woman. It is story of hope and of the redemption of the human soul. How beautiful and deep these two great stories, how they give food and hope for body and soul.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
GIMPEL THE FOOL,
By kay (north carolina, united states) - See all my reviews
This review is from: "Gimpel the Fool" and Other Stories (Audio Cassette)
I enjoyed reading Gimpel the Fool. it made it possible relate to some of the jewish traditions as well as human nature that still is transpiring today. honesty versus dishonesty. isaac bshevis singer is a great writer. plain language and easy to interpret makes it more inspiring to continue to read his stories without putting it aside for later reading. well done indeed.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the most beautiful stories ever written,
By
This review is from: Gimpel the Fool: And Other Stories (Paperback)
This book contains Saul Bellow's translation of 'Gimpel the Fool'. This is the translation and the story which made Singer famous in America. It is a masterwork.
Singer is for me the greatest of all storywriters. I feel a special love for the Jewish world of characters he so wonderfully creates. The title- story 'Gimpel' is the story of a baker's assistant, an innocent slow- minded person of faith who though he is endlessly used and exploited by others continues to have trust and faith. He is deceived into marriage, and deceived repeatedly by his wife, knocked on the head everywhere, and yet his innocence, his trust do not abandon him. His holy love has a beauty about it which deeply moves to sympathy , to laughter and to tears. Reading this story will I believe make most readers feel more deeply human , and make them sense more strongly the paradoxical beauty and greatness of life.
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74
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- Isaac B. Singer: A Life by Florence Noiville on 7 pages
- Booking Passage: Exile and Homecoming in the Modern Jewish Imagination (Contraversions: Critical Studies in Jewish Literature, Culture, and Society) by Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi on 5 pages
- Call It English: The Languages of Jewish American Literature by Hana Wirth-Nesher on 4 pages
- Self-Deception Unmasked by Alfred R. Mele in Front Matter, page 68, and Back Matter
- New Essays on Seize the Day (The American Novel) by Michael P. Kramer in Front Matter, page 25, and page 40
See all 74 books citing this book
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