Customer Reviews

THE MAGIC BARREL

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Since this book won the 1959 National Book Award, and I had not read it, I found a copy and was amazed at the power of the stories. I usually am not too enamored of short story collections, since I don't appreciate starting anew every few pages in a book. But this book is an exception. I was amazed at how quickly one became caught up in each story. The first story is The First Seven Years, and is a most touching story, setting the reader up most felicitously for enjoyment of each of the following 12 stories.

It was such a pleasure to read these stories. Each story grabs you quickly, and makes its narative thrust accessible. His stories don't stray from his simple narratives; there is very little excess or digression.
The stories are very personal and moral without being preachy. He knows how to capture people's moral ambivalence without judging them or resorting to stereotypes.
I found this book to be both an easy read and very moving.

This set of stories surprises one with breadth of understanding which it exhibits. From the first story ("The First Seven Years") which deals with a father's desire to provide the best for his daughter through the last story ("The Magic Barrel")which provides an interesting contrast to the first, all of these stories expand on the single theme of human experience.

The frustration built upon in "The Key" and "The Last Mohican" if offset nicely by the humor in "A Summer's Reading" and "The Lady of the Lake". "Take Pity" and "The Mourners" offer great insigth into growing old and dealing with lonliness. While "Angel Levine" is probably the most off beat of the set it still manages to increase hope, whereas "The Prison" causes an equal loss of faith in the human race.

The 12 stories here provide a wonderful evening's reading, however if your looking for more they are included in the books of his complete stories.

Malamud does three or four tricks in his fiction well, and here he does each one to utter perfection. And when taken together, this collection of stories almost transcends Malamud's normal limits: the stories are compressed, short, and below the surface, charged with almost unbearable tension. Unlike other collections of stories (or when you read too many Malamud stories) Malamud does not parody himself in the Magic Barrell. Everything is where it is supposed to be, and works like a well oiled machine. It is a shame that (as of writing this) only eight people have reviewed this masterpiece of a short story collection. In Roth's The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman explains that the world's morality has already passed by the E.I. Lonoff's (a character based on Malamud). Seems Roth was correct... and this is true even more today, thirty years after the publication of The Ghost Writer. We no longer live in Malamud's world, and it is a shame.

These stories are pervaded with a certain sadness and disappointment, a sense of life as largely a trial in suffering. They are also however deep in a kind of quiet beauty, a unique language of slightly Yiddishized American colloquial restraint. The title story, and the most famous one tells of the hopes and disappointments of poor Jews seeking to find their ' bashert' their destined mate. It touches upon the world of tormented souls selling illusions to themselves and others. It really moves us with the sense of how the dreams of life turn bitterness into greater bitterness, with longing disappointment beauty. These stories are for those who are willing to read and take inspiration from the sadnesses of life, that nonetheless enrich our human meaning.

These stories about New York, even when read fifty years later by someone like me from a totally different demographic, in Los Angeles, are still relevant. There are universal self-loathing themes for all immigrants, at all times. I wouldn't call it immigrant lit, but it's more like human diaspora lit, the transience of people, and how people make sense, however limited, of the world around them. Strongly recommend. Malamud is able to make writing about trash untrashy, but not in a falsely glorifying way, but in a humanizing way. These are real short stories, not failed novellas.

This book was in great condition. Still looked practically brand new. The only problem is that it is upside down and backwards. So I look like a retard when reading it. It's not a big issue though. Otherwise it came in a timely manner and is in the condition the seller told me it was in.

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.

'The Magic Barrel' by Malamud contains several (mostly) entertaining short stories involving Jewish (/Yiddish) characters from the 1950s. He captures a culture and way of life today's generation has no memory of. Although well written I cannot quite understand why this book would receive any special accolades.

Bottom line: certainly a good read but not the sort of book worth searching for unless one has a special interest in Jewish/Yiddish American life. Recommended.

This is a very strange book. There are a lot of small messages that Mr. Malamud delivers in each of his stories. Everything from the mistreatment of others to stealing. He covers many different aspects of life that can help make people better citizens of the world.
I did not enjoy his style of writing though. It was dull, and very dry. There was no excitment in any of his stories and I found it hard to keep myself reading. I can see how somebody else might enjoy it though... if you're the type that likes dull, dry stories, Malamud is the guy for you.