THE MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN [Hardcover]

Isaac Bashevis Singer (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 7th Printing edition (1978)
• ASIN: B001OMQJHG
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trickster Tumbles, Taps into Truth, June 12, 2004

By 

Robert S. Newman "Bob Newman" (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Magician of Lublin (Mass Market Paperback)

But can we know what God wants us to do ? Isn't it a case of Man sewing throughout his lifetime the clothes that fit him ? We ask a million questions, however the answers lie only within. You have to do as you see fit. Some say the discipline of orthodox religion points out the road; every bird, every snowflake, every acorn lying on the grass is proof of God's existence. Others deny the whole thing and swear God never existed. Singer's tale of a religiously-lapsed Jewish magician/acrobat is not so much about tricks or a series of interlocking events as about a man torn between Good and Evil. Though Yasha lives on the edge of Polish society and associates with the most dubious of characters, he has a conscience, he loves women and is kind to animals, but always manipulates them to his own ends. He is more and more plagued by self-doubt and indecision as he grows older, until he can no longer act. His life of flimflam grifting, adultery, and hocus-pocus unravels when he ventures to break the 8th commandment---Thou Shalt Not Steal. He himself knows that he has at last gone too far. His four women, his course of dubious activity, his pride in his ability---all then fall away. In the end, Yasha takes a drastic and unexpected measure in order to control his desires and his straying from the path of the righteous. He achieves the fame which eluded him for so many years as a magician. The struggle within him continues unabated. Yasha remains a thinker, a questioner, a wonderer, not a blind accepter of given wisdom.

THE MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN epitomizes, in the form of a novel, the basic elements of Jewish thinking. Or at least, it asks and tries to answer the most basic questions of that tradition. It is certainly an interesting novel, but it is also a masterpiece of Jewish philosophy. Man is born to question. If you don't question, you are not even alive. But don't expect to get "THE" answer because it doesn't exist. Nobel Prize winner, Isaac Bashevis Singer, as always, presents a vivid picture of the lost world of the East European Jews in all its gritty piety and desperate poverty., the world swallowed up by Evil, no matter how many prayers were said. For as it is written, (at least to paraphrase a certain well-known spaghetti western), "when a man with a prayer meets a man with a gun, the man with a prayer is a dead man". Singer was lucky enough to escape, but not unmarked, no, not at all. As I started, so I will finish. In view of the meaningless destruction of a whole world wrought by the Holocaust, how can we know what God wants us to do ? This book contains a particular answer, but the quest continues.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Jewish Siddhartha, April 12, 2005

By 

IRA Ross (LYNDHURST, NJ United States 07071) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Magician of Lublin (Mass Market Paperback)

Like Siddhartha, Yasha has led a life of dissipation. In Yasha's case his transgressions consisted of womanizing, excessive alcohol consumption, keeping friends with shady characters, and, finally, burglary and attempted thievery. Suffering a serious injury, the suicide of one of his paramours, and possible imprisonment, Yasha relinquishes his burgeoning career as a magician and tight rope walker in favor of doing deep religious penance. Also, like Siddhartha, Yasha becomes an ascetic. Recognizing himself as a sinner who could easily slip back again to his former ways, Yasha shuts himself off from the world in a most unusual way. Not through any choice of his own, Yasha becomes, "a holy man" with "Jewish men and women (waiting) at (his) window for (his) blessing."

Isaac Bashevis Singer has written a thought-provoking novel of tremendous intensity in a style containing deceptively simple language. Singer's characters are full of human frailties and vulnerability. Yasha, in particular, is always questioning the morality of his intended acts and their possible consequences on others. This is especially so after he escapes into a synagogue (Yasha is a fallen away Jew) and achieves an epiphany of sorts. Yasha learns that he is not evil, after all, but simply human
and, in many ways worthy of love and admiration.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 19th Century Story Is Just As Gripping Today, June 13, 2005

By 

In Xanadu - See all my reviews

This review is from: Magician of Lublin (Mass Market Paperback)

This story is similar to "Enemies, A Love Story" in that it features a lead character with too many lovers, and it features some comical moments amid some very dramatic ones.

No wonder so much of Singer's work has been translated from Yiddish. You don't have to be of the Jewish faith to identify with the moral struggles of his characters. Even an athiest could relate to the dilemmas faced by Yasha as he feebly tries to do right by all the women in his life, and not surprisingly often does horribly wrong.

Singer won my heart in the first chapter, writing lovingly about doting wife Esther. In a lesser writer's hand, she would seem pathetic. But she comes off as an admirable individual with a sense of pride in her faithfulness. In fact, all the characters are so multidimensional, together they seem to be every facet of a woman, which is probably what Yasha really desires.

Like all great novels, this one stayed with me for several days, but to say why would be revealing to much. Even after 45 years, it still resonates. This book asks hard questions for which there are no easy answers, and wraps them in a totally compelling tale.