Customer Reviews

Pictures of Fidelman (Plume Fiction)

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Pictures of Fidelman is a series of six fairly independent tales of Arthur Fidelman, a Bronx Jew and failed painter who has traveled to Rome to write on Giotto. He seems unable to move forward with his new life nor to completely let go of his desire to be a successful painter. He bounces around Italy trying to find himself (or maybe lose himself) but never seems to accomplish either. The fifth of the stories is an attempt by Malamud at stream of consciousness (the title of the story is "Portraits of the Artist") otherwise they are typically Malamud who writes cleanly and passionately.

This is a series of six episodes in the life of New Yorker Arthur Fidelman, a painter who once aspired to be great, but didn't know how to get there, and now cannot identify what he wants in life, or how to get it. He moves to Italy and is promptly taken advantage of in every way imaginable, while he runs into some quirky and amusing characters who teach him many life-lessons and eventually help him discover his own identity.

This is a terrific and imaginative work and each misadventure that Fidelman embarks on is unique and funny. I pictured a "slightly stranger looking than Woody Allen" character, full of paranoia and uncertainty, and yet plodding along, tentative, determined to experience something new and creative.

This book was for sale at the school Book Fair when I was in third grade. I liked the cover so I bought it. No one said anything at the time but they did not act too surprised when I asked why the lady called the man a Pig, beast, onanist! Also the line about the cross... kids read the darndest things