Customer Reviews

The Tenants

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"The Tenants" tells the story of a writer labouring to complete a novel which he has been struggling over for the past 10 years. He is involved in this sublime act of producing his best work in a dilapidated building of which he is the sole tenant. He stays there much to the chagrin of it's troubled owner who is eager to demolish it. The situation gets worse as a black writer sneaks into the building and starts his literary pursuit.

The novel presents deftly how racial hatred overcomes the most civilized of beings. The white writer is apparently devoid of any racial considerations especially in contrast to Willie, whose entire being emanates hatred for non-black people. Still, we see the former being influenced by them without his knowledge. By falling in love with Irene he is in a way trying to possess a female member of his race who somehow looks out of place in the company of a black. His love is sincere, but he fails to defend it from being contaminated.

The novel portrays the tragedy of art. We see the superhuman efforts of the writer to transcend base passions on the wings of universal art meet with ultimate destruction in the hands of a society decaying physically, morally and conscientiously.

Malamud has written this novel in a crisp, short manner. The author uses symbolism very effectively to present the pitiable state of the environment where creativity struggles to lift its head. The deprecated and dirty building, the inflammated bladders of Irene, the tragedy-struck family of Lievenspiel, the black girl who could never experience orgasm, the foul mouthed Willie and his friends, all these clearly cut the shape of the frigid truths of an apparently successful and contented society. The book sees man and society and so do who read it.

It wasn't "The Assistant" for me, but it was a pretty good read (the dialogue alone was worth the price of admission). Malamud handled the diversity of characters very well and although I wasn't over joyed at the ending, I didn't expect to be. A sometimes angry, sometimes funny read.

I belive that Malamud ought to be approached with a certain mindset and that mindset should not be reading for the sake of having fun. There are other novels that I read for that purpose. The level of enjoyment to be achieved through reading his work can better be compared to that of listening to a great teacher, rather than a great entertainer. Whenever I read Malamud, and I am in process of finishing the last of his works, I feel that I have gained a deeper sense of the human condition - that of light emerging from seeming fruitlessness. If you seek something lighter, then perhaps Malamud is not for you, but for those of us who seek Literature with this characteristic, he is unrivaled.

There is no doubt that The Tenants is a very accomplished novel, from a writer who is one of the finest post-war American novelists. The pace of the novel is brisk and Malamud incorporates his patented bare style with some more lyrical sections on the art of writing to great effect. Yet with all these merits, The Tenants lacks the fire of some of Malamud's other works. The novel is overwrought without being passionate, and this detracts from the reader's sense of getting something vital from the novel. Malamud is trying to say something here, something profound and timely about art, sex, life and race, yet the overall shrillness of the tone leaves little other registers of feeling or thought. The novel reads like a string instrument with a chord or two missing.

Two writers. One Jew-Harry- one black-Willie- live in an abandoned tenamant
block and have an antagonistic relationship.
Malamud wrote this at the height of the black-jew tensions of the late 60's early 70's and it explores the link between identity and racism-Willie is seeking a definition of blackness that excludes and dominates, whilst Harry seeks love but doesn't know either how to find it or give it,and neither can escape from their never to be finished books.
This is typical Malamud fayre;at times bleak, at times humourous and with characters that only destroy themselves or their ambitions.
A definate for Malamud addicts.

Set in a decaying Manhattan tenement waiting to be condemned, "The Tenants" tells the story of a white novelist desperately trying to finish his novel before the wrecking ball comes down on him. Things get complicated when an aspiring African-American writer moves in and a rivalry begins.

This book is not good. The author's style is good but the story goes nowhere.

The characters in the book are really more parodies of people rather than being fully developed.

Waste of time.