The schlemiel as metaphor: studies in Yiddish and American Jewish fiction PDF
Preview The schlemiel as metaphor: studies in Yiddish and American Jewish fiction
The Schlemiel As Metaphor : Studies in title: Yiddish and American Jewish Fiction author: Pinsker, Sanford. publisher: Southern Illinois University Press isbn10 | asin: 0809315815 print isbn13: 9780809315819 ebook isbn13: 9780585186375 language: English Schlemiel in literature, Yiddish literature-- History and criticism, American literature-- subject Jewish authors--History and criticism, Jews in literature, Metaphor. publication date: 1991 lcc: PJ5124.P5 1991eb ddc: 813.009/352 Schlemiel in literature, Yiddish literature-- History and criticism, American literature-- subject: Jewish authors--History and criticism, Jews in literature, Metaphor. Page iii The Schlemiel as Metaphor Studies in Yiddish and American Jewish Fiction Revised and Enlarged Edition Sanford Pinsker Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale and Edwardsville Page iv The Schlemiel as Metaphor: Studies in Yiddish and American Jewish Fiction is a revised and enlarged edition of the text originally entitled The Schlemiel as Metaphor: Studies in the Yiddish and American Jewish Novel, by Sanford Pinsker, copyright © 1971 by Southern Illinois University Press. Revised and enlarged edition copyright © 1991 by The Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Edited by Mara Lou Hawse Designed by Shannon M. McIntyre Production supervised by Natalia Nadraga Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pinsker, Sanford. The schlemiel as metaphor : studies in Yiddish and American Jewish fiction / Sanford Pinsker.Rev. and enl. ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Schlemiel in literature. 2. Yiddish literatureHistory and criti- cism. 3. American literatureJewish authorsHistory and criti- cism. I. Title. PJ5124.P5 1991 813.009'352dc20 90-9980 ISBN 0-8093-1581-5 CIP The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Page v For Matt and Beth, who required no revisions whatsoever Page vii Contents Preface to the Revised Edition ix Acknowledgments xiii 1 1 The Schlemiel's Family Tree 2 17 "If I Were a Rich Man": Mendele and Sholom Aleichem 3 37 The Schlemiel on Main Street 4 48 The Isolated Schlemiels of Isaac Bashevis Singer 5 77 The Schlemiel as Moral Bungler: Bernard Malamud's Ironic Heroes 6 111 Saul Bellow's Lovesick Schlemiels 7 145 Philip Roth: The Schlemiel as Fictional Autobiographer 8 163 Woody Allen's Lovably Anxious Schlemiels 9 176 Conclusion Notes 183 Index 189 Page ix Preface to the Revised Edition Rereading the first edition of The Schlemiel as Metaphor twenty years after I had written it, I am reminded of what Benjamin Franklin says about the errata one collects over a lifetime: "I should have no Objection [Franklin writes in the opening page of his Autobiography] to a Repetition of the same Life from its Beginning, only asking the Advantage Authors have in a second Edition to correct some Faults of the First." This revised and expanded version affords me the opportunity not of repeating my "life" but of tempering an excess here, a misimpression thereand of bringing the saga of the schlemiel up-to-date. In considering sentences written so long ago and in what now seems entirely "another country," I was surprised to discover how many of them still please me, how many of them fasten around a topic I continue to regard as important. That I chose to concentrate my discussion of the schlemiel in American Jewish literature on the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, and Saul Bellow made sense at the time, and their subsequent careers have confirmed my hunches. In other cases, what I now see as ''omissionsPhilip Roth, Woody Allenfall neatly into that part of me that insists on "more schlemiels!" When I was working on the original version of this book, American Jewish literature was neither as established nor as respectable as it is now. And while it is true that there were senior professors who encouraged my pursuit of a comic figure that they much enjoyed, there were others who asked me privately and in whispers if a writer with the unlikely name of Mendele the Bookseller actually existed. For a graduate student to invent such a writer might be daringeven funny, in a waybut it
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