Rescuing Bernard Malamud

Bernard Malamud, A Writer’s Life, is the first full scale biography of Malamud, a figure who appears to be read less and less these days.

During his career, Malamud won the National Book Award twice, and a Pulitzer once, and numerous other accolades.  But he was always seen as the somewhat droopy, stodgy member of the triumvirate of post-War Jewish writers (the others Bellow and Roth).  His life was less flamboyant; his habits were more regular, and his output, less dazzling. Certainly, he was not considered worthy of a biography.

Philip Davis sets out to remedy his, and perhaps in the process, give Malamud a bit of jump start.  The book details his life, with a heavy emphasis on the themes of his books. Although this is the biography of a writer, and we would expect this, Davis spends a great deal of time on the content of Malamud’s work, to the exclusion, at times, of the actual man writing.  

But beyond that, we get a complex, if not sad portrait of Bernard Malamud.  He gave his life to writing.  Writing draft after draft of his novels and stories.  Working everyday at his constant rewrites.  Yet he never appeared to enjoy his success.  Early childhood deprivations left him sad and lonely, unable to appreciate his accomplishments.   

In this biography we are left with the portrait of a man very much at odds with his life, his instincts, and even his writing.

The White Album - Joan Didion

 

Yet another classic collection of Joan Didion's non-fiction, The White Album does not have nearly the punch of Slouching Toward Bethlehem.  Part of this is the spread: while Slouching sticks to a few themes related to the sixties, and certain points about Didion’s life, The White Album is far broader ranging, both in the time span written and the topics handled.

The pieces cover ground like the (then) contemporary scene in California, the Woman’s Movement, Georgia O’Keefe, various travels across the US and the world, and meta-visions of the death of the sixties.   Throughout,  many similar and related topics are treated side by side.  This gives the collection a somewhat fractured feel.

But what unites them all is Didion’s liquid prose, her sterling observations, and her almost supernatural ability to synthesis her observations and work into a single, unified whole. In the end that is what makes this collection a great success and a worthwhile read.

Mrs. Yellow

My story, "Searching for Mrs. Yellow," has been accepted by Stickman Review, and will appear in their upcoming issue.

Straddling the Muddle

Arnold Posy’s Mystic Trends in Judaism tries to straddle a lot of lines, and winds up getting a muddled.  Part legitimate history of Jewish mysticism, but more a true believers account of the subject matter, the fusion of these two elements is clumsy. 

The book’s greatest success is Posy’s treatment of the messianic element in Kabbalistic history.  This part is not stressed in popular, liberal treatments of the subject, since it does not conform to many progressive ideas in Judaism.   

But messianic expectations were high in most Kabbalistic circles, and led, in some instances, to false messianic movements.  Posy does a great job in mapping out these influences.  He shows the inherent dangers involved in this kind of messianic expectation, and also its unassailable power.

A Perfect Book

It is a pleasure to read a book which deserves its reputation as a classic.  Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem strikes a perfect balance between competing elements.  Didion writes about the sixties but is older than hippies and drop-outs she depicts. She is young, but not that young, and this gives her much needed perspective.  She is critical, while at the same time close to her subjects.  

She is a master at creating characters.  In a few strokes, she describes a person, and then goes on to explain his or her role in the piece she is writing.  And unlike some of her later writing, where moments are dissected nearly atomically, Slouching is brisk.  She takes a moment, examines it, and then moves on.   She creates a mosaic of detail and big picture in perfect balance.

Didion also introduces herself into these pieces, adding a human element that moves this collection beyond strict reporting.  Confessional pieces like “Goodbye To All That” show that we are dealing with a collection of writings that move beyond categories like journalism, memoir, fiction.  A new form is being created here, and Didion masters it.

Didion Lite

Joan Didion’s Blue Nights is not as powerfully written, as clear and incisive as The Year of Magical Thinking.  In many ways, it is a coda to Magical Thinking, and that book must be read in order to make sense of Blue Nights.

In Magical Thinking Didion writes about the death of her husband with almost an unbearable, repetitive honesty.  No stone is left unturned, and the results can be excruciating yet brilliant reading. 

Blue Nights is more muffled in its approach.  While trying to get at the facts of her daughter’s death, Didion appears to be straining under misapprehensions.  And this lack of focus, or more to the point, the delicate shying away from the difficult topic, leads to a narrative with less force and drive.