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"Though "The Magician of Lublin" has major philosophical underpinnings, Singer excels at moving the story along like a compulsively readable thriller. Blessed with the gift of creating worlds, his narratives invariably feel not like they've been written but as if they are happening in front of our eyes. Part of this gift is Singer's facility for vivid characters. Whether it be minor bystanders who appear for a moment or major players like the brazen blond pimp Herman, 'a giant who knows himself invincible, ' Singer never fails to conjure up people who get up off the page and walk around. Being a modern can be a sometime thing, but great writing engages and endures." "--"Kenneth Turan," Los Angeles Times Book Review"
"Singer, far from being gentle and grandfatherly, was as shockingly modern a writer as Dostoevsky. He is a chronicler of spiritual disintegration, exploring the devastating effects of appetite and passion--even of thought itself--on souls unprotected by faith . . . The
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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.
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.
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.
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