Simple It's Not

Do you have to be from New York to appreciate Malamud?  Do you have to be Jewish?

I’m from NYC,  I’m not Jewish, and I adore Malamud.  I do have the inflection of the Eastern European New York Jew in my ear.  The sound of Yiddish is comforting to me, and the stereotypical attitude is dear to my heart indeed.  Negative but never cynical, expecting nothing but hoping for the best, cursed and chosen. It’s the generation before Woody Allen, the one who turned it all into the most intelligent and funny whining ever.

Bernard Malamud

“The Assistant” is a marvelous book that deals with what it means to be Jewish in NYC in the 1950’s.  Morris, a older poor grocer, trundles on.  He’s generous and trusting to a fault.  He has a heart of gold.  He makes ‘good’ choices that turn out badly for him over and over again. On the surface, he accomplishes nothing. He’s not religious, but he is quintessentially Jewish.  His foil in the novel is Frank, a younger Italian gentile who struggles with moral issues every day.  Frank tries to be good, but regularly lapses into bad moral behavior. The contrast between the two is striking. Frank is attracted to Jewish culture because he does have a strong conscience.  He tries, but he often fails.  

"About that he knew he could never open his mouth, so he felt that no matter what he did manage to say there would always be some disgusting thing left unsaid, some further sin to confess, and this he found utterly depressing."

And the long series of failures eventually makes him negative, resigned to his fate … and in the end he becomes a Jew.  It’s almost a parable of how the Jews became Jewish.

Malamud has lots to say about morality, intentions, conscience.  And he doesn't provide any easy answers.  The combination of strong moral impulse and human frailty that Malamud portrays draws a pretty clear picture of what Malamud thinks about being a Jew in that place and time. “The Assistant” is not nearly as unrelentingly negative as “The Fixer”.  It’s much more of a mixed bag, and, I think, a more nuanced in its approach. The writing is infused with ethnic touches.  The plot is traditional yet interesting.  The characters are colorful and memorable.

How much is Malamud an east coast phenomena? When I lived in New York he was well known. Almost the Jewish Updike, but I guess that would really be Philip Roth.  Maybe more the Jewish Richard Yates. I’m surprised that he’s less well known on the west coast.  Or maybe I just haven’t made contact with the right circles out here.  Any Malamud fans out west?