Hooray! You have added the first book to your bookshelf. Check it out now!
[−]
  • Search Digit-count Valid ISBN Invalid ISBN Valid Barcode Invalid Barcode
Blog this item

The Fixer

By Bernard Malamud, Jonathan Safran Foer (Preface)

(7)

| Paperback | 9780374529383

Like The Fixer?
Join aNobii to see if your friends read it, and discover similar books!

Sign up for free

Book Description

A classic that won Malamud both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

The Fixer (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel -- one that makes manifest his roots in Russian fiction, especially that of Isaac Babel.

Set in Kiev in 1911 during a Continue

A classic that won Malamud both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

The Fixer (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel -- one that makes manifest his roots in Russian fiction, especially that of Isaac Babel.

Set in Kiev in 1911 during a period of heightened anti-Semitism, the novel tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman blamed for the brutal murder of a young Russian boy. Bok leaves his village to try his luck in Kiev, and after denying his Jewish identity, finds himself working for a member of the anti-Semitic Black Hundreds Society. When the boy is found nearly drained of blood in a cave, the Black Hundreds accuse the Jews of ritual murder. Arrested and imprisoned, Bok refuses to confess to a crime that he did not commit.

Critics

  • The Fixer

    The Fixer Bernard Malamud Farrar, Straus & Giroux Paperback 352 pages May 2004 The Fixer by Bernard Malamud is set in tsarist Russia amid the turmoil of a violent outbreak of anti-Semitism. The novel tells Yakov Bok’s story - how a harmless Jewish ha ... (read full critics)

    curledup published on Tue, 7 Sep 2010

  • A Pariah

    This is a Jewish fable: the hero as sufferer and martyr is a characteristic Jewish theme, comic and tragic, and a continuing one in Malamud’s novels. They also draw on the traditions of the Russian novel, in which, because Russian society was anarchi ... (read full critics)

    nybooks published on Tue, 24 Aug 2010

3 Reviews

Login or Sign Up to write a review

  • 1 person find this helpful

    Malamud, in my not-so-humble opinion, was one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Not one of the greatest Jewish-American writers, though his work is Jewish through and through; one of the greatest American writers.

    He once said that life is a tragedy full of joy, and there's no b ... (continue)

    Malamud, in my not-so-humble opinion, was one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Not one of the greatest Jewish-American writers, though his work is Jewish through and through; one of the greatest American writers.

    He once said that life is a tragedy full of joy, and there's no better description of this book. It's hard to pin down just where the joy lies, here--there's very little humour compared to his other writing, there are long descriptions of agony and outrage; there is redemption, but it doesn't flow out of the agony and outrage. It's somehow there from the beginning or not there at all, since as the fixer says, "what suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering". Don't be misled: this is not the Book of Job and it's not The Trial. It's an infinitely compassionate and infinitely human author who drags and accompanies the fixer into hell, and there's no parched sense of inevitability about his doom. Instead, his story is urged along by a muscular heart, every capillary welling with oxygen, every cell clamouring, wide awake.

    I could no more tell you where the joy is than I could fish out a living body’s mitochondria, it’s just there.

    Is this helpful?

    Biscia said on Jun 24, 2010 | Add your feedback

  • What a thrilling book this is. Absolutely brilliant story - so engaging - so exciting. Couldn't put it down.

    Is this helpful?

    GraJon said on Aug 3, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

Improve data of this book

Prices Change currency & sellers

ISBN Edition List Sale Seller
9780374529383 Paperback $15.00 $10.80 bn.com
$15.00 $11.59 The Book Depository
Other editions →
Added to Shelf Added to Wish List

Inline Translation Mode

Left click to navigate, right click to translate.

inline translation guide

or close

Inline translation is not ready for this page yet.

Inline translation mode.

Share this page with your friends.

The viewport has not loaded.