Shosha by Issac Bashevis Singer - first published 1974- translated from Yiddish by Joseph Singer - 261 Pages

 

Issac Singer (1902-1991-born Poland) won the Nobel Prize in 1986 for the full body of his work. He is best known to the general public as the author of Yentil, the basis for a very popular movie. Singer's, even though he left Poland in 1935 because of the rise of the Nazis, work is very rooted in the culture in which he was raised. He became an American citizen. Singer died and is buried in Florida. . He indicated his biggest influences as a short story writer were Anton Chekhov and Guy de Maupassant

Hitler invaded Poland in September of 1939.  Shosha is set shortly before that happens but all the Jews in Warsaw so disaster coming for them. The fear of Hitler hangs over the community.

As in others of his novels, the first person narrator is a middle age man of Jewish heritage whose life experiences and study of history have made him sceptical of Orthodox theology, he borders on atheist views at times.

The narrator is a playwright, a novelist and essayist who writes in Yiddish and Polish. He makes a living from this. He married to Dora, a dedicated communist who will leave him to make a disastrous Moscow sojourn. He has numerous other relationships with women.

He is hired by a rich American Jew to write a play for his Yiddish actress mistress to star in. He is well paid for this and his relationships with the man and the woman play a very important part in the plot.

Sosha is a learning disable girl, behind also in her physical development. She might be in her midteens. The narrator develops a strange and to me a bit creepy relationship with her and her mother. The girl's father deserted them long ago.

More and more Jews want out of Poland, they have heard Hitler's rants on the radio. The playwright is offered a complicated chance to leave.

I greatly enjoyed the way Singer flashed forward ten years. The narrator works as a writer in NYC and we learn what happened to the other characters 

Mel Ulm

The Magician of Lublin by Issac Bashevis Singer - 1960-translated from the Yiddish by Elaine Gottlieb and Josepth Singer- 183 Pages

The Magician of Lublin by Issac Bashevis Singer - 1960-translated from the Yiddish by Elaine Gottlieb and Josepth Singer- 183 Pages

Issac Singer (1902-1991-born Poland) won the Nobel Prize in 1986 for the full body of his work. He is best known to the general public as the author of Yentil, the basis for a very popular movie. Singer's, even though he left Poland in 1935 because of the rise of the Nazis, work is very rooted in the culture in which he was raised. He became an American citizen. Singer died and is buried in Florida. . He indicated his biggest influences as a short story writer were Anton Chekhov and Guy de Maupassan

The plot is set in the mid-1880s in Russian-ruled Poland. The main character Yasha Mazur is a magician from Lublin, who travels around Poland to perform before audiences. He is Jewish, but not very devout, and married to Esther. He has affairs with his assistant Magda, with a young Jewish woman in Piaski named Zeftel and with a middle class Catholic widow in Warsaw named Emilia.

The Magician of Lublin centers on man of dubious morality, a serial philander who scrapes out a living as a Magician, picking locks and doing various tricks. He wants to work in Paris, Rome even America. His agent can not place him. He is loved by his wife and mistresses. He has no children. Warsaw is full of theives, hookers, people starving while others enjoy extremely affluent existences.

He thinks a lot about his religious teachings from his youth but can now see little sense in them. His wife knows he has other women but still has a passion for him. The ending, in which we flash forward three years is an amazing turn.

The Magician of Lublin goes into the entrapment of young women to be sold to brothels in Argentina, theatrical work, the cost of living, the indifference of the rich to the poor, the relationships among various national groups among other things 

It is a an exciting work with numerous cliff hangers. There are near R rated sex scenes 

This book is included in The Kindle Unlimited program along with 23 other Singer works.

I hope to read much more by Singer 

Mel Ulm

 

The Spinoza of Market Street, title story of a short-story collection by Isaac Bashevis Singer, published in Yiddish in 1944 as “Der Spinozist.” The collection was published in English in 1961.

 "The Spinoza of Market Street" by Issac Bashevis Singer -1961 - translated from the Yiddish by Translated by Martha Glicklich and Cecil Hemley - 2006 - 17 Pages

The Spinoza of Market Street, title story of a short-story collection by Isaac Bashevis Singer, published in Yiddish in 1944 as “Der Spinozist.” The collection was published in English in 1961.

Today's Story Can be Read in the Kindle sample of the book pictured above. It is included in The Collected Stories 

Issac Singer (1902-1991-born Poland) won the Nobel Prize in 1986 for the full body of his work. He is best known to the general public as the author of Yentil, the basis for a very popular movie. Singer's, even though he left Poland in 1935 because of the rise of the Nazis, work is very rooted in the culture in which he was raised. He became an American citizen. Singer died and is buried in Florida. . He indicated his biggest influences as a short story writer were Anton Chekhov and Guy de Maupassant 

My cursory research indicates that "The Spinoza of Market Street" is considered one of his best short stories.

He published 100s of stories. Here (from Wikipedia) are his collection in English 

Short story collections

Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories (1957)—Yiddish original: גימפּל תּם

The Spinoza of Market Street (1961)

Short Friday and Other Stories (1963)

The Séance and Other Stories (1968)

A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories (1970)

The Fools of Chelm and Their History (1973)

A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories (1974)—shared the National Book Award, fiction, with Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon[15]

Passions and Other Stories (1975)

Old Love (1979)

The Collected Stories (1982)

The Image and Other Stories (1985)

The Death of Methuselah and Other Stories (1988)

There is also a three volume Library of America edition of his work.

"The story is set in Warsaw on the brink of World War I. There Dr. Nahum Fischelson lives a meagre, isolated existence alone in an attic room overlooking teeming Market Street. An intellectual supported by an annuity from the Jewish community of Berlin, he devotes his energies to explicating the philosophical works of the 17th-century Dutch Jewish philosopher Benedict de Spinoza, descending to the street only once a week to buy food. When war cuts off his funds from Germany, he descends to Market Street and discovers that he no longer knows anyone there, so preoccupied has he been with Spinoza. Black Dobbe, an unattractive and illiterate woman who lives in the attic room next to his, goes to the philosopher’s room to have him read a letter she has received. When she discovers Fischelson unconscious and ill, she nurses him back to health. To the amusement of their neighbours, Fischelson and Black Dobbe are married. Fischelson discovers that he has the ardour and vigour of a young man. As he gazes at the stars, he silently asks Spinoza to forgive him his happiness and his acceptance of the world of passion and joy." From the website of the Enclopedia Britanica 

I was initially curious about this story as very long ago I read The Ethics of Spinoza. I never returned to it but I can easily see how one might develop an obsessive interest. Similar to the older male central character in "A Friend of Kafka" and older man regains his sexual appetites after years of inactivity. To me this story marvellously portrayed pre-World War One War Warsaw and the atmosphere of the city during the war. It shows the callow behavior of the young in mocking the relationship of Dobbe and Doctor Fischelson.  

It is about or maybe better said, foreshadows a society in which loving Spinoza is just the preoccupation of irrelevant old men.

Mel Ulm