Bernard Malamud (1914–1986), consummate storyteller, artful craftsman, and exacting stylist, is generally considered not only one of the three most influential postwar American-Jewish writers but also a writer holding a central place in the canon of twentieth-century American letters. Malamud came to prominence at an important moment in American social, political, and cultural history, writing at a time that saw dramatic changes in both America’s self-assessment in the aftermath of World War II and in its ability to assimilate diverse sectors of its population. Along with the novelists Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud brought to life a decidedly American-Jewish protagonist and a newly emergent Jewish voice that came to define American letters and influence American writers for over half a century, an influence that continues. The Malamudian voice and characteristic urban landscape that define his fiction speak to the changing ethos in American life and thought at this pivotal, mid-twentieth-century moment in American history. Malamud’s literary oeuvre reflects “a struggle to achieve order” in both life and literature, as well as a deep appreciation for the supple and elastic forms of the written word (Malamud, introduction vi). Malamud’s legacy continues to be a hallmark of American literature, with the very best of his work—the novels and short stories that create the felt conditions of “what it means human” (“Idiots First,” Stories 44)—an expression of the deep investment in an ethical life and in the rigors of “the human sentence” (Malamud, introduction xii).
While Malamud remains a major, formative voice in American letters, recent years have shown an emergent, burgeoning interest in Malamud among European scholars, who regard Malamud with growing interest not only as a central American voice but also as a writer whose fiction opens itself up to an exploration of stylistic technique, narrative voice, and the making of character. Thus, in recognition of this major voice in American literature, the editors of this volume have brought together both North American and European scholars in an attempt to show the range and depth of the possibilities for Malamud studies in the twenty-first century. In celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of Malamud’s birth and in recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of Malamud’s death, the editors of this tribute have attempted to bring together under one title a variety of approaches and responses to Malamud’s central, defining works of fiction.
We have intended the essays gathered here to play off one another, to show differences as well as overlapping concerns and interests. In engaging scholars from the United States and abroad, we hope to establish a dialogue between the critical, traditional study of Malamud in America and the newly emerging one in Europe. Malamud’s work lends itself to this cross-cultural engagement. Very much in the tradition of twentieth-century American writers, Malamud traveled to Europe, centering many of his stories there, a fertile context for looking back to the origins of America and its comparative cultural successes and failures. Many of Malamud’s stories are set in Europe, especially the Italian stories. Europe was, for Malamud, a landscape for his characters’ self-assessment against the backdrop of history. In, for example, “The Last Mohican,” Malamud’s recurring protagonist, Fidelman, in Rome, standing in the Eternal City, gazing at the remains of the Baths of Diocletian, whispers to himself, “Imagine all that history” (Complete 200). Europe figures in the Fidelman stories as a place of possibilities, opportunities, and self-reinvention. Abroad, Fidelman “experienced the sensation of suddenly seeing himself as he was” (201). And Henry Levin, in the story “The Lady of the Lake,” travels “abroad seeking romance. . . . He liked the sense of foreignness of the city—of things different, anything likely to happen” (Complete 221). Paul Malamud’s poem “Mediterranean,” which is a part of this collection, speaks to his father’s affinity and deep appreciation for a landscape and a history so different from his own, “a poor Jew from Brooklyn who had made good, walking under the olive trees.”
The editors have arranged this book in an attempt to illustrate the richness and complexity of Malamud’s work as a way of paying tribute to the writer and to the subtle utterance and perfection of the written word that is such a fundamental feature of Malamud’s craft. Our hope is that including scholarly approaches from a range of countries—the United States, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and Greece—will multiply the possibilities of study and appreciation of this important author and his work. And while our intention, initially, was to show an understanding of Malamud from two different perspectives—U.S. and European—the exchange among scholars demonstrates the enormous breadth and complexity in such a diverse perspectival reach. For ease of reading, we have structured this book in two parts: U.S. and European Voices. Each is introduced separately in order to set up, in general terms, the direction and focus for the evolving perspectives. What we find in such a dialogue is a kind of chiastic exchange, reflecting one of Malamud’s major literary tropes, a relationship that has at its center the experience of an essential connection and consanguinity.