December 20, 2007
Reading and re-reading Isaac Bashevis Singer
I don’t have any timely reason for talking about Isaac Bashevis Singer today except for the fact that my copy of “Gimpel the Fool: Stories
Of course, as the proprietor of a Jewish literary blog and an enthusiastic reader of Yiddish literature, I can always find a compelling reason to discuss Singer, regardless of the timing.
He wrote so many short stories it’s hard to pick a favorite. And I find that as I read more and more of Singer’s work, I keep shifting the rankings around in my mind and coming up with new Number One’s. Last night before going to sleep, I read “The Wife Killer.” Now, it’s my new favorite.
(Let me note here that this should not be construed as a commentary on my marriage. I’m happily married and I’ll soon celebrate my seven-year anniversary.)
What enthralled me the most about Singer’s short story was its humor: the two most unluckiest-in-love people in the whole shtetl — the ones whose previous spouses all died — get married and subsequently accuse one another of trying to bump each other off. As with many other Singer short stories, the rabbi is called in to help settle the dispute and the whole village waits outside craning their necks in nervous anticipation of a car wreck. Well, this is the shtetl so it would be more of a pull-cart wreck.
Beneath the surface, Singer plays with themes such as fate versus freewill. Both can be cruel, as so many of Singer’s characters know. Unlike Gimpel, the Wife Killer gains neither wisdom nor understanding from his suffering. He lived a long life but even that becomes a curse. The unnamed narrator tells us that the Wife Killer died after many lonely years:
Rest assured that he was not forgotten by the Angel of Death. But when that happened I was no longer in Turbin. He must have been a hundred years old, maybe older. After the funeral his entire house was turned upside down, but nothing of value was found. The chests had rotted away. The gold and silver were gone. The money and notes turned to dust the minute a breeze touched them. All the digging in the heaps of rubbish was wasted. The Wife Killer had outlived everything: his wives, his enemies, his money, his property, his generation. All that was left after him — may God forgive me for saying so — was a heap of dust.
I'd be curious to know: What is your favorite Singer story?
The greatest story teller of all time.
Difficult to choose favourites.
One is “the accuser and the accused” from the death of methuselah