The Complete Stories

I never heard of Malamud until Stephen King referred to Malamud's novel The Fixer. Naturally I immediately bought everything he wrote. Thank you, Stephen King. Bernard Malamud was a master of the short story, and is often compared to the genius of Chekhov. Not every writer has the special talent for the short story. I'm still reading it. I'm glad the book is arranged in chronological order, not from publication dates, but from when the author wrote them. Many stories have that sudden twist at the end which shocks the reader and plants a lasting impression. For me, so far, it is The Jewbird. An analogy that my mind just won't acknowledge, it's so disturbing. Serious topics but also lots of humor. How I hope schools include Malamud in their course work.

Bernard Melamud has the ability to write like no other, and he can project such feeling about the Jewish culture that the reader becomes so familiar with. The stories are sweet, tender, quiet, easily paced. They deal with many aspects of the Jewish community hardships, loves, struggles, friendship, propriety, accomplishments, loneliness, self-sacrifice, victims, hatred, etc. You can begin to read Malamud stories and become enthralled with the storyline and furthermore, you can always put a face to his interesting and very strong characters.Malamud can touch on satirical, parable, spiritual, allegorical, etc. He is considered a master of the short story, one of the best. The stories display a unique distinction.If you have not read any of his prized writings, start with The Assistant, 1957; The Natural 1952; The Tenants 1971, and the Prize Winning The Fixer 1966. And with the Short Stories, you simply have more engaging wonderful stories out of Bernard MalamudMalamud died in 1986, his father owned a grocery store, Oftentimes his writing covers in depth the small time workings of the grocery store, especially for The Assistant.There are many themes for this great anthology, a wonderful reading experience....Rizzo

"This is a good book." I think that says it best. It is long. I have forgotten much of it in the months since I read it. Even at that, it took me a while to get through the reading of it, but the book lends itself to that sort of discovery. The stories are mostly short, the themes are consistent and sympathetic. This is a good book. You can read it for a half an hour and walk away from it for a few days. Malamud clearly understands the work of writing. I'd fall short of calling him a master. His technique is good. His technique is very good, but I'm not sure he has the vision to be truly great writer.The things I like most about it are have nothing to do with memorable selections, wisdom, or elegance. The book actually has few of those things which makes my four star review rather remarkable. Malamud is such a literary technician that he makes up for these failures, and that is a thing to experience. He moves a story along. He creates a great depth of character with only a few little snapshots. His voices have a sound. His New York has a smell and a character. It is a thing of interest just to look back over these stories just to see how he accomplishes so much with so little. They provide a good view into the mechanism of story-telling, and that is precisely because they fail really to have very much else to them. They are mostly very simple stories. He makes a few artistic leaps, which are more than awkward, but mostly he writes stories. They are good stories.The second thing I really liked about this book was it's historical perspective. Malamud is so single minded and grounded in his time that what you get here is a cross-section of Jewish/American culture from the first World War on into the late 70's. As the generations shift, the stories also shift and the city changes with them. In these stories Malamud is inextricably bound up with his place in time. What this books amounts to is a witness of that place. This is something that I found myself dwelling over, even after the stories had faded.This book has a lot to offer. I think you should get it. It's a good book.

When I was in College, on the required reading list was a book entitled "The Assistant" by Bernard Malamud. I found the book to be extremely well written and showed the cross relationships of two culturally different people who had to relate to each other closely each day. That being said, after reading many of his books and short stories now, that theme has been prevalent in much of his work. He makes these subjects enthralling and captures the reader. The essence of most, but not all (i.e. "The Natural") of his stories has a strong Jewish leaning and he seems to graphically draw characters of other cultures (even Jewish subcultures) into conflicting and reconciling situations in forceful ways, always grasping the reader's attention. I have read a number of his short stories over the years and found them to extremely entertaining, if not educational. This book includes all of them and is a real treasure trove, especially on a Kindle. Why? Because it's great to have one of Malamud's short stories to read between books!

so happy i bought this book enjoying the short story format . i can read two stories a day the stories are of such personal nature in my opinion . very reflective each and every one. . his stories rank right up there two my favorite authors of all time paul bowles and john fante .

This was my first taste of Malamud's writing. He is obviously a great writer. The plots and characters are realistic. A little too realistic. Who reads to become more depressed? No happy endings here. To be honest, I didn't finish all of the book. Since all of the short stories are in chronological order starting soon after the Holocaust maybe some of his later stories aren't so depressing. OK, I've convinced myself to go back and finish the book.

I got to p.576 and found the next section was a repeat of pages 17-48, instead of pages 577 - 608. This was very very disappointing as it missed out the ending of 'Rembrandt's Hat' and the first part of 'Zora's Noise' and the 3 stories in -between--'A Wig', 'The Model' and 'A Lost Grave'. I am really upset. I have recommended this book to several people but I will have to warn them of this serious fault. I have now had a return approved, but not with a pre-paid address label. I should not have to pay to return a faulty book. But can you actually contact anyone to sort this out? No! I have spent 2 hours of my precious time trying to contact Amazon and all I get is recommendations for books which will tell me how to contact them! I have to get on with my day after this Kafkaesque nightmare. No success. Amazon make it very easy to buy but extremely difficult to contact them to make a complaint.

There is only so much sadness you can take, and each of these is unbearably sad. Malamud's own parents were keepers of a small store, and theirs is the world that he writes about most - a sort of "lumpen-petit-bourgeoise", one notch above street peddlers (he also writes about those), who are notionally independent businesspeople but are actually as much victims of the market as those with nothing to sell but their labour power. Little shopkeepers going broke in the face of competition from discounting supermarkets, master tailors with two employees scratching a living...they are all here.Everything in these people's lives is without joy - personal and family relations, employment, even their attempts to improve themselves through night school or artistic creation. The night school is particularly depressing, because it's impossible not to think of the knockabout comedy of Hyman Kaplan - the same subject, but a completely different tone and feeling.Yet each story is perfectly crafted, and it's a marvel to see how well he does it. You just can't read too many at once.

El mundo de Malamud -los barrios judíos de Brooklyn a mediados de siglo- es un mundo de peluqueros y casamenteros, un mundo de abuelos que hablan en polaco con nietos que sueñan con ir a Harvard... es un mundo en que las pequeñas historias (en la tradición yiddish) de Malamud describen un ethos que me es absolutamente ajeno. Por lo demás, literatura con mayúsculas.

In one book all the 55 stories and in chronological order. I like the introduction by Robert Giroux. Excellent work for Malamud book's lovers.

Good