The fixer (original 1966; edition 1968)

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this is one depressing book. i consider myself awfully cynical and suspicious of the human race (it's what happens after doing anti-violence work for too long) but my worldview can't hold a candle to malamud's. or at least to what he allows to happen in this book - the depths of treachery are pretty astounding. certainly he tempers that with hope and with people seeking justice, but the unjust is overwhelming.

one of the things i most like reading about is oppression (i like a good downer), and this definitely fits the bill. in spite of being jewish myself, and that being the type of oppression experienced in these pages, this resonated with me even more with the parallels we can draw to racism in our country. and to so many other kinds of oppression, historical and current, in the world. this kind of book has a lot of reach.

overall, this is a well written, compelling read. there are a few parts throughout that were a little longwinded for me, but it's only a few pages worth in total. there were a couple of things that happened in the last quarter or so that didn't seem to fit so i'll be giving it a bit more thought over the next few days. i suspect that having knowledge of spinoza would be helpful in seeing where the story was going but also the meaning behind it.

this is my second malamud and i would definitely be happy to read more of his work.

"...a skinny worried man in clothes about to fall apart, who looked as though he had been assembled out of sticks and whipped air..."

"'There are no wrong books. What's wrong is the fear of them.'"

"'There's something cursed, it seems to me, about a country where men have owned men as property.'"

"'Keep in mind, Yakov Shepsovitch, that if your life is without value, so is mine. If the law does not protect you, it will not, in the end, protect me.'" ( )

La vita grama di un ebreuccio che per giunta viene incarcerato e trattato peggio che nelle prigioni sovietiche offre lo spunto all'autore per spiegare la situazione dei russi e degli ebrei all'inizio del secolo scorso; abbastanza claustrofobico e pesante ( )

La vita grama di un ebreuccio che per giunta viene incarcerato e trattato peggio che nelle prigioni sovietiche offre lo spunto all'autore per spiegare la situazione dei russi e degli ebrei all'inizio del secolo scorso; abbastanza claustrofobico e pesante ( )