miseria e nobiltà

storia di un uomo sfortunato e di un uomo ambiguo che incrociano il loro cammino in un periodo storico poco consono già di per sè e che, ciascuno a suo modo, finisce per risplendere dopo la caduta, se è vero che la persona si vede nelle difficoltà il campionario offerto qui è dei più vari e convincenti...e la scrittura avvince per semplicità e empatia...le differenze sociali, culturali, razziali sono solo il trampolino da cui i personaggi spiccano il salto...a volte è un salto nel vuoto, altre è quello che li farò volare...

Fucking hell. This has to be a contender for the most miserable novel of all time. In fact, only Germinal by Emile Zola could legitimately wrench the title from its grasp, and that book is so monumentally bleak that there are probably Goth kids reading it backwards right now. Tellingly, both Germinal and The Assistant deal with poverty. Of course there are a lot of really terrible things that can happen to a human being, but the constant worry, shame and ill-health caused by having no money is a particularly potent kind of misery. I know, I’ve been there. I was raised in dire poverty. It was the kind of situation where if we ate well – my brother and I – then our mother could not, because she couldn’t afford to. A lot of the time I was unhappy, and scared. Everything was strained. I lived constantly on the look out for the next disaster and there was always the heavy, sour smell of hopelessness in the air.

So I know how the characters in this novel feel. In fact, of all the books I have read this one perhaps hit me the hardest. I kind of ached, due to force of that blow, all the way through. It’s therefore a tough book to review. Morris Bober, Helen Bober, and Frank Alpine felt extraordinarily real to me. Part of that is due to uncontrollable associations, i.e. who I am and my experiences, and part of it – the larger part – is down to Malamud, the author. The Assistant is brilliant. I would hope I would think it brilliant even if I had grown up in a mansion somewhere, with millionaire parents. Yet, on the surface, the book couldn’t be less appealing. Just ignore the misery for a second, because I know some of y’all will dig that kind of thing anyway, and consider the basic plot: The Assistant is about a Jewish grocery store owner, Morris Bober, whose business is failing. One day he is robbed at gun point. One of the assailants, Frank Alpine, to some extent due to a guilty conscience, returns to the store and starts working there. That’s it, pretty much.

You may think I have given too much away; but I haven’t really. Frank’s involvement is clear, even, surely, to the most dim-witted reader. What is special about the book, however, is not the plot, but the characters and their relationships with each other. in a way Bober and Frank represent two types of attitude towards poverty and bad luck. I have seen these types myself, have been one of them. There is the Bober-type, who suffers almost heroically. He takes and takes, everything. Willingly, albeit not happily. Frank is a different sort; he is my sort. Frank can’t accept his lot, can’t press on stoically into the oncoming blizzard of misfortune that claws at his face; no, he writhes under the pressure. He has to change his luck, has to force a change. And this makes him skittish and restless, which leads to poor judgement. Frank is wild, he is in agony; and yet he wishes he were the Bober-type, he wishes he could accept his fate. He tries, but he can’t control his anguish, and so he does wrong, consistently. And always regrets it. People like Frank, people like myself, always do.* Helen Bober, Morris’ daughter, is a little bit like her father, and a little bit like Frank. She too is restless, she too wants to change her life or change her fate. Unlike Frank, however, she is not wild, she has strong values; she wants to make a change by educating herself. Helen’s story is probably the most heartbreaking of all.

The Assistant, I imagine it is quite clear by now, is a book about suffering, but it is also, perhaps more interestingly, about making amends, about forgiveness and redemption. Helen, Frank and Morris: these three characters need each other, if not literally, then symbolically. Morris sees Frank as his saviour, because when Frank starts working at the store the takings improve. Helen sees him as her saviour also, but not in the same way. not financially. She believes that his love will save her, that by loving him and helping him to better himself she will free herself from her awful situation. Frank, on the other hand, looks first to Morris, then to Helen, as a saviour; by helping the grocer he thinks he can prove that he is a good man and not a low-down hoodlum, by loving Helen that he is, in fact, capable of love and capable of a genuine, nice and normal relationship. This complex web of relations, and hopes and dreams, is almost comical, because none of them have any basis in reality. No one can save Morris’ business, no one can redeem Frank, there is no white knight able to lift Helen up on his horse and ride off with her for new, more prosperous and happier lands.

All of this talk about salvation and redemption might give the impression that The Assistant is a religious text. It is, in a way. But not overtly, never in a heavy-handed manner. Malamud certainly has something to say about Jewishness, but not necessarily Judaism. Frank is openly, in the beginning, an anti-semite, but his dislike of Jews is racially-motivated, rather than born out of religious conflict. Malamud, to my mind, does seem to be suggesting that Morris is a typical Jew, i.e. eternally suffering, but the grocer isn’t a practicing Jew, he doesn’t go to synagogue etc. Redemption and salvation are religious concepts, but they are human issues. The Assistant is an unrelentingly human book.

In terms of the prose, it is not flashy or eye-catching, but it is wonderful. The first couple of pages alone throw up numerous gems, like when Morris lets a woman have some items without paying but doesn’t want to tell his wife he has done so. Malamud writes:

"He found a pencilled spot on the worn counter and wrote a sum under “Drunk Woman.” The total now came to $2.03, which he never hoped to see. But Ida [his wife] would nag if she noticed a new figure so he reduced the amount to $1.61. His peace – the little he lived with – was worth forty-two cents."

There are even times when Malamud manages, to my relief, to wring some comedy out of the excruciating, suffocating horror. It’s a grim, black kind of humour, sure, but it is humour nonetheless.

Despite all of my gushing The Assistant is not a perfect book, there are one or two issues or, if you like, boom moments. To speak about them, however, would mean revealing important details, so if you wish to avoid serious spoilers then stop reading here. There is a rape scene in the book, which involves Helen and Frank. I hate rape scenes in anything, but it is not gratuitous. The problem is that Frank saves Helen [there’s that salvation stuff again] from being raped, only to then, seconds later, rape her himself. I really didn’t like that. It made no sense. Malamud was setting Frank up to be flawed, yes, but to rape someone you have saved from being raped is monstrous; it is difficult to feel anything but repugnance for Frank after that, when one felt at least some sympathy for him before. Having said that, maybe that was Malamud’s intention; maybe he wanted to show that a man cannot change his character, but I really don’t think so. I think he just took the misery, the life-is-a-bitch schtick a step too far. Furthermore, I am in two minds about Frank’s conversion to Judaism, although, again, I guess I kinda get it, I get that Malamud was making a point about Jewish suffering and about identifying with victims etc. In any case, these two incidents could not spoil what was, for me, a truly fucking great book, an awful gut-wrenching masterpiece.



*I would like to point out that I have never done anything even close to as serious or reprehensible as the two crimes committed by Frank, one of which i consider to be absolutely unforgivable.

TIME magazine considered this one of the all-time best novels since 1923, but I wonder why it is not included in the 1001 Best Novels of All Time You must Read Before You Die. I wish it were, along with his Pulitzer Prize Winner The Fixer , because this book is so compelling.

Since Bernard Malamud was a Jewish-American writer, he may have thought about what best literary devices or styles he would illustrate in a novel the life of Jew refugees in New York City after the WWII . He may have hit upon the common concept in TV dramas and movies of a boy or man adopted by a good family, then they (family) will be attached to him because he makes a difference in their life, and all the lovey-dovey rage is that there is a daughter will fall for him. In the end, the hero will be cast off when they find out his skeleton in the closet. I am not sure if this concept was very common in the 1950’s. Familiar with this kind of story, I as good as lost my interest in the book as though I compelled myself to finish reading it, as though I could guess what was going to happen then.

Nevertheless, if my surmise were right, I would say that Malamud’s idea is ingenious. He turned the concept into an extraordinary novel. He embellished it with the plot that drove me crazy. I was predisposed to hold my breath, to turn the next page, feeling for the characters’ different personality, perfectly suitable for Malamud’s real motives. Appeared to be slapdash and intended to make it not as artful as other novelists’ writing skills, I still enjoyed reading it like a devil.

The novel deals with the abject situations of the Jewish immigrants who ventured to settle down in America from Tsarist Russia. The story centers around the three main characters: Morris Bober, a grocer, who dreads his failing small grocery store. He is an epitome of a good Jew. I look up to his honesty and magnanimity despite the fact that he has been cheated by his clerk many times; Frank Alpine, a young Italian-American hobo trying to get on his right feet by becoming a clerk in Morris Bober’s grocery. His sexual obsession with the grocer’s daughter gives me an impression that he is such a nuisance of someone’s progress. He even appears to be a tomfool. So I tend to distrust him whether he is sincere or not. Nevertheless, his interest in education and literature tickled my fancy. So I buried myself more in this book, keen on what his life will be in the denouement. Helen Bober, the grocer’s daughter is an epitome of a spinster-to-be - the daughter who chooses to give up on her dreams to study, to help her parents out, a woman who restrains herself from loving the clerk who turns out to be intact.

I will never forget this book, because questions arise whether being uncircumcised and having different religion is a big deal for miscegenation. Uh-oh, I tend to be a bigot when Helen Bober says, “Dog , uncircumcised!” I tend to be beside the point when Helen Bober’s parents object to her relationship with Frank , for “Jews are just for Jews”, and “They suffer for the law of Jews”. Eventually, Frank Alpine, obsessed with Helen, had himself circumcised.

To be more specific, I think Bernard Malamud should have turned the title from The Assistant into The Clerk. ^____^

When I started The Assistant by Bernard Malamud, I figured it’d be extremely boring and light in plot. A book which details were the meat and potatoes while the plot itself and the story it tells are the sides. I found this to be false when Frank Alpine, an Italian who rolled into the store helping the storekeeper, Morris, because of an injury he got during an armed robbery. Frank started off polite helping Morris. Throughout the book, you learn of his sad beginning, and how that influenced him to make horrible decisions such as armed robberies. Including him being one of the people helping rob Morris’s store.

Overall I thought the book was very entertaining and went into the depth it needed to tell the story as it was. It really gives you an idea how things have changed since the 50s, and you can see how discrimination was still a thing, and how it was stopped. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, or short yet detailed stories, that only build one character up.

Ganef Goes Straight, Becomes Schlimazl

In the Pirke Avot, the book of the Talmud in which we find a lot of maxims and sayings, we read that if a servant steals from you, you must forgive him/her. And if the servant steals again, you must forgive again. Morris Bober, a humble, luckless Jew from Russia running a failing grocery shop in New York (a schlimazl in other words), acts out this admonition in Malamud’s outstanding novel. He seems to have no faith, does not attend synagogue and there is no mention of God anywhere. A homeless young Italian-American lands on his doorstep, steals some bread and milk because he’s hungry. Yet, without mentioning religion or the Talmud, Morris forgives him, the young man becomes his assistant, commits more crimes (a ganef indeed), and is forgiven each time. Malamud uses this tale to underline several basic ideas of Judaism. Even if God seems to have abandoned you, do not turn from the deeds required of you by justice and peace. Even if someone wrongs you, forgive them, especially if they atone for their past deeds. And as for the wrongdoer, it is within each human being to change, to atone. Redemption is forever a possibility. If God has kept a man alive for many years, can you fail to help him stay alive longer? Perhaps fatalism is foreign to modern America, but in the world of my ancestors, it was a major cultural force. Malamud’s tales are gloomy, sad, and full of that pessimistic Jewish mindset that disappeared after a couple of American generations. Yet, nobody can catch the motivations, attitudes, and expectations of the first generations in the new land like Malamud. Between the Nazis, the Communists, the lures of American consumerism, and the sight of Israeli military power, we are all changed, we are no longer those people who fled the Russian pogroms and poverty and protested our fate.

But the truths of the Pirke Avot remain. And in this novel, with its most amazing ending, you will not only read how the ganef repented, but how he became the schlimazl. Yes, there is Redemption, but it is here on earth. Transformation is possible. You should read this book.

P.S. A guy spills soup at a banquet. He’s a schlemiel. The guy in a new suit next to him who gets the full load of soup in his lap….he’s the schlimazl.

A chi ha sarà dato. Tremenda sentenza, considerando il rovescio della medaglia.
Quattro vite escluse dal raggio dorato della predestinazione lottano per emergere dalle acque agitate dei loro tormenti, ma sembra esserci sempre una mano invisibile pronta a ricacciarli verso il fondo.
L'integerrimo ebreo Morris con la sua "implacabile pazienza" e "la pietà che gli cola dalle brache" vede lo spettro del fallimento aggirarsi attorno alla sua modesta drogheria. Ida, moglie ansiosa e circospetta, paurosa Cassandra avvinghiata alla tradizione, ringhia ma nulla può di fronte all'inarrestabile corso degli eventi. La figlia Helen cerca con pazienza e determinazione di far uscire la sua giovinezza dai canoni di un ebraismo morale e conservatore, facendosi strada non tra le catene della classica violenza famigliare ma tra i fitti rampicanti dell'amore iperprotettivo.
Nel circuito famigliare irrompe il goy Frank Alpine, italoamericano dal "passato che sempre, prodigiosamente, appestava il presente", un brav'uomo che fatica a scrollarsi di dosso i residui della delinquenza.
La complicatissima relazione tra Frank e Helen diventa il paradigma di molte dicotomie a partire dal distinguo sociale tra ebrei e goìm, tra gente onesta e scapestrati, tra futuro e passato, perfino tra lettori di saggi e lettori di romanzi.
Noi seguiamo questa dolorosa ricerca del punto di congiunzione tra due mondi paralleli, e Frank ci sembra un po' Martin Eden, uno che studia l'improbabile guado di un fiume sempre troppo grosso; ne soffriamo insieme ai protagonisti grazie al felice tocco, preciso e discreto, di Malamud.
Un romanzo straordinario, che ci fa stare perfettamente a nostro agio tra gli scaffali di un angusto negozio, a contare i magri incassi e condividere ansie e aspirazioni dei quattro attori di questo piccolo teatro yiddish. Malamud trasmette perfettamente al lettore ogni sensazione, dalla disperazione alcolica di un maldestro rapinatore fino all'intorpidimento di un commesso che apre serranda alle sei del mattino per vendere la consueta pagnotta da 3 cents alla solita polacca.
Stupenda e leggera conduzione della trama, una storia in cui tutti sembrano perdere un pezzo alla volta lungo la strada, come in una incessante sottrazione periodica fino alla chiusura, singolare e appunto piuttosto... recisa.

در واقع ۲/۵.
کتاب روایت آدم‌هایی‌ست که دلخوش به آینده‌اند امّا زندگی مطابق میلشان پیش نرفته. آدم‌هایی که شهامتِ تغییر ندارند و مدام دستِ تقدیر را سرزنش می‌کنند.
نقطه‌ی قوت کتاب شخصیت‌پردازی خوب و قابل قبولش بود اما روایت داستان بسیاری از جاها خشک و خسته‌کننده است و حتی گاهی غیرمنطقی می‌شد.

Lo stile limpido e lineare di Malamud regala questa storia che mi ha sinceramente commosso, una storia di persone umili e di sfortunati eventi, con un finale aperto che (per fortuna) regala speranza.
All'apparenza semplice il libro tocca molteplici temi e nasconde più significati, tra tutti l'incomprensione e la diffidenza tra le persone, i pregiudizi per la religione, la provenienza sociale, che insieme rendono impossibile un vero rapporto empatico tra individui.
Troviamo anche il fallimento del sogno americano e la mancanza di speranza per il futuro, l'ineluttabilità del destino, spesso avverso... io qui ci ho visto quasi la volontà dei protagonisti di "mettersi i bastoni fra le ruote", di fare scelte sbagliate quasi per autopunirsi e rimanere nella miseria e nell'infelicità.
Morris, il negoziante ebreo, tra i protagonisti della vicenda, è un uomo onesto ma è fondamentalmente un inetto incapace di far carriera e di provvedere alla sua famiglia, è un uomo passivo che subisce le sfortune della vita, ha come unica arma la sua integrità e la sua onestà, che purtroppo non lo hanno portato ne lo porteranno a nulla di concreto; suo doppio complementare è Frank Alpine, che "fa sempre qualcosa di sbagliato" e non coglie o rovina le occasioni che gli si presentano. In Frank si mescola il bene e il male, l'onestà e la disonestà, ed è lui il vero eroe della storia.
I personaggi sono dipinti magistralmente, danno un'impressione fortissima di realtà, sono umani e veri, la storia procede velocemente e appassiona fino alla fine...dipanandosi tra descrizioni di fatti e preziosi momenti di introspezione psicologica.

Il commesso è un personaggio secondario. Il perno della storia è Morris Bober, un commerciante ebreo. L’attività dei Bober non si è mai rivelata un grande investimento, ma nell’ultimo periodo, a seguito dell’apertura di nuovi negozi nella stessa zona, gli affari sono peggiorati al punto che neanche il lavoro alternativo di Helen, la figlia di Morris, riesce a sopperire ai debiti. Ciò nonostante, Mr Bober è un uomo decoroso, umile e onesto. E tale rimane, anche nei momenti di maggior difficoltà. Morris Bober è una spugna, che assorbe e non lascia traccia di rancore; la sua non è viltà, ma pacifica rassegnazione. Ecco perché, alla fine della lettura, ci manca anche un po’.

Fino a qualche mese fa non avevo mai neanche sentito nominare Bernard Malamud (mancanza mia visto che lui ha vinto con questo romanzo anche il National Book Award), ora però vorrei leggere tutto quello che ha scritto per la sublime capacità che ha di raccontare.
Mi sono trovata dopo poche righe immersa nella storia: una storia semplice raccontata con uno stile e con parole semplici, ma perfette. È la storia di Morris Bober, un onesto ebreo, proprietario di una piccola drogheria che fatica a mandare avanti, della sua famiglia e del ex-vagabondo-ora-commesso, Frank Alpine che cerca di fuggire da se stesso e dal suo destino. L'intero libro si svolge nel minuscolo e soffocante negozio di alimentari, nell'appartamentino al piano di sopra e nelle vie circostanti: un mondo. Durante la lettura, è inevitabile soffrire con i protagonisti (e anche un po' arrabbiarsi con loro): per le scelte continuamente sbagliate, per la rassegnazione e per l'accanirsi della mala sorte. Ma poi è stato bello sorridere sul finale, ironico e inaspettato.

One of the bleakest novels about Jewish grocers I've ever read.

Una storia piccola per un romanzo enorme, in cui la vita la vita di un bottegaio ebreo e della sua famiglia si fondono con quella di un giovane commesso italiano che porta nella loro quotidianità il male e il bene. E in una dimensione sempre tragica, l’iniziazione del commesso passerà attraverso il senso di colpa, il pentimento, l’espiazione e soprattutto l’amore per la figlia del bottegaio.



L’intreccio narrativo di Bernard Malamud sta tutto qui, per modo di dire, e si gioca sulle relazioni interpersonali dei protagonisti su cui incombe costante un destino tanto di miseria quanto di speranza, con la volontà di riscatto che però non riesce mai ad andare oltre il presente di sofferenze e miserie.



Il Commesso è un libro fortemente malinconico, scarno e realistico che – grazie al suo finale aperto – ha il merito di mostrarci come la bontà e la cattiveria, il giusto e lo sbagliato, il bello e il brutto, non sono qualità assolute ma insieme intrinseche negli uomini e l’equilibro (e talvolta il disequilibrio…) dipende solo da quanto si è in grado di affrontare le difficoltà della vita.