The Fixer (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Bernard Malamud
- First Published: 1966
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Historical realism
- Time of Work: Shortly before World War I
- Setting: Around Kiev, in the Ukraine, Russia
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Historical fiction
- Subjects: Prisons, 1910’s, Jews or Jewish life, Anti-Semitism, Existentialism, Russia or Russian people
- Locales: Kiev, Ukraine
Characters Discussed
Yakov Bok, a poor fixer, or handyman. A tall, nervous man with a strong back and work-hardened hands, this orphan—whose mother died in childbirth and whose father was killed not more than a year later in a pogrom, a mass destruction of Russian Jews—holds a pessimistic philosophy of life. Taught his trade at the orphanage, he was apprenticed at the age of ten and has, during his thankless life, served in the Russian army and taught himself Russian as well as some history, geography, science, and arithmetic. He considers himself a freethinker and...
[The entire page is 876 words long]
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