Gimpel the Fool | The Saint as Schlemiel
In the following excerpt from a review of Gimpel the Fool, and Other Stories, Kazin discusses Singer's combination of traditional Jewish and modern literary conventions, focusing on his use of the archetypal fool figure of Jewish literature.
When I first read ''Gimpel the Fool "... I felt not only that I was reading an extraordinarily beautiful and witty story, but that I was moving through as many historical levels as an archaeologist at work. This is an experience one often gets from the best Jewish writers. The most "advanced" and sophisticated Jewish writers of our time—Babel, Kafka, Bellow—have assimilated, even conquered, the whole tradition of modern literature while reminding us of the unmistakable historic core of the Jewish experience. Equally, a contemporary Yiddish writer like Isaac Bashevis Singer uses all...
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