Other Literary Forms
Among Isaac Bashevis Singer’s prodigious output are several translations; numerous novels, including Der Sotn in Gorey (1935; Satan in Goray, 1955), Der Knekht (1961; The Slave, 1962), and Sonim, de Geshichte fun a Liebe (1966; Enemies: A Love Story, 1972); several volumes of memoirs and autobiographical stories; more than a dozen collections of children’s stories; and a variety of adaptations of his stories or novels for other media, including opera, stage, and film.
Achievements
Isaac Bashevis Singer, more than any other writer in the twentieth century, kept alive the rich traditions of a vanishing language and culture. Born into Eastern European Orthodox Judaism, Singer witnessed both the gradual assimilation of his generation into gentile culture and the tragic Nazi Holocaust that decimated Eastern Europe’s Jewish populations.
Yiddish, a language written in Hebrew characters and derived from German, with borrowings from Polish, Lithuanian, and other languages, was spoken by millions of Jews. Inextricably connected to it are centuries of traditional beliefs and customs, as well as fascinating folklore, demonology, and mysticism that evolved from religious teaching. Writing exclusively in Yiddish (though translating much of his work into English himself) and mining both the language and the culture, Singer nourished a population stricken with tragedy and dispersed by exile.
His greatest achievement, however, lay in expressing the universality of that very particular milieu. Never did Singer cater to audiences unfamiliar with Yiddish culture, yet, by finding the truly human aspects of the people and conflicts in his stories, he earned impressive popularity among a wide and varied audience. It is no doubt the profound universality of his vision that earned for Singer election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1964, as the only member writing in a language other than English, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.
Other literary forms
The first work that Isaac Bashevis Singer published when he moved to the United States was the novel known as “Messiah the Sinner,” which was serialized in 1936 but was never published as a book. It was serialized in three Yiddish daily papers: Der Vorwärts (the Jewish Daily Forward, in New York), the Warshanahaint (in Warsaw), and the Pariser Haint (in Paris). Singer himself considered this work a “complete failure” and never attempted to translate it. In addition to his novels, Singer wrote several memoirs: Mayn Tatn’s Bes-din Shtub (1956; In My Father’s Court, 1966), A Little Boy in Search of God: Mysticism in a Personal Light (1976), A Young Man in Search of Love (1978), and Lost in America (1980). He also wrote more than one hundred stories and numerous books for children. He wrote two works on Hasidism, one in collaboration with the artist Ira Moskowitz titled The Hasidim (1973). His Yiddish translations of works by such noted authors as Stefan Zweig, Knut Hamsun, Erich Maria Remarque, and Thomas Mann are well regarded, as are his many literary essays and reviews. Several of Singer’s short stories have been adapted as plays; “Yentl der Yeshive Bocher” (“Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy”), which was written in Yiddish in the 1950’s, became a Broadway play in 1975 and a film (Yentl) in 1983.
Achievements
Isaac Bashevis Singer has been acclaimed by some critics as a genius and referred to by others as one of the greatest writers of the modern world. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, which resulted in the obliteration of central and eastern European Jewry, the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer stand as monuments to a vibrant and vital world. Singer’s writing does not idolize this community: He depicts it in its totality, in its full humanity. His people are saints and sinners, believers and heretics, fools and scholars, avaricious merchants...
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and ineffectual rabbis, patient wives and termagants. His imaginative world includes demons, elves, dybbuks, and magicians, mystical figures from a lost folk culture. However, Singer’s fiction does more than recall a world destroyed by the Holocaust. The power of his work, while remaining thoroughly Jewish, transcends the boundaries of cultural and religious ethnicity to raise questions about life that have been translatable across the changing contexts of twentieth century thought.
Singer’s works are written in Yiddish, the language of the shtetl—the eastern European village or town. For Singer, Yiddish is more than the vernacular of the people of the central and eastern European Jewish community. It is, as he stated in his Nobel Prize lecture, “the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of a frightened and hopeful humanity.” His Yiddish reflects the influence of three languages, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and contains frequent allusions to rabbinic and talmudic lore. The richness of his prose and its texture, pace, and rhythm are not easy to capture in translation. Singer worked with his translators and participated in the editing. All of his major works first appeared in serial form in the Forward (originally a daily, the Jewish Daily Forward, then a weekly) prior to their translation and rendition into book form except for his first novel, Satan in Goray, which was serialized in the magazine Globus in Warsaw in 1934.
One of the outstanding characteristics of Singer’s tales is his use of demoniac imagery. This motif does not represent a love of the bizarre, the occult, or the gothic, although Singer is interested in these aspects. His demons figuratively portray the evil side of human nature; moreover, Singer believed that supernatural powers—both good and evil—do exist, and he affirmed his ultimate faith in Providence.
Singer’s vision is optimistic when it concerns cosmic matters but pessimistic in dealing with humanity. He differs from his Yiddish literary contemporaries or predecessors in that most have been secularists who relinquished the past in favor of the Enlightenment. Most Yiddish writers after the 1940’s portrayed an idealized and sentimental view of the shtetl. Singer could not accept this tradition. He maintains that the greatest gift of God is freedom of choice. Where there is no evil, there is also no freedom. He is aware that good does not always triumph, so his Jews are not all good. His characters share the traits and illusions of all humankind.
Singer is a supreme storyteller. For him, the suspense, the adventure, the age-old pleasures of narrative are paramount. He leaves explanations and interpretations to his readers and critics. Singer achieved a popular success unusual for a writer of his distinction: His works have become best sellers and have been translated into fifty-eight languages. He won the National Book Award twice, three of his works were named Newbery Honor Books, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. A number of his works have been dramatized and widely performed; some have also been made into motion pictures. He was an engaging and popular figure on the campuses of colleges and universities and a favorite of interviewers; he served as writer-in-residence at Oberlin College, at the University of California, and at Bard College. In 1989, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters bestowed on Singer its highest award, its Gold Medal.
Discussion Topics
Many of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novels and short stories have been classified as tragicomedies. How do his works blend the elements of comedy and those of tragedy?
How do Singer’s works reflect the tradition of storytelling that is so prevalent in small, rural communities?
Does Singer see the loss of a sense of community as a major obstacle to his characters’ happiness?
Why did the Holocaust cause many Jews to lose their faith?
Even those of Singer’s characters who say they no longer believe in God often feel guilty. Why?
What does Singer see as the major problems in male-female relationships? What are the problems in marriage?
How is the theme of alienation reflected in Singer’s works?
Bibliography
Alexander, Edward. Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1990. An introduction to Singer’s stories in terms of their themes, types, and motifs, for example: moral tales, holocaust stories, supernatural tales, tales of apocalypse and politics, stories of faith and doubt. Focuses on Singer’s universal appeal rather than his Jewish appeal. Includes a section of quotations from Singer about his work, as well as essays on Singer by Irving Howe and two other critics.
Allentuck, Marcia, ed. The Achievement of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969. A collection of eleven essays devoted to various aspects of Singer’s work. While most articles focus on themes in individual novels, the collection does include pieces on Singer’s memoirs and children’s stories, and examinations of “The Spinoza of Market Street” and “Gimpel the Fool.” Though inevitably uneven, the volume is generally straightforward and easy to read.
Buchen, Irving H. Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Eternal Past. New York: New York University Press, 1968. Buchen provides an interesting though not painstakingly detailed look at Singer’s early career. While his efforts to relate the author to other contemporary writers and the overall tradition of English and American literature are excessive, he explores and understands the balances of Singer’s writing. Includes a chapter on selected early stories and a good bibliography.
Farrell, Grace, ed. Critical Essays on Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: G. K. Hall, 1996. An extensive introduction on Singer’s critical reception and the issues that have preoccupied him and his critics. Collects both contemporary reviews and a wide range of essays, including Leslie Fiedler’s “I. B. Singer: Or, The American-ness of the American Jewish Writer.”
Farrell, Grace, ed. Isaac Bashevis Singer: Conversations. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992. A collection of interviews with Singer that reveal the connections among his philosophy of life, his perspective on literature, and his mode of living.
Guzlowski, John. “Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Satan in Goray and Bakhtin’s Vision of the Carnivalesque.” Critique 39 (Winter, 1998): 167-175. Argues that Bakhtin’s notion of the grotesque illuminates Singer’s and that Wolfgang Kayser’s theories of the grotesque oversimplify his message; concludes, however, that Singer departs from Bakhtin is in his less hopeful belief about society’s ability to build a new order out of carnival.
Hadda, Janet. “Isaac Bashevis Singer in New York.” Judaism 46 (Summer, 1997): 346-363. Discusses the transformation of Singer from Bashevis, the sharp-witted, conflicted, occasionally harsh, literary genius, to Isaac Bashevis Singer—and even Isaac Singer—the quaint, pigeon-feeding vegetarian, the serene and gentle embodiment of the timeless values of Eastern European Jews.
Hadda, Janet. Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Focusing on both the forces of family and that social environment that influenced Singer, Hadda uncovers the public persona to reveal a more complex man than heretofore understood.
Kresh, Paul. Isaac Bashevis Singer: The Magician of West Eighty-sixth Street. New York: Dial Press, 1979. A lively account of Singer’s first seventy-five years, told in an often seemingly day-by-day account that creates a delightful sense of intimacy for the reader. Kresh incorporates refreshing quotes and anecdotes and includes thirty-two photographs. His careful attention to facts clarifies the often ambiguous details of Singer’s works in terms of creation, translation, publication, and reissue. More than four hundred pages, with a good index and a bibliography.
Mulbauer, Asher Z. Transcending Exile. Miami: Florida International University Press, 1985. A thoughtful contemplation of exile in the works of three writers: Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov, and Singer. The fifty-page chapter on Singer focuses on three novels—Shosha, The Slave, and Enemies: A Love Story—but is mindful of thematic parallels to the short stories.
Noiville, Florence. Isaac B. Singer: A Life. Translated by Catherine Temerson. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. For those unfamiliar with Singer, this biography serves as an excellent introduction to the man and his works. Noiville gleans information from interviews with Singer’s wife, son, friends, and colleagues, as well as his autobiography, In My Father’s Court. She focuses on Singer’s life struggles, his relationships with others, and the adversity he had to overcome as a Jewish writer. This is an informative biography written in language that is concise and easy to read.
Sinclair, Clive. The Brothers Singer. London: Allison and Busby, 1983. A fascinating examination of Singer and his work in the context of one of the most important personal and literary relationships of the author’s life. Sinclair effectively interweaves biography and literary analysis, conveying a deep understanding of the lives and works of Isaac and Joshua Singer.
Spilka, Mark. “Empathy with the Devil: Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Deadly Pleasures of Misogyny.” Novel 31 (Summer, 1998): 430-444. Discusses Singer’s preoccupation with demonology and sexuality, focusing on his struggles with misogyny; claims the admonitory sequences of Singer’s fiction exemplify the risks and hazards of his own personal and fictional struggle to make sense of the pre-and post-Holocaust world he inherited from his parents.
Wolitz, Seth L., ed. The Hidden Isaac Bashevis Singer. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. A collection of essays focusing on Singer’s use of Yiddish language and cultural experience, themes that persist through his writing, his interface with other times and cultures, his autobiographical work, and a translation of a previously unpublished “gangster” novel.
Zamir, Israel. Journey to My Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: Arcade, 1995. A lively memoir by Singer’s only child that paints a complex portrait of the writer.
