Pictures Of Fidelman: An Exhibition (1975) - Plot & Excerpts
Close to where I live is a very cluttered antique shop. It is actually a house and every room is packed to the brim with odds and ends. At the back is a room full of second hand books. One wall is covered floor to ceiling with old penguin books, many of them first editions. They cost between £1 and £1.50 each. This book was one of those. If you’re ever in Lincoln it’s worth looking in. This is the first Malamud I’ve read. It is a set of inter-connected stories about Arthur Fidelman, an American who moves to Italy to pursue his desire to be involved in art. It is also allegedly not one of Malamud’s better books and one critic has said that all that Fidelman manages to do in his escapades is to learn “pimping, glass-blowing and sodomy from the Italians”. All the Fidelman stories are chronological with no recurring characters (apart from Fidelman himself and his sister Bessie who is in the background and in America). There are six stories;1)Last Mohican; Fidelman, an American Jew and a failed painter comes to Italy to write a critical study of Giotto. He repeatedly meets a Jew called Susskind who steals his manuscript.2)Still Life; Fidelman moves into a studio with a woman called Annamaria who mistreats him, until he finally discovers she has a “thing” about priest’s robes and dress (he keeps the biretta on!)3)Naked Nude; Fidelman is working cleaning toilets in a brothel and is held prisoner. He has to make a copy of a Titian to buy his freedom.4)A Pimp’s Revenge; Fidelman is trying to complete a picture of him and his mother. In the meantime he is living with a girl called Esmeralda and acting as her pimp.5)Portraits of the Artist; Fidelman’s beliefs, reflections and reactions to Art (despite the fact that he really isn’t much good at it. Stream of Consciousness.6)Glass Blower of Venice; Fidelman moves to Venice and starts an affair with a woman. Her husband, a glass blower discovers them and he and Fidelman start an affair. Fidelman learns glass blowing. He eventually returns to America and works as a glass blower, and has affairs with men and women. They can stand alone and some were originally published separately, but work together. I can understand why some of the critics didn’t like it and Fidelman is a difficult character to have any empathy with. He uses others without much feeling in his pursuit of art. However there is circularity to it and a sort of redemption at the end. Rome is the Rome of Caligula with decadence and excess, enjoyed by the Jewish Fidelman, in the heart of Catholicism. Fidelman even carves Madonna’s to make some money at one point. There are clever nods to other authors and good use of tropes. There are serious flaws, but on the whole it was entertaining (sometimes irritating). Malamud’s women are certainly formulaic (mothers and whores), but the men are equally so. Apart from Beppo the glass blower, the women are on the whole more sympathetic characters as they struggle to cope with an impossible and deluded man (no lessons to learn here then!).
What do You think about Pictures Of Fidelman: An Exhibition (1975)?
