Well that was depressing. There may have been a time or two I have been this relieved that I have finally finished a book, but it hasn't happened often. It was such a relief to close that book knowing I never have to open it again. I know that "The Fixer" has won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, just knowing that made me go and find out what it takes to win either of these awards and this is what I found just in case you're interested: "Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.National Book Award: Its mission is "to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of good writing in America."I trust that "The Fixer" deserves both of these awards, I still hated it. I know that lots and lots and lots of people love the book, I still hated it. "The Fixer" was written by Bernard Malamud and published in 1966. What I find even more depressing than the novel is that it is a fictionalized version of something that really happened. Menahem Mendel Beilis was a Jewish man unjustly imprisoned in Tsarist Russia. The "Beilis trial" of 1913 caused an international uproar and Russia backed down in the face of this indignation. The only good thing, two good things I guess about this real event is that there was an international uproar and that Russia backed down, although why they were doing terrible things to Jewish people in the first place is beyond me. Of course why anyone does terrible things to anyone else is beyond me. Maybe doing terrible things to entire big groups of people astonishes me even more, even if you don't like one or two people what can you possibly have against all of them?. I'm not going to tell you if the awful people doing awful things to our main character back down in the face of indignation at the end or not, just in case you want to read the book and would rather not have the ending spoiled.As to the story, in the novel our main character is Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman or "fixer". The book begins in a shtetl, a Russian village, (yes I looked it up) where Yakov lives with his father-in-law, Shmuel. Yakov’s wife, Raisl, has left him for another man. The marriage was troubled mainly because the couple did not have a child. Yakov has made a decision to leave the shtetl and go elsewhere where hopefully his luck will improve. Well he's wrong about that one. He loads a few things onto a wagon and heads to Kiev. However when Yakov reaches Kiev, he has difficulty making a living, there are just no jobs for Jews. Then one evening he finds a man lying drunk in the snow and helps the man's daughter take him home. The man, Lebedev, rewards him for his help by offering him a job at a brickyard that he owns. Yakov needs the job but is troubled because to take it he will have to live at the brickyard and Jews aren't allowed to live in that section of the city, I don't know why- just add it to the list of things I don't understand. He does take the job not telling Lebedev he is Jewish or his real name. Eventually some of the workers there find out he is Jewish, so when Yakov is arrested he thinks he is being arrested for living in a restricted area off-limits to Jews. At first he is unaware of the actual accusations which are of "ritual murder of a child". A twelve year old boy has been found dead in a cave with many stab wounds in the body. Yakov is jailed without being officially charged and denied visitors or legal counsel. When he asks for a lawyer he is told that it is not possible at this stage. The indictment must come first and the indictment won't come until there is a preliminary examination by the Investigating Magistrate and the Prosecuting Attorney. If they agree there should be an indictment they write one and it is sent to the District Court where it is either confirmed or disapproved by the judges. After all this the prisoner is given a copy of it and then within a week or two, possibly more, the accused may select his counsel and inform the court. What a terrible legal system this is. A man could be in jail for years just waiting for the indictment which is what happens to Yakov. Not only that, but no one believes that Yakov committed the murder in the first place. I don't believe it, the prosecutor doesn't believe it, or other prisoners, or the warden, or the guards or anyone else in the book, but no one cares, they want to convict Yakov of the crime because he is Jewish. I probably said this ten times already but I'm saying it again, why they are determined to arrest and torment a Jewish person is beyond me. There were words in the book used fairly often that I looked up just to be sure of what they meant, one of them was pogrom; lots of people running around in this book wanted to have a pogrom and here it is:"an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group, in particular that of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe."An organized massacre?? Who would organize a massacre? Who would want to do this? Again, I don't know. Then we have "matzo", which is "an unleavened bread traditionally eaten by Jewish people during the week-long Passover holiday." There seems to be nothing wrong with this only these horrible book people claim that Yakov and all the other Jewish people make it with the blood of Christians to cure their diseases or some such absolutely stupid reason. Then there is Father Anastasy, a priest who is a self-proclaimed expert - also insane in my opinion - on ritual murder. He tells us:"In the recorded past,' said Father Anastasy in his nasally musical voice, ' the Jew has had many uses for Christian blood. He has used it for purposes of sorcery and witches' rituals, and for love potions and well poisoning, fabricating a deadly venom that spread the plague from one country to another, a mixture of Christian blood from a murdered victim, their own Jewish urine, the heads of poisonous snakes, and even the stolen mutilated host - the bleeding body of Christ himself."I'm not sure how crazy Father Anastasy thinks the Jewish people are supposed to get their hands on the body of Christ bleeding or otherwise since at this moment He is in heaven with our Father, but I don't really care of Father Anastasy's ideas on that anyway. I could add many more horrible quotes like that one but I don't want to, thinking of this book makes my head hurt. Then we get to read of Yakov being in prison and eating soup with cockroaches in it, of getting beat not just by guards but also by prisoners who beat him either because they believe him guilty or because he's Jewish, you decide which one. At one point in this "lovely" book Yakov's feet get sores on them, the sores become infected and swollen and the pain and swelling begins to move up his legs, he also becomes feverish. Finally the warden sends him to the infirmary but no one is allowed to help him get there and he has to crawl the entire way. There are these atrocious body searches that the evil deputy warden has done to Yakov six times a day even though he is kept in solitary confinment and chained to a wall. What in the world are they searching for?I don't want to think about this book any more so I'm done with this. I know it won awards and all that and because of that it must be a wonderful book, so take their word for it and not mine. I read that it is "wonderfully written", "one of the world's richest novels", "a literary event in any season". All kinds of things like that, but I don't know or care when a book is "wonderfully written" I just know I hate it. I hate that people can do things like this to each other. I refuse to give it more than one star because of how it made me feel no matter how many awards it won, I do however, recommend it to everyone, after all you will have to like it better than I did.
The Fixer by Bernard MalamudExceptional, meaningful masterpiece that will stay vivid in the memory of the reader – 10 out of 10After reading The Assistant it should come as no surprise that Bernard Malamud can create a masterpiece that may take your breath away at times.The drama of The Fixer is so compelling that it will stay with you forever, unless you do not care about others and their suffering.It is difficult to say how or why but I had a feeling that something wrong will happen to Yakov Bok or the fixer as he will be called throughout the book.It may come back to The Assistant, the book that has propelled Bernard Malamud among my top favorites, which has its share of tragedy.It is a miraculous gift that this marvelous writer has, to make the reader so intimate and attached to main characters that not only seem common, but even worse.Both Frank and Yakov have quite a few shortcomings, with the first stealing and even getting involved in a hold up and the latter being harsh to his wife and overall lacking obvious hero-like qualities to endear him to us.Yakov lives in a shtetl in poverty which we might as well call misery, with his wife and father in law, trying to fix things for a living.In today’s slang that would refer more to a wise guy from the Scorsese movies, who will fix others by bribing an official, or scaring a bad debtor…that kind of thing.But this Fixer is really repairing a door, putting a fence in place and other such odd jobs that bring in only a meager income, not enough to even live on.Raisl, his wife has no children and Yakov takes a medieval, stupid attitude in blaming this on her and doing even worse by refusing to sleep with her- since it was no use.That is later cleared and his chauvinist, backward attitude is exposed when Raisl gives birth and the fixer regrets his vileness, for which he paid in the meantime hundreds of times over.Raisl abandons her husband for a goyim and that is perceived as a supreme insult by a man who is a self proclaimed free thinker…quite a paradox, isn’t itWhen he is left by his wife, Yakov feels that he must go away from the shtetl, to Kiev, where he may rise to a respectable position.Alas, it is not what happens, for after luck seems to descend upon him, a terrible and false accusation sends him to prison.Even if a man works hard, not just minding his business but even helping others and going beyond the call of duty, in a primitive society he is in grave danger.Yakov is Jewish and that is enough for anti-Semites, who represented if not the whole population then a big chunk of it in Russia and elsewhere.A teenage boy is killed with multiple stabs- I think they were 45 or so- and the conclusion of authorities, experts and …the czar himself is that the Jew did it.To be frank, Bernard Malamud includes the opinion of important personalities, newspapers that have tried to a voice an opposing view, but were mostly silenced.To begin with, there is even an official investigator – Bibikov, who is certain that the boy was killed by his mother in cahoots with her outlaw lover.But Bibikov is ostracized and dies, either killed by the stupid, hateful colleagues or by his own hand, after the case is pushed on the track of religious murder.Jewish people have been made to pay for two thousand years for the supposed murder of Christ and pogroms took place in many parts of the Christian world.The book is extraordinary for the plot which keeps the reader guessing, the characters- complex and fascinating and the moral, religious issues which are explored.How can we talk so much about forgiveness and yet be so cruel and revengeful…How could they torture a poor innocent man only because he belonged to a different faith…?And not even that, for he did not attend the synagogue and was often rather blasphemous, blaming his God for the terrible life and fate that he had to endure.Sublime, wonderful masterpiece
What do You think about The Fixer (2004)?
Of all the novels I've read in the last few years, the ones that could be termed 'Jewish American Fiction', the one I'd say Malamud's The Fixer most resembles is Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird.Both of the novels are written in a style so earnest and even a little antiquated that it's almost too much for their respective pages. There's a gradualness to the proceedings, an iceberg like slowness that lends both stories a heightened sense of acute dread interspersed by jarring moments of both depravity and humanity that affects the reader so much it could almost be called painful, though not entirely negatively. Imagine left to thirst in a desert until the absence of water is all you have, and then falling into a frozen lake, something like that.What Malamud does is present a character and break him, again and again, and give said character every reason, conceivable or not (he comes within a hair's breadth of madness towards the end) to confess to a crime he didn't commit if only to gain leniency for himself and his fellow Jews in the Pale of Settlement in Russia. But the character, Yakov Bok, doesn't. Much to the chagrin of his captors and tormentors and, I imagine, the befuddlement and even slight rage of his compatriot Jews. Not rage at Bok, but rather rage at their own impotence and place in history as Bok so lucidly (and towards the end wrathfully) elucidates.This is a book of cruelty, with no real heroism to speak of. Bok is not a hero though his resistance and strength of will under horrific conditions in a Russian jail can only rightfully be called superhuman. It was interesting to read a book with a protagonist like this. He's more human than many might like to admit to admiring.What fascinated me most about this book is the central question: why does Yakov Bok continue to live? It's certainly not for religion as he spites God regularly (and not without a certain cathartic pleasure) and certainly not out of love or pride, or out of a sense of brotherhood or unity with anyone or anything. In fact, Bok fits in very well as a consummate outsider of the highest level, someone who, from conception, is destined not to fit, and to be constantly reminded of it and rankled because of it. But his outsider status only solidifies his Jewishness, even if, this is maybe only my interpretation, he is the only true Jew among Jews, as he suffers to a level that few other Jews in the story or in actual history can understand, or want to see or know too much about. The fact that Bok is a fictionalized version of a real person (who was quite different and more pious, apparently) does little to dampen his effect on me, he better serves the overall running theme in the novel as he is and I feel Malamud's character, though not a hero, is immeasurably more memorable and even important than a pious unquestioning gazer towards God's just reward.Reading this book was, in a sense, refreshing. It was bracing to read a detailing of Jewish suffering that precludes the current 'trends' in American Jewish Fiction. The likes of Jonathan Safron Foer and Nicole Krauss have a disconcerting tendency to trivialize the shtetl experience (almost commidifying it for, gross, mass consumption) whilst waving limp hand to the intelligent sensitive strength of Jewish continuity in America and Israel. It's so disingenuous, like Walt Disney presents The Jewish Meta Narrative. Though not without its flaws (the ending text/dialogue blocks detailing the Jewish plight smacked of lecture and a rush to give historical weight) this is a book to be read and contemplated. It's a powerful shot of a story that will stick with you and remind you to never completely forget humanity's capacity to torture and suffer, but to also bear and remain steadfast.
—Yair Bezalel
Yakov Bok is non-religious and apolitical. He simply wants a better life. He is slightly bitter that life gives him lemons but no sugar to make lemonade but that does not keep him from trying to improve. He reads Spinoza to educate himself and moves to Kiev to start a better life. He is a repairman aka a "fixer". Unfortunately, he is also a Jew in Tsarist Russia.I like Yakov. He is Everyman. He is not a hero nor a wise man. But he is sincere and honest. He is a basically honest man placed in an horrific situation. His one deceit, trying to pass as a gentile in an anti-Semitic society, is a deceit born of desperation and survival. Yakov is accused of killing a young boy in a "Blood Ritual". In the Russia of 1905 he has little chance of proving himself innocent. He is beaten and thrown in jail to waste away only to be repeatedly told to sign a confession to stop the torture. Yakov refuses but his faith in humanity, in society and in God is tested and weakened. He meets only one man who is willing to fight for him but even that is no match for the fears and prejudices of an unfair society.Malamud is not the type of writer to sugar-coat anything. His style is to the point and his descriptions of prison life comes close to unbearable. Yet Yakov remains the focus of this tale and that is the strength. Many of the most moving moments comes when Yakov have delusions and dreams caused by starvation, illness and general suffering. These delusional dialogues hold much of the philosophical meat of the novel. The ending dialogue of Yakov talking to Tzar Nicholas is a fitting and satisfactory scene in a climax that looks open-ended but really isn'., For while the author packs a lot of social and political discussion points in his tale, it is really about the emotional and philosophical journey of Yakov who would like to "fix" much more than just material objects but doesn't know how.I don't know how well Malamud has held up in the 21st century. But if any writer can be called a student of the human condition it is he. His writings still hold true in its assessment of humankind's fears toward the unfamiliar and society's oppression toward others.
—Marvin
Brevi appunti su un libro bellissimo.Malamud inizia il romanzo con una sordina che gli impedisce quasi di parlare. Tranne qualche sferzata brusca, attraverso le quali si snoda la vicenda, il tutto è stretto dentro un rivolo leggerissimo d'acqua. Un rischio gigantesco. Ma si percepisce che, nonostante la sordina, la melodia che suona in fondo è qualcosa di struggente bellezza. Le 400 pagine del romanzo viaggiano attraverso tre anni di vita, conducendoti nelle storture dell'umano, nella capacità di crearsi un nemico e nella cocciutagine del protagonista, Yakov Bok, di volere giustizia. La sua giustizia. Yakov Bok, pover'uomo tuttofare della campagna russa, che si trasferisce per cercare fortuna a Kiev, viene accusato di un delitto atroce. Egli è innocente, ma è il bersaglio giusto per chi ha bisogno di nemici. Yakov, nonostante le sue umili condizioni, leggeva e studiava. Ha avvicinato il pensiero di Baruch Spinoza, di cui parla alcune volte nel libro, e ne ha assorbito tutta la forza. Yakov è un po' un altro Spinoza: odiato e maledetto, senza aver fatto del male a nessuno.Questo romanzo è un cazzotto in pancia, tra sofferenza e speranza che si spegne, Malamud è capace di coinvolgerci nel dolore di Yakov e nella follia umana dei suoi carcerieri.
—Saverio Mariani
