Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/los-inquili...Ya hablé de Bernard Malamud en esta reseña de otra novela suya. En este caso, y gracias a la misma editorial podemos gozar nuevamente de otra muestra de su buen hacer; la sencillez argumental de la novela “Los inquilinos” esconde sin embargo una complejidad de forma y fondo con una serie de ideas que subyacen desde el principio y que vertebran el texto que nos ofreció el escritor en las apenas doscientas páginas de las que consta.De entre estas ideas, me gustaría poner énfasis en los siguientes temas:-El evidente, aunque no menos importante, conflicto racial; latente a lo largo de todo el texto. En este caso el protagonista Harry Lesser es judío y Willie Spearmint es negro, representan facciones alejadas de “la mayoría” y que se resisten a ser desahuciados, que luchan contra una sociedad, encarnada en el casero Levenspiel, que les quiere echar de donde viven. Willie ejemplifica en primera persona esto: “¡Oh, qué imbécil hipócrita soy de pedir a un judío blanco que me aconseje cómo debo expresar mi alma negra! Solo con leerlo estropeas lo que escribo”-Si no fuera porque sé que estaba leyendo a Malamud, en algunos momentos, por tratar la supremacía negra, nuevas formas literarias que la reflejen, etc… habría pensado que era Leroi Jones más conocido Amiri Baraka (1934) el que estaba haciéndolo. Baraka siempre ha tenido mucha controversia, sólo tenemos que observar el ensayo que escribió en 1965 (antes de la publicación de “Los inquilinos”): “Most American white men are trained to be fags. For this reason it is no wonder their faces are weak and blank. …The average ofay [white person] thinks of the black man as potentially raping every white lady in sight. Which is true, in the sense that the black man should want to rob the white man of everything he has. But for most whites the guilt of the robbery is the guilt of rape. That is, they know in their deepest hearts that they should be robbed, and the white woman understands that only in the rape sequence is she likely to get cleanly, viciously popped”Este polémico escritor, ensayista y poeta, seguidor de Malcolm X, buscaba la supremacía negra sobre la blanca y para ellos lo tenía que ser igualmente en el arte, y más concretamente en la literatura, buscando su identidad, lo característico de la raza en forma y fondo; podemos ver en los siguientes textos cómo Malamud plantea en estos términos el personaje de Willie: “Willie ríe, grita y baila en su celda. Pide papel y lápiz, se lo dan, y se sienta a la mesa. Escribe cuál es el verdadero espanto de la vida. Escribe llorando. “Lloro por mi maldita madre y por todos los negros sobre los que escribo, incluido yo mismo.” Ama las palabras que traza en el papel; de ellas nace la gente negra. Ama la manera de ser de esa gente, sus voces y su ingenio. Willie se exalta cuando escribe, este es el más dulce de los placeres. [...] Juro a mí mismo que seré el mejor escritor, el mejor escritor soul” “Ningún blanco hijo de mala madre puede ponerse en mi lugar. Estamos hablando de un libro negro que tú no entiendes para nada. La narrativa blanca no es como la narrativa negra. No puede serlo [...] Yo escribo literatura soul sobre la gente negra que grita que aún somos esclavos en este jodido país y que no estamos dispuestos a seguir siéndolo. ¿Cómo puedes entenderlo, Lesser, si tus sesos son blancos?”Y para ello es capaz incluso, de realizar un ejercicio de estilo literario donde plantea nuevas formas que intentan adaptarse a la forma de escribir que debería ser llamada narrativa negra, los experimentos se suceden a lo largo de la novela; pongo el más evidente, la poesía:“El blanco no tiene esplendor,no hay luz para el blanco;el negro resplandece de verdad,tiene luz dentro.Te quiero.Mujer Negra.Tócamepor amor,hazmeTODO NEGRO”-Una vez dejadas de lado estas discusiones también podemos observar las reflexiones del autor con respecto al proceso de creación literaria, más limpio en el caso del judío, más caótico en el caso del de color, pero en este caso igual de inefectivos ambos ya que no consiguen acabar sus libros, el caso de Lesser es muy ilustrativo: “Lesser es un hombre de costumbres, de orden, de trabajo constante y disciplinado. La costumbre y el orden llenan las páginas una a una. La inspiración es costumbre, orden; las ideas nacen, se formulan, se forman. Está decidido a terminar su libro donde lo empezó, donde creó su historia, donde todavía vive.”-No me gustaría terminar sin otro paralelismo que podría ser el eje de fondo; y tiene que ver con Melville y la obsesión del capitán Ahab con “Moby Dick”, aquí extrapolada a la de Harry con la creación de su libro (que podría llevarse igualmente a Willie), que supedita su vida, su búsqueda, evidente, del Amor, que le completará y le hará disfrutar de su vida. “Falta algo esencial que me costará tiempo encontrar. Pero estoy ya cerca, lo siento en la sangre. Estoy avanzando por un misterio hacia la revelación. Con eso quiero decir que lo que me preocupa está en los confines de la conciencia. Mía y del libro. [...] Si no escribo eta novela exactamente tal como debo, si, Dios no lo quiera, tengo que forzarla o falsearla, entonces esos nueve años y medio serán inútiles y yo también lo seré. Después de esa locura ¿qué otra cosa podría esperar de mí mismo?”Está contraposición constante de dos personajes que guardan algo tan importante en común se agudiza en un final cargado de violencia, crudo, extremo, sin solución ante el que Levenspiel sólo puede pedir:“Piedad, vosotros dos, por amor de Dios, llora Levenspiel. Hab Rachmones, os lo suplico. Tened piedad de mí. Piedad piedad…”Una gran novela, con muchas capas que quitar para disfrutar en todo momento, con muchos textos dentro de otros, amarga y dolorosa; al mismo tiempo inspiradora y reflexiva.
Basically, a book that makes you hate and distrust black people even more than you already do. It's hard to find a book written in the past (Hell, it's difficult to find now) where a black character is admirable unless he's a slave and telling Huck Honey to get back on the boat. Most black characters are seen as vicious, untrustworthy individuals (who don't talk in complete sentences), and Malamud continued with that tradition. The only book I can really think of that had a redeemable, respectable black character was The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and that character was a doctor juxtaposed with other black characters who loathed him for being so different. It was an interesting character study to say the least, and it was refreshing to read. But I digress.Why the four stars for this book that I clearly found offensive? Well, because it's good. The characters, though unlikable, are clear and three-dimensional, and the story is told in a meta fashion, which impresses the writer in me. The story concerns two tenants, a Jewish man and a black man (Though one only pays the rent. Guess which one), who are both writers. The black man feels he has to write about the black experience, sort of like Richard Wright. But the problem is, he isn't disciplined like the Jewish writer. The moment he receives even the slightest bit of criticism, he gets upset and does something stupid. It's infuriating to see such a bum of a character, even though he works hard at his craft. The situation is exacerbated when he does a heinous act after the Jewish character kind of oversteps his bounds with the black man's girlfriend (Though, an argument could be made that the black man was in the fault for not treating his girlfriend right in the first place). Overall, it's a quick read and an interesting book told in a fascinating fashion. Do I like how blacks were portrayed in this book, which was published back in the 70s? No. There is not one redeemable thing about them. But as a black writer, I guess it's my job to write minority characters who are actually worthy of praise. I just won't go overboard with it. That's how you DON'T write three-dimensional characters.
What do You think about The Tenants (2003)?
In this 1971 novel by author Bernard Malamud, Harry Lesser, a Jewish writer is the lone tenant in a New York City resident building that is being abandoned. He is struggling with the landlord to allow him to stay there until he finishes the last chapter of his novel, as he likes the quiet of the old building. One night, however, while he is there, he hears typing and discovers a black man named Willie Spearmint who unbeknown to the landlord, has taken up temporary residence in the building. After days of having Harry hide his typewriter so the landlord won’t discover him there, Willie shows Harry his writing and asks for his opinion. This begins their powerful troubling relationship. This book is excellent.
—Marsha
In the process of "deaccessioning" some of my books--*gulp*--I came across this one, and surprisingly, through research of old journal entries, learned that this was not required reading for a class, but something I chose to buy, along with "Lovingkindness" by Anne Roiphe, as research for my collegiate "novel thesis" about a Jewish American family. This one did not touch me as much as "Lovingkindness," perhaps due to self-centered reasons both on my part and Malamud's--he was writing of male writers competing with each other during Black/Jewish tensions in Brooklyn, where Roiphe was writing about Jewish women struggling with religious expression, which is much more personal to me. Still, "The Tenants" sheds important light on a shifting period of American ethnic history.
—Rachel
Perhaps I should've read Malamud's works in order, because I just jumped through time into a completely different author. I've read Malamud's first two books and loved them; I even loved the crazy debut novel about baseball for crying out loud. Then I stepped over five other books and landed in the 1970s. 1970's Malamud is not the same as 1950's Malamud. Gone is the easygoing, beautiful prose that glimmers; in its place is a noisy, experimental tale that felt more like cocaine on the brain. Hey, it was the seventies.Had I not known this was written by Malamud, I wouldn't have had the faintest idea from the writing. Maybe I should pretend it wasn't Malamud and approach it as an unknown author. There's some wonderful conflict in this story. The novel is largely about two writers at war with one another. Now, I roll my eyes almost anytime a story is written about writers, but I'll grant each and every author one token to play the writer card (but only one). The characters themselves are sort of cliché, but I think the author did a wonderful job making them believable and original within their caricatures. Truth is, this story is all over the place. I couldn't tell what was dreams, what was imagined, what was novel. Did any of this really happen? Was some of what I read the novel that was being written by one of these imagined writers? Were there even two writers, or was this all merely the internal struggle of one writer? The author of The Tenants seems angry, confused, and hopeless, a person with a negative view of the world. And this is not how I remember Malamud.So back to Malamud: I get the feeling that maybe this was a very personal story for the author. I get a sense that maybe his own personal life and writing life were unraveling. There's a sense that everything is falling apart, not only for these characters, but for the author as well. And maybe that wasn't the case, and if so, Malamud did a wonderful job painting chaos without having to be submersed in it. I don't know, I'm just trying to find the positive. Knowing this is Malamud, it sort of sucked, but even if I didn't have preconceived notions of the author, I still would've found The Tenants to be jarring, strained, and little more than okay. So, that being that case, I have decided to get back in my time machine and journey to the year I left off at: 1958. Maybe by the time I read through the sixties, 1970s Malamud will make complete sense. Or maybe it would be better to skip over the seventies altogether.
—Chris Blocker
