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art (and provide their protagonist with Malamud’s mother’s maiden name). And then there is “The Magic Barrel,” which takes the ridiculous interactions of a rabbinical student and a marriage broker and transforms them into art. Part of the author’s genius was his ability to start with the rhythms of Yiddish-inflected English, polish them, and transform them into a prose style that could hit notes of unbridled hilarity and quiet intensity. Malamud’s first collection won the National Book Award in 1959, but more impressive than any prize are the plaudits he received from his peers. The great Flannery O’Connor—herself a master of the form—wrote, in a letter to a friend, that Malamud was “a short story writer who is better than any of them, including myself.” Cynthia Ozick answered her own question, “Is he an American Master?” with an assured “Of course.” While any one of his collections, or the Stories of Bernard Malamud (1983), make for exceptional reading, The Complete Stories is a treasure, as worthwhile an investment as one can make in the field of American Jewish letters. Further reading: Snippets of Malamud’s life can be found in Talking Horse (1996), which collects many interesting examples from the author’s notes, lectures, and essays. Fans will not be able to resist Malamud’s authorized biography, by Philip Davis (2007) or a memoir by his daughter, Janna Malamud Smith, called My Father Is a Book (2006); there is also Conversations with the author, edited by Lawrence Lasher (1991). His brilliant novels include The Fixer (1966) and The Tenants (1971), both of which are worthy of sustained attention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103pThe Puttermesser Papers By Cynthia Ozick KNOPF, 1997. 236 PAGES. Ruth Puttermesser runs the gamut. In five stories, written over three decades and knitted together into a disjointed but coherent novel, Ruth creates a female golem, unwittingly reenacts an episode from the life of George Eliot, and finally arrives in Paradise, where she encounters a handful of celebrities as well as her own lost love. Since Ruth aged more or less alongside her creator, these stories offer a window into the ways Cynthia Ozick’s concerns and techniques have changed, and stayed the same, over time. The pleasures of this collection are various, and variety itself is primary among them. The first chapter introduces the protagonist, whose last name in Yiddish means “butterknife”: she is a lonely 30-something New Yorker, trained as a lawyer but lately departed from a “blueblood Wall Street firm.” Not sure where to turn in her career, she also despairs that she has lost connection with her ancestry, and the story ends with a metafictional statement of her confusion: “Hey! Puttermesser’s biographer! What will you do with her now?” Next up: magic realism. Ruth, frustrated in work and love, sculpts a female golem out 141 Titles of the dirt in her potted plants and, with mystical knowledge cribbed from Gershom Scholem, brings her to life. Named Xanthippe, after Socrates’ wife, the golem cleans up Ruth’s messes so effectively that she is soon elected mayor of New York; unfortunately, though, like all golems, Xanthippe becomes uncontrollable (in this case, she has an overzealous sex drive). The third section treats literary history, as Ruth, now in her 50s, introduces her new flame to the pleasures of George Eliot, the author of the great Daniel Deronda. Chapter 4 retreats to satirical realism in the era of perestroika, as Ruth hosts a cousin from the Soviet Union who shatters all of the idealistic expectations the Americans have of suffering Russian Jews by hocking tchotchkes at a sporting goods store. At the same time, Ozick lampoons a squishy left-wing Jewish magazine and its founder—a “ferocious entrepreneur” and self-described “sucker for red hair”— who bears more than a passing resemblance to Michael Lerner of Tikkun. After a grisly death, the last story sends Puttermesser to heaven, where she makes up for lost time on earth with an old crush and witnesses the notoriously inept dramatist Henry James “growing rich on the triumph of a play.” Talk about fantasy! Ozick is an acknowledged master of short fiction; she has taken first place in the O. Henry Prizes—one of two prestigious annual American awards for stories—an astounding and unequaled four times (once for “Puttermesser Paired,” the second chapter in this volume). The short form, massaged here into the shape of a novel, suits her: her wild and elaborate diction, broad...

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