Ο λογοκλόπος

by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Γρηγόρης Αζαριάδης (Translator)

... Για κάμποσες μέρες, ο Σαμπσάι Γκέτσελ πάλευε με τον Αγγελο του Θανάτου. Ώρες ώρες, έδειχνε να καλυτερεύει, αλλά ύστερα ξανακυλούσε. Ήρθε γιατρός απ το Ζαμόσκ. Φρόντισαν τον άρρωστο, με βεντούζες και βδέλλες. Τον έτριψαν με οινόπνευμα και νέφτι. Η πεθερά του κι η γυναίκα του επισκέφθηκαν το νεκροταφείο για να ζητήσουν τη βοήθεια των νεκρών προγόνων. Αναψαν κεράκια στον οίκο της μελέτης. Οι πόρτες της Ιερής Κιβωτού ανοίχτηκαν διάπλατα. Έβαλαν σχολιαρόπαιδα ν απαγγείλουν τους ψαλμούς...

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Nobel Prize, Poland, Literature, Jewish, Fantasy

293 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish American author of Jewish descent, noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.
His memoir, "A Day Of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw", won the U.S. National Book Award in Children's Literature in 1970, while his collection "A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories" won the U.S. National Book Award in Fiction in 1974.

Reviews

[Kressel Housman · Rating 4 out of 5]

For years, I avoided reading Isaac Bashevis Singer because the foundational writers of Yiddish literature were anti-religious rebels, and as an Orthodox Jew, I was trained to believe that they should be ignored. But now that my own son is a rebel against Orthodox Judaism, I’ve grown to see all rebels in a different light. They have fair criticisms, and I’m more open to hearing them than I used to be.

But that’s not the only reason I read this book. Recently I read Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, which is his retrospective on the supernatural genre his work has grown out of. Isaac Bashevis Singer got a few shout-outs, and that intrigued me, especially since supernatural Jewish literature is exactly the tradition my own writing is growing into.

So here’s what’s both good and bad about Isaac Bashevis Singer. He knew the Orthodox world. The folklore, the people, the liturgy, the hashkafa - they're all in here. One of the short stories in this collection is called “The Rooster” and it ends with a praise to “The Rooster on High,” which is at once the ultimate heresy yet phrased in a way that’s guaranteed to move anyone who loves Jewish prayer. It was both uplifting and ironic, which is pretty much the tone of the entire collection. Another story took place in Gehenna (Hell), in which souls are being assigned their next reincarnation, and the justice is simply poetic. So I finish this book with rather conflicted feelings about Isaac Bashevis Singer. He was a rebel I can admire in spite of my own Orthodoxy. Some of what he had to say is problematic, but my gosh, how that man captured and defined us!

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tales of the world I never knew and never will

Thanks to my grandparents, who came to America in the first decade of the 20th century, I grew up and have had a good life. Thanks to my grandparents, I didn't become a piece of ash or a few tossed out bones in an Eastern European field at the age of 2. Wars are wars; they've occured throughout human history, but in most of them, whole civilizations didn't disappear. But the Eastern European Jewish world is gone forever. I might belong to the same gene pool, but compared to the characters in Isaac Bashevis Singer's stories, I'm as American as apple pie. Irish-Americans can discover their roots in Ireland, Chinese-Americans in China, and so on, but not me. My cultural roots are gone forever. The only way I can learn them is through reading literature written by Singer, Shalom Aleichem, Isaac Babel and others who describe that vanished world. So, obviously, my interest and pleasure in reading such wonderful tales as appear in THE SEANCE and OTHER STORIES is all the more. Never mind my personal reasons. These amazing stories, by a Nobel Prize winner, will stay with you for a long time. The strange, sad characters afflicted by poverty and by life, bring us face to face with common human personalities of all times and places, while also depicting the conditions and peculiar relationships of Jews in Poland too. Magic, religion, animals, thieves, rabbis, prostitutes, mystics, Holocaust survivors, Talmudic scholars, prisoners, books, butchers and shopkeepers crowd the pages. In each story, you find pathos and tragedy, happiness and satisfaction, tensions and transformations. Two of the stories, "The Seance" and "The Letter Writer" must rank with the best stories I have ever read; none of the others are bad. If you have never read Singer, this is an excellent book to start with. If you have, you know what I am talking about. This is the great writer at the top of his form.

[The Crimson Fucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was expecting some really corny pro-vegan crap when I started reading this, but surprise surprise! Although the pro-vegan is in here… you don’t get that feeling one gets when talking with a vegan… you know like they try to force feed you their ideals and crap… not all! Instead you get his awesome stories that make you wonder how the fuck did this shit never made it to my to-read shelve before!? This is some serious deep shit! But not the kind of deep shit that don’t come from a pompous bastard… you know… like you reading something and you realize pretty quick that whoever wrote it is a smart mother fucker… but not the kind of smart mother fucker who likes to make you feel stupid… arg!!! Now I’m having problems explaining this shit! Look! What I think I’m trying to say is that these are all great short stories… I really like this book! I learned a lot of my people’s culture from it (for those of you who don’t know this I’m a Protestant Jew) like the fact that I can negotiate the marriage contract with my bride’s parents! This is fucking awesome! If I were to become rich one day… I could get picky and shit with what I want to go down in my marriage! By contract! And if I’m on demand (and we all know I am!) I can come up with crazy shit like what kind of food I want in the wedding, and what should my bride wear on the wedding day!!! Yay!!! Also there is some bestiality going down… and if all of this wasn’t enough! THERE ARE FUCKING ZOMBIES!!!! I love it!!! Great book!!! Highly recommended! Thank you K.I.

[Κώστας Χρήστου · Rating 1 out of 5]

Αυτοβιογραφκό του κύριου Αζαριάδη.

[Eftihia Ag. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Η μετάφραση αδικεί το έργο και προκαλέι θυμηδία.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Stories. Two Corpses go dancing. The title alone is magnificent and story does not disappoint. Maybe strongest The Slaughterer about a guy who is forced to become a slaughterer instead of Rabbi, but does not like to kill animals.
The Dead Fiddler, great. Zeitl and Rickle is the story of a lesbian love.

[Shadae · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is a amazing and all through out the book it has u guseing from this i learned u cant always trust people even the ones who r really close to u and always follow ur dreams never try to live someone elses

[Izabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

excelent

[James Digate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author can really tell a story. In 10 pages, you think you ( or at least I did) have read a novel. Great character building and the right amount of detail. He does not waste a word. Besides that, his stories are great, not dry at all. I read all of these and enjoyed everyone. The published saved one of the best stories for last.
If you read this book, you will probably want to read more of his books, I sure do.
I can see why he won the Nobel Prize.

[Harvey Dias · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a unique book. It was written by a Polish Jew in Yiddish and translated into English. I can't recall reading anything similar. It was really interesting and reveals a lot about Polish life circa WW II. The gems in this collection are "Cockadoodledoo" a really humorous story about a rooster and "The Letter Writer", a really touching story.

[Melodie Wendel-Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

"He had opened a door to his brain, and madness flowed in, flooding everything." [The Slaughterer]

A good find. I like reading about other cultures and traditions. The writing style is like Fitzgerald: A day in the life short story.

Memorable shorts: The Slaughterer; The Warehouse; and The Letter Writer.

[Janek · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great set of wonderful short stories. Must read.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories was a pleasant break from the crime-n-mystery genre, although these are dense and sober stories.

[Ronita · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to DNF this thing, it just didn’t make any sense at all.

[Paul Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me liked, me likes.

[♡Aleksandra♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 -4 stars for me. I did not enjoy all the short stories, but it was an interesting journey to the world of jewish mysticism. Singer's perspective to vegetarism is reflected in almost all of the short stories from this collection.

[Esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the stories interesting but not as much as those in "Old Love"

[helsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

They're all good but it's worth reading for 'the Slaughterer' story especially.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Séance and Other Stories is a collection by Isaac Bashevis Singer first published in 1968. Singer wrote primarily in Yiddish, and the 16 short stories here have been translated into English by various translators, though overseen by the author.

Singer's stories are invariably set among Jewish communities, the majority in the Polish Jewish villages of the late Russian Empire, though three are set in the postwar United States. Readers of this collection should have a basic knowledge of Jewish customs, for example, what a mezzuzah is. Still, behind the trappings of culture, the characters are universal and anyone will recognize themselves and their acquaintances here. At times, however, Singer is more interested in allegory than realism, and the characters represent the Jewish people. Singer's depiction of Polish Jewish life is not a nostalgic reminisce of some purer age, and the frankness of Singer's themes is remarkable. The subject of "Yanda" is a provincial prostitute, while "Zeitl and Rickel" describes the doomed lesbian romance of two pious girls.

Found by chance in a "take a book, leave a book" pile, The Séance and Other Stories was my introduction to this Nobel laureate. While I'm not so bowled over by the stories to want to seek out other works by this author, the material is consistently entertaining (the 200 pages are a quick read) and some of the endings memorable.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storytelling of the best kind:
- usually gripping, real stories with stuff happening to people and people doing things (not so obvious in our day and age);
- told from an interesting, subjective point of view with entertaining versatility (each narrator is created within an impressive collection of adults and children of both genders and all walks of life, each carefully thought out);
- gives access to the "world rules" of the locales described (what one is allowed or expected to do or say, how people react to events of what types, etc.);
- always plays with the boundaries between the known and the supernatural (which is related to the previous two bullet points);

Note: this review is really for the French edition Le Blasphémateur (not yet on GoodReads), which includes stories taken from both The Seance and Other Stories and A Friend of Kafka. I preferred the latter collection.

[Mark Klempner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't think this was quite as strong as "Passions" or "Crown of Feathers." But the last story, The Letter Writer, is I.S.B. at his best. What is I.S.B. at his best? Totally seamless and believable story about something unbelievable. Takes the reader into the mind and heart of the main character and follows that character not just through different moods but into different altered states including sleep and severe illness. Has strangely evocative descriptions of physical places and scenes as well as of minor characters and manages to deal with philosophical, moral, and religious issues without seeming like he's trying to convey a message.

[Greg Fanoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was really well-written overall but it only has a couple truly good stories. Most of the stories were pretty dull. The best comes when he integrates the folklore/magic stuff and the real. The stories that went too far in the magic direction didn't really work for me. I'll forgive a lot for the sake of good prose, but most of this is just plain uninteresting. Still, the good was good enough that it makes me really want to read an anthology of his works so that I can avoid the chaff.

Best stories: "The Slaughterer", "The Dead Fiddler"

[Debra]

Stephen King recommended book and author. Noted as "important to the genre we have been discussing" from Danse Macabre, published in 1981. Author recommended in chapter 5.

[Rae · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of short stories by the bestselling Jewish author.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good, but too depressive.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

🖋️ An enjoyable short story.

🏮 Kindle Unlimited.

[Chiefdonkey Bradey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The wind did not blow this wonderful storyteller from the face of the earth