A Reading of Bernard Malamud's The Tenants

Extract

A reader familiar with Bernard Malamud's works is likely to turn to a new novel by this well-established writer with certain expectations. He will probably count on meeting again Malamud's variant of the Yiddish shlemiel: the fool-victim, who is the butt of fate and men, bungling his way through life, but who somehow manages to endure it all, helped by his foolhardy persistence and his wry grimaces and shrugs. Among other strands that enter into the fabric of a Malamud novel or story there is the all-too-human female character – one hesitates to dub her ‘ heroine ’ – whose gift of love tends to be a dubious blessing. The male protagonist's personality and destiny are often given depth and scope through the motif of the double; this is not exactly the Romantic Doppelgänger, but rather two characters whose destinies are linked in various ways, sometimes in a (spiritual) father-son pattern. The heroic-unheroic action will very likely take place in an atmosphere of isolation and imprisonment, the ghetto being a prototypical setting. The past will most certainly play a small but important role as a means of creating depth and resonance; it may appear as history, legend or myth. Touches of a pastoral world – trees, flowers, birds – will hint at possibilities of freedom, purity and innocence. The shlemiel will never really be attuned to these happier strains; nevertheless there will most probably be a movement in his development toward a qualifies rebirth, a limited redemption, which will have to be bought with suffering and commitment. This might be the commitment of the artist, and the satisfaction of wholehearted dedication will be balanced and often outweighed by anguish and doubts of purpose and ability. Malamud always lightens the sombre picture with humour and wit; this is achieved by colourful ‘ Jewish ’ echoes: self-deprecating jokes and home-made sayings and proverbs which tend to reduce tragedy to something trivial and commonplace.