AL MOMENTO ESAURITO
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Product Identifiers
PublisherOxford University Press, Incorporated
ISBN-100199270090
ISBN-139780199270095
eBay Product ID (ePID)60316483
Product Key Features
Number of Pages400 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameBernard Malamud : a Writer's Life
Publication Year2007
SubjectAmerican / General, Jewish
TypeTextbook
Subject AreaLiterary Criticism
AuthorPhilip Davis
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height1.6 in
Item Weight29.7 Oz
Item Length9.2 in
Item Width6.1 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional
LCCN2007-015471
ReviewsPhilip Davis's biography of Bernard Malamud is everything a writer hopes to find in the biography of a great writer. Davis is a great reader, and he sees where Malamud's writings are coming from., "This first full-length biography of the author, for which Davis drew on private journals and letters and interviewed many of Malamud's family members, friends, and collegues is a wonderful additions to Malamud studies; recommended for literature collections."-Library Journal Gene Shaw, NYPL, "Wise, scrupulous, resolutely admiring biography Davis is out to remove the slur of moral uptightness and narrow virtue from Malamud's reputation. Gratifyingly, he wants to restore him to the pantheon of great American writers in which Malamud, in our flash-in-the-pan culture, once belonged." --Lee Siegel, New York Times Book Review "A wonderfully readable, illuminating and entertaining biography It is rare that a biographer succeeds in evoking, with a novelists skill, such compassion for his (flawed, human) subject; yet more rare, that a biographer succeeds in so drawing the reader into the shimmering world he has constructed out of a small infinity of letters, drafts, notes, manuscripts, printed texts, interview transcripts etc, that the barrier between reader and subject becomes near-transparent." --Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement "Davis is frequently insightful." --Mark Oppenheimer, Wall Street Journal "Mr. Davis has succeeded in evoking a human being who is interesting in and of himself, quite apart from his literary output Davis has an understanding of Malamud, the world in which he grew up and that in which he lived his adult life, which is all but flawless in its perceptions and insights." --Martin Rubin, Washington Times "Davis's book is laudable." --Ben Naparstek, Financial Times "[A] magnificent labour of love A triumphant vindication of the art of biography." --Clive Sinclair, Jewish Quarterly "Excellent...I was impressed with Davis's treatment of the life and the work, and particularly intrigued by his take on Malamud's rapport with Philip Roth, one of the novelist's harshest critics and deepest admirers." --Rachel Donadio, New York Times "Paper Cuts" "Davis' profound affinity for his subject shapes every discerning paragraph, as do his unprecedented conversations with Malamud's family and colleagues and access to private papers. Matching enthusiastic research with fluent empathy and keen aesthetic understanding, Davis grasps the resonance of Malamud's mother's mental illness and his father's lonely struggle in his humble grocery store while insightfully chronicling Malamud's marriage and teaching career. Wisely eschewing the quotidian, Davis illuminates Malamud's utter devotion to writing." --Donna Seaman, Booklist "Davis offers an intimate portrait of Malamud's various 'lives' More important, Davis shows the enormous labor of revision that Malamud's art entailed." --Donald Weber, Bookforum "In all, this is a highly readable, informative, and enjoyable volume on an important literary figure." --Jewish Book World "A revealing portrait of a compelling writer." --Jewish Chronicle "Unlike many literary biographies in which a writer's work gets lost in the attention to the external events of the life, Davis's biography focuses on Malamud's life mainly as it illuminates the process by which the plots, the sentences and the paragraphs of the stories and novels come into existence It inspired me." --Eugene Goodheart, Moment "What Davis's biography helps us understand is how Malamud made use of his life's experiences: It deepens one's appreciation of his stories and novels by demonstrating how he transmuted his experience into art." --Joseph Epstein, Weekly Standard "This biography may help to refurbish Malamud's position as a major American Jewish writer." --Dr. Morton I. Teicher, Jewish Advocate "Philip Davis's biography of Bernard Malamud is everything a writer hopes to find in the biography of a great writer. Davis is a great reader, and he sees where Malamud's writings are coming from." --A. S. Byatt, The Guardian "Philip Davis' most remarkable achievement is to have reconstructed Malamud's writing life out of the layers of manuscripts and drafts of his works. He makes you want to reread slowly the works you probably raced thorugh years ag, In all, this is a highly readable, informative, and enjoyable volume on an important literary figure., I found it deeply moving and full of memorable phrases. It is a fitting tribute to one of the major writers of the second half of the twentieth century., "Most biographies trudge along the surface of a life, amassing and presenting facts, like rubble on a shovel, in which very few precious gems might be visible; this pioneering biography of Malamud presents gem-like aphorisms... and insights and observations of the biographer's, on virtuallyevery page. It is rare that a biographer suceeds in evoking, with a novelist's skill, such compassion for his (flawed, human) subject; yet more rare, that a biographer suceeds in so drawing the reader into the shimmering world he has constructed out of a small infinity of letters, drafts, notes,manuscripts, printed texts, interview transcripts etc, that the barrier between reader and subject becomes near-transparent." --Joyce Carol Oates, TLS, Most biographies trudge along the surface of a life, amassing and presenting facts, like rubble on a shovel, in which very few precious gems might be visible; this pioneering biography of Malamud presents gem-like aphorisms... and insights and observations of the biographer's, on virtually every page. It is rare that a biographer suceeds in evoking, with a novelist's skill, such compassion for his (flawed, human) subject; yet more rare, that a biographer suceeds in so drawing thereader into the shimmering world he has constructed out of a small infinity of letters, drafts, notes, manuscripts, printed texts, interview transcripts etc, that the barrier between reader and subject becomes near-transparent., "Philip Davis' biography of Malamud amounts to a meditation on how common life can be pressed into the service of uncommon achievement. It succeeds in giving us a writer who, like his creations, managed to elicit extraordinary resonance by drawing the bow of language across the strings of an ordinary, small--and often somber--life."--Benjamin Baling, Haaretz "Philip Davis's excellent biography of Bernard Malamud appeared this fall--the first major study of an author increasingly overlooked and underrated since his death in 1986. I was impressed with Davis's treatment of the life and the work, and particularly intrigued by his take on Malamud's rapport with Philip Roth, one of the novelist's harshest critics and deepest admirers."--Rachel Donadio, Paper Cuts: A Blog About Books "Davis's book is laudable, if not always engrossing, for its refusal to glibly psychologize or strike false epiphanies to make Malamud's life read like fiction. Malmud's memory was poorly served by his daughter Janna Malamud Smiths sentimental portrait, My Father is a Book , so it is fortunate that Davis's biography has arrived fast on its heels."--Jerusalem Post "It is rare that a biographer succeeds in evoking, with a novelists skill, such compassion for his (flawed, human) subject; yet more rare, that a biographer succeeds in so drawing the reader into the shimmering world he has constructed out of a small infinity of letters, drafts, notes, manuscripts, printed texts, interview transcripts etc, that the barrier between reader and subject becomes near-transparent."--Joyce Carol Oates in the Times Literary Supplement "A sensitive yet probing new biography."--Ruth Franklin, The New York Sun "This first full-length biography of the author, for which Davis drew on private journals and letters and interviewed many of Malamud's family members, friends, and collegues is a wonderful additions to Malamud studies; recommended for literature collections."-Library Journal Gene Shaw, NYPL "Davis' profound affinity for his subject shapes every discerning paragraph, as do his unprecedented conversations with Malamud's family and colleagues and access to private papers. Matching enthusiastic research with fluent empathy and keen aesthetic understanding, Davis grasps the resonance of Malamud's mother's mental illness and his father's lonely struggle in his humble grocery store while insightfully chronicling Malamud's marriage and teaching career. Wisely eschewing the quotidian, Davis illuminates Malamud's utter devotion to writing."--Donna Seaman, Booklist "A wise, scrupulous, resolutely admiring biography."--Lee Siegel, The New York Times "A wonderfully readable, illuminating and entertaining biography"--Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement, Bernard Malamud is in no danger of being forgotten, but in recent years there has perhaps been a tendency to take him for granted. Philip Davis's admirable biography restores the excitement to his name. It lays bare the unexpected quirks and complexities of his character with sympathy and insight; it throws invaluable light on his story-telling, and at the same time makes a fascinating story in itself., This book is a fine portrait of a writer, rather than of a man, and will be of most value to anyone interested in the craft., ...wonderfully readable, illuminating and entertaining biography... sympathetic yet persuasively "objective" portrait of the artist.
Dewey Edition22
IllustratedYes
Dewey Decimal813.54
Table Of ContentIntroductionTHE FIRST LIFE1. The Inheritance2. The Long AdolescenceTHE SECOND LIFE3. Oregon4. iThe Assistant/i5. 'Because I iCan/i'THE THIRD LIFE6. The Beginning of the Middle Years7. 'We need some sort of poverty in our lives'8. From iThe Fixer/i towards iDubin/i9. iDubin's Lives/iIN HIS LAST LIFE10. 'As you are grooved so you are graved'
SynopsisPhilip Davis tells the story of Bernard Malamud (1914-1986), the self-made son of poor Jewish immigrants who went on to become one of the foremost novelists and short-story writers of the post-war period. The time is ripe for a revival of interest in a man who at the peak of his success stood alongside Saul Bellow and Philip Roth in the ranks of Jewish American writers. Nothing came easily to Malamud: his family was poor, his mother probably committed suicide when Malamud was 14, and his younger brother inherited her schizophrenia. Malamud did everything the second time round - re-using his life in his writing, even as he revised draft after draft. Davis's meticulous biography shows all that it meant for this man to be a writer in terms of both the uses of and the costs to his own life. It also restores Bernard Malamud's literary reputation as one of the great original voices of his generation, a writer of superb subtlety and clarity. Bernard Malamud: A Writer's Life benefits from Philip Davis's exclusive interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, unfettered access to private journals and letters, and detailed analysis of Malamud's working methods through the examination of hitherto unresearched manuscripts. It is very much a writer's life. It is also the story of a struggling emotional man, using an extraordinary but long-worked-for gift, in order to give meaning to ordinary human life., Here is the first full-length biography of Bernard Malamud, the self-made son of poor Jewish immigrants who went on to become one of the foremost novelists and short-story writers of the post-war period, a man who at the peak of his success stood alongside Saul Bellow and Philip Roth in the ranks of Jewish American writers. To tell Malamud's story, Philip Davis has drawn on exclusive interviews with family, friends, and colleagues; unfettered access to private journals and letters; and detailed analysis of Malamud's working methods through previously unresearched manuscripts. Nothing came easily to Malamud: his family was poor, his mother probably committed suicide when Malamud was 14, and his younger brother inherited her schizophrenia. Davis's meticulous biography explores the many connections between Malamud's life and work, revealing all that it meant for this man to be a writer, both in terms of how he brought his life into his writing and how his writing affected his life. It also restores Bernard Malamud's literary reputation as one of the great original voices of his generation, a writer of superb subtlety and clarity., Philip Davis presents the first full-scale biography of Bernard Malamud (1914-1986), the self-made son of poor Jewish immigrants who went on to become one of the foremost novelists and short-story writers of the post-war period. The time is ripe for a revival of interest in a man who at the peak of his success stood alongside Saul Bellow and Philip Roth in the ranks of Jewish American writers.
LC Classification NumberPS3563.A4Z614 2007
