The Complete Stories

by Bernard Malamud, Robert Giroux (Editor, Introduction)

BERNARD MALAMUD (1914-86) is considered a modern master of the short story, ranked with Chekhov and Isaac Babel. The Complete Stories of Bernard Malamud brings together all of Malamud's published stories--from the classic early story "The Magic Barrel," in which he refashioned the American short story in the Yiddish-infected idiom of his boyhood, to later works such as "Rembrandt's Hat" and "Alma Redeemed,' which dramatize the relationship between life and art with matchless intensity and dark comedy. These fifty-three stories are full of the searching eloquence that characterizes this beloved American writer.

Contents:
Armistice --
Spring rain --
The grocery store --
Benefit performance --
The place is different now --
Steady customer --
The literary life of Laban Goldman --
The cost of living --
The prison --
The first seven years --
The death of me --
The bill --
The loan --
A confession of murder --
Riding pants --
The girl of my dreams --
The magic barrel --
The mourners --
Angel Levine --
A summer's reading --
Take pity --
The elevator --
An apology --
The last Mohican --
The lady of the lake --
Behold the key --
The maid's shoes --
Idiots first --
Still life --
Suppose a wedding --
Life is better than death --
The jewbird --
Black is my favorite color --
Naked nude --
The German refugee --
A choice of profession --
A pimp's revenge --
Man in the drawer --
My son the murderer --
Pictures of the artist --
An exorcism --
Glass blower of Venice --
God's wrath --
Talking horse --
The letter --
The silver crown --
Notes from a lady at a dinner party --
In retirement --
Rembrandt's hat --
A wig --
The model --
A lost grave --
Zora's noise --
In Kew Gardens --
Alms redeemed.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Jewish, Literature, American, The United States Of America, Classics

656 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer (also filmed), about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Reviews

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

Η γενεαλογική γραμμή που κρατά από τον Παλιό κόσμο (Τσέχωφ ο γεννήτορας) και φτάνει στον Νέο είναι κάτι παρά πάνω από εμφανής στα διηγήματα του Μάλαμουντ.
Ο ρεαλισμός στο ύφος, η προσπάθεια αποτύπωσης της στιγμής, του γεγονότος, μια μικρής γωνίας από την τοιχογραφία της ζωής, είναι το κοινό σημείο συνάντησης. Εκεί βέβαια που ο πρώτος καταγράφει εικόνες της αγροτικής ζωής στη Ρωσία, ο δεύτερος αποτυπώνει το αστικό τοπίο, τις λαϊκές γειτονιές της Νέας Υόρκης. Οι άνθρωποι παντού και πάντα παραμένουν οι ίδιοι: πάσχουν κυρίως, αγωνίζονται, παραιτούνται, ελπίζουν ενάντια σε κάθε προσδοκία.
Προφανώς ο Μάλαμουντ δεν είναι Τσέχωφ (κανείς όμως δεν είναι), αλλά αυτό δεν σημαίνει ότι τούτο το βιβλίο δεν διαβάζεται ευχάριστα – σε στιγμές απολαυστικά.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great collection of tales. Star ratings by story:

1. Armistice 5*
2. Spring Rain 4*
3. The Grocery Store 5*
4. Benefit Performance 4*
5. The Place is Different Now 5*
6. Steady Customer 3*
7. The Literary Life of Laban Goldman 3*
8. The Cost of Living 3*
9. The Prison 5*
10. The First Seven Years 4*
11. The Death of Me 4*
12. The Bill 4*
13. The Loan 5*
14. A Confession of Murder 4*
15. Riding Pants 3*
16. The Girl of My Dreams 3*
17. The Magic Barrel 3*
18. The Mourners 4*
19. Angel Levine 5*
20. A Summer’s Reading 4*
21. Take Pity 4*
22. The Elevator 3*
23. An Apology 3*
24. The Last Mohican 5*
25. The Lady of the Lake 4*
26. Behold the Key 3*
27. The Maid’s Shoes 3*
28. Idiots First 3*
29. Still Life 4*
30. Suppose a Wedding 3*
31. Life is Better Than Death 4*
32. The Jewbird 5*
33. Black is My Favourite Colour 5*
34. Naked Nude 5*
35. The German Refugee 5*
36. A Choice of Profession 3*
37. A Pimp’s Revenge 4*
38. Man in the Drawer 4*
39. My Son the Murderer 5*
40. Pictures of the Artist 4*
41. An Exorcism 3*
42. Glass Blower of Venice 3*
43. God’s Wrath 3*
44. Talking Horse 4*
45. The Letter 5*
46. The Silver Crown 4*
47. Notes From a Lady at a Dinner Party 3*
48. In Retirement 3*
49. Rembrandt’s Hat 4*
50. A Wig 3*
51. The Model 5*
52. A Lost Grave 4*
53. Zora’s Noise 4*
54. In Kew Gardens 4*
55. Alma Redeemed 4*

Average rating: 3.9* rounded up to a solid 4. I’ll definitely be reading more by this author.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally made it through one of the most difficult books I have ever read, Bernard Malamud’s The Complete Stories. One reason it took me so long to read is because short stories are not really my cup of tea. So I chose a story here and there (from the fifty-three) to read with lunch or a quiet midnight snack. I found myself gaining weight! I had to comfort eat while I read these sad, intense, Jewish stories. Drama and absurdity. Tragic immigrant lives. Merchants and artists all longing, only to be cut down.

These stories are “… fiction rooted in the celebration of suffering.” (Washington Post) So nicely put.

Bernard Malamud’s biographical information is significant. He is considered one of the most prominent figures in Jewish American literature. His parents were Russian immigrants of the early 1900s and ran a grocery store in Brooklyn where he grew up. The horrors of the holocaust prompted him to take writing seriously. You may recognize his first novel from which a movie starring Robert Redford was based: The Natural, about the life of Roy Hobbs, an American baseball player,

Quite frankly, the suffering and torment of this collection depressed me (another reason it took me so long to finish). However, the read was a satisfying literary experience. High art. What a powerful voice Mr. Malamud has, “The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course.” How true, and with that, on to brighter things.

[Samane⚘️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

داستان "رحم کن" 👌

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I've mentioned before, if Malamud is known for anything its as a novelist, with one of his novels being adapted into a semi-famous movie and another winning the National Book Award. However, he was no slouch as a short story author either, with his first collection "The Magic Barrel" also winning the same award. Its the rare writer that can manage both formats with aplomb, as I've generally found that most short story writers who try to tackle novels wind up overwriting or taking an idea that should have been wrapped up in ten pages and vamping for two hundred, while most veteran novelists attempting the short story find themselves unable to handle cramming in all those themes and twists into about a tenth of the space without really messing with the pacing.

Malamud apparently had it figured out, although what may have helped him was a judicious sense of what to publish and what not to publish. He wasn't crazy prolific, managing about fifty-five short stories during his career, which suggests that he didn't try to publish anything until he a) had a good idea and b) was pretty sure it was finished, which is perhaps a methodical approach that might be a bit boring when compared to those writers who like to slap whatever ideas come to mind on paper and publish before the ink is still dry . . . but in this case it makes for some remarkably consistent writing. I've noted already that what really strikes me in his novels is how precise his prose is, with a sense of weight and space that suggests a calm voice that can both bury itself in the story and remain slightly detached . . . the closest comparison I can think of is Updike, but Malamud lacks what I always felt was Updike's sort of glossy and polished sheen that sometimes felt fussed over in its erudition and as such made it feel like the narrator, omniscient or otherwise, was staring down at the characters from a very great height. Malamud's narrators may be in a variety of places, but never seem too far away.

As the label says, this one contains all of his short stories (and my edition has perhaps the most writerly photograph of any man I've ever seen, a picture of him standing on the street in 1961 in a suit and coat) and if you're wondering exactly how many Malamud stories you need the answer is "pretty much all of them." Even when the stories themselves are merely pleasant and short, the little scenarios he constructs with his prose feel like fully formed worlds, whether they're taking place in someone's apartment or in various parts of Italy, and his characters are constantly possessed of sad and quiet thoughtfulness, a melancholy that only come when you've realized that the world isn't something you can affect as much as tolerate and live despite it.

All the famous stories are here, although since they're arranged chronologically they get buried in the mix and don't stick out until you stumble on them. "The Magic Barrel" is one of them, one of several stories whose ultimate resolutions seem destined to occur unsaid and between the lines, or five pages past where the story actually ends. Several have to do with a character named Fidelman who is hanging out in Italy and while I found the more exotic setting intriguing because I've actually been there, the stories seem to operate on a cultural contrast that doesn't always work with the impact he wants, though the unfolding of stories like "The Last Mohican", "Naked Nude" and "A Pimp's Revenge" is worth it just to watch the interplay.

In fact, most of my favorite ones were the stories that dwelled on the intricacies of interpersonal conflict and how religion and society and human nature affect how we deal with each other. Stories like "The Elevator" and "Rembrandt's Hat" (a late triumph), "The Mourners" are sometimes intensely bleak as people gradually are brought to face themselves and the consequences of their actions or inactions. Sometimes he veers toward a sort of magical realism, as in "The Angel Levine" or one of the more powerful stories "The Jewbird", which winds up starting as a goofy concept before sliding into what could be an intensely savage commentary on the human condition. What's amazing is how compressed his stories feel, unhurried but dense, patiently constructing a house with a single flaw that ultimately sends it crashing down in a tragic ballet of destruction ("The German Refugee" comes to mind).

There's never a bad story in here, with even the experimental ones toward the end retaining a searching vitality and curiosity, even if what few happy endings exists are defined more by thin smiles and tolerant glances than any kind of true joy. No matter what decade he's writing in, he's able to infuse any scenario, whether its the desperate housewife slipping notes into someone's pocket during a dinner party (the aptly titled "Notes From a Lady at a Dinner Party") or probably the only story besides "Jewbird" that made me stop at the end and have to rest a minute before moving onto the next one (for different reasons), "In Retirement", where the character's actions have "bad idea" written all over them but the ache in how it resolves is almost too intensely painful for prose.

But that's how he hits you, when you're not expecting it and once in a while where you are. I've liked both novels I've read from him so far but I wasn't quite prepared for how the accumulation of stories affected me after a while, like walking through an apartment building of empty rooms and sifting through the remains of sadness and perhaps some scant dignity. No matter what, there's a sense of humanity to his writing and a sense that he feels for his characters, even if there's no way he can actually help them. It adds up to a powerful repertoire and story for story makes the case that Malamud was one of our great American short story writers and if he's only relegated to college courses on Jewish writers and the occasional book club that's a darn shame.

[Leonidas Moumouris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ο Μαλαμούντ γράφει για τις φτωχές γειτονιές της Νέας Υόρκης, για τα μπακάλικα που αργοπεθαίνουν μαζί με τους ιδιοκτήτες τους στην αλλαγή μιας εποχής, ένας κόσμος που αλλάζει και τα σούπερ μάρκετ και οι αλυσίδες καταπίνουν τις οικογενειακές επιχειρήσεις. Μάλιστα μερικές φορές βλέπεις να επανέρχεται στον ίδιο δρόμο και στα ίδια πρόσωπα και να συνεχίζει ή να αναδιατυπωνει τις ιστορίες.
Αγαπώ τα διηγήματα που με βάζουν μέσα σε γκρίζα διαμερισματα. Οι ιστορίες των ανθρώπων που δυσκολεύονται να τα βγάλουν πέρα έχουν άπειρο υλικό και πολύ σκοτάδι για να αποτυπωθεί σε χαρτί. Και ο Μαλαμούντ φαίνεται να γνωρίζει από μέσα μερικές τέτοιες. Μαζί με αυτές, προσθέστε και την εβραϊκή καταγωγή του και θα έχετε μια ολοκληρωμένη εικόνα για το περιεχόμενο των διηγημάτων του.

[Zadignose]

Bernard, you will deny your Jewishness three times before the cock crows!

Sorry, just a random reflection on "The Lady in the Lake," which is pretty much bunk--but bunk with a point!

From what I've gathered, Malamud has about an ounce or two of cleverness, but that's pretty much it. Besides that, he's a mainstream hack who writes about ordinary schlubs who fantasize about Italian aristocratic beauties, run delicatessens, or contemplate suicide. Or maybe all three. His intentions are probably good. Basically he's aiming to express something about the ongoing suffering of Jews who have been psychically and culturally damaged by the atrocities of pogrom and Holocaust. But to tell the truth, as a writer, he's kind of clumsy and kind of obvious most of the time.

At least that's how I figure it now. He wrote a lot of stories. I read a few of them. He's been acclaimed (perhaps by a talented PR man) as "modern master" etcetera, etcetera, but for now I'm putting him aside... Or maybe I'll give "The Magic Barrel" a roll sometime soon... maybe...

[Patrick Healy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorites include "A Choice of Profession," "Rembrandt's Hat," "The Loan," "The Bill," "The Magic Barrell," "The Jewbird," "Naked Nude," "A Pimp's Revenge," "My Son the Murderer," and "Glass Blower of Venice." This is by far the largest collection of short stories I've ever read and probably the best. It rivals Flannery O'Connor's both in quality and quantity. The varied styles of writing are intriguing. Many of the stories end in complete chaos after brutal revelation by the protagonist. The stories about depressed shop keepers losing their minds as their businesses slowly upend are great. I highly recommend this book. -Pat

[Vassiliki Dass · Rating 5 out of 5]

Αν και δεν διαβαζω αυτη την έκδοση αλλά το ΚΑΠΕΛΟ ΤΟΥ ΡΕΜΠΡΑΝΤ στις εκδόσεις Καστανιώτη και σε μετάφραση της κας Κοβαλένκο, που δεν εχει ακομη εισαχθεί στο σάιτ αυτό, ενθουσιάστηκα με αυτόν τον μοντέρνο διηγηματογραφο ο οποιος άλλαξε την άποψη που είχα για το διήγημα σαν ημιτελή και αποτυχημένη προσπαθεια να γραψει κάποιος μυθιστόρημα. Μάλλον είχα ατυχήσει στις προηγούμενες επιλογές μου αν και τα τελευταία διηγήματα του Μάλαμουντ, επίσης τα κατατάσσω σε αυτήν την κατηγορία διηγημάτων. Όσα έγραψε ομως στις δεκαετίες 60 και 70 είναι εκπληκτικά μπιζουδάκια, συμπυκνωμένα μυθιστορήματα σε 10-15 σελίδες. Απόλαυσα την ανάγνωση, την καλαίσθητη έκδοση και την μετάφραση!

[Baibhav Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this compendium. Filled with subtlety, smooth but properly unsettling (when its called for).

[Ilse Wouters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to rate this collection of short stories, because some were really brilliant (5 stars), others were quite boring (2.5 stars), and very few I honestly couldn´t understand at all (1 star).
It´s said that Bernard Malamud is one of the masters of short stories, and this is certainly not untrue, but this collection is complete and it therefore also includes early stories where I´m sure a lot of readers today have problems "getting it". Some of the later stories are almost try-outs for a more "artistic" way of presenting short stories, a style I couldn´t relate to. However, one thing is certain : BM manages to condense a complex story down into a few pages, very often with a fascinating ending. As such, it´s hard to read more than one story at a time, and I combined reading this collection with my "normal" reading.

[Antonio Papadourakis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πρόκειται για τον 1ο τόμο απάντων των διηγημάτων του Malamud. O παρών τόμος ξεκινάει από το 1940
και ολοκληρώνεται 1963, ενώ τα καλύτερα διηγήματα ξεκινάνε το 1956.
Ξεχώρισα τα παρακάτω: Ο λογαριασμός, Έλεος, Το ασανσέρ, Μία συγνώμη, Ο τελευταίος των Μοϊκανών, Η αρχόντισσα της λίμνης, Να το κλειδί.
"Ο έρωτας έρχεται με τον κατάλληλο άνθρωπο όχι νωρίτερα."

[David Goetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malamud is one of the best writers America has ever produced. If you only have time for a few, read "The Magic Barrell," "The Jewbird," and "The Silver Crown."

[Diane Wilkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing collection this is, and fascinating to experience the arc of his work moving into experimentalism and ultimately becoming a very personal amalgam of tradition and stylistic innovations.

I am struck by how pure a fiction writer he is--his life experiences are pounded into the ore of his stories in such a holistic and non-egoistic way that they are simply another literary implement in the craftsman's tool kit. Modern writers often over-use biography to the point of artlessness.

Not Malamud.

I think I am going to have to own this book (I took it out of the library--twice.)

So many of these will remain with me:

The Silver Crown - wherein the practical individual discovers the truth when he tussles with the mystical

The Place is Different Now - What reading can and cannot provide

All the Fidelman stories, but especially The Glass Blower of Venice for its ahead-of-its-time story

Black is my Favorite Color for the same reason

Angel Levine, Lady of the Lake...so many. So many truly great stories.

[Bob Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been told I like movies that have no plot. I suppose one could make the same indictment of my taste in books. Malamud's novels often seem to have no solid beginning or end, and some of his short stories share this quality. But in this way they feel more real, more lifelike. Malamud is an expert at showing us parts of ourselves that we'd rather not face. His characters make terrible choices and the reader is left wondering if they'd possibly do any better.

"Life, despite their frantic yoohooings, had passed them by." Well said, Mr. Malamud.

[Dianne E Kayala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malamud has long been a favorite after having been introduced to his stories in Freshman English at the Univ of Mass in the 70's. I have read all of these in the past, but thoroughly enjoyed the re-read, especially"The Jewbird".

[Gila Gila · Rating 5 out of 5]

The master of the killer last line. Oy, Bernie, so good.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally read a Malamud collection and I’m satisfied with the vast majority of stories. I like the simplicity and clarity of his stories, he’s a masterful storyteller. The stories are all very tight, there’s little to no extraneous dialogue or information. He writes around depression era USA into the baby boomer time, often deep with religious and societal norms, pride, egoes, and follies. Admittedly some of those characters and there actions i just dont get, and yet they were interesting enough to read through. By contrast i never finished the Natural, a novel detailing a hard knocks protagonist baseball player, Roy Hobbes, i’ve not been able to read past a hundred pages. Malamud writes of a different time, fortunately i lived in ethnic neighborhood of New York as a kid in the 70’s so i kind of get some the characters in the stories.

[Adam Cherson]

I no longer rate books with stars. This is a fantastic set of tragic yet uplifting stories, some naturalistic some magical, generally depicting the lives of poor immigrants and their children to the United States, and their struggles to maintain some joy and dignity in the face of economic and social oppression. There are also a few stories depicting the lives of the struggling artist. These are Emma Lazarus' tired and hungry masses brought to life; the stories feel very real, from the spoken vernacular to the travails confronting the characters. These are profoundly moving stories, to be savored one at a time like one does a poem. They manage to express the ineffable.

[Gary Seigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a long book to get through, but I was determined this first month of 2022 to read this and a few novels by Malamud. It's Malamud month. These stories are --most of them, at least--amazing little investigations into the lives of small grocers or poor artists or struggling students. Written over four decades, the stories range from pure realism to some wonderful mystical fantasy. I enjoyed the two novels better (The Natural and The Assistant--his masterpiece-- I'd say), but many of these stories are pure gems.

[Valerie Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is interesting that Flannery O'Connor felt Malamud was even better than she at writing short stories. Perhaps it is the subject matter of the stories (immigrant Jews in urban America) but it just didn't grab my attention (like O'Connor's stories, for example). This is a situation where I would love to take a short story course that discussed Malamud (and O'Connor, Monroe, Carver, Lahiri) so that I could better understand and thereby appreciate his work.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the early stories didn't really grab me, probably because I'd just read The Assistant and they were obviously early attempts at the themes and situations of that novel. But it picked up, and there are some very funny, insightful, and engaging stories about urban Jewish life, Italian tourists, art, and relationships. Mostly well written, although Malamud occasionally experimented with form and wasn't always successful.

[Mauberley]

Wonderful. I rationed myself to two or three stories a day to better savour the pleasure of Malamud’s writing. When he is at the top of his game (as he usually is), the tales touch me deeply. I generally admire the ‘Italian’ tales but the Fidelman stories were truly annoying. The tales of Alma Mahler and Virginia Woolf were disappointing to me as well. I’ll have to take another look at those stories in a little while.

[Michael Shokrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bernard Malamud is the master of American Short Story. His sense of rhythm, voice and grit allow the reader to taste and see the scenes and characters he paints. These stories give the reader a fantastic sense of America during a specific period in its history and it is fascinating as well as incredibly artistic. Malamud is up there with the greats and this book is a perfect example of his power.

[keatssycamore · Rating 3 out of 5]

As good a short story collection as I've read. And even though that is limited praise since every collection I've ever read has its ups and downs, this one (mostly since there's a bit of mid-late career experimenting that felt counterfeit barth or barthelme) has a tone that makes me feel what I want to feel.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like Malamud; however, to me most of the stories fell short. If you like short stories, look no further than Stefan Zweig - he is the master. The stories by Malamud simply seamed to be lacking in all aspects.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyable stories. I feel like I’ve been reading these forever—I can’t believe I finally finished. I’ll miss reading these. I would read a few of these when I was between reading larger books.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One-hundred shades of sadness, one thousand insights into the human heart and into the compassion we need to have for each other.

[Erwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75

[Andrew Erdman]

Many superb, unalloyed, slice-of-existentially-depressing-life tales. I particularly like his stories set in Italy, including the Fidelman narratives.