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Gimpel the Fool
Gimpel the Fool is a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. It tells the story of Gimpel, a simple bread maker who is the butt of many of his town's jokes.
10 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1953
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About the author
Isaac Bashevis Singer
554 books1,100 followersIsaac 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
March 3, 2023
Read with the Short Story Club
The short story Gimpel The Fool Was written by Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Polish-born Jewish writer. It was originally written in Yiddish and the version I read was translated in English by Saul Bellow.
Gimpel is a simple minded baker who is mocked by the people in the Polish village where he lives. “I am Gimpel the fool. I don’t think myself a fool. On the contrary. But that’s what folks call me. " Despite the ordeal, he keeps his faith in human beings and in God. He continues to believe everything he is told, even raising the clearly illegitimate child of his wife as his own.
To me, Gimpel knows that he is fooled and he chooses to believe the lies because he prefers the outcome. He wants to see the good in people and he chooses to live as a good person. An idea which was raised in the club is that he might also see himself as a “sacrificial lamb” who will be rewarded in Heaven.
The short story Gimpel The Fool Was written by Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Polish-born Jewish writer. It was originally written in Yiddish and the version I read was translated in English by Saul Bellow.
Gimpel is a simple minded baker who is mocked by the people in the Polish village where he lives. “I am Gimpel the fool. I don’t think myself a fool. On the contrary. But that’s what folks call me. " Despite the ordeal, he keeps his faith in human beings and in God. He continues to believe everything he is told, even raising the clearly illegitimate child of his wife as his own.
To me, Gimpel knows that he is fooled and he chooses to believe the lies because he prefers the outcome. He wants to see the good in people and he chooses to live as a good person. An idea which was raised in the club is that he might also see himself as a “sacrificial lamb” who will be rewarded in Heaven.
March 22, 2024
✍🏻 Isaac Bashevis Singer is a great writer. He used to be much better known and more widely read. Just like Saul Bellow and Philip Roth and John Cheevers and Walker Percy, etcetera, who all used to be much better known and widely read. Literature marches on and readers’ tastes and inclinations march on with it.
But the books remain. The stories remain. He won the Nobel for Literature in 1978. I’ve read a lot of Singer in the past and I’m going to return to some of his novels and short stories this August and fall.
He wrote his fiction in Yiddish. And you certainly pick up on that spirit when you read his works. This is especially so when his stories are rendered by as consummate a narrator as I enjoyed with these audio versions, Theodore Bikel. Yes, it’s like Tevye relating his tangles and woes and hopes in Fiddler on the Roof, himself a creation of the author Sholem Aleichem in his novel Tevye’s Daughters.
All but one of the tales in this short collection are magical realism - ghosts, and visions of the talking dead while characters are awake or dreaming, are important. One of the stories is outright macabre horror from which, for the hapless protagonists, there is no escape or redemption. But for The Black Wedding the stories are HEA in their own unique and unusual ways.
If you haven’t dipped into Singer’s works yet, I urge you to treat yourself. He’s a master storyteller.
GIMPEL THE FOOL
Everyone deceives Gimpel. His wife, the devil, his apprentice, everyone. Yet he plows on without rancor, grudges or bitterness, though he has plenty of reasons to harbor all of that. Well read and well-written in very much a “Tevye Yiddishy" kind of way.
ESTHER KREINDEL THE SECOND
When a well-loved wife and mother dies she returns in the body of a fourteen-year-old girl, with the girl’s consent, the girl maturing in a rapid fashion, mentally and physically. She goes to the grieving husband and children of the woman who died and takes her place, an identical copy in every way, baffling all. In this manner, the original and deceased Esther Kreindel becomes Esther Kreindel the Second and brings peace, joy and love back to her husband and children.
THE SPINOZA OF MARKET STREET
A shriveled old loner, who holds a doctorate in philosophy, hides away in an attic room reading Spinoza's ethics, cutting himself off from society. But when a woman steps into his world, marries him, then appears in a silk nightgown on their wedding night, the natural laws of cause and effect Spinoza espoused take dynamic effect and the old man rises from the dead.
THE BLACK WEDDING
The most astonishing story. A deep dark midnight story.
A horror story. When a daughter's parents are taken by dybbuks her marriage to a rabbi's son is arranged. But when she first sees him under the wedding canopy she realizes immediately that he is a monster. She cannot escape. His entire family is composed of demons. And they maliciously and gleefully prevail over her. She is doomed.
But the books remain. The stories remain. He won the Nobel for Literature in 1978. I’ve read a lot of Singer in the past and I’m going to return to some of his novels and short stories this August and fall.
He wrote his fiction in Yiddish. And you certainly pick up on that spirit when you read his works. This is especially so when his stories are rendered by as consummate a narrator as I enjoyed with these audio versions, Theodore Bikel. Yes, it’s like Tevye relating his tangles and woes and hopes in Fiddler on the Roof, himself a creation of the author Sholem Aleichem in his novel Tevye’s Daughters.
All but one of the tales in this short collection are magical realism - ghosts, and visions of the talking dead while characters are awake or dreaming, are important. One of the stories is outright macabre horror from which, for the hapless protagonists, there is no escape or redemption. But for The Black Wedding the stories are HEA in their own unique and unusual ways.
If you haven’t dipped into Singer’s works yet, I urge you to treat yourself. He’s a master storyteller.
GIMPEL THE FOOL
Everyone deceives Gimpel. His wife, the devil, his apprentice, everyone. Yet he plows on without rancor, grudges or bitterness, though he has plenty of reasons to harbor all of that. Well read and well-written in very much a “Tevye Yiddishy" kind of way.
ESTHER KREINDEL THE SECOND
When a well-loved wife and mother dies she returns in the body of a fourteen-year-old girl, with the girl’s consent, the girl maturing in a rapid fashion, mentally and physically. She goes to the grieving husband and children of the woman who died and takes her place, an identical copy in every way, baffling all. In this manner, the original and deceased Esther Kreindel becomes Esther Kreindel the Second and brings peace, joy and love back to her husband and children.
THE SPINOZA OF MARKET STREET
A shriveled old loner, who holds a doctorate in philosophy, hides away in an attic room reading Spinoza's ethics, cutting himself off from society. But when a woman steps into his world, marries him, then appears in a silk nightgown on their wedding night, the natural laws of cause and effect Spinoza espoused take dynamic effect and the old man rises from the dead.
THE BLACK WEDDING
The most astonishing story. A deep dark midnight story.
A horror story. When a daughter's parents are taken by dybbuks her marriage to a rabbi's son is arranged. But when she first sees him under the wedding canopy she realizes immediately that he is a monster. She cannot escape. His entire family is composed of demons. And they maliciously and gleefully prevail over her. She is doomed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 12, 2025
I can’t work out what to make of this tragi-comic Jewish fable, originally written in Yiddish. It opens:
“I am Gimpel the fool. I don’t think myself a fool. On the contrary. But that’s what folks call me.”
Gimpel tells his story: an orphan raised by bakers who is always a target of pranksters and leg-pullers. The pranks and lies are a mix of comic and cruel.
“I like a golem believed everyone.”
Eventually, he vows to believe nothing, but that’s just as confusing, so he goes to the rabbi, who tells him:
“It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools.”
That doesn’t seem very helpful either.
Image: A golem (Source)
And then the meat of the story begins. Apparently willingly and happily, Gimpel goes along with a huge lie - and the smaller ones that spring from it. Year after year. Is he a fool, ludicrously devout and kind, or just telling a tale?
“The rabbi recently said to me, ‘Belief in itself is beneficial. It is written that a good man lives by his faith’.”
Gimpel evolves his own philosophy:
“The longer I lived the more I understood that there were really no lies. Whatever doesn’t really happen is dreamed at night. It happens to one if it doesn’t happen to another, tomorrow if not today, or a century hence if not next year. What difference can it make? Often I heard tales of which I said, ‘Now this is a thing that cannot happen.’ But before a year had elapsed I heard that it actually had come to pass somewhere.”
It reminded me of this, from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
“A solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.”
What does it mean?
Gimpel is so relentlessly optimistic and forgiving - if we're to believe what he tells us - that I find him frustrating. But his fluctuating philosophy about the meaning of truth is more interesting.
Singer left Poland for the US shortly before the start of WW2 and wrote this in 1957, set in Poland. As it happens entirely within a Jewish community, I’m not convinced it’s an allegory of persecution and murder of Jews in Europe during that war. But it probably references many aspects of Jewish folklore and the Torah that I didn’t notice.
Image: Challah loaf, sprinkled with caraway (and sesame) seeds (Source)
Another Singer story
A couple of years after reading this, I read another of Singer's stories with Short Story Club, but enjoyed it less: The Dead Fiddler, which I reviewed HERE.
Short story club
I read this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
“I am Gimpel the fool. I don’t think myself a fool. On the contrary. But that’s what folks call me.”
Gimpel tells his story: an orphan raised by bakers who is always a target of pranksters and leg-pullers. The pranks and lies are a mix of comic and cruel.
“I like a golem believed everyone.”
Eventually, he vows to believe nothing, but that’s just as confusing, so he goes to the rabbi, who tells him:
“It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools.”
That doesn’t seem very helpful either.
Image: A golem (Source)
And then the meat of the story begins. Apparently willingly and happily, Gimpel goes along with a huge lie - and the smaller ones that spring from it. Year after year. Is he a fool, ludicrously devout and kind, or just telling a tale?
“The rabbi recently said to me, ‘Belief in itself is beneficial. It is written that a good man lives by his faith’.”
Gimpel evolves his own philosophy:
“The longer I lived the more I understood that there were really no lies. Whatever doesn’t really happen is dreamed at night. It happens to one if it doesn’t happen to another, tomorrow if not today, or a century hence if not next year. What difference can it make? Often I heard tales of which I said, ‘Now this is a thing that cannot happen.’ But before a year had elapsed I heard that it actually had come to pass somewhere.”
It reminded me of this, from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
“A solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.”
What does it mean?
Gimpel is so relentlessly optimistic and forgiving - if we're to believe what he tells us - that I find him frustrating. But his fluctuating philosophy about the meaning of truth is more interesting.
Singer left Poland for the US shortly before the start of WW2 and wrote this in 1957, set in Poland. As it happens entirely within a Jewish community, I’m not convinced it’s an allegory of persecution and murder of Jews in Europe during that war. But it probably references many aspects of Jewish folklore and the Torah that I didn’t notice.
Image: Challah loaf, sprinkled with caraway (and sesame) seeds (Source)
Another Singer story
A couple of years after reading this, I read another of Singer's stories with Short Story Club, but enjoyed it less: The Dead Fiddler, which I reviewed HERE.
Short story club
I read this as one of the stories in The Art of the Short Story, by Dana Gioia, from which I'm aiming to read one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 2 May 2022.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
February 5, 2025
The Short Story Club
Gimpel, the Saint
'Gimpel the Fool' is a both tragic and inspiring story about a person and his choices. The protagonist and the narrator, a kind-hearted baker called Gimpel is a member of a Jewish community in a small Polish town. He tells his own sad and funny story, rich with Yiddish folklore.
Gimpel, an orphan and a titular 'fool' and a laughing stock of the town, is being constantly deceived and often suffers the people's cruelty. He, however, refuses to become angry or bitter. He chooses to see the best in others even when he is humiliated or ridiculed. He has the faith in God, in people, in goodness of the world in spite the hard life and all the ordeals he has to endure.
A very poignant and thought-provoking story.
'No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world. At the door of the hovel where I lie, there stands the plank on which the dead are taken away. The gravedigger Jew has his spade ready. The grave waits and the worms are hungry; the shrouds are prepared-I carry them in my beggar's sack. Another shnorrer is waiting to inherit my bed of straw. When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived.'
Gimpel, the Saint
'Gimpel the Fool' is a both tragic and inspiring story about a person and his choices. The protagonist and the narrator, a kind-hearted baker called Gimpel is a member of a Jewish community in a small Polish town. He tells his own sad and funny story, rich with Yiddish folklore.
Gimpel, an orphan and a titular 'fool' and a laughing stock of the town, is being constantly deceived and often suffers the people's cruelty. He, however, refuses to become angry or bitter. He chooses to see the best in others even when he is humiliated or ridiculed. He has the faith in God, in people, in goodness of the world in spite the hard life and all the ordeals he has to endure.
A very poignant and thought-provoking story.
'No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world. At the door of the hovel where I lie, there stands the plank on which the dead are taken away. The gravedigger Jew has his spade ready. The grave waits and the worms are hungry; the shrouds are prepared-I carry them in my beggar's sack. Another shnorrer is waiting to inherit my bed of straw. When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived.'
January 12, 2023
Gimpel the baker is known in his Jewish village in Poland for his gullible nature. He had been an orphan with no one to protect him, and he is tricked by the townspeople because he is a trusting person. One gets the impression that he knows he's being deceived, but deliberately chooses to go along with it in the way a jester or fool would in a king's court. His trusting nature often worked to his advantage. Gimpel the Fool seems to represent a schlemiel, one who has goodness and innocence, in this Yiddish parable.
The rabbi told him, "It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself."
After Gimpel's wife dies, he travels
The rabbi told him, "It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself."
After Gimpel's wife dies, he travels
January 24, 2023
3.5★
“And I like a golem* believed everyone. In the first place, everything is possible, as it is written in the Wisdom of the Fathers. I’ve forgotten just how. Second, I had to believe when the whole town came down on me! If I ever dared to say, ‘Ah, you’ re kidding!’ there was trouble. People got angry. ‘What do you mean! You want to call everyone a liar?’ What was I to do? I believed them, and I hope at least that did them some good. [golem=simpleton]”
Both the author and the translator won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Singer in 1978, and Bellow in 1976. Singer preferred to write in Yiddish and later translated his own work, but this one was translated by Saul Bellow (who was talked into it). But I digress.
It is disguised as a folktale about a simple baker, a man who is easily fooled by outrageous lies and jokes and pranks. I’m sure there are studies and theses written about Gimpel, the woman with the “little brother” whom he is convinced to marry, and the townsfolk, sneering and laughing behind their hands as more children are added to the family.
“I went to the rabbi to get some advice. He said, ‘It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.’”
I am sure there are theses and dissertations written about various aspects of this story, since it’s a kind of parable. There is a lot of information online. I found it interesting, but not a favourite.
Another from the Short Story Club Group. You can find a PDF of the story here: https://images.shulcloud.com/4182/upl...
“And I like a golem* believed everyone. In the first place, everything is possible, as it is written in the Wisdom of the Fathers. I’ve forgotten just how. Second, I had to believe when the whole town came down on me! If I ever dared to say, ‘Ah, you’ re kidding!’ there was trouble. People got angry. ‘What do you mean! You want to call everyone a liar?’ What was I to do? I believed them, and I hope at least that did them some good. [golem=simpleton]”
Both the author and the translator won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Singer in 1978, and Bellow in 1976. Singer preferred to write in Yiddish and later translated his own work, but this one was translated by Saul Bellow (who was talked into it). But I digress.
It is disguised as a folktale about a simple baker, a man who is easily fooled by outrageous lies and jokes and pranks. I’m sure there are studies and theses written about Gimpel, the woman with the “little brother” whom he is convinced to marry, and the townsfolk, sneering and laughing behind their hands as more children are added to the family.
“I went to the rabbi to get some advice. He said, ‘It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.’”
I am sure there are theses and dissertations written about various aspects of this story, since it’s a kind of parable. There is a lot of information online. I found it interesting, but not a favourite.
Another from the Short Story Club Group. You can find a PDF of the story here: https://images.shulcloud.com/4182/upl...
January 14, 2023
“…he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.”
Like all good fables, this story is simple on the surface. A bullied boy gets manipulated into decisions and is seen as a fool throughout his life. But is he really a fool? And what is the best approach to take when we have been duped? How much of our life is impacted by the “truth,” and how much by our imagination? Lots to think about with this one.
Like all good fables, this story is simple on the surface. A bullied boy gets manipulated into decisions and is seen as a fool throughout his life. But is he really a fool? And what is the best approach to take when we have been duped? How much of our life is impacted by the “truth,” and how much by our imagination? Lots to think about with this one.
August 15, 2019
I've been reading a lot of mediocre short stories for this class.
Poor Gimpel. He really is abused by the max by so many people here. And the ending just felt... incredibly dissatisfying for all the abuse and struggles he faces at these cruel people's hands.
Not sure what I make of the ending, or what to really take away from this story after everything that happens?
So I here I sit. Not really making much of this other than it was okay, and the message... uh. I need to think on it some more I guess?
Poor Gimpel. He really is abused by the max by so many people here. And the ending just felt... incredibly dissatisfying for all the abuse and struggles he faces at these cruel people's hands.
Not sure what I make of the ending, or what to really take away from this story after everything that happens?
So I here I sit. Not really making much of this other than it was okay, and the message... uh. I need to think on it some more I guess?
January 18, 2023
…the longer I lived the more I understood that there were really no lies. Whatever doesn’t really happen is dreamed at night. It happens to no one if it doesn’t happen to another, tomorrow if not today, or a century hence if not next year. What difference can it make? Often I heard tales of which I said, “Now this is a thing which cannot happen.” But before a year had elapsed I heard that it actually had come to pass somewhere.
No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but is only once removed from the true world.
I loved this short story about Gimpel. (Originally written in Yiddish) Is Gimpel a fool? Or does he open his mind to more possibilities than the other residents of their small town?
What is true and what is not? Spirituality? Dreams? Stories?
So many layers, humor, and a strong MC.
No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but is only once removed from the true world.
I loved this short story about Gimpel. (Originally written in Yiddish) Is Gimpel a fool? Or does he open his mind to more possibilities than the other residents of their small town?
What is true and what is not? Spirituality? Dreams? Stories?
So many layers, humor, and a strong MC.
Read
January 5, 20237/10
This felt like a too-contrived folktale. All the bigger issues become submersed in the "foolish-ery".
This felt like a too-contrived folktale. All the bigger issues become submersed in the "foolish-ery".
January 20, 2023
Although I enjoyed this classic story translated from Yiddish to English, I must admit to wondering what exactly was the moral of this fable-like short story.
While I could suggest a number of answers, the always familiar of “good triumphs evil” is applicable in so many ways here. But like so many classics I think the author intended the reader to take from it any of your own interpretations of good over evil.
Gimpel was a fool and yet knowingly so he continues to serve his family and community. He loves his children despite that they are not of him. In his own way he loves and takes care of his wife despite that she continues to be unfaithful. While he considers his options for revenge, he comes to realize that is not who he really is or wants to be. He is rewarded, of sorts, with a successful business and a long life, and he remains true to himself regardless of what others say or think.
Truly a parable, the lessons of which in many ways remain applicable today.
This was read as part of the GR Short Story Club .
While I could suggest a number of answers, the always familiar of “good triumphs evil” is applicable in so many ways here. But like so many classics I think the author intended the reader to take from it any of your own interpretations of good over evil.
Gimpel was a fool and yet knowingly so he continues to serve his family and community. He loves his children despite that they are not of him. In his own way he loves and takes care of his wife despite that she continues to be unfaithful. While he considers his options for revenge, he comes to realize that is not who he really is or wants to be. He is rewarded, of sorts, with a successful business and a long life, and he remains true to himself regardless of what others say or think.
Truly a parable, the lessons of which in many ways remain applicable today.
This was read as part of the GR Short Story Club .
October 2, 2024
2.5 ⭐️
November 4, 2018
I enjoyed having this story read to me. Gimpel, ever sanguine, demonstrates the concept of acceptance of fate, or a faith of elephantine proportions.
Slept through this short tale three times before I heard the story in its entirety. Not boring, just soothing narration!
Slept through this short tale three times before I heard the story in its entirety. Not boring, just soothing narration!
February 4, 2025
this was hard to understand!
November 14, 2018
depressing. Gimpel is passive and so am I.
but also no excuse for others to be so mean to him
he dies w/ clear conscience praising God i guess idk hard to know what to make of him.
boring
but also no excuse for others to be so mean to him
he dies w/ clear conscience praising God i guess idk hard to know what to make of him.
boring
October 7, 2024
poor Gimpel ☹️
January 11, 2019
Gimpel didn't ask for any of this.
April 17, 2022
Four stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer. I listened to the book on audible.com with the great actor Theodore Bikel narrating. It was fabulous!!!!
December 31, 2024
I quite liked reading this book, and getting some backstory into the first English translation and this new translation, which incorporates some translation from the original author. I'm not the best at morals from fables, but this was definitely thought provoking.
October 26, 2023
I will defend Gimpel till I die I love him
March 2, 2022
It probably loses something contextually in translation. The story is also a little out of time for a 21st century reading.
3.5/5
3.5/5
May 13, 2024
It is a pleasure to read the three versions of Simple Gimpl, a short tale by the Noble Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991): the original in Yiddish by Singer., the translation into English by Singer and David Stromberg, and the translation by Noble Prize-winning author Saul Bellow (1915-2005). Each of the three has subtle differences from the other two. The book includes Liana Finck's fanciful drawings and David Stromberg's Afterword. This 2022 tale edition was first published in 1945 as Gimpl tam.
I disagree with David Stromberg’s analysis of the tale. He compares Gimpl with a story by the famous Hassidic Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav (1772-1810), where the Rebbe’s protagonist lost faith. Stromberg sees Singer’s character, who is a fool, according to Bellow’s translation, or a simpleton in Singer’s, as a man who has faith. He is continually dupped because he is either a fool or simple. There is no indication that he has faith.
Gimpl is a baker with a low level of intelligence. He recognizes that he is continually fooled and that people laugh at his foolishness. They play tricks on him frequently. The story focuses on the worst trick. People persuade Gimpl that the town’s pregnant prostitute is a virgin who is in love with him and wants to marry him. They claim that a youngster living with her is not her child but her brother. He believes them, goes to her, and proposes marriage.
She tells him she would only agree if she is given a dowry. When Gimpl says he understands that the bride’s family provides the groom with the dowry, she persuades him that her situation is different. The town jokers gather enough money to satisfy the prostitute, and the two marry. However, whenever Gimpl tries to consummate their relationship, she finds an excuse, such as an illness. So, Gimpl has to sleep at the bakery.
Four months pass, she gives birth, insisting the child is Gimpl’s. When Gimpl wonders how it is possible to bear a child after four months, she persuades him that it is possible. As time passes, Gimpl sees a man lying with her in her bed. She convinces him that he did not see what he thinks he saw. Later, she has another child. Gimpl sees his assistant baker in bed with her and is fooled again.
If David Stromberg is correct in saying that Singer’s tale is teaching us about faith, Singer must say that having faith, relying on and acting on ideas that are contrary or not proven by logic, is foolish. People should not rely on faith. They should seek to improve their knowledge and intelligence. He would say that people who rely on faith are fools, and Soren Kierkegaard, who advised people to take a “leap of faith” whenever they face situations they cannot understand, are being duped. Rationalists would say this is sound philosophy.
Stromberg may be right in giving this tale this interpretation. But I doubt it.
Rather than comparing Gimpl with Nahman’s tale, it should be compared with Isaac Leybush Peretz’s (also known as I. L. Peretz, 1852-1915) magnificent Yiddish short story Bontshe Shveig, in English Bontshe the Silent. It is a sad story about a poor man and what happens to him after death. It is like Gimpl, a tale about people who suffer tragedies they cannot understand. It is a masterpiece. Bontshe did not understand what was happening to him. Even when he died, was in heaven, and was offered a reward for living a good life, he only asked for bread. The angels were embarrassed, and the devil roared with laughter. Peretz and not Singer should have been given the Noble Prize for literature for Bontshe the Silent, If Not Higher, and all the many others.
Gimpl should also be compared to Gustave Flaubert’s A Simple Soul (1821-1880). Flaubert is widely recognized as a brilliant classical writer known for his masterpiece, Madam Bovary. Like Peretz, he can capture the essence of people and describe it interestingly. People should read classics such as Madam Bovary and this story; they are considered classics because they have withstood time and are enjoyed even today.
A Simple Soul is filled with pathos. Flaubert explores the tragic and sad situation of many simple people who lack sufficient intelligence to participate fully in life around them. They are ignored and secluded. They live an unrewarded life. Theologians address the issue: Why would God create such people? How does God relate to them?
It is about Felicite, a simple, uneducated woman with a low IQ, who is, like many simple people, perfect at what she does; she is the ideal maid, highly respected for her work, a maid everyone would be happy to have. We read about her first love and sympathize with her, how she saves her mistress but is then exploited, and her reactions to religion, upon which she relies but doesn’t understand, like Gimpl and Bontshe. Flaubert describes her yearnings, fears, reactions to death, sublimated and highly unusual love for a parrot, and final unfortunate years.
August 11, 2023
This whimsically illustrated “definitive bilingual edition” of one of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s first stories is a small, lovely treasure for his fans. Singer’s own translation is presented first, even though he wrote it after Saul Bellow’s translation. It was interesting to read of the animus between the two authors. Illuminating anecdotes about Singer’s literary life appear in the editor’s note and the afterword. The book is presented in the original Yiddish at the end as well.
Simple Gimpl is the stereotypical simpleton of many folktales who is subject to endless bullying from the people of the village where he lives. Although the village Rabbi treats Gimpl with respect and gives him advice, he is the only one who is the least bit sympathetic (unless you count his mean wife after her death). Gimpl just shrugs his shoulders at most of the abuse, saying to the reader, “What can you do?” It’s as if he is telling us to have a Zen attitude to the trials and tribulations of life.
Finck’s colored line drawings offer literal and comical interpretations of the text, and with the feel of New Yorker cartoons.
Due to the bullying, ableism and sexism, I found it hard to read.
Simple Gimpl is the stereotypical simpleton of many folktales who is subject to endless bullying from the people of the village where he lives. Although the village Rabbi treats Gimpl with respect and gives him advice, he is the only one who is the least bit sympathetic (unless you count his mean wife after her death). Gimpl just shrugs his shoulders at most of the abuse, saying to the reader, “What can you do?” It’s as if he is telling us to have a Zen attitude to the trials and tribulations of life.
Finck’s colored line drawings offer literal and comical interpretations of the text, and with the feel of New Yorker cartoons.
Due to the bullying, ableism and sexism, I found it hard to read.
October 20, 2024
whimsical and funny enough that it tricks you into going soft and letting the truth in. spiritually educational and delightful. also a fascinating read if you're into the theory&practice of translation.
April 28, 2025
After being betrayed by his wife, Gimpel is kind to the family because he loves the children and knows they are innocent. I grew a little impatient with him when he did not even believe his own eyes, but ultimately he makes a wise choice for himself. Kristi & Abby Tabby
January 18, 2023
fool me once, oh the hell with it
April 24, 2023
Blackly comical, but very touching.
May 23, 2023
I originally thought of Gimpl as autistic but considering the time during which it was written, it does make more sense as his standing in for the Jews in the diaspora.
August 21, 2023
Funny short read! I like it! Good!
September 1, 2023
At first a delightfully childish tale, but one that ends in a surprising twist that left me feeling quite moved…and then pensive. Both translations offer a treasure of narrative.
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