Master of Dreams: A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer

by Dvorah Telushkin

A poignant and affectionate view of the life and work of the brilliant but troubled Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer explores the later years of Singer's life through his longtime assistant's close relationship with him.

Genres: Memoir, Biography

350 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1997

About the author

Dvorah Menashe Telushkin is a renowned storyteller who worked for twelve years as all-around assistant to Isaac Bashevis Singer. She first studied storytelling at Bard College and then Yiddish at Columbia University. She has performed all over the country and abroad. She lives in New York and is well known at storytelling festivals nationwide.

Reviews

[KOMET · Rating 4 out of 5]

"MASTER OF DREAMS" is a story of the 14 years the author spent working for Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Nobel Laureate and the chronicler of Yiddish life and culture in the shtetls of Eastern Europe (in his case, Poland, where he lived from 1904 until 1935, when he emigrated to the U.S.), myth, and folklore.

Throughout her long relationship with Singer, Telushkin had kept journals in which she related her experiences with him. They first met in 1975 in New York. Telushkin was 21 and Singer was 71. Telushkin had written a letter to Singer, offering to act as his driver to and from his creative writing class, if only he would permit her to attend the course. An agreement was struck and thus began Telushkin's apprenticeship with Singer. Through the evolution of their relationship, the reader sees Singer in all his complexity. At times, he is like a child, wide-eyed with wonder at the world, joyous and exuberant, always eager to meet with admirers of his works at lectures and speaking engagements in New York and various other places across the country anxious to see and hear him speak. Other times, Singer is petulant, paranoid, cantakerous, capricious, and at times downright hurtful to Telushkin as the following passage will attest: “… when I turned thirty and began to come of age, Isaac was unable to change along with me. I began to study Yiddish and this was taking time away from him. Although he had urged me for years to study Yiddish,… so that I could translate for him, when I actually started doing so, he reacted ambivalently. Sometimes, he praised me. Yet when Charles McGrath complimented my translations, Isaac became ill at ease, at times even hostile. For the translation of 'Matones' ('Gifts') he tried to add his name on the translation credit. I didn't say a word, but the following day I saw that he had erased it."

For me, who only knew of Singer previously from one of his books I saw as a child in my Mom's library and from the movie adaptation of one of his stories (i.e. "Yentl"), this was a book that gave me greater access to the real man, his writing philosophy, fears, relationships with family and friends, hopes, and personality. What's more, "Master of Dreams" is well-written, easy to read, and for the reader who has little or no knowledge of the Yiddish interspersed therein, Telushkin provides footnotes for every chapter, a glossary, and a "Note on Transcription" (which touches upon the various dialects of the Yiddish language).

[Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dvorah Telushkin served as driver and secretary and organizer and ultimately translator for Isaac Bashevis Singer, from about 1975, for about 12 years. He was a father-figure to her. She felt as if she were a daughter to him. Their relationship was emotionally intimate. She helped bring his stories of demons to English and to a world-wide audience. She enabled him to meet and respond to his myriad fans.

And then the demons of which Singer wrote began to haunt him. He grew old. He grew angry. He grew paranoid. He suspected her of various betrayals, then begged for forgiveness, then suspected her again. Their relationship deteriorated. She separated from him. But her love for him did not cease. When he died, she was there in his widow's apartment, organizing his papers as an act of love and devotion, for the archive that purchased them.

Along the way we see Singer at his impish best - a truly delightful but simultaneously haunted human being. We also encounter him at his worst, in decline. And we are witness to how it is possible to love someone for what they once were, even as what they are has become a dark shadow of their once shining light.

This is a delightful read. When it was complete I reread the first two chapters again, and so much that I had missed when I started was now clear.

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title indicates, this is about the author's years as a translator, editor and personal assistant with Singer. Singer was a very erratic man- sometimes kind, sometimes angry, sometimes incapable of dealing with the modern world.

[thewanderingjew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a touching memoir written by a woman who became acquainted with Singer as an auditor of his class and progressed to being his personal secretary and dear friend for many years. She accompanied him everywhere and stepped in to present for him, when in later years, he was too tired or indisposed.
The author tries to write with the sound of Singer’s speech inflections by spelling out words he uses incorrectly to get the flavor of his accent, i.e., ve for we. Most of the time she compassionately describes both him and his wife so warmly that you feel invited into the household.
On the other hand, at times she portrays Singer as rude or egotistic but she tempers those descriptions with grandfatherly ones to soften his eccentricities and explain his behavior.
There is no doubt that she loves Isaac and he adores her. Theirs seems like a surrogate parent child relationship from which Mrs. Singer seems excluded.
In my own mind, I questioned why the author did not share a lot of the personal information she learned working with Isaac, with Mrs. Singer. At the time of his death, in the book, she mentions that Mrs. Singer had no idea how much her husband commanded in fees and laments that she always had to live very frugally. Well, I thought, perhaps Isaac too, had less of an idea of what he earned since Dvorah was handling all of his affairs as time went on.
I also wondered why she accompanied Mr. Singer and never encouraged Mrs. Singer to go along, as well. It often felt that the author might have been enjoying her position too much and was perhaps using Isaac to further her own career, albeit, though she cared for him sincerely. He was a wonderful stepping stone and I have to wonder why the memoir was necessary or rather why was it necessary to paint even a minimal negative image of him. If she loved him, she could have concentrated on her positive experiences and no one would have been the wiser.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous look at the wages of genius and oppression, the price in madness paid by Singer and his faithful amanuensis, Telushkin, and also the worth of living through it all with love and reaching forgiveness. Plus it's very amusing!

[Norman Voisey]

Super!