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Reading update

Just finished reading Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run?, loved it (so much so that I want to write an old-fashioned letter of appreciation to the author, both for this and for On The Waterfront), and will post a review here over the weekend.

Next it's on to another Jewish writer, but a completely different kind than Schulberg: Isaac Bashevis Singer, and his story collection Gimpel the Fool. I read the title story this morning, and it's quite a lovely little tale.

February 18, 2009 in Books | Permalink

Comments

I love "Gimpel the Fool." It was in our freshman lit anthology back when I was teaching at Broward Community College in the early '80s, and while the students liked it, they had no idea where and when the story was taking place. "France?" one said. "Israel?" The time of the story? "The Middle Ages?"

I used to see Singer often, as we ate at the same diners on the Upper West Side (and also Danny's in Surfside in Florida) and I often wondered what he would have thought of my students' inability to place the setting of his story.

Posted by: Richard at Feb 19, 2009 12:13:02 PM