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Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer
National Review, April 25, 1986 by Thomas P. McDonnell
THERE IS no writer who by his mere existence more thoroughly exposes the emptiness of our contemporary literary culture than Isaac Bashevis Singer. Although Singer is an ardent Zionist and an author who has written in Yiddish almost exclusively, there is no one writing today--or, for that matter, in the last half-century--who has appealed so universally to the humanistic art of good story-telling.
He is a true internationalist and a true humanist, as is luminously evident in this book of conversations between Singer and the literary journalist Richard Burgin. Singer's observations and his expansive sense of humor are welcome antidotes to the pulling self-centeredness of so many of our contemporaries. He sees the need for a great American humorist, but the emergence of one seems unlikely because the critics, who are also the liberals, "would never allow anyone to make fun of a liberal." He hastens to add, however, that "extreme conservatism can also be ridiculous." This is characteristic of Singer's impartiality when it comes to observing the foibles of fools. Conducted over a period of eight years, the conversations have the slight drawback of being sometimes repetitive--that is, when Burgin fails to recall that he has asked a question before, and Singer answers yet again with patience and even further elucidation. If you have not read Isaac Bashevis Singer, Conversations is sure to send you scurrying for everything he has allowed to be translated from the Yiddish originals.
COPYRIGHT 1986 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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