Argosy Books on East 59th Street
Where I bought a copy of Henry James' The Golden Bowl for about $3
I bought a book at what is now my favorite bookstore in New York City: Posman Books, at the Grand Central Terminal branch. It was expensive (for a book) $17, but it has been well worth the purchase.
The front jacket describes the book thus:
New York Stories takes us on an irresistible tour of the city's high life, low life, nightlife, and everything in between - from the dazzling chaos of Times Square to the elegant calm of galleries in the Met...This is an irresistible introduction, indeed, and I bought it right away.
I am trying to read the short stories sequentially, but that is a difficult plan to follow.
I try to research the writers as I go along. The author Bernard Malamud has a story called The Magic Barrel. I didn't know that Malamud was a Jewish name. I thought it was Muslim. I decided to read the story (which is about a third into the book) to find out.
It starts with:
Not long ago there lived in uptown New York, in a small, almost meager room, though crowded with books, Leo Finkle, a rabbinical student in the Yeshivah University. Finkle, after six years of study, was to be ordained in June and had been advised by an acquaintance that he might find it easier to win himself a congregation if he were married. Since he had no present prospects of marriage, after two tormented days of turning it over in his mind, he called in Pinye Salzman, a marriage broker whose two-line advertisement he had read in the Forward.Nothing more Jewish than that! The story is humorous, but serious. After all, the spiritual life of a rabbi is at stake.
Here is a somewhat detailed biography on Malamud, who became one of those "atheist" Jews:
Bernard Malamud was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Bertha (née Fidelman) and Max Malamud, Russian Jewish immigrants. A brother, Eugene, was born in 1917 . Malamud entered adolescence at the start of the Great Depression. From 1928 to 1932, Bernard attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn.[3] During his youth, he saw many films and enjoyed relating their plots to his school friends. He was especially fond of Charlie Chaplin's comedies. Malamud worked for a year at $4.50 a day as a teacher-in-training, before attending college on a government loan. He received his B.A. degree from City College of New York in 1936. In 1942, he obtained a Master's degree from Columbia University, writing a thesis on Thomas Hardy. He was excused from military service in World War II because he was the sole support of his widowed mother. He first worked for the Bureau of the Census in Washington D.C., then taught English in New York, mostly high school night classes for adults.Malmud could have used one of those Rabbis, who would have known how to win him back to faith. Perhaps this story is a way of trying to let the "magic" in.
Starting in 1949, Malamud taught four sections of freshman composition each semester at Oregon State University (OSU), an experience fictionalized in his 1961 novel A New Life. Because he lacked the Ph.D., he was not allowed to teach literature courses, and for a number of years his rank was that of instructor. In those days, OSU, a land grant university, placed little emphasis on the teaching of humanities or the writing of fiction. While at OSU, he devoted 3 days out of every week to his writing, and gradually emerged as a major American author. In 1961, he left OSU to teach creative writing at Bennington College, a position he held until retirement. In 1967, he was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1942, Malamud met Ann De Chiara (November 1, 1917 – March 20, 2007), an Italian-American Roman Catholic, and a 1939 Cornell University graduate. They married on November 6, 1945, despite the opposition of their respective parents. Ann typed his manuscripts and reviewed his writing. Ann and Bernard had two children, Paul (b. 1947) and Janna (b. 1952). Janna Malamud Smith is the author of a memoir about her father, titled My Father is a Book.
Despite being raised Jewish, Malamud was an agnostic humanist.
Malamud died in Manhattan in 1986, at the age of 71. [Source: Wikipedia]
Salzman, the marriage broker in the short story The Magic Barrel, says: “You wouldn’t believe me how much cards I got in my office. The drawers are already filled to the top, so I keep them now in a barrel, but is every girl good for a rabbi?”
The full short story is online, here.
Posman Books in the underbelly of Grand Central Terminal
A haven for literate travelers
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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