Casting a shadow backwards and forwards: the para-Holocaust fiction of Charles Reznikoff, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Bernard Malamud

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Casting a shadow backwards and forwards: the para-Holocaust fiction of Charles Reznikoff, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Bernard Malamud

Journal Title: Kultura Popularna - Year 2017, Vol 1, Issue 51

Abstract

The article reconsiders critical reception of three historical novels by Bernard Malamud, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Charles Reznikoff, so as to take issue with Alvin H. Rosenfeld’s assertion that “all novels about Jewish suffering written in the post-Holocaust period must implicate the Holocaust, whether it is expressly named or not” as it “casts its shadow backwards as well as forwards” (A Double Dying, 1980: 68). Interestingly, Rosenfeld, while pointing to Singer’s and Malamud’s alleged inability to face the subject matter of the Holocaust directly, does not even attempt to speculate on possible explanations for their alleged artistic impuissance (if it can be called impuissance at all). What is more, in his deliberations he disregards Reznikoff’s prose completely, and that is why the present paper briefly analyzes The Lionhearted, a tale referring to the persecution of the Jews of York in England in the 12th century, to establish whether it is justified to regard it as a double discourse, and, arguably, a preliminary for “direct” writing about the Holocaust. All the analyses draw on two major heuristic models of evaluating cultural responses to the Holocaust – the exceptionalist and the constructivist – as put forward and theorized by Alan Mintz. Key words: uniqueness of the Holocaust, Holocaust representation, the Holocaust in popular culture, historical novels, historical pageantry, Bernard Malamud, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Charles Reznikoff<br/><br/>

Authors and Affiliations

Jacek Partyka

Keywords

Between History and Popular Culture

EP ID EP219467
DOI 10.5604/01.3001.0010.4075
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