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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780374529383
ISBN number: 0374529388
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: May 05, 2004
Publishing house: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sale Popularity Level: 57752
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Product Description:
A classic that won Malamud both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
The Fixer (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel -- one that makes manifest his roots in Russian fiction, especially that of Isaac Babel.
Set in Kiev in 1911 during a period of heightened anti-Semitism, the novel tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman blamed for the brutal murder of a young Russian boy. Bok leaves his village to try his luck in Kiev, and after denying his Jewish identity, finds himself working for a member of the anti-Semitic Black Hundreds Society. When the boy is found nearly drained of blood in a cave, the Black Hundreds accuse the Jews of ritual murder. Arrested and imprisoned, Bok refuses to confess to a crime that he did not commit.
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Rated by buyers 
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This is a great book. You must read it. It says so much
about human nature and the power of an individual to make a difference in the world.
Rated by buyers -
This is one tough novel to put down and/or not be affected by. An unfortunate irony exists between Malamud and Dostoyevsky (the latter being anti-Semitic himself), but their brilliance as writers and portrayers of the dark, the unjust and the shameful couldn't be more alike. While The Assistant remains my favorite Malamud (because, I think, I very first read it very young and it had an impact on me then) The Fixer is a colossal literary achievement.
Rated by buyers 
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What a difficult book to read, and, I can only imagine, to write. We start with the injustice of poverty and lack of opportunity in the shtetl and move almost directly into a variety of unjust accusations leveled against Yakov Bok, who has become a scapegoat for all the imagined evil deeds of all the Jews in Russia.
Bok leaves the shtetl with hopes of a better life in Kiev. At first, things look up for him. Serendipity finds him a good job, and he is able to afford some books, and even put away some money. The catch is that he has to live in a district from which Jews are forbidden from living. All goes well, although Bok is not a popular figure, until a young boy is found murdered in a cave nearby.
The police show up at his door, arrest him, and summarily throw him in prison. Things go from bad to worse as he is forced to submit to increasingly cruel and dehumanizing treatment, not least of which is having to repeatedly listen to the many crimes he is supposed to have committed. But he steadfastly declares his innocence, and it is this that is supposed to make him one literature's greatest heroes. I'm not so sure about this, but certainly he is a strong character.
His strength almost makes this book harder to read, though. I found myself almost wishing he would confess, even though I knew he was innocent, just so the horribleness would end. But he and I both knew that confessing to a crime that he didn't commit wouldn't help at all, either his own dignity, or the plight of the Jews in Russia. So we endured together until the trial, to which Bok is on his way at the end of the book. At very first I was disappointed that we don't fight out what happens at the trial, but then I realized that the result of the trial isn't the point of the book. It's the persecution and the strength that it reveals that really matter.
Rated by buyers -
malamud is an excellent writer. he stoicly captures something that is undefined, but really reflects for me suburban life in jersey and nyc in the sixties (even though this is a book about russia). i liked this book for the humanity it places on the face of suffering at the hands of injustice; how despite all the beatings and deprivations, the character holds on to his essential jewishness. but the book is more than being jewish (which in many ways i am [don't tell this to my orthodox friends)), it is about standing by principles of honesty, integrity, patience, tolerance, and all the other virtues that make life living worthwhile despite whatever else society may say or act.
Rated by buyers -
As a child I saw the film adaptation of 'The Fixer', starring Alan Bates. It must have left an impression on me since I reflexively snatched up a secondhand copy of the novel when I saw it. As with other material by Malamud, it is extremely well written. And its depiction of life in a Russian prison circa 1910 is very detailed and, unsurprisingly, horrific. But what really sets the novel apart is how it shows the triumph of the human spirit beyond even the most impossible obstacles. Thankfully the author does not do this at the expense of demonizing all Russians, although clearly at the time anti-semitism was rampant. In the end the reader is left exhausted yet uplifted.
Bottom line: although at times a painful and depressing read, The Fixer shines in its championing of the human spirit. Strongly recommended.
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