The Fixer - Bernard Malmud

Well, I have finally finished The Fixer by Bernard Malamud. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1966, Winner of the National Book Award in 1967. This book read like a cross between To Kill a Mockingbird and Crime and Punishment. The heavy philosophical musings of the main character, the "fixer" Yakov, were hard to wade through at times. This book, like All the Kings Men falls into the category in that I am happy I read it, but don't necessarily think I will read it again.

Yakov's morose pondering on life and spirituality from behind the bars of a Russian prison both provoke the reader and turn them off. Malamud's portrayal of the anti-Semitism Yakov faces brings the reader into close contact with the evil side of human nature which is hard to look at face on.

At this point I can't even think of what more to say about the book. The book is achingly well written, but its hard for me to go further than that....

Maybe I'll have more to say later...