The Death of Methuselah and Other Stories

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Overview

Twenty stories from the Nobel Prizewinner, including "Disguised," a transvestite tale of the yeshiva student whose deserted wife finds him dressed as a woman and married to a man, and the title story, which portrays Methuselah at the age of 969 — "and when you pass your nine hundredth birthday, you are not what you used to be."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374529109
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	05/16/2003
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–91) was the author of many novels, stories, and children's books. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.

Date of Birth:

July 14, 1904

Date of Death:

July 24, 1991

Place of Birth:

Radzymin, Poland

Place of Death:

Surfside, Florida

Education:

Attended Tachkemoni Rabbinical Seminary in Warsaw, Poland, 1920-27

Editorial Reviews

This cunning, pungent new collection of stories from the 1970's and 1980's adds a characteristic twist to the materials of a long career.” —Robert Pinsky, The New York Times

“Highly reccommended.” —Library Journal

“Brimming wwith life.” —John Gross, The New York Times

From the Publisher

Set in the present, as well as pre-WW II Poland, in the netherworld and even at the time of the biblical deluge, this latest offering by the skillful and prolific Nobel laureate is suffused with melancholy, hypochondria and death. The 20 stories bear the Singer hallmarks: they are seemingly autobiographical, possess gossipy, digressive dialogue and simple, intimate language, frequently allude to the Holocaust and the painful rootlessness of exile, and are obsessed with sexual perversion and betrayal. A European refugee trapped by her punitive husband into an affair with his young nephew tells the narrator ``that of all the hopes a human being can have, the most splendid is death.'' ``What betrayers men are!'' a woman exclaims in one story, while, in another tale, a man declares that ``the whole male gender is at the mercy of women.'' The narrator of ``The Accuser and the Accused'' is convinced that ``here on earth justice and truth are forever and absolutely beyond our grasp.'' Two bright, delightfully fanciful rays that pierce an otherwise bleak collection are ``The Missing Line'' and ``Sabbath in Gehenna.'' In the former, an uncommon phrase, somehow omitted from a writer's column, absurdly turns up in a news item of a rival newspaper; in the latter, sinners in hell discuss how to win concessions from the angels of paradise. (April)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This tenth volume of short stories by the Nobel Prize author is vintage Singer. At home in the underworld, he gives us stories of Gehenna, the occult, and the demonic forces of evil, of unrequited love, transvestism, and unfaithful spouses. Thus, ``The Accuser and the Accused'' asks how one can explain, except by multiple personality, that a Yiddish mystic from New York can also be a priest in Peru. In the title piece, the biblical character is portrayed at 969``But when you pass your nine hundredth birthday, you are not what you used to be.'' Longing for death, he is taken to Cain's city and learns of Satan and Lilith just prior to the deluge and the rescue of his nephew Noah. Highly recommended for all audiences. Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.

Library Journal