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Bernard Malamud (1914-1986)

Bernard Malamud (1914-1986). One of the great American Jewish authors of the 20 th C. From Brooklyn, NY, grew up during the Great Depression Wrote slowly and carefully The Natural (1952) was his first published novel “Life is a tragedy full of joy.”. The Natural : Critical Praise.

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Bernard Malamud (1914-1986)

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  1. Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) • One of the great American Jewish authors of the 20th C. • From Brooklyn, NY, grew up during the Great Depression • Wrote slowly and carefully • The Natural (1952) was his first published novel • “Life is a tragedy full of joy.”

  2. The Natural : Critical Praise • “A preposterously readable story about life.” --Time • “What gives the novel its liveliness is Malamud’s inspired mixture of everyday American vernacular with suggestions of the magical and the mythic. He tucked a lot into that mixture…and he makes it all seem easy”—The New Yorker

  3. The Natural: Plot • Depicts the rise and fall of a heroic baseball player in post WWII America. Roy Hobbs (both hero and anti-hero) is a mythic persona with majestic gifts and massive appetites and abilities. • The narrative arc of the book closely follows Hobbs’s career in pro baseball. Hobbs is the story. • It’s an exciting yet tragic tale of achievement and ambition, victory and loss, fame and anonymity, desire and deception, love and hate, strength and weakness.

  4. More than Just a Game • Baseball, in this case, is more than a game…it’s richly symbolic of the American character. • How does it command America’s memories and daydreams? • Malamud weaves the story of a hero (perhaps a tragic one) with a multitude of allusions to mythical sources…

  5. Allusions to Look for: • Hero & Tragic hero qualities • Mono-myth elements • Biblical references • Fertility myths • Arthurian Legend

  6. Symbols (are everywhere) • names • events • colors • dreams • trains • birds • vegetation • water

  7. Also pay attention to… • Fantasy versus reality (Imaginary & Actual) • Use of jargon, vernacular, and slang • Women in Hobbs’s life: Harriet Bird, Memo Paris, and Iris Lemon • Dreams: how do they enhance or echo the larger narrative? • The novel as a composite of early 20th century baseball history • Is Roy Hobbs like any other characters we’ve studied?

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