God, Jew, Satan in the Works of Isaac Bashevis-Singer

Book excerpt: The roots and origins of Isaac Bashevis Singer's works are illuminated in this comprehensive survey. Biletzky treats his subject from several perspectives, describing Singer's life story and its influence on his work while also critiquing Singer's work and focusing on its realistic and nonrealistic dimensions. The author also explores the relationship between Singer's work and the work of Shalom Aleichem and I.L. Peretz, an analysis which synthesizes the Jewish and the Yiddish in Singer's thought and writing. Contents: Roots; In the Ways of Creativity; The Storyteller; Between the Real and the Unreal; Devils. Satans. Imps. Evil Spirits; Satan in Goraj; The Muskat Family; The Slave; The Miracle Worker of Lublin; The Manor. The Estate; The Dumb Souls of I.L. Peretz and Gimpel Tam; The Painter's Studio and Father's Courtroom.