The Magic Barrel

The Magic Barrel is a collection of thirteen short stories written by Bernard Malamud and published in 1958 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Also, the Jewish Publication Society released its own edition at the same time. It won the 1959 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.

The 13 stories included in The Magic Barrel appear in the following sequence:

• "The First Seven Years"
• "The Mourners]"
• "The Girl of My Dreams"
• "Angel Levine"
• "Behold the Key"
• "Take Pity"
• "The Prison"
• "The Lady of the Lake"
• "A Summer's Reading"
• "The Bill"
• "The Last Mohican"
• "The Loan"
• "The Magic Barrel"

Stories

This section provides a brief capsule view of each story, including links to relevant articles. Also see: Bernard Malamud bibliography for additional details:

• "The First Seven Years"

â€" first published in the Partisan Review (September-October 1950 issue)

• "The Mourners"

â€" first appeared in Discovery in January, 1955

• "The Girl of My Dreams"

â€" originally appeared in American Mercury, January 1953

• "Angel Levine"

â€" The short story Angel Levine was made into a 1970 film starring Harry Belafonte and Zero Mostel and directed by Ján Kadár.

• "Behold the Key"

â€" this is one of five "Italian" stories (ie., set in Italy) Malamud wrote, excluding the 6 stories that appeared in Pictures of Fidelman.

• "Take Pity"

• "The Prison"

â€" first appeared in Commentary in the September 1950 issue

• "The Lady of the Lake"

• "A Summer's Reading"

• "The Bill"

• ""The Last Mohican"

• "The Loan"

• "The Magic Barrel"

â€" The title story starts as the about-to-be rabbi Leo Finkle has been urged by his teachers to find a wife before he actually becomes a rabbi; he gets a bigger congregation that way, they say. Because he is quite incapable (he recognizes this later on in the story and presumes his study stole his social life) and has almost finished his study (and thus has to hurry), he answers an ad of a marriage counselor. Unhappy and terribly sorry about a meeting with one of the proposed women, he retreats back again to his study. The marriage counselor suddenly turns up delivering him photographs of women, which he initially ignores. However, something draws him to them and after viewing several of them he discovers another one in the envelope. He instantly falls in love with that picture and yearns to meet her. After he's found the marriage counselor (who left him immediately after delivering the photographs) the girl turns out to be the counselor's daughter (though at first the counselor states it's one of the photographs that should have been in the barrel; hence Finkle thinks of the barrel as magic). He gets to meet her anyway; the marriage counselor (her father) hiding around the corner, "chanting prayers for the dead."

References