Bernard Malamud
Literary Critique - The Magic Barrel
March/26/2016 10:06 PM Filed: Literary Critiques
Photo Credit: John Bragg
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Biblical Concept of Eve and Spiritual Love
In “The Magic Barrel” Bernard Malamud tells the story of Leo Finkle, a lonely bachelor soon to be ordained a rabbi, in his quest for true love. Leo relies on Pinye Salzman, a marriage broker, to assist him. Published in 1954, this piece is an old-fashioned version of the online dating game. Salzman is a klutzy matchmaker, and his attempts at finding a proper mate for Leo fail.
One day Leo comes upon a picture of Salzman’s daughter Stella and decides this is the woman of his dreams. At first Salzman refuses to disclose his relationship to her and will not allow Leo to meet her. In the end, persuasion wins.
This story is a basic boy-meets-girl tale, but on a deeper level Malamud describes an isolated man struggling with his need to meld sexual attraction with spiritual union, portraying a member of the clergy with a normal libido as he seeks the companionship of a woman with sex appeal, rather than the staid, conservative prospects Salzman has offered. He’s searching for his soul mate.
The final scene is significant. Leo and Stella meet on a street corner while her nervous father watches from a distance. Appealing to the rabbi is Stella’s bad girl appearance with purity in her gaze.
Malamud writes, “Stella stood by the lamp post, smoking. She wore white with red shoes, which fitted his expectations.” As she waits “uneasily and shyly,” Leo notices that her eyes are filled with “desperate innocence” and pictures “his own redemption.”
This instinctive attraction goes back to the biblical story of the Garden of Eden in which Eve is depicted as an alluring cross between ingenue and seductress. Malamud applies this mythical concept to a modern relationship.