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Rating: 
Summary: One good story after another in this huge collection
Review: Malamud has a way with narrative so that at the first word you are hooked and you can't put the book down till the story is over. His prose style is smooth and transparent, and his characters are idiosyncratic. My favorite stories were The German Refugee, Man in the Drawer, Black Is My Favorite Color, Zora's Noise and Rembrandt's Hat. But all of them are worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: A very good story writer
Review: Malamud has written some of the most noted stories of the second half of the American twentieth century. His famous 'The Magic Barrel'with its broken characters broken Yiddish sufferings disappointments and strange poetic intensity is perhaps the most well- known and emblematic of his general approach as a writer. Malamud is a man of the precise word, the carefully drawn artistic touch, the minor note of beauty which suddenly pains. Malamud is the person of sympathy with the sufferings of his own characters, and with the ideology that this suffering is what makes them most human . In another sense the suffering is what defines the Jews and is where Judaism too becomes emblematic of what humanity is. Malamud travels in different worlds for his stories in the Italy of Fidelman , and in the far off Western regions of America where Jews are very rare and distant strangers. Of the many different kinds of encounters in his story he makes his own poetic universe, touched with small irony, and with a Yiddish bittersweetness.
These are stories for those who love the high art of small tones and intuitions of one of the finest story- writers of his time.
Rating:
Summary: Best short story writer of the 20th Century
Review: Nobody comes close to Bernard Malamud as master of the short story in the 20th Century. As roll-overs from the 19th Century Thomas Mann and Henry James come pretty close but only pretty close.Its easier to write late Victorian and mal du siecle
stories than the less formalized stories of the common man who
frequents Malamud tales of the grubby depression-shocked heros
of the 30s and 40s.
Rating: 
Summary: Rich characters and wonderful prose
Review: This is the first time I read Malamud based off a recommendation from my well read grandfather. I asked him who are the best modern Jewish fiction writers. Bellows, Roth, and Malamud are definitely the best he noted. I was very impressed by the depth of all of the characters introduced in this novel and I was especially pleased at the constant reappearance of an artist down on his luck but completely in love with making art. And that is exactly what Malamud does - create art.Many of his characters are the outcast types that feel like outsiders hardly understand them and their passions (we've all felt that way at times haven't we?) Many of the protagonists are writers, artists, store owners, janitors - an ordinary walk of life. I recommend this book despite the incoherency of the last couple short stories - but don't worry the 50something before it are wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Rich characters and wonderful prose
Review: This is the first time I read Malamud based off a recommendation from my well read grandfather. I asked him who are the best modern Jewish fiction writers. Bellows, Roth, and Malamud are definitely the best he noted. I was very impressed by the depth of all of the characters introduced in this novel and I was especially pleased at the constant reappearance of an artist down on his luck but completely in love with making art. And that is exactly what Malamud does - create art. Many of his characters are the outcast types that feel like outsiders hardly understand them and their passions (we've all felt that way at times haven't we?) Many of the protagonists are writers, artists, store owners, janitors - an ordinary walk of life. I recommend this book despite the incoherency of the last couple short stories - but don't worry the 50something before it are wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Best short story writer of the 20th Century
Review: While Malamud is without doubt a very skilled writer, I gave up attempting to read this book approximately 1/3 of the way through it. The atmosphere of the book was overwhelmingly dour and depressing: story after story of loneliness, poverty, bleakness, bitterness, struggle, alienation from family. It leaves one ready to jump off a bridge somewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Depressing
Review: While Malamud is without doubt a very skilled writer, I gave up attempting to read this book approximately 1/3 of the way through it. The atmosphere of the book was overwhelmingly dour and depressing: story after story of loneliness, poverty, bleakness, bitterness, struggle, alienation from family. It leaves one ready to jump off a bridge somewhere.
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