Malamud: ‘The First Seven Years’

 I’ve been thinking about Vivian Gornick’s suggestion: In a Bernard Malamud story, the situation is more important than plot — the situation is the story.

I’d say “The First Seven Years” is an example. I’d say this is a situation, rather than a plot:

Feld, a shoemaker, runs his shop with Sobel, a refugee who is conscientious, faithful and honest. Sobel seems to want little from Feld.

But Feld has a daughter, Miriam, 19, and when Feld encourages a nice college boy to ask Miriam out, Sobel finds out and erupts.

Sobel was 30 when he arrived in New York, having just escaped the Nazis. Miriam was then 14. Sobel let her borrow his books and talked with her when she asked questions. He’d been waiting for her to grow up. In a way that Feld couldn’t see, Sobel loved Miriam.

But the situation is in plain sight, even if the characters can’t see it. When Feld asks the nice college boy to call on his daughter, he takes the young man into the backroom, and they wait for the sound of Sobel’s hammer to resume its pounding before talking.

• Sources: Bernard Malamud, The Complete Stories; New York: The Noonday Press, 1998, pp. 69-78.

For the original note on Vivian Gornick’s comment, see “One favorite writer speaks of another,” March 17, 2024.

For the biblical story of Jacob working for his beloved Rachel, see Genesis, chapter 29.