I B Singer

Posted yesterday on some similarities between Singer and Garcia Marquez but today will note a significant difference - for Singer it's not about magic realism but actually about magic or put more accurately about spiritualism folklore mysticism and cabal actually present among the people rich and poor in his tint polish village of frampol. For ex in the story the mirror about the beautiful young bride who sees an image of the devil in her mirror seducing her then abdicating her there's nothin in the story that suggests this presence is a stylistic embellishment of the author's. Rather the events are presented as actual factual and natural - these are the kinds of things that happen in this village - just as mme bovary can take arsenic to "disappear " from an unfulfilled life the beauty finkl (w the comically un-beautiful name) can disappear thru satanic intervention. His use and infusion of the spiritual and it's universal acceptance makes his village life particularly strange and remote from the modern world so that when there's casual reference to the world beyond such as a young man leaving for america we feel a shock - we sense frampol is medieval which in a way it is.

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