The contradictions within the work of I B Singer - curelty and sentiment

I. B. Singer's stories have such a mixture of extreme cruelty and humane sentiment- it's hard to grasp his world view except to say that, like Whitman's work, it embraces contradictions. Look at how cruel the villagers are to Gimpel in the great title story of his first translated collection, of the meanness of the imp in The Mirror, seducing and ruining the life of a vain young bride - OK, perhaps her vanity is her undoing and perhaps the message is that there are temptations and cruelty all around us, some of which we cannot understand, God is cruel for reasons known only to God, but it is our task in life to be good and just not for any reward here or hereafter but because virtue is its own reward - et cetera - though this does not sound convincing, does it? Singer seems to relish cruelty for its own sake (Nabokov does, too, I think) - and then we get a wonderful story like The Little Shoemakers, a generational story of shoemakers culminating in Abba and his six sons, all of whom learn the trade, but follow the eldest, Gimpel, to America (this story seems to move from the 18th century directly into the 20th - when the Nazis bomb the village of Frampol, we're surprised as it seems this village was in an age far before air travel, even before railroad travel). The sons become successful in a shoe empire in the U.S. and bring their then-widowed father to safety as war breaks out in Europe - he's bewildered and depressed in America until he comes across his own cobblers tools and begins to make shoes again - in the midst of suburban Jewish wealth and splendor - and in a beautiful conclusion his six sons join in and the resume making shoes together, as they did 60 years before in the shtetl, singing an old Yiddish melody in time to their work: what an image! This story, I think, could make a great film, if it hasn't been done already and if the story hasn't been ruined in the process - it should be very simple and clear and dominated by imagery. (BTW, Gimpel the Fool is such a great story because it encompasses both the cruelty and the sentimentality.)