The Last Mohican

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Bernard Malamud, 1970

The Last Mohican (also published under the title Last Mohican in later versions ) is a short story by Bernard Malamud that was first published in the Partisan Review in spring 1958 and included in the National Book Award- winning collection The Magic Barrel that same year .

The narrative has since been anthologized in three slightly different versions, e.g. B. one year after it was first published in 1959 in the short story collection The Best American Short Stories .

The German translation by Annemarie Böll first appeared in 1968 under the title The Last of the Mohicans in the collection Das Zauberfaß and other stories .

At the center of this short story, rich in biblical, literary and historical references, is the confrontation of the American- Jewish protagonist Arthur Fidelman from the Bronx with the turmoil of the past and the terrible experiences of European Jews. To complete a critical study of the Italian renaissance painter Giotto, the unhistorical, assimilated art student and, according to his own statements, failed painter Fidelman, who at the same time represents Malamud's most obvious expression of the figure of Schlemihl from the Yiddish narrative tradition, travels to Rome. There he meets as his historic European counterpart, the unknown to him homeless Jews Shimon Susskind (in the German version, "Susskind.") Who, from the outset as the archetype of the Schnorrer and the living from hand to mouth "air human" shows .

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Fidelman arrives in Rome from the United States with a shabby old leather suitcase that he borrowed from his sister and that he finds "a little annoying" (" which embarrassed him slightly ", p. 73). Like an American scholar on a research trip, he is traditionally dressed in a tweed suit and oxblood-colored rubber-soled shoes. He keeps a second, lighter suit in his suitcase. Carefully guarded, he holds a new pigskin folder in his hand, which contains the manuscript of the first chapter of his work on Giotto, for which he plans to conduct further research in Italy in order to complete the critical study.

Arthur Fidelman, who bears the Jewish surname of Malamud's mother and whose first name is reminiscent of the mythological legendary figure of the Celto-British King Arthur , wants to forget his past in America and find a better future in Europe. As a sign of a new beginning and departure as a “traveler” into another life ( “traveler” , p. 73), he has grown a mustache that has only recently grown (“ a mustache of recent vintage ”, p. 74). Upon his arrival he was deeply moved by the first sight of the Eternal City and astonished by “all that history” (“ all that history ”, p. 74).

Shortly afterwards, at the train station, he is greeted with a “ shalom ” by a mysterious stranger who introduces himself as Shimon Susskind . Fidelman hesitantly (“ hesitantly ”, p. 75) replied to Susskind's greeting and, according to his own recollections, used this Hebrew greeting for the first time in his life ( “uttering the word - so far as he recalled - for the first time in his life " , P. 75). Susskind, who portrays himself as a “Jewish refugee from Israel” ( “Jewish refugee from Israel” , p. 76), with his hints about experiences in Germany, Hungary and Poland, indicates to Fidelman that he is the cruel experiences of European Jews I shared and survived the Holocaust (p. 76), and offers art students and tourists from the United States several times as a (tourist) guide (“ guide ”, p. 77 ff.). At the same time he asks him for one of his suits (p. 78 ff.).

However, Fidelman sees himself only bothered by an obtrusive “beggar” and “scrover” (“ My God, he thought, a handout for sure. My first hello in Rome and it has to be a scorcher. ”, P. 75) and tries To finish off Susskind with an alms (p. 78 f.). As he explains to him, there is no way he can do without one of his two suits (p. 78).

From then on, Fidelman was persecuted in Rome by Susskind, who was not satisfied with any further alms and at a second meeting repeated his request for a suit from Fidelman (p. 81 f.), As he did not have appropriate clothing for the cold nights. In response to the excited question of Fidelmans in this conversation, why should he be responsible for Susskind ( “Am I responsible for you then, Susskind?” , P. 83), he replied that he was responsible because he was a man and a Jew ( "[...] you are responsible because you are a man. Because you are a Jew [...]" , p. 84), and thus recalls the key concept of mercy (Yiddish: rachmones ) in Jewish ethics , that is, the elementary doctrine of brotherhood, which is obligatory for mutual help, and mutual responsibility of all Jews for one another.

However, Fidelman rejects such a collective Jewish ethical obligation and declares himself an individualist who cannot bear everyone's personal burden (" I refuse the obligation. I am a single individual and can't take erverybody's personal burden. ", P. 84 ). To get rid of Susskind's streaks, he even changes his hotel. But the very next day the mysterious sweetie appears again and asks him a third time for a suit (p. 86). When Fidelman again angrily rejects him, the refugee replies that he doesn't always want to take, but would, if he had something, give it to him ( "I don't wish to take only. If I had something to give you, I would give it to you. " , P. 86). In response to Fidelman's remark that he should just grant him a little peace of mind ( “some peace of mind” , p. 87), the stranger replied as he parted that Fidelman had to find it himself.

In the evening Fidelman was horrified to discover in his hotel room that his briefcase with the only copy of his manuscript had been stolen. For him, only Susskind comes into question as a thief, even if he has not the slightest evidence for his suspicions ( "Though Fidelman had not the slightest shred of evidence to support his suspicions he could only think of one person - Susskind." , P. 88).

From this point on, the action is reversed; the persecutor becomes the persecutor. It is true that Fidelman refrains from referring to the refugee who has no identity card in his report on the Questura , who is already on record because of crimes of adult distress, so as not to cause further trouble (p. 89). Nevertheless, he only has one thought left: He must find Susskind in order to win back his manuscript, which for him is the only basis for a better future. Tormented by dreams of fear, almost completely confused and unable to do any further work, Fidelman then combed the streets of Rome for three months in search of the sweet kid who had disappeared without a trace (p. 89 ff.). He is now wearing a blue beret, a trench coat and a pair of Italian shoes (p. 91).

Despite the previously rejected offer, Susskinds is increasingly becoming a “guide” who leads him through the Eternal City. In his search for the disappeared, Fidelman discovers another Rome beyond the ancient churches and museums: in the slums of Rome, instead of the angels in the art-historical works of the old masters (p. 80), he now encounters beggars, illegal peddlers and prostitutes who address him everywhere (p. 90 f.). At the same time he roams through the slums of the Jewish ghetto and comes across victims of mass extermination in an icy synagogue and in winter cemeteries (pp. 92–94). In the synagogue where Susskind prays, for example, he learns that the synagogue servant's son was among the 335 hostages who were shot in the massacre in the Ardeatine Caves in 1944 on the orders of Herbert Kappler , the German commander of the security police in Rome (P. 92), and during his visit to the Cimiterio Verano cemetery , in whose Jewish section Susskind occasionally prays for the dead, reads an admonishing epitaph ( “O Crime Orribile” ), which recalls the barbaric crimes in the Auschwitz concentration camp (p . 93 f.).

Finally, shortly before Christmas, he found the alleged thief on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica , who ironically sells rosaries to tourists there (p. 95 f.). Even the promise of a reward for getting the briefcase back cannot persuade the Schnorrer to hand over the manuscript (p. 96 f.). Fidelman therefore secretly follows Susskind into his poor dwelling in the Jewish ghetto and searches his room, albeit unsuccessfully (p. 97 f.).

Kirchner - Schlemihl's encounter with the shadow
Giotto's fresco from the Basilica of San Francesco : St. Francis hands his cloak to an arm, 1297-1300

At night he appears to him in a dream, Susskind, who rises from a grave in a cemetery as a floating shadow. After asking what art is used for, the spirit leads him through the ghetto into a synagogue and draws his attention to that fresco by Giotto ( San Francesco dona le vesti al cavaliere povero ) in the synagogue dome that shows St. Francis as he is his golden cloak presented to a scantily clad old knight (p. 98 f.).

Startled, Fidelman wakes up from his dream and immediately rushes to Susskind's quarters to give him his suit. When he leaves, Susskind gives him the pigskin folder that has disappeared, but it is empty. As Fidelman now realizes, Süsskind lit the manuscript on Giotto with a candle and burned it when he arrived. When Fidelman angrily insults and threatens him, the sweetie just replies before he goes on the run: “I did you a favor. [...] There were only words, but the spirit was missing! "( " I did you a favor. [...] The words were there but the spirit was missing. " , P. 100).

During a wild chase through the Jewish ghetto, Fidelman suddenly comes across "an overwhelming insight" ( "a triumphant insight" , p. 100). Half sobbing, the sweet child calls out that everything has been forgiven ( “All is forgiven” , p. 100). This continues, however, until it disappears from view ( "[...] but the refugee ran on. When last seen he was still running." , P. 100).

Interpretative approach

Already in the introductory part of the exhibition it is indicated that the protagonist Arthur Fidelman is looking for himself. In the new surroundings of Rome he believes he can shed his past and find a better life. Outwardly dressed as a traveler with a mustache as a sign of a new beginning, Fidelman, the Jewish boy from the Bronx (p. 80), keeps his most precious asset, the first chapter of his Giotto book, carefully guarded in a new pigskin folder, which he does not out of hand. Like an emblem, this manuscript symbolizes his hope for a successful future in his new identity. At the same time, the shabby old suitcase he borrowed from his sister and which is embarrassing to him reveals that although he wants to turn away from the past it represents, it still carries the indispensable signs of his failed past with it. Like many other figures in contemporary Jewish-American literature, he will have to decide whether he wants to be Jewish or American, "Fidelman" or "Arthur".

As soon as he arrives, he is greeted with “Shalom” and his past in the form of Susskind catches up with him. Shortly before, Fidelman, reflecting in the stranger's eyes, had the feeling of " seeing himself down to the smallest detail as he was now" ( "the sensation of suddenly seeing himself as he was" , p. 74) and felt a "bittersweet pleasure" ( bittersweet pleasure , p. 74). His romantic self-overestimation as a sensitive person full of deep feeling stands in ironic contrast to the personally told text; the central themes of the narrative, the contradiction between existence and appearance, the question of cultural identity and the shaping of the present by the past are already laid out in the beginning of the narrative when the frightened tourist Fidelman is approached by the bizarre stranger at the train station .

Illustration: The Wandering Jew by Samuel Hirszenberg, 1899
St. Peter's Basilica in Rome
Menorah in a Jewish synagogue
Catacombs in Rome

Fidelman, the naive and inexperienced Schlemihl from America, who wanted to flee the contradictions of his own existence in the art history of the Trecento with the money borrowed from his sister (p. 78) and with great plans , stands up to the demolished "Schnorrer" (p. 75 ) and bon vivants or “luftmensch” ( “I eat air” , p. 83) opposite, the epitome of the wandering or eternal Jew and Ahasuerus ( “I'm always running” , p. 76; German: “I am always on the run. ”), who had to flee from Germany, Hungary and Poland and could not find a new home in Israel either (p. 76). The confrontation with the adversities of his own history and that of his people becomes inevitable for the art student, who at best knows history from books ( “He had read” , p. 80), but not as Susskind has experienced firsthand. The contrast that emerges in this way also points to the inevitable conflict not only between the art critic and the life artist, but also between thinking and doing or between theory and practice.

When asked by Susskind whether he was in Rome as a professor with a grant (p. 77), Fidelman compares himself to Trofimov, the tutor Trofimov from Chekhov's comedy Der Kirschgarten (p . 77). In this way, he characterizes himself in an unknowing foresight at the same time more revealing than he suspects: he will learn far more important things than he had planned.

For the time being, Fidelman, who doesn't want to forego any of his suits, manages to fob off Süsskind with an alms. Full of ambition, he throws himself into his art history studies and dedicates himself entirely to the art treasures of the Eternal City. He experiences the history of the city, which appears to him as mysterious ( "mysterious" , p. 80), as a disturbing sensual experience ( "sensuous experience [...] excited his thoughts more than he thought good" , p. 80) which for him is “uplifting and depressing” at the same time ( “It uplifted and depressed” , p. 80).

A week later, however, Susskind suddenly appears in front of him again, asks again for a suit and is fobbed off again with a small amount of money. At this second encounter there was a meaningful exchange of words when Fidelman, in a variation of Cain's self-righteous question from Genesis "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4: 9), indignantly asks Susskind why he was for him should be responsible (p. 83 f.). Susskinds replies that he is responsible because he is a person and a Jew. In doing so, he not only appeals to the ethical-cultural belief principle of brotherhood and mutual responsibility of all Jews for one another, but at the same time points to the more universal motive of human pity or vicarious suffering as the basis of humanity, which is also found in other works by Malamud such as B. The Assistant plays a central role.

However, as a self-proclaimed individualist ( “single individual” , p. 84), Fidelman initially rejects such an obligation and at the same time shows his profound alienation from his own cultural heritage. Although he tries to evade the stalking of the homeless refugee without ID (p. 78f., 82 and 84), Susskind visits him again and asks for a suit a third time. When Fidelman, trembling in full anger, rejects it as “completely irresponsible” ( “utterly irresponsible” , p. 86) without being aware of the irony of his statement, Susskind once again varies the theme of active compassion that unites people when saying goodbye and established their humanity . He points out that both the giver and the recipient should be involved in this compassion: he does not always want to take, but would give it if he had something (p. 86). Fidelman and Susskind met three times at this point; The art critic, alienated from his own culture, three times, as did Simon Petrus his master , denied his humanity and failed as a person.

With the disappearance of the manuscript on the evening after this third encounter, Malamud's story reaches its first climax, which at the same time leads to a turning point in the plot. From now on the roles of the persecutor and the persecuted alternate. Despite the unfounding of his suspicions, Fidelman is convinced that only Susskind could have stolen the manuscript, and goes on a desperate search for the thief. Since there is no way for him to reconstruct the lost first chapter of his work on Giotto, he feels deprived of the only basis for the hoped-for better future. He is no longer able to work and is plagued by anxiety dreams and increasingly disoriented ( “growing anxiety, almost disorientation” , p. 90) through the streets of Rome in search of the sweet child who has disappeared without a trace. The art critic who believes he has to keep the distance of an uninvolved observer and who regards any kind of emotional sympathy or excitement as inappropriate for a critic (p. 80), but loses his humanity in the process, now becomes a directly and existentially affected person. From then on, tormenting emotions take the place of cool rationality ; Susskind's offer, which had previously been rejected several times, to accompany Fidelman as a tour guide is now being ironically fulfilled.

Fidelman's appearance is also changing; from the traveling art students and tourists, who - like his clothes and the scene at dinner in the Trattoria as it symbolically show - remained a stranger, even if he ostensibly tried to adapt (f S. 84th), will - by the change of clothing also symbolized metaphorically - a person who can no longer be easily distinguished, who from now on wears “a pair of black Italian shoes” instead of the eye-catching ox-blood-colored shoes. The former theorist, who at best tried to reflect on the problems of the past from a distance, is now faced with the practical handling of his present problems of existence; Instead of the theoretical preoccupation with art history, there is a confrontation with the history of suffering of his people, from which he previously tried to escape. For example, he had dismissed Susskind's allusion to the pogroms and the mass extermination in the history of his people by pointing out that everything was “so long ago” ( “so long ago” , p. 76); the Italian Renaissance seemed closer to him than Auschwitz.

His search leads him to the unheated synagogue of the Sephardim (p. 91 f.), Into the labyrinth of stinking slums full of rubbish in the inhumane Jewish ghetto (p. 93) and to the cemeteries abandoned on the Sabbath , whose countless gravestones inevitably represent the atrocities of the Testify to the extermination camp (p. 93 f.). The sublime and previously uplifting history of great art is replaced by the history of the little people, who depresses him more and more, but, as he must admit , at the same time enriches his life for years ( “oppressed by history ... it added years to his life " , p. 93). The frenetic three-month hunt for the missing manuscript, which lies like a curse on him (p. 94), turns into a search for his own identity (p. 95). In his imagination, he sees himself increasingly entangled with the enigmatic personality of Susskind ( “entangled with Susskind's strange personality” , p. 94). The lost chapter turns out to be more and more a part of his past and thus of himself; his trip to Europe thus becomes an “ initiation journey with the aim of a painful self-discovery ”.

Tellingly, shortly before Christmas, Fidelman finally tracks down the vanished sweetie on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica . He now wears the same clothes as Fidelman ( “beret and long GI raincoat” , p. 95); the two have also outwardly assimilated, the naive, historyless and "innocent" Jew from America has meanwhile bitterly made the missing experiences and identified his alter ego in Susskind . Already in the early part of the story is a symbolic foreshadowing find in this inextricable link between the Schlemihl and the scroungers, as "catalytic figure" ( "catalytic character" ) the change in Fidel Mans personality triggers.

When Susskind first appeared, it was not just by chance that he appeared in front of a stone plinth of the Etruscan she- wolf, who once suckled Romulus and Remus . Just like the mythological founders of the Eternal City, Fidelman and Susskind are like twins. When Fidelman discovers the refugee, who ironically sells rosaries ( “rosaries” , p. 95), the narrator immediately comments on this with the remark “ecco, Susskind!” (P. 95), which, like the dating of the event, is based on the pre-Christmas period now refers to Pontius Pilatus and his “ Ecce homo ” in biblical symbolism .

In various passages of the narrative, Susskind is described by the narrator either as "strangely motionless, an unfeeling statue" ( "oddly motionless, an impassioned statue" , pp. 78, 82 and 84)) or as constantly on the run ( "in flight. .. always running ” , p. 76 and 100 f.); in a standing pose he serves as a mirror for Fidelman and as a guide in the escape movement. He seems to have psychic abilities, so to speak, and discovers Fidelman in each of his hidden accommodations. As soon as Fidelman looks at depictions of angels, Susskind appears instead out of nowhere (p. 80 ff.) And now stands like a symbol in front of St. Peter's Basilica as an eternal reminder. Also through the allusion in the title of the story to James Fenimore Cooper's “ last Mohican ” and the hidden allusion to Uncas in other parts of the short story, as it were in an intertextual parody (for example, the narrator compares Susskind with a “cigar store Indian” , P. 78) the meaning of the "ecco, Susskind!" Is further emphasized. At the same time, this reference suggests that Fidelman, like Pilate, tried to wash his hands in innocence by rejecting responsibility for the refugee.

When Fidelman secretly searched Susskind's poor dwelling in the ghetto, “a pitch-black, ice-cold cave” ( “a pich black freezing cave” , p. 97) for the manuscript on the following day , he, who had previously only known self-pity, found himself in Susskind's misery fully aware. The initially superficial reference in the story that he never fully recovered from this visit ( "from the visit he never fully recovered" , p. 98) indicates that Fidelman's previous self-centeredness is dissolving and he is faced with an insight that completely changes him stands.

Immediately after the manuscript was stolen, he had already dreamed in a first, for him initially unclear, revelation dream that he was pursuing with a seven-armed candelabrum ( “with a seven-flamed candelabrum” , p. 88), ie the ritual-ritual Jewish menorah in hand the fugitive sweet child through the old Jewish catacombs under the Via Appia. But Susskind knows the caves and passages exactly and disappears again and again until Fidelman remains "blind and lonely" in the "dark of the grave" after the candles have gone out ( "leaving him sightless and alone in the cemetrial dark" , p. 88).

Illustration to the Inferno in Dante's Divine Comedy by Gustave Doré, 1857

In the search for Susskind, the story of his people and the victims of terror and persecution is revealed to him; In retrospect, it also turns out to be bitter irony that the first historical sight that he sees with great enthusiasm immediately after his arrival in Rome is of all things the ruins of Diocletian's baths (p. 74), the infamous Roman emperor who, through his brutal persecution of Christians went down in history. When Susskind offered his services as a tour guide, he also suggested that Fidelman should first visit these thermal baths, because inside “there are some wonderful Roman sarcophagi ” ( “There are some enjoyable Roman coffins inside.” , P. 79).

The coffin and grave symbolism and metaphor that can already be heard in the beginning is condensed in many ways in the description of Fidelman's three-month odyssey on the feverish search for Susskind and the missing manuscript. The numerous references to caves, catacombs, cemeteries, tombstones and coffins as well as the description of the narrow, crooked ( “crooked” , p. 92), labyrinthine ( “mazed” , p. 93) slums of the Jewish ghetto, in which the people in "dark holes" ( "dark holes" , 93) life, the access motifs wasteland theme Eliot to vary the Malamud in other of his works.

In this symbolic journey to the self, Fidelman's search for identity becomes a Descensus ad inferos , a descent into the depths of the unconscious. In another revelation dream after visiting Susskind's home, Fidelman finds himself again in a cemetery with gravestones close together. A shadow rises from an empty grave, waving as “Virgilio Susskind” (p. 98). Virgil acts as a guide through the underworld in Dante's Commedia Divina ; Susskind, who offered himself as a “guide” several times and who Fidelman was looking for in Piazza Dante, among other places (p. 90), thus becomes the mentor of the “initiation journey through his own inferno and purgatorio ”.

Before Susskind's shadow figure floats away in Fidelman's dream, she asks him whether he had read Tolstoy and what the purpose of art is ( “Have you read Tolstoy? ... Why is art?” , P. 98). These two questions point the dreaming Fidelman to his real existential core problem; the title of Tolstoy's What is Art? is subtly transformed into the question of the meaning and purpose of art and, moreover, at the same time into the question of the meaning of life. In a dream Fidelman follows his guide into that synagogue, in the dome of which he sees Giotto's famous fresco about the gift of St. Francis of Assisi on the mantle. The dreamed-of synopsis of the real Susskind, whom Fidelman has been looking for for three months, with Dante's literary figure Virgil, who leads his protégé through the world in Dante's work, leads Fidelman to the very fresco Giottos he is working on. The fusion of the fresco with the synagogue, in which he was looking for Fidelman, and the critical work of Tolstoy, who after his spiritual crisis rejected all art as long as it does not serve moral purposes, results in a “shock of recognition” at Fidelman as in one Joyce's epiphany was a decisive insight that changed him and his life profoundly.

Fidelman, who was unwilling to give one of his suits to someone in need, but presumed to interpret the very image of Giotto's gift in the cloak, finally recognizes “with shock the whole mendacity of his existence and the deep gap between his arrogance as a critic and his failure as a person, between idealistic thinking and selfish doing ”. With the association with the name Tolstoy and the meaning of the unselfish gift to a needy shown in Giotto's picture, Malamud's statement in this short story is also made clear: Art must be related to life; an American Jew who denies his story and presumptuously imagines that he can interpret the painting of the Trecento critically is no less contradictory than a Jewish refugee who offers rosaries in front of the Vatican Basilica.

At the same time frightened and transformed, Fidelman awakens from his dream. His plan to write a critical masterpiece about Giotto ( “Giotto reborn!” , P. 94, German: “A rebirth of Giotto!”) Has become meaningless; instead, paradoxically triggered by the loss of the manuscript, he experiences his own spiritual rebirth through Susskind's leadership in the Jewish ghetto. When he visits the refugee in his room to hand over his suit, he no longer demands anything in return ( “Nothing at all” , p. 100). Susskind then hurries after him and hands him the pigskin folder that has been missing for a long time (p. 100). What previously could not be achieved through promises or demands, now does a good deed: Fidelman gets his most precious possession back.

The last and most difficult step is still pending. When Fidelman opens the bag, he notices that it is empty; Susskind previously burned the pages of the manuscript with a candle (p. 100). When Fidelman pursues the fleeing sweetie and threatens him, he asks for “mercy” ( “Have mercy” , p. 100) and calls out to him that he has only done him a favor, since it was only a matter of words, to whom the Lack of spirit (p. 100). During the further wild chase, the breathless Fidelman comes at the end of that last “overwhelming insight” ( “triumphant insight” , p. 100), which concludes his process of change and purification: for him accepting defeat is also a triumph. Although he lost the first chapter of his Giotto manuscript, he “won back a buried chapter in his own life story and learned the painful lesson of selflessness”.

Narrative design

The three decisive months in the life of the Jewish-American protagonist are described in this conventionally structured short story by Malamud with exposition, rising action , periphery , falling action and denouement in an almost regular alternation between scenic representation and summarily raspy report.

When Susskind, the Schnorrer, has fulfilled his task as a mentor for Fidelman, Schlemihl, the narrative perspective changes in the final sequence from the previously predominantly personal to authoritative narration. The story ends with a final sentence that is typical of Malamud's parable tales: “He stopped, but the fugitive kept walking. He was still running when he disappeared from view ”( “ He came to a dead end but the refugee ran on. When last seen he was still running. ” , P. 100).

On the one hand, Malamud's The Last Mohican is a realistically designed narrative that takes place in the concrete reality of the 1950s and is clearly anchored in reality through precise geographical and historical information. On the other hand, this short story with its rich intertextual allusions and literary, biblical, historical, motivic and symbolic references is at the same time a timelessly valid parable. With the help of this rich network of symbolic-motivic allusions or echoes, Malamud varies a fundamental, timeless problem of interpersonal existence in his narrative, which opens up an almost mythical dimension of meaning through the subtly structured network of associations .

What is also striking in the narrative design is the often comical -looking combination of banality and pathos that is also characteristic of Malamud's narrative style , especially in the scenic representation of the passages spoken by Susskind. The dialogues gain an unadulterated sound of authenticity and immediacy through Yiddish distortions, for example unspecified questions, strange ellipses or unusual abbreviations. At the same time, humorous images or comparisons that bring the incongruent together or force them together reinforce the comic effect and generate ironic distance. This lightness in the narrative tone intensifies the thematic depth and tragedy of the dialogues about the inevitability of human suffering and the necessity of interpersonal responsibility and creates immediate sympathy on the part of the reader. The narrator also combines realistic-naturalistic with lyrical-symbolic elements in numerous places. This juxtaposition of the "everyday and the extraordinary, the trivial and the transcendent" as well as socially critical details and allegorical references creates a fictional frame of reference in which it becomes possible for Malamud to deal with rather trite topics in Western literature such as the search for identity, the shaping of the present by the past or the To shape the discrepancy between being and appearance and the problematic relationship between art and life or the painful development from naive innocence to disillusioned experience in a new and effective way. In this way, the confrontation of widely varied types such as the Schlemihl and the Schnorrer, the would-be artist or art critic or the “luftmensch” and Ashaverus on the one hand and the carefully constructed network of diverse references to literary names and works become a unique, realistic and symbolic one -allegorically inflated narrative.

Impact history

American literature since Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Fenimore Cooper has been characterized in a characteristic way by the contrast between innocence and experience (German: "innocence and experience"). With Mark Twain and Henry James , too , this contradiction is taken up again and again in different variations of the international theme and symbolized as a confrontation of the “American Adam” , ie the naive, innocent American, with a history-laden, corrupt Europe. In modern American literature, this discrepancy in the experience of the old continent by tourists or travelers from the USA plays just as important a role as the stories by Saul Bellow , JD Salinger , James Baldwin and John Updike show. In this respect, Malamud's “Italian Stories” follow the tradition of American prose, but gain a new aspect of their own from the subject. Rome, as the embodiment of the splendor and misery of Western history, becomes the scene of the encounter between the innocent, historyless American Jew and his European opponent, who is characterized by the confusion and atrocities in European history.

In The Last Mohican , at the same time as the hero's initiation into the recognition of his failure and the acceptance of his existence as Schlemihl, Malamud develops a narrative pattern that forms the basis for five further episodes from the life of the protagonist, which were summarized in novel form in 1969 under the title Pictures of Fidelman: An Exhibition . Central themes of this first episode, such as B. the relationship between art and life, the relationship between the present and the past or the problem of finding or denying identity as well as humanity and interpersonal responsibility are continually varied in the other parts. In the second episode, also set in Rome, Fidelman turns again to painting, falls in love with the wrong woman, confuses love with sexuality and, after a series of humiliations, loses his self-respect and dignity. However , the "overwhelming insight" gained in The Last Mohican gets into the necessity of interpersonal responsibility, which already played a fundamental role in the 1957 novel The Assistant , largely in the five subsequent episodes, which were written over a period of eleven years up to 1968 in Oblivion. For this reason, objections to the publication of Pictures of Fidelman: An Exhibition as a unified novel were asserted in literary criticism .

The conspicuous mixture of realistic-naturalistic narration and lyrical-symbolic representation as well as the juxtaposition of the everyday and the extraordinary or the trivial and the transcendental in this narrative by Malamud also characterizes his other novels or short stories and corresponds to his literary theoretical postulate that contemporary prose “neither affects the poetic Representation of the individual may still be limited to the realistic portrayal of reality ”. As the author demanded at a conference at Princeton University in April 1963, narrative works must combine both and endeavor to create “more than the merely realistic” (Eng .: “more than the merely realistic”). Archetypal figures such as Schlemihl or “Luftmensch” accordingly form the basis for many of his protagonists as well as for the motivic depiction of the world as a grave or a dark cave that pervades his short stories and novels.

In addition, The Last Mohican also reflects Malamud's intensive preoccupation with European literature alongside his examination of the Yiddish and American storytelling traditions, as shown by the diverse literary, art-historical and other intertextual references. Characteristic of Malamuds entire work is in this short story and the shock of recognition or the sudden insight of the hero, which causes a profound personality change and the epiphanies at Joyce recalls.

Furthermore, a fundamental factor is decisive for the overall statement of this story, which Malamud has repeatedly emphasized in numerous speeches and interviews, namely that it is the task of the writer to make a contribution to the restoration of humanity and the preservation of civilization from self-destruction: "My work, all of it, is an idea of ​​dedication to the human. That's basic to every book. If you don't respect man, you cannot respect my work. I'm in defense of the human " .

Accordingly, Malmud's story, like his complete works, cannot be classified exclusively in the category of Jewish-American literature. His much-quoted statement "All men are Jews" (Eng. "All people are Jews") applies equally to The Last Mohican . Similarly, such as Frank Alpine, The Assistant (1957, dt. The assistant ) or the long-suffering Jewish Schneider Manischevitz and the black Jewish Angel Alexander Levine in Angel Levine are Malamuds protagonists in The Last of the Mohicans not only representatives of a particular ethnic or religious group, but at the same time "representatives of all people who suffer and strive for moral behavior". In this respect, from Malamud's point of view, “everyone who endures and endures is a Jew”.

Others

Malamud himself said in 1963 in the New York Times about the protagonist of the story with his mother's maiden name: “Oh, yes, he's a favorite, and I'm still involved with him - the problem of the artist manqué, the man who wants to find himself in art. I hope [...] that he may find himself both in art and self-knowledge ” (German roughly:“ Oh, yes, I particularly like him, and I am still dealing with him - the problem of the failed Artist, the man who wants to find himself in art. I hope [...] that perhaps one day he will find himself both in art and in self-knowledge ”).

Malamud himself lived in Italy for a long time. It is therefore not surprising that The Last Mohican and its other European-set stories are set in Italy, and preferably Rome. As Malamud himself said, Italians and Jews have something in common.

expenditure

The Last Mohican was first published in book form in 1958 in the The Magic Barrel collection by Farrar, Straus & Cudahy Verlag in New York, which was also reissued in 1973 as a Penguin paperback edition. Shortly after it was first published in 1958, the story was also included in the anthology The Best American Short Stories . In 1969, Last Mohican appeared together with five other artist stories with the main character of the Jewish-American painter and art student Arthur Fidelman , published between 1958 and 1968, as the first episode of Pictures of Fidelman: An Exhibition published by the publisher as a picaresque novel .

The three different versions of the short story show slight stylistic and textual differences. For example, the statement "Fidelman [...] did not look particularly Jewish" is missing in the later versions. The German transmission by Annemarie Böll was published in 1968 under the title The Last Mohican as a licensed edition by Kiepenheuer and Witsch Verlag in paperback form by Fischer Verlag , Frankfurt a. M. and Hamburg, published.

The English edition of Last Mohican has since been included in various collections, in German-speaking countries for example in Bernard Malamud: Idiots First and Other Stories , edited by Willi Real, Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1981, ISBN 3-506-43025-4 , p. 73-100.

Secondary literature

  • Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 . Athenäum Verlag, 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , pp. 180–242, here mainly pp. 230–235.
  • Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-503-01225-7 , pp. 205-214. Republished in: Peter Freese: The American Short Story - The American Short Story. Langenscheid-Longman Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-526-50864-X , pp. 287-297.
  • Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's "Last Mohican" . In: American Studies in Scandinavia , Vol. 19, 1987, pp. 57-69. (see also web links)
  • Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching . Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1981, ISBN 3-506-43026-2 , pp. 68-95.
  • Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in single representations (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 412). Kröner, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Peter Freese : Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 . Athenäum Verlag, 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , p. 232 f. See also Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-503-01225-7 , pp. 205 f. Likewise Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” . In: American Studies in Scandinavia , Vol. 19, 1987, pp. 58-60, and Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching . Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1981, ISBN 3-506-43026-2 , pp. 72 ff. And 77 ff.
  2. ↑ Text references and quotations are taken from the edition edited by Willi Real (see editions below).
  3. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 . Athenäum Verlag, 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , p. 232. See also Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-503-01225-7 , p. 205.
  4. ↑ See also Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 . Athenäum Verlag, 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , p. 232 f. Likewise Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-503-01225-7 , pp. 205 f.
  5. ↑ See also Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 . Athenäum Verlag, 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , p. 233 f. Likewise Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-503-01225-7 , p. 207. Likewise Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” . In: American Studies in Scandinavia , Vol. 19, 1987, pp. 60 f.
  6. ↑ a b cf. Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 . Athenäum Verlag, 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , p. 234. Likewise Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-503-01225-7 , p. 208. Likewise Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching . Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1981, ISBN 3-506-43026-2 , p. 68.
  7. ↑ The German translation of this English text passage ( “In this latest dream of Fidelman's he was spending the day in a cemetery [...]” , p. 98) by Annemarie Böll (“Er träumte wieder von Fidelman”, p. 63) is misleading or incorrect here.
  8. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 205 f. See also Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 232 f., And Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 78 ff.
  9. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 206. See also Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 233, and Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 78 ff. Similarly, Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” , p. 58
  10. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 206. See also Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 233. See also Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , pp. 74 and 93 f. In this context, Real also refers to the ironic discrepancy between Fidelman's self-assessment and his actual inability to cope with life's practical problems as a “theorist”. (see e.g. text on p. 85).
  11. ↑ See Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 93 f. See also Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 206 f., And Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 233. For the meaning of this passage, see also Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” , p. 63 f.
  12. ↑ See also Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 207, and Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 233 f.
  13. ↑ Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 233 f. See also Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , pp. 81 ff. And 89 ff.
  14. ↑ On the meaning of the metaphor of the suit, see also Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 81 ff.
  15. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 207. See also Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” . In: American Studies in Scandinavia , Vol. 19, 1987, p. 66. Ahokas goes into more detail on the intertextual references and allusions in Malamud's story to the New Testament and the amalgamation of Jewish and Christian symbolism; Susskind's first name "Shimon" represents z. B. also has a symbolic-associative reference to Simon Peter; The surname Susskind (sweet child) also extends this Christian-symbolic level of meaning with the associative allusion to Christ. See ibid, pp. 60 ff. And 65.
  16. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 207 f. See also Peter Freese: The American short story after 1945 , p. 234. Likewise Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 84 ff. Real sees here at the same time the signs of an incipient disintegration of Fidelman's previous personality (cf. ibid, p. 85).
  17. ↑ On the symbolism and metaphor of clothing, see Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , pp. 78, 85 and 91 f.
  18. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 208. See also Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , pp. 78 and 86.
  19. ↑ Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 234. See also more detailed on this interpretation approach Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , pp. 208 f., And Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 78 f., P. 82 f. and 85 f. This essentially corresponds to the interpretative approach of Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” , who interprets Fidelman's European tour as a process of his inner transformation ( “inner transformation” ) leading to a “spiritual and physical rebirth ”of the“ innocent ”American ( “ the> innocnet <American's entry to Europe suggestive of ... spiritual and physical rebirth ” , p. 59).
  20. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 208 f., And Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” , p. 63.
  21. ↑ See Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , pp. 83 and 87, and Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 208 f. See also Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's "Last Mohican" , p. 61.
  22. ^ On this interpretation, cf. Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , pp. 208 ff. See also Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 87. Real interprets the allusion to Uncas as an indication that Susskind is a person for whom there is no longer any place in this world. See also Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” , p. 61 ff. On Susskind's parody as the “last Mohican” .
  23. ^ Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 209. The humorous use of the archetypal symbols of the “cave” as a place of rebirth and the “fish” as a Christian symbol of life and knowledge in this Scene foreshadows Fidelman's spiritual rebirth. His newly acquired ability to empathize, however, is also ironically commented on when he observes the skinny goldfish in Susskind's small fishbowl. See Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's "Last Mohican" , p. 66
  24. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 209. See also Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 94 f.
  25. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations 209 f.
  26. ↑ Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 210. See also Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 234 f. Likewise Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 87 ff., And Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” , p. 67 f.
  27. ↑ See more detailed Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 210 f. See also Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 234 f. Likewise Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 87 ff. Likewise Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” , p. 67 f.
  28. ^ Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 210 f. See also Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , pp. 88–90.
  29. ↑ In his interpretation, Real points to the identical etymology of the two words "Giotto" and "Ghetto" . See Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 88.
  30. ^ Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 211.See also Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , p. 89 f. Similar to Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's "Last Mohican" , p. 68.
  31. ↑ a b cf. Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 211 f.
  32. ↑ In addition to the interpretation approach above, see the detailed explanations by Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” , pp. 58-68, and Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching , pp. 68–95
  33. ↑ See in detail Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (Ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 212 f.
  34. ↑ See e.g. B. Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations , p. 205. See also Pirjo Ahokas: Through the Ghetto to Giotto: The Process of Inner Transformation in Malamud's “Last Mohican” , p. 58 f.
  35. ^ Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 235 f.
  36. ↑ See the information from Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 233 f. and 239.
  37. ↑ See in more detail the information and evidence from Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , pp. 105–128, here p. 105.
  38. ↑ Cf. more precisely the information and evidence in Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , pp. 105–128, here p. 107. The quotation from Malumud is taken from this source.
  39. ^ Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , p. 120
  40. ↑ Quoted from Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 , p. 231.
  41. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Martin Christadler (ed.): American literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-520-41201-2 , p. 121
  42. ↑ See Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud . In: Peter Freese: The American Short Story after 1945 . Athenäum Verlag, 1974, ISBN 3-7610-1816-9 , p. 230 f., And Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-503-01225-7 , p. 213. See also Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching . Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1981, ISBN 3-506-43026-2 , pp. 68-60.
  43. ↑ See the information from Peter Freese: Bernard Malamud / The Last Mohican . In: Peter Freese (ed.): The American Short Story of the Present: Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-503-01225-7 , p. 213, and Willi Real: Last Mohican . In: Willi Real: Idiots First and other stories by Bernard Malamud · Interpretations and Suggestions for Teaching . Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1981, ISBN 3-506-43026-2 , p. 68.