Temptations a book of short stories
David Pinski
The same traits that distinguish David Pinski as a playwright characterise him also as a writer of short fiction. The noted Yiddish author is concerned chiefly with the probing of the human soul,—not that intangible and inconsequential theme of so many vapourings, dubbed mystic and symbolistic by the literary labellers,—but the hidden mainspring that initiates, and often guides, our actions. Pinski seeks to penetrate into the secret of human motive. It is not enough for him to depict the deed; he would plumb, if possible, the genetic impulse. That is why, if he must be classified, one places him among the psychological realists. He is at his best faithful to both the inner and the outer life.Thus we find, in his numerous stories and plays, very little of the conventional heroism and villainism with which most authors are concerned, and very much of the deeply human at which the majority of authors shake their heads. This is not to say that Pinski's work lacks heroic figures; on the contrary, in a measure it constitutes a series of noble and ennobling portraits, representing men and women who meet life face to face and are scorched by its flames. So, too, there are less inspiring personages who compromise with life and their better selves. And in the background lurks our common humanity, faintly quick with the potentialities of ignominy or greatness.Despite his growing fame as one of the most significant dramatists now active, Pinski began his career as a writer of short stories. He has been recognised as the first Yiddish author to give artistic treatment to the Yiddish proletariat, and no small part of his life has been sacrificed to the cause of the oppressed and the disinherited. His earlier works, both in fiction and in the drama, were devoted to the depiction of life among the lowly, and it is characteristic of the man that he does not allow his personal views to mar his artistic product.It may be said that three chief periods have thus far appeared in the labours of the Yiddish author. First there is his proletarian "manner" in which the life, problems and aspirations of the Jewish workingman are portrayed in such masterly dramas as "Isaac Sheftel" (written at the age of twenty-seven) and such incisive commentaries as the best of the early tales, "Drabkin." Then there is the genre of the biblical reconstruction, in which ancient themes are utilised for the purpose of producing thoroughly contemporary works of art. Among his plays "The Dumb Messiah" and "Mary Magdalen" represent this phase of his skill, while among the stories, "Zerubbabel" and "Beruriah" would come under this category.There is also the treatment of sex problems, as evidenced by such plays as "Jacob the Blacksmith" and "Gabri and the Women," and tales like "The Awakening" and "The Black Cat."I must confess that I am not greatly concerned with the periods and "manners" of authors; classification has little to do with genuine literary appreciation. This is all the more true in a case like Pinski's, since the various phases of his work follow no chronological order, and often appear side by side, as it were, in the same work. Take for instance the first tale in this book, "Beruriah," which I consider one of the greatest short stories ever written, insofar as the wide reading of a single person in some half dozen or more languages can substantiate such a statement. Who shall say that the tale is mere reconstruction or elaboration of a Talmudic legend, or a problem in love, or a psychological study, or even a symbolic story? It is all of these, and something more.
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