Asch fuses apocryphal and neo-romantic strains Bashevis is almost a naturalist, but given at times to hallucinations.Īsch deals with contemporary Polish Jewry, and even the American Jewish scene, as though he were writing about the ancient or mythical past. His images are precise, his effects are deliberate, and when he uses, as he often does, obsolete and archaic Yiddish, it is by choice, to create an atmosphere, and not for lack of linguistic resources. By contrast, Bashevis is a careful, meticulous craftsman. This rarely comes through the translation. Out of mutilated syntax, whorled phraseology, and entangled jargon, emerges an art primordial and overwhelming in its effect. Asch’s style, which always seems baroque and a bit too precious in translation, is a wondrous thing to behold in the original. The contrast is not merely personal Asch and Bashevis represent the two basic modes of Yiddish prose developed during the half-century embraced by their work. Like the originals of most of his recent books, the Yiddish version of The Prophet has remained in manuscript.Įven in translation one can sense how different these two writers are as Yiddish stylists. The Prophet, on the other hand, is Asch’s latest work, the fourth of his “neo-Christian” novels and perhaps the least successful. Satan in Goray established itself as a classic some twenty years ago, and is still so regarded. It is a little unfair to set The Prophet and Satan in Goray side by side, one of Asch’s poorest books, one of Bashevis Singer’s test.

The two foremost living Yiddish writers of fiction, seventy-five-year-old Sholem Asch and Isaac Bashevis Singer, younger by nearly a quarter of a century, are each represented on the publishers’ lists this season with a novel in English translation.

Satan in goray