A King of the Fields

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Book Overview

A fictional exploration of primitive history, Singer's novel portrays an age of superstition and violence in a country emerging from the darkness of savagery. Part parable of modern civilization, part fascinating historical novel, it reaffrims the author's reputation as a master storyteller.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374181284
• ISBN13: 9780374181284
• Release Date: October 1988
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Not Singer's best, but a good way to view his creative drives

This novel, a pre-history of Poland, is really a post-history of Isaac Singer. The concerns of his character and the characterization of this Poland is Singer's: a man who has a plural marriage (this time with a mother and daughter, sometimes it is two sisters, sometimes unrelated women), who grows disgusted with eating meat, and whose only faith is the belief in death. This is the end of The Family Moskat: "Death is the real Messiah, and that is the truth!" And here it is again, slightly less brilliant and stiring, but not without some drama and interest. Singer's Poland (like Singer's New York) is really about the difficulty of finding and maintaing belief in our world, a world that works to strip us of it with unbending will.

History?

Over the years, I have read this novel a number of times. Contrary to many interpretations of this work, I did not view it as a historical novel, at least not the history that is represented on the surface. Instead, it is the history of Poland, Christianity and Judaism now, then and every time in between. Furthermore, it is a story of the human condition. One should not approach this novel in a literal sense. If you do, you are bound to be disappointed.

good, but not the best from Singer

This book deals with transition between the society of hunters and gatherers into society of peasants who worked the land. Changes are difficult, old beleifs die hard, and at the dawn of civilization there were many cruel things hapenning. I wish I could beleive that human beings have made significant progress, but unfortunately that probably isn't true.