Word: dubin
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FICTION: Birdy, William Wharton Dubin's Lives, Bernard Malamud Fielder's Choice, edited by Jerome Holtzman ∙ Good as Gold, Joseph Heller ∙ SS-GB, Len Deighton ∙ The Coup, John Updike ∙ The Flounder, Günter Grass...
...Dubin's Lives, Malamud...
FICTION: Birdy, William Wharton Dubin's Lives, Bernard Malamud Fielder's Choice, edited by Jerome Holtzman ∙ Good as Gold, Joseph Heller ∙ SS-GB, Len Deighton ∙ The Coup, John Updike ∙ The Flounder, Gunter Grass
...book is more about things not happening. Connections are not made, decisions are not reached. Dubin, on his walks, sees his dearest friend on the road, cannot face him, hides behind a tree and lets him pass. He yearns to confide in his estranged daughter. When she finally tells him of her affair with a man even older than her father, offering Dubin a perfect opening to finally unburden himself about his love for Fanny Bick, he lets the opportunity pass. Instead he delivers a tired, paternal lecture, retreating into the mythical wisdom he supposedly possesses as a biographer intimate...
...Dubin is ultimately a coward--one more sympathetic to his plight (and nearer his age) might call him very human?--but in the end the book is wearing. He obviously sees himself as likable (as does Malamud), but it becomes harder and harder to understand why. The problem is that the book becomes too much like Dubin--one of those people who draw you into their lives with the message, "I can change, I want to change, all I need is for you to believe in me, love me and I will change." And it ends with Dubin sneaking...