Liu Ling recommends the introduction of world writers and works (113)

Beating Leather for Love (4)

Honestly, I don't like the title of this short story, "The First Seven Years," which seems a little less poetic. This story has long been familiar to many Chinese readers, and it is also a famous article of Malamud, reflecting the writer's superb artistic technique. Keen observation, very unique perspective, the author still uses the low-level characters of society as the object of the description. Story, readable, concise language, artistic tension, is Malamud's 1957 work, the novel even has a bit of classicism to read.

The novel writes the story of the shoemaker Feld. He was overworked, had a heart attack a few years earlier, and had a daughter named Miriam. There was also an assistant in the Feld shoe store named Sobel, a refugee who had fled from Poland, about thirty years old. Sobel is actually skillful, the technique of repairing shoes is no less than that of Feld, and he manages the shop very well, especially his loyalty, which makes the old shoemaker a lot easier.

Sobel had been with Feld for five years, and he was not interested in money, nor in books, nor in books. He had long been reading a large number of books to Miriam, and the daughter of the old shoemaker was particularly fond of reading. "In order not to let Sobel suffer, each time Feld paid him more than he wanted." Sobel was strange, and finally the old shoemaker came to the conclusion: "This man is an exile, has a terrible experience, and is afraid of contact with the outside world." ”

Feld wanted to choose a college student, Max, for his daughter, Miriam. "Neither the erratic white snow outside nor the memories of his wasted youth, snow-covered Polish villages could take his mind off a college student named Max." This poetic style is really immersive for the reader. Max came to fix the shoes, "A man came walking through the snow and blew the door open. Sobel, the old shoemaker's assistant, felt late and kept banging.

Feld painstakingly arranged for her daughter to meet with the university students, but she was not interested, but fell in love with Sobel, a Polish exile who had been unpaid, hard-working, and supporting her father and the shoe store for five years. Dehefeld wanted to marry Miriam to Max, and Sobel resigned on the spot. My daughter went on two dates with a college student.

As her father, when asked about dating, Miriam bluntly said that she didn't like Max and was bored with him. Because he has no soul, he is only interested in things, and he is the kind of person who is completely materialistic. Reading this, as an ordinary reader, I also feel a lot of feelings, and the society I am in at the moment, material supremacists, exquisite egoists have spread throughout the whole society, making people sad and sad. Here I cannot help but pay tribute to the little girl Miriam, which I believe is also sung by the great novelist Malmad.

The old shoemaker's hope for the future, his complex mood through the author's direct description of the details of the heart, vividly expressed, the character image is also portrayed very full, quite a knife skill. Halfway through, Feld also changed an assistant, which was unsatisfactory to use and stole his money, resulting in a heart attack.

He had to find Sobel, who had resigned (at the urging of his wife and daughter). The latter "went to the window and looked at the sad street." The assistant refused to go back to the shoe store.

But Sobel still couldn't help but tell Feld of his wish, he escaped from Hitler's furnace, came to the United States, fell in love with the little girl, for five years, every day is either cut or smashed, waiting for the girl to grow up. There was no way, in the face of love, this strange fugitive, poor man, had suffered so many sins, that perhaps only love could soothe his soul.

Feld's shoe store was indeed inseparable from Sobel, and after his anger disappeared, he conditionally agreed to the affair, but he needed Sobel to wait for her for two more years, and wait for his daughter to marry when she was twenty-one. "The falling snowflakes turned the streets white, but he felt much lighter as he walked."

This tear-jerking comedy ends cleanly. Sobel returned to the shoe store the next day, obsessed with love, and he continued to knock on the leather silently.