The King of the Fields

Singer, Isaac Bashevis

ISBN 10: 0224026631 / ISBN 13: 9780224026635

Published by Jonathan Cape, London, 1989

About this Item

First UK edition hard cover, with unclipped dust jacket, both in very good condition. From the collection of W.L. Webb, the Guardian's literary editor for many years; review slip is laid in, and ownership penned to FEP. Light shelf and handling wear, including minor creasing and wear to DJ cover, edges and corners. Within, pages are tightly bound, and content is unmarked. CN.

Seller Inventory # 547077

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The King of the Fields
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape, London
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0224026631
• ISBN 13: 9780224026635
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First UK Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Book Type: Used
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature

About this title

Synopsis

The Nobel laureate's disappointing interpretation of primitive history, translated from the Yiddish by the author, depicts the transition of Poland from a a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural land whose new rulers "called themselves Poles because in their language pola meant field." This is not, as one might expect from Singer, a fanciful excursion into the realm of anthropological magic, charms and mysticism; rather, the earthbound characters spend much of their time raping, killing, acting out sexual perversions and tending to bodily functions. Women are paradoxically when they are not being dragged off by their hair and addressing their men as deities, they are powerful, amazonlike specimens. The novel also suffers from an incongruous time frameat least one character calls her father "Tatele," a Yiddish diminutive, and a Jewish cobbler from post-Talmudic Babylon and a Christian bishop somehow find themselves among the prehistoric Poles. This encounter allows Cybula, one in a succession of kings of the fields, to engage in simplistic philosophizing about the origins of the universe, god, the vicious cycle of human cruelties and the likethat is, when he isn't busy sleeping with both his wife and her mother.

About the Author

Isaac Bashevis Singer emigrated to New York from Poland in 1935 and found work with the Jewish Daily Forward. Author of many novels, collections of short stories, and books for children, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.
Isaac Bashevis Singer emigrated to New York from Poland in 1935 and found work with the Jewish Daily Forward. Author of many novels, collections of short stories, and books for children, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.