Singer has a wonderful gift for peopling his tales, and these people are not folkish but are real people tormented by fear, interest, and passions that have moved in on them.

The theme of “possession” is common in Slavonic literature, notably in the stories of the Russian novelist Leskov who knew the mind of the common people better than any of the other great Russians of the nineteenth century. “Possession” need not have either a religious or magical context, but can simply be an insight: the unconscious moves an image into consciousness. For the storyteller this idea offers an extension of drama. The inner life intervenes and acts out its drama before our eyes, instead of being reduced to a record—say, the stream of consciousness—or an explanation. How far Singer believes in the black and white terms of the moral conflicts of his characters (the conflict between the absolute claims of Hassidic theology and its fluid mysticism with the picaresque or openness of humanism) it is hard to say. Mystics are often artful and have a way of winning whichever way you take them. He clearly adds something personal and perhaps exploits as prolific writers do. One really has to listen to his voice rather than his arguments, for it is a wily voice; and I would say the voice expresses loneliness, despair, and, finally, deep compassion.