He is balancing a mistress in each town, a pious Jewish wife at home, and sleeping with his assistant, and appears to be keeping everyone relatively happy – and separate. Yasha beings the story with boundless confidence. Only one such as he, Yasha, could unlock all souls” “Everyone was like a lock, each with his own key. This being a bleak story things almost immediately begin to go wrong, and the story charts Yasha’s rather spectacular fall. He has achieved some renown in Poland, but he dreams of ‘making it’ on a bigger, grander, stage in Italy or beyond. He lives a life of sin and vice, as a traveling magician. He practically leaps off the page with his self-importance and his completely contradictory love for his wife and obsession with one of his (many) mistresses. Yasha, the unlikeable, selfish, womanising, ‘hero’ of this tale is one of the most frustrating and vivid characters I have come across in a while. The Magician of Lublin is an interesting blend of timeless interactions across class divides and a time-capsule-esque setting of Jewish ‘shtetls’ in late 19th centuary Poland. A cautionary tale about the dangers of believing yourself to be beyond reproach.
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