National Lockdown & Reading Malamaud’s The Fixer #2 4/2/2020

About the writing in Bernard Malamud’s The Fixer  (1966), let me use this paragraph as an example of what I like about Malamud prose - light, evocative - as well as why it’s a bit rough for me, a prisoner to read him in an offhand manner.

Like a dog, thought Yakov. On his hands and knees he moved out into the corridor, then painfully toward the door leading to the stairs. Though he crawled slowly the pressure hurt his knees and he could not keep his battered feet from scraping the floor. But he forced himself not to cry out. The warden and infirmary aid had left, and a guard with a shotgun followed the fixer as he moved toward the concrete door. Going down the steep wooden steps, he had the weight of his body on his trembling arms, his feet bumping each step, and he more than once almost fell headlong down the stairs. When he paused, the guard provided him with the butt of his gun. Byu the time Yakov reached the bottom of the stairs both his hands were scraped raw, and both knees bled. His back was black with sweat and the veins bulged on his neck as he crawled forward along the corridor and out the prison door into the yard.

Chapter VI,; 1; p. 185

And about my reference to Kafka? How about this passage?

The newspaper strips he was given to clean himself with Zhitnyak forbade him to rea though yakov managed to read some of them anyway.

“It’s because you're an enemy of the state,” the guard said through the peephole. “They’re not allowed to read anything.”

p. 206

Just now - call it 9:15 am as I am without a watch - came another message over the PA that an inspection is coming. Then two more. I’m almost out of paper here. My arm is tired of writing. My eyes don’t want to be doing any more reading. I’m thinking of a shower except I don’t want to be in there if the counselors do start inspecting. Why must the speakers blare?..

I guess the inspector just stuck his nose into the quiet room. He greeted me and left. No one I knew. Remember this: the singer for The Fountains of Wayne died yesterday.

Sch