The Fourth Age (Chaotic) of Harold Blooms Canon (Part 11)
Explore Harold Bloom's chaotic Fourth Age canon, part 11—featuring Stanisław Lem's *Solaris*, Isaac Bashevis Singer's collected stories, and Sholem Aleichem's Tevye, in this curated list of essential fiction.
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Solaris
by Stanisław Lem
Kris Kelvin lands on the space station Solaris only to face a cruel miracle.
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The Investigation
by Stanislaw Lem
A young officer at Scotland Yard is assigned to investigate a puzzling and eerie case of missing-and apparently resurrected-bodies. To unravel the mystery, Lt. Gregory consults scientific, philosophical, and theological experts, who supply him with a host of theories and clues.
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Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories
by Sholem Aleichem
Of all the characters in modern Jewish fiction, the most beloved is Tevye, the compassionate, irrepressible, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, who has been immortalized in the writings of Sholem Aleichem and in acclaimed and award-winning theatrical and film adaptations. And no Yiddish writer was more beloved than Tevye’s creator, Sholem Rabinovich (1859–1916), the “Jewish Mark Twain,” who wrote under the pen name of Sholem Aleichem. Beautifully translated by Hillel Halkin, here is Sholem Aleichem’s heartwarming and poignant account of Tevye and his daughters, together with the “Railroad Stories,” twenty-one tales that examine human nature and modernity as they are perceived by men and women riding the trains from shtetl to shtetl.
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Satan in Goray
by Isaac Bashevis Singer
As messianic zeal sweeps through medieval Poland, the Jews of Goray divide between those who, like the Rabbi, insist that no one can "force the end" and those who follow the messianic pretender Sabbatai Zevi. But as hysteria and depravity increase, it becomes clear that it is not the Messiah who has come to Goray.
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Badenheim Nineteen-thirty-nine
by Aharon Apelfeld
A tale of Europe in the days just before the war. It tells of a small group of Jewish holiday makers in the resort of Badenheim in the Spring of 1939. Hitler's war looms, but Badenheim and its summer residents go about life as normal."
