SOURCE: "The Scope of Caricature," in Bernard Malamud and the Critics, edited by Leslie A. Field and Joyce W. Field, New York University Press, 1970, pp. 137-50.

Bluefarb is an English-born educator and critic. In the following excerpt from an essay that originally appeared in English Journal, he comments on Salzman's cynicism.

In "The Magic Barrel," the title story of [The Magic Barrel], the services of one Pinye Salzman, marriage broker, are enlisted by a young rabbinical student on the verge of ordination. A friend of the rabbi suggests that he will find it easier to acquire a congregation if he gets married. Knowing no likely candidates himself, Leo Finkle, the young rabbi, is forced to turn to the doubtful services of Pinye Salzman, whom he has discovered advertised in the back pages of the Forward, the Yiddish daily newspaper.

The entire story is an almost stenographic record of...