"The Fixer" is a 1966 novel by American Jewish author Bernard Malamud, telling the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman who was imprisoned for blood libel in Czarist Russia. The novel is apparently based on the real life case of Menaham Mendel Beillis, with some changes and invention of Malamud's own.
There is a lot of context when anyone reads a book, or for that matter, purchases a book. I first learned about Malamud when someone suggested A New Life, a book specifically about... an English teacher who moves to Corvallis, Oregon, which is perhaps the most specifically a book could be designed for me. Despite that, I didn't read it. But Malamud's name was familiar to me when I saw "The Fixer" for sale on a bookstore table in San Jose, Costa Rica, one of the few English books available. The book was in a dispirited condition, but was being sold cheap, and I bought it because I wanted to read something in English. Also, tangentially related to this book, my arrival in Costa Rica coincided with the Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel's subsequent campaign of retribution. All of that was in the background as I read my ragged copy of "The Fixer", a book I have subsequently had to tape together to finish.
My book's ragged appearance matched the story. Yakov Bok starts as a poverty stricken, abandoned man living at odds with his family and community, and things become worse. The novel is full of scenes of the poverty, ignorance and brutality of imperial Russia, even before the real action begins. There is a slight hope scene---Yakov Bok finds a man collapsed in the snow, rescues him, and finds out that he is both an anti-Semite and the owner of a factory. For a brief time, things look like they are going okay, but soon, a boy dies, and Yakov is framed with blood libel. This is on page 62, and the next 200 pages of my edition were taken up with the the brutal and degrading conditions that Yakov suffers in prison while the authorities try to coax a confession out of him. Despite the grim subject matter, the book wasn't too depressing to read, and while not a traditional hero, the journey of Yakov as he accepts his fate and decides to stay true to principle is actually a heartening story.
There were two main things I took away from the book--- and both were outside of the main purpose of the text, perhaps, but relate to current geopolitical events.
First is the absolute officiousness of the Russian police, prosecutors and jailers. At the same time as they manufacture evidence against him, they honestly seem to be indignant when he disputes it. The government has all the trappings and decorations of a government of institutions---all while flagrantly abusing every concept of justice. But as long as there is "seriousness" to it, as long as the forged documents have the right stamps and ribbons, there is the attitude that everything should be taken as legitimate. Parallels with continued behavior by the current Russian Federation are obvious to me. Although, to be fair, in the real case this was based on, Beillis was exonerated by a jury.
The other thing is the obvious issue of anti-Semitism, and the grinding, persistent and terrifying persecutions that Jews in Europe suffered for centuries. I will say something about the issue of Israel and Palestine---while I think Israel's current actions are disproportionate and based on the idea of a special privilege as an ethnostate, it was hard to get through this book without realizing that so many of Israel's critics seem to be deliberately ignoring the background of Israel's creation. Asterisk, asterisk, asterisk, a reason isn't an excuse, but the point is, as a literary creation, this book managed to encapsulate all the feeling of oppression and fear into something that made me understand another viewpoint. Which is what books are supposed to do.
This book might not be the most fun thing to read, but is well told, and conveys both an experience, and a message, that I think is very important.