[Singer's] fables and stories, the inspired characters, rabbis, charlatans, whores, so good, so evil, are out of a world that can never be parochial, a world out of our childhood legends, out of medieval romance, out of episodic sagas. They are the stories that were once told to sustain life and community of an evening in any house, any town.

But being at least partially literary in origin, Singer's tales are also more sophisticated than we first imagine. It's astonishing how difficult it is to construe his work. As we read, we may conjure up Freud, the archetypal meanings of sudden death and transfiguration. But we are left, more than with any contemporary writer except perhaps Borges, with the story, the pure story. In Singer's balance of innocence and sophistication is really where his magic lies.

In a well known interview, Singer once said that he wrote "as...