The Magic Barrel

Mitka, the 20-something protagonist of “The Girl of My Dreams,” is a frustrated writer who lives semi-reclusively in a boarding house in a big city. Mitka longs for human connection, largely through his writing, but has recently burned the manuscript of his only completed novel because “lady editors” repeatedly rejected it as being too “obscure”—which suggests that Mitka may be too solipsistic to relate fully to others. He takes the criticism personally, since he regards his work as a quintessence of his very being. Consequently, upon burning it, he feels that he has burned a “hollow” in himself. Lonely, self-hating, and wasting away from self-abnegation, Mitka is peremptory and unpleasant in his dealings with others. Most notably, he angrily rejects the frequent offers of food, commiseration, and advice from Mrs. Lutz, his pushy but well-meaning landlady.

Though he sees himself as hard-headed and unsentimental, he quickly becomes obsessed with a seemingly young woman whose short story in a local paper makes him believe that he has found a kindred spirit. However, his horrified reaction to her physical reality—middle-aged, “hefty,” and plain (just like Mrs. Lutz)—suggests that he was hoping for either sex or romance, not just a meeting of two creative minds.