Cynthia Ozick crafts stories that delve into the rich tapestry of Jewish tradition and the American experience with profound insight and precision. Her work, often imbued with intellectual depth and a keen sense of irony, explores the persistent tension between modernity and enduring faith. Ozick masterfully captures the complexities of the human spirit and the search for meaning in a restless world. Her distinctive prose is celebrated for its literary artistry and its power to evoke both deep emotion and critical thought.
Cynthia Ozick's collection showcases her literary journey through a selection of essays and short stories spanning over fifty years. In her essays, she tackles profound literary and moral questions while reflecting on the works of renowned authors. The included short stories reveal her stylistic brilliance and unique blend of history and myth, featuring titles such as "A Hebrew Sibyl" and "The Conversion of the Jews." This compilation serves as a testament to her deep engagement with literature and her insightful perspectives on the human experience.
"From one of our most pre eminent writers, a tale that captures the shifting meanings of the past, and how our experience colors those meanings. Lloyd Wilkinson Petrie, one of the seven surviving trustees of the now defunct (for 34 years) Temple Academy for Boys, is preparing a memoir of his days at the school, intertwined with a description of present events. As he navigates, with faltering recall, between the subtle anti-semitism that pervaded the school's ethos and his fascination with his own family history-in particular, his illustrious cousin, the renowned archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie (check out his Wikipedia entry!), the source of his interest in antiquity-he reconstructs the story of his encounter from his school days with a younger student named Ben-Zion Elefantin, who seems to belong to a lost ancient Jewish sect. From this seed emerges one of Ozick's most wondrous tales, one that displays her delight in Jamesian irony and the mythical flavor of a Kafka parable, woven into her own distinct voice"--
Die große amerikanische Erzählerin Cynthia Ozick ist neu zu entdecken mit dieser Variation von Henry James’ berühmtem Roman Die Gesandten. Zentrales Thema: Wie kann Liebe gewonnen und gepflegt, warum kann sie zerstört und verspielt werden?
Four stories of comedy, deception, and revenge, including one previously unpublished, from the acclaimed author of Heir to the Glimmering World.Cynthia Ozick’s new work of fiction brings together four long stories that showcase this incomparable writer’s sly humor and piercing insight into the human heart. Each starts in the comic mode, with heroes who suffer from willful self-deceit. These not-so-innocents proceed from self-deception to deceiving others, who do not take it lightly. Revenge is the consequence -- and for the reader, a delicious, if dark, recognition of emotional truth.The glorious new novella “Dictation” imagines a fateful meeting between the secretaries to Henry James and Joseph Conrad at the peak of their fame. Timid Miss Hallowes, who types for Conrad, comes under the influence of James’s Miss Bosanquet, high-spirited, flirtatious, and scheming. In a masterstroke of genius, Ozick hatches a plot between them to insert themselves into posterity.Ozick is at her most devious, delightful best in these four works, illuminating the ease with which comedy can glide into calamity.
The Bear Boy is a story specific to time and place, and about the dislocation of time and place too. It is set in 1935 at the only moment in history when the idea of socialism flickered to life in the United States, when Jewish intellectuals were fleeing out of the country where they were once respected writers and professors, and when a great many people were equal to each other in that the most had little material wealth.The oversize Mitwisser clan are German refugees who survive at the whim of their vagabond benefactor, James Albair. James is heir to the fortune amassed by his father, the author of a wildly popular series of children's books called The Bear Boy. Wayward, feckless and with money to burn, James has taken up the eccentric Mitwissers - scholarly patriach, invalid wife, and five scrappy children - as his latest caprice.
Due racconti: in un campo di concentramento, una madre ebrea cerca di proteggere la figlia neonata; trent'anni dopo, in Florida, la stessa donna ormai anziana e sull'orlo della follia incontra un uomo. Una madre, una figlia, una nipote. Tre figure femminili travolte dalla Storia e dai suoi orrori. Un indumento magico, un feticcio: lo scialle che protegge e nasconde. In pagine sobrie ed essenziali, con pochi, nitidi tratti, Cynthia Ozick cerca di narrare l'inenarrabile: l'esperienza del lager, la sopravvivenza al lager. "Lo scialle" è stato pubblicato per la prima volta da Garzanti nel 1990.
Yearning for a life of the mind, Ruth Puttermesser finds herself mired in the lowest circles of city bureaucracy. Her love life hopeless, her fantasies more influential than wan reality, she nevertheless turns out to be the best mayor New York City has ever elected. Soon enough, though, paradise gained becomes paradise lost, and--even for a wistful visionary like Puttermesser--the problem of disappointment remains unresolved.
""[Ozick's] range of influences is obvious in the fine selections of poems and short stories as well as essays from Art & Ardor (1983) and Metaphor and Memory (1989) that Kauvar has so sensitively chosen."" --Booklist ""[This collection reflects] the imaginative, inventive, and insightful Ozick. Some of the best of Ozick as poet, essayist, and fiction writer is represented in A Cynthia Ozick Reader."" --Library Journal ""Gathered here are some bristling, incandescent tales and thorny essays that show Ozick at her finest."" --The Seattle Times Cynthia Ozick is among the ten most important writers in North America today. This Reader brings her manifold talents together in a sampler of the many genres she explores. The poems, stories, and essays in this collection burst with all the energy of her capacious imagination. For those who have always lauded her, the Reader offers a representative selection; those new to Cynthia Ozick's work will revel in the discovery of a major writer.
