Cynthia Ozick Books

Washington Square is a compact, tightly constructed story that focuses with almost unwavering gaze upon the Sloper family, or more particularly, on Catherine Sloper, a sweet, ordinary, rather dull young lady who falls in love with a man her father is convinced loves her purely for the inheritance she stands to gain upon his death. This early novel of Henry James' alternates between biting, witty exchanges amongst the characters and introspective, sensitive exploration of the feelings and thoughts of Catherine and her father. The narrator - never named, though at times he is quite chatty towards the reader - chooses not to take sides, instead displaying the different facets of each character as they are, leaving questions of personality and intent up to the reader.

It is usual in a novel involving a young lady and a potentially disastrous suitor that the female in question be beautiful, intelligent, resourceful, kind - even if she doesn't know it. These stories tend to follow her development from innocent to experienced, which is one of the many reasons why Washington Square plays out so differently. Catherine is, we are told, 'not ugly; she had simply a plain, dull, gentle countenance. The most that had ever been said for her was that she had a "nice" face'. Later, her father compares Catherine's intelligence to that of a bundle of shawls. He often laments Catherine's lack of qualities, and so does Catherine, and so does everyone else. She is a submissive, almost subservient in her attitudes, willing to submerge her ideas - if she has any - and bend with the will of her father. Enter love, however, and slowly a change begins to take place.

Morris Townsend is the man Catherine falls for. She had never experienced the interest of a male before, indeed, her life seems to have been somewhat sheltered. When Morris enters her life Catherine's father, Dr Sloper, who never had much hope for his daughter, becomes determined to prevent them from marrying. Sloper is the type of father who wishes a specific future for his child, so they will 'be happy', and yet when their happiness chooses a different direction, they become stubborn, obstinate, and, in this case, quite hurtful and damaging.

Neither Morris nor Dr Sloper are particularly admirable characters. Granted, both are intelligent and even charming, with the novel's most enjoyable moments coming from the interaction between the two. They snipe at one another during their very clever exchanges where epigrams fly and bon mots are thrown about with abandon. However, Morris is shown - rather bluntly - to be interested in Catherine's money and not herself, which he finds tiresome, and Dr Sloper is concerned with breaking the tiny backbone that has emerged from he knows not where within Catherine's heart.

Do we love Catherine? Is that the intent of this novel? The answer is - no. Catherine truly is plain, in the sense that there isn't much to her. She is confused by the larger forces in her life which seem to determine the direction of her future without any real input from herself. She believes that both Morris and her father have her best interests at heart, even when it is clear to the reader they do not. Whenever poor Catherine dares to speak her mind, Morris or her father are ready and willing to stamp it down. Her father can be quite manipulative. After asking Catherine to give Morris away, he says, 'Have you no faith in my wisdom, in my tenderness, in my solicitude for your future?', and later, when she stands by her man, he asks, 'You make nothing of my judgment, then?' Poor Catherine is left to wonder what to think, when all she knows is she loves her father and wants to marry Morris.

During the course of the novel, Catherine develops attitudes which distinctly reject her father's plans, but she also, to the surprise of Morris, refuses to go along with everything he says, either. There is a clear impression throughout the work that, should she choose Morris, she will be exchanging one master for another - the names may change, but the overall life of Catherine will not.

Henry James is known for his dense - some call it impenetrable - prose, and for his fondness for deeply exploring the inner workings of his characters. Washington Square is slightly different to his others works in this regard, perhaps because it is an earlier novel. The prose can be quite circumlocutory, with multiple clauses embedded within a single sentence, long rambling comma filled descriptions and niceties of expression that seem to exist purely to avoid stating the blunt truth of the matter. But it is these techniques which serve also to highlight the confusing world around Catherine, and the difficulty she finds in untangling the intention of the two very strong men who wish to control her life. James, at his best, is a phenomenal writer, and happily for the reader of Washington Square he is completely in charge of the material. The narrator is confident in expressing the feelings and thoughts of the major and minor characters, using tact, grace, eloquence and insight to create his little portraits.

Whether or not Catherine will marry Morris and defy her novel, though an important part of the novel, is not the primary thrust of James' work. It seems clear from the outset the direction the story will take, and this initial belief becomes true. Where the strengths of the story lie is in the growing independence of Catherine, her understanding of herself as a person capable of expressing intent and determining the direction of her life by herself. Catherine is an innocent in a world which is, invariably, destructive towards such people. She learns this the hard way, but there is something undeniably 'Catherine' that remains, even to the bitter end. Washington Square, while not a masterpiece on the level of The Portrait of a Lady, nevertheless explores its theme well, and does so with an assured hand. Catherine's life, though somber and small by today's standards, does evoke sympathy within the reader. The final line is very sad, because it was inevitable, and because, deep down, the reader knows that it is the best life Catherine could have had.

Eloquently composed by a master of the World and American novel, Henry James, WASHINGTON SQUARE is a revelatory , painful study of wealth, prestige, and social discrimination in mid nineteenth century New York. Quite possibly James' masterpiece, it poignantly depicts with sympathy and intellectual blindness the a father's oppressing memory of his dead wife upon his innocent, frail and oblivious daughter. The daughter, Catherine Sloper, has become an iconic chatacter in American dramatic literature and film due to James' superficial description of her awkwardness coupled with the arrival of her wit, ruthlessness, spirit and clever sensibility after she is jilted by her fiancee. A remarkable study of how parents unknowingly deprive children of love and nurturing though their grief and personal disappointment.

Nominally a story of young romance, Washington Square's plot actually pivots around two sharply defined characters: the young Catherine Sloper, honest and sweet, but embarrassingly average and plain, and her father, Dr. Austin Sloper, articulate and brilliant, but disturbingly cold-hearted and domineering. Henry James professed little liking for his early novel; through the years most readers have ignored his opinion.

The writings of Henry James, especially his later novels, are notable (some might say, infamous) for using lengthy, digressive sentence structures for exploring complex emotional and psychological motivations. Slow paced plots play a subordinate role to nuanced, subtle, ambiguous characterizations. Contrastingly, Washington Square's popularity most likely stems from its straight-forward plot, some suspense, and sharply defined characters.

Catherine was an only child; her mother and baby brother died of complications during childbirth. Years later Dr. Sloper is still grieved and angered by the loss of his beautiful, vivacious, and witty wife. Despite Catherine's love and admiration for him, Dr. Sloper remains distant and cold, viewing Catherine's social ineptness as an ironic parody of his deceased wife.

When the young, handsome, articulate Morris Townsend shows interest in Catherine, Dr. Sloper immediately concludes that his only interest is her wealth, and moves quickly to break them apart. Matters are complicated by Catherine's silly, meddlesome, and manipulative aunt (Mrs. Penniman, the widowed sister of Dr. Sloper) who functions as an uninvited go-between for the two young lovers. Dr. Sloper remains quite confident in his own judgment, but in the early stages of their romance we readers remain uncertain of Townsend's motivation.

My fascination with Washington Square centered not on whether Townsend was genuinely in love with Catherine, but with the way in which Catherine revealed her inner strength in managing her increasingly strained relationship with her insensitive father and in how she ultimately comes to terms with the duplicity of her lover. Washington Square may not have achieved the full psychological subtlety and complexity desired by Henry James, but it is far from a simple, superficial tale of bitter sweet romance.

Washington Square on film: I highly recommend Washington Square, a 1997 production that features Jennifer Jason Leigh as Catherine, Albert Finney as Dr. Sloper, Ben Chaplin as Morris Townsend, and Maggie Smith as Catherine's aunt. This casting is superb, with all four characterizations faithful to the novel.

There are a few unnecessary scenes, however, that portray Catherine as overly clumsy and inept. Also, Morris Townsend on occasion is unrealistically effusive in his praise and admiration. A little more of Henry James's subtlety and nuance would have been better. Washington Square was directed by Agnieszka Holland.

Washington Square in print: This novella is widely available in various anthologies, or published alone, in inexpensive paperbacks from Signet Classics, Penguin Classics, and others. I particularly like a Simon and Schuster, hard cover edition (ISBN 0-684-81911-2) with 16 pages of high quality, black and white historical photographs, many belonging to the Museum of the City of New York historical collection.

Although Henry James is best known for The Portrait of a Lady (Penguin Classics), this slender volume of a young woman's lifetime is one that resonates for the oddest reasons. With a protagonist who is entirely passive, a plot that is somewhat uneventful and a cast of supporting characters that are entirely unsympathetic, "Washington Square" is a novel that encapsulates a life hardly worth reading about. Paradoxically, that is precisely why it should be read, and why it's so surprisingly memorable.

Catherine Sloper is shy, plain, dull and a little slow in her studies. Her mother was none of these things, leaving her somewhat of a disappointment to her father, an accomplished and well-respected doctor, a man who Catherine adores and longs to please. Well aware of her spiritless nature, Catherine is astonished when she receives the attention of the handsome and charming Morris Townsend, and is soon devotedly in love with her new suitor. Encouraged by her romantic and foolish Aunt Lavinia Penniman, Catherine accepts Morris's proposal of marriage. Unfortunately, her father is not at all impressed by the match, (believing Morris to be a mercenary after her dowry) and forbids Catherine from seeing him on the threat of disinheritance. Torn between the two most important people in her life, the listless and confused Catherine decides to wait. But will her beloved wait for her, or is she deceived by his true intentions?

Catherine's complete ordinariness is what makes her special within the context of the novel, as I am hard-pressed to think up another heroine who is so uncommonly common. Though she is a pleasant enough person, there is nothing remotely interesting to her, save the predicament she finds herself in. Her situation is frustrating to behold, as the poor girl is torn between her intelligent, infallible father and her charming, loving fiancée. Although her father has his daughter's best interests at heart, he handles the affair with such practicality and stubbornness that his crusade against Townsend eventually dwindles into a battle of will between himself and his daughter, and then petty revenge and one-upmanship. Likewise, though Morris Townsend seems faithful and loving, declaring that he has no interest in Catherine's inheritance whatsoever, we cannot shake a sense of untrustworthiness in him. Despite Catherine's plainness, you can't help but feel that neither man deserves her.

To be privy to Catherine's inner struggles is to witness a tiny and insignificant life within literature, with none of the romance, passion or tragedy of Lizzie Bennett, Tess Durbeyfield, Cathy Earnslaw, Jane Eyre, or any other literary heroine that comes to mind. Although Mrs Penniman alleviates some of the gloom with her far-flung intrigues and romances, her presence ultimately brings more harm that good to her young charge. Catherine is a woman who suffers in silence, without witness or companionship, a testimony to how passive-aggressiveness, lost opportunities and selfishness can destroy the life of one who has no means of fighting back. Every single individual on earth would like to believe that they are special, unique and important in some way, and the mediocrity of a life ill-spent becomes quite terrifying by the close of the novel. Catherine's attempts to assert some control over her father and her suitor are pitiful to behold, though they are victories, they are tiny ones within the context of her life. It's almost as if James uses Catherine as a vessel for every individual who has simply "misplaced" their life, and the emptiness that follows those who don't have the means, strength or fortitude to fight against those that hold them in sway. Make sure it never happens to you.

Washington Square is a pleasure to read. Best of all is Henry James' lush prose; his ethereal descriptions of characters and their emotional states and feelings towards others is peerless - and beautiful, and often funny in a stylistic sense. The novel itself functions as an expostition of human greed and the need for control, physically and emotionally. The four focal characters are all well drawn, and because of that their more despicable natures come forward. The naive Catherine; her father, the overbearing Dr. Sloper; his sister, the officious Mrs. Penniman; and the greedy, and lazy, Morris Townsend, ostensibly interested in Catherine only for her, and her father's, money. There is plenty of scheming and posturing by all four of them, and any more words from me will spoil the novel. Also amusing, is the dated sensibilities of the characters; but it all adds up to an enjoyable novel by an American master.

An interesting film adapted from Saul Bellow, the famous Nobel Prize winner. Here the character, a middle-age Jewish man, is accumulating all kinds of difficulties: he is fired, he is separated from his wife who hassles him for money, he is rejected financially and emotionally by his own father, he is fooled by a fake finance wizard who practically robs him of his money, and I should say etc and so on. The character is perfectly hysterical in an absolutely paranoid direction and we can see him going down little by little and it all ends up on a total dead end blind alley impasse. In other words a perfect loser in the Jewish culture who ends up crying on his own fate in the funeral of some other guy he does not know at all among people who don't know him nor he them. That is pure Saul Bellow who dedicated his whole writing career to such losers and total misfits in the world of making money not only to survive, not even to live, but to exist. In other words he is self immolating himself at the social stake of financial failure. Brilliant.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

I know it sounds sacreligious, but I've never thought Robin Williams was funny and the harder he tries to be funny the more unfunny I find him. I was really impressed therefore, the first time I saw him in a dramatic performance a few years ago and it was Seize the Day. I had no idea that he had such talent. He communicates everything that there is to be felt in the story by the strength of his performance.

This thin novel is a joy to read because it is a bright study of a man who is vaguely tortured by his own circumstances of the "now." The past haunts him. The future terrifies him. There is no wiggle room for this sorry fellow because the whole of the book takes place in one day's time. I could not help but see it as an ingenious story that dwelled insistently on the strength of palpable context and bare emotion.

Saul Bellow (1915--2005) published Seize the Day in 1956. It was his fourth novel. In 128 pages, the novel tells the day-in-the-life story of a failed actor in his forties, Wilhelm Adler (Tommy Wilhelm). He is unemployed, estranged from his wife (who refuses a divorce), children, and father. He lacks emotional maturity and self-insight. Bellow drew the title for his novel from Horace's Odes: "Whether you'll see several more winters or whether the last one/ Jupiter gives you is the one even now pelting the rocks on the shore with the waves/ of the Tyrrhenian sea---be smart, drink your wine. Scale back your long hopes/ to a short period. While we speak, time is envious and/ is running away from us. Seize the day, trusting little in the future" (1.11). While it would be easy to characterize Seize the Day as a simple midlife-crisis/carpe-diem novel, involving the passing of youth and the imminence of old age, resulting in Adler's desire to make significant changes in his life, marriage, and relationships, Bellow's novel has a much more universal theme common to most of his work: facing one's life to accept the "burden of self." Bellow not only saw many flaws in modern society, but understood its ability to foster madness, materialism, and ignorance. (Irving Malin, Saul Bellow's Fiction, 1969) However, Bellow also believed that even the Wilhelm Adlers of the world have heroic potential, which is precisely what makes Seize the Day such a great novel. In 1986, it was adapted into a film (Seize the Day) starring Robin Williams.

G. Merritt

A middle-aged man at his wit's end; his past, present, and future seem bleak. Mr. Bellow wrote with ease and humor about such a man. Although the character is in his forties and has barely jumped over one hurdle after another throughout his whole life due to his own naivety, he continues to make more mistakes than ever. The story takes place only in one day. In about 115 pages the reader finds out what makes the man he is. It is also up to the reader to conclude Mr. Bellow's account of this man. Mr. Bellow's writing was fluent where he detailed each appearance and action thoroughly with a very good sense of humor. It is a fast and interesting read.

Despite an ending which brings fortune to the surviving characters, this is a tragic tale of loss and misfortune. A German couple -- he a scholar of an ancient Jewish sect, she a physicist -- flees Germany during the rise of Naziism and relocates to Brooklyn. His work captures the interest of John A'Bair, a young man whose father produced a popular children's book series based on the child this young man once was. When his father dies, John inherits his fortune and uses some of it to support the Mitwisser family, at first because he is fascinated by Mitwisser's research and later because he falls for the Mitwissers' eldest daughter. Into the Mitwisser household comes 18-year-old Rose, the orphaned daughter of an algebra teacher at an Upstate NY prep school who is also a gambler. Left penniless when her father dies, Rose lives briefly with her distant cousin Bertram to whom she forms an unrequited romantic attachment. Then she responds to a classified ad to become the 'amanuensis' of Heir Mitwisser, soon finding that the job entails caretaking of the Mitwisser children and their mentally unstable mother. These are some of the events of the plot.

But the book is also a satire of textual and scholarly pursuits, and of Marxist idealism. Through the eyes of the guileless and accepting Rose, we watch Mitwisser toil away in obscurity, the only attention from colleagues coming in the form of criticism and rejection. Wife Elsa's promising career as a physicist ends abruptly with their exile from Germany. In her new home, she assumes the role of the 'madwoman in the attic'. Bertram falls in love with a Marxist revolutionary who takes all his and Rose's money to go fight in the Spanish Civil War, where she dies. All the main characters lose something important -- parents, home, love, career, money, life. No one survives this story unscathed. Fortune sadly returns to the Mitwissers and Bertram with the suicide of John A'Bair, who could never imagine a life for himself outside of the prison of fame garnered by the stories his father contrived. But the only truly fortunate character is Rose, who can finally leave the Mitwissers in the competent hands of Bertram and begin her life unencumbered.

Set in the late 1930s, Cynthia Ozick's newest novel is narrated by Rosie, a recently orphaned girl who has come to work as a live-in typist for Professor Mitwisser, an emigrant who fled Nazi Germany with his family for upstate New York and then the Bronx. Mitwisser studies an ancient sect called the Karaites who shun interpretation of the scripture as heresy, even as they write and analyze the fallibility of other religions' commentary on the bible. The family lives off of the generosity of James, an unstable patron and friend of the family who aids as well as disrupts them. Rosie shares a bedroom with the Professor's mentally unstable wife and also occasionally looks after the youngest of the five children. Throughout most of the novel she is alone in a house full of people. However, despite being treated coldly and solely as a "tool" she gains something from this family. In the most ecstatic passages in the novel Rosie describes her role as typist: "a motionless scene, I with my fingers stilled on the light-stippled glass of the typewriter keys, a twisted tail of hair sucked in at the side of my lip, he standing giantly over me, submerged in his dream of forgotten heresies." This beautifully written book raises the question of what can we inherit and from whom, even when "historyless" like this sensitive narrator.

I started out interested, but kept waiting for the story to go somewhere. I was totally bored and gave up at page 100. None of the ladies in my book club (we chose it for our monthly read) liked it. They all thought I made a wise decision, and wished they hadn't wasted time completing it. We questioned the San Francisco Chronicle's description of it as a "rollicking story". Chicago Sun-Times called it "funny and witty and engaging." Did we all read the same book????

In this book,a young woman poetically named Rose Meadows goes to work for the Mitwissers,a family of German-Jewish refugees from 1930's Europe. As a typist for the eccentric scholar Mr. Mitwisser as well as helping to look after his now unstable wife, (who worked as a doctor of research in Berlin) and help with their large (5 children strong) family. At first Rose feels unsure of her status within this chaotic household,but she gradually develops a bond with the family,the father in particular. The are in dire straits as far as money is concerned as well and they eagerly await the arrival of mysterious benefactor, James A'Bear,(whose father used as a model for a series of childrens books about a "Bear Boy") Having met the family at a boarding house in upstate New York,he then takes them under his wing by getting them an apartment in the Bronx,so the father can be close to New York and continue his research of an obscure Jewish sect there. James is kind,generous,funny and an achoholic who feels resentment toward his father;therefore he spends his royalties freely on this family and lives a nomadic life-style which later involves the family's eldest daughter Anneliese,who falls hopelessly in love with him. This book, though subtly written,has strong,complex charactors. Even Rose,who is basic a reactionary charactor,has some "skeletons" of her own concerning her father,a compulsive gambler who dies tragically before she goes to work for the Mitwisser's. This also includes a "cousin" who joins the Commmunist party through his infatuatuion with a young woman who calls herself Ninel(Lenin spelt backwards). This book ,in spite of it's rather downbeat subject matter has a dry,ironic tone to it,as well as an unexpected upbeat ending of sorts.As a window into the depression-era as well as the plight of the refugee, this is a sharply written,involving book.

The first fifty pages of this book are interesting and absorbing--a host of seemingly fascinating characters and situations are introduced, and the author has beautiful prose.
Unfortunately, this book has no plot, and failed to inspire any emotion whatsoever. It is a collection of miserable people who undergo no character development. Nothing happens, except that everyone is miserable. None of the characters are sympathetic--the reader cannot connect to them because they are pure creations of meaningless beautiful words, self-pity, and inexplicable neuroses. The narrator, eighteen year old Rose, fails to make an impression. She is so absolutely passive that she has no personality.
So I could not recommend "Heir to the Glimmering World". It is pretentious, plotless, and uninspiring.

Beautiful, poetic prose. Ozick's character, Ruth Puttermesser, reveres books and knowledge and seems to have constructed an idealized view of what life is like -- perhaps from reading so much? Although she tries to engage life at various points (and these episodes are quite entertaining in a tongue in cheek way), life and the people she invests in disappoint. Even Paradise, at the end, does not live up to expectations. I found this somewhat surrealistic work of fiction in turns entertaining and poignant, and was awed by Ozick's writing skills.

This book will delight some and frustrate others. It is a very witty, often sharply satirical novel partly pointed at modern urban life and partly a re-telling of an ancient and mystical legend of the Jewish "GOLEM."

Cynthia Ozick takes the reader into a veritable maze of myth and knowledge interwoven in a fantasy of the supernatural which spins the reader into questioning what this tale is really about.

Is it more a modern tale of contemporary urban decay or more a redemptive fabled Jewish legend?
In turn, it is both and those parts scuffle and compete to engage the reader while pulling her/him into an uncanny den of literary allegory.

Ruth Puttermesser's life is both humorous and tragic. Puttermesser, however, doesn't dwell in self pity or regret. She handles her unlucky disappointments with wit and resignation, never sentimentality. As she repeatedly fails to achieve the happiness or the life that she aspires to....for whenever it's within her reach, it eludes her grasp, she moves on, without remorse, to other pastures.

In the end, Ruth Puttermesser has 'lost her edge' and in her solitude of old-fashioned ways, become that "butter knife" who cannot ultimately carve out a safe passage in a big and often violent city.

An imaginative, complex and rewarding journey into some impossible ideals and fantasy landscapes that come alive to enhance this smart and witty entangled tale.

This book came as a pleasant surprise! I had heard about the author (Cynthia Osick) and became curious. The book is very unusual and reports different episodes in the life a lawyer in New York, which are quite imaginative and fantastic. It is amusing as the main character seems to be a pathetic woman but slowly as the story progresses I came to feel that we all are pathetic too. I'm not sure that I got all the meaning of the author but it was fun and enjoyable.

Is life really this frustrating for intelligent Jewish females in New York city? This novel (as is clearly enough noted in these reviews, really a collection of stories / novellas) describes various stages in the life and death of Ruth Puttermesser, who was brilliant in law school, but somehow never managed to turn that into a successful career, let alone a satisfying relationship. Meanwhile, the reader can sit back and watch as she briefly becomes mayor -- her downfall is as fast as her rise -- or gets married to a younger man whose whole purpose in doing so was to leave her.

For reading this book, it's good if you have a broad education, otherwise certain -- sometimes essential -- point might escape you. Still, Ozick's erudition is sometimes a bit much: as if she had swallowed an encyclopaedia. Also, her writing style relies a bit much on a particular trick: paragraphs start out with narratively relevant material, but then peter out in (oh so) witty observation. "Puttermesser had a younger sister who was also highly motivated, but she had married an Indian, a Parsee chemist, and gone to live in Calcutta. Already the sister had four children and seven saris of various fabrics." Cute, but after a couple of times it becomes a trick.

Cynthia Ozick has written another wonderful romp through a make-believe world that that reminds one of the verisimilitudes of insanity. THE PUTTERMESSER PAPERS will either draw you in so quickly the pages do not turn fast enough, or put you off immediately, in which case only a valiant effort will take you beyond page fifty. I was among the former group, and found the main character's ups and downs quite compelling. Who doesn't want to create their own personal muse/agent/protector out of potting soil? Golems... again, you either love them or... Ozick shows how love is often not easily recognized, and why, when we miss it, there are consequences.

And even if for only half a term, NYC could use a mayor like Puttermesser...

Ozick creates a wonderful piece of literature here. She writes a work of terrific narration, with extraordinary language as is her specialty, yet it has a very different feel to it than most of her work. It has a spiritual feel, where she does not give us the same level of clarity and conciseness of description. Instead, she rather allows events to unfold almost by chance. The style is reminiscent of that of Philip Roth and in fact, it was interesting to find on the dedication page the simple words, "To Philip Roth."

Ozick's protagonist, Lars, is a book reviewer for a Stockholm newspaper. He has a penchant for old European literature, particularly Czech, Polish and Serbo-Croatian authors. He lives in a spiritual world of existentialism and extremis of the human condition. Yet, the obsession if you will, is much more, because Lars, an orphan, has decided or convinced himself that he is the son of a famous and dead Polish author.

The plot and concepts swirl around the reader as Lars seeks to find a lost manuscript and any other information that he can about the author. Lars is a creature of the night. He does not like the hustle and bustle of the office during daytime hours. He is a completely private person, and keeps his secret very close to his vest, except for his disclosure to the proprietor of a small but esoteric book shop. With her, he tells all. And she is fully drawn into it. At least, that is what it clearly seems to Lars.

But Lars is too personally caught up in his own thing to really detect the deceit. Lars is blinded by a vision of what he believes is his own father's eye, which comes to him in dreams. So he continues to work with the lady at the bookstore to get all that he can about his `father.' Until, one day a person shows up, with the lost manuscript, claiming to be the daughter of the famous Polish author. At some point in that occurrence, Lars realizes, his confidence has been preyed on by others.

Lars' reviews do not carry a lot of stock with the public. The old and gone literature that he tries constantly to "resurrect" is of little interest to the Stockholm public. Yet Lars is fixated on all that is written around and about the time of his father's existence. In the end, Lars finds prominence and success, by giving up his obsession and writing well received reviews of current Swedish and American authors. All of a sudden he has his own cubicle. Then Lars gets a newspaper column on Tuesday as well as Monday. And finally, he has totally conformed to the daytime world of the wild "stewpot" that constitutes the daylight work world. But still, Lars is left with the questions of his past. These are never fully resolved.

The book is recommended to all lovers of great current literature. The writing is phenomenal. And the story is highly interesting and engaging.

While I can appreciate, from a distance, the aspects of this book others could use to cite it as a great piece of writing, I found myself frustrated by the narrative balance that Ozick used to tell its story. I didn't feel like there was any spot where i could truly jump into the text and hold on. The characters outside of the main character were all very apathetic and one-dimensional, and i felt like the actions Lars (the main character) took towards them, and which were supposedly the driving points of the novel, were not satisfying emotionally due to the simple fact that I had no place from which to appreciate them. For a 140 page book, i think it was a task Ozick shouldn't have sought out to take by striving to cram so many esoteric and subjective aspects of text at the expense of character or plot development. A dissapointing and unsatisfying read.

I have read many works of Cynthia Ozick and highly esteem her writing. This work which comes highly touted by both Michiko Kakutani and Harold Bloom in NY Times Reviews I just could not get into. The beginning idea of having the main character a refugee who believes his father is Bruno Schultz never really got me. The character himself Lars Andemining a mediocre book- reviewer twice- married twice divorced father of one small girl makes the obsession with Schultz the center of his life. Somehow the characters he meets including the book- store owner Mrs. Ekland and the woman who claims to be Schultz's daughter, and shows up with an alleged manuscript of Schultz's lost masterpiece " The Messiah" are not fleshed out in a strong way.
Many readers have spoken about the pleasure of reading of Ozick's complex language.
Again I just could not get into the work, feel, sympathize, identity in any way with the characters.
It may just be my fault that I was not such a good reader on this one.

This is the story of Lars Andemening, a Stockholm reviewer of obscure literary works who believes he is the orphaned son of Bruno Schulz, a renowned Jewish writer murdered in Nazi-occupied Poland. Lars believes that his father's missing manuscript, The Messiah, is awaiting his discovery; he has built his solitary and eccentric life around all-things-Schulz with the help of an equally eccentric ally/opponent bookseller, Mrs. Eklund. When a young woman surfaces claiming to be the daughter of Schulz and the holder of The Messiah, Lars carefully constructed reality falls apart.

This is the first work of Cynthia Ozick's that I have ever read, so place my zeal within the context of the newly converted if you like. For true literary lovers -- for whom the point of reading is not to be swept by plot to some dubiously satisfying conclusion, but to be strummed, teased, taunted and caressed by words -- Cynthia Ozick is a blessing. She is a true wordsmith: as confident in her ability to raise even the lives of mice within office walls to a place of poetic beauty as she is to document the affect of violent social change on individuals and communities. Her characterization of Lars as captive in a history that may or may not be truly his painfully encapsulates the orphan-refugee experience. And her depiction of the literary world -- with its authors, publishers, reviewers, and sellers -- is both so charming and biting that you can't help but reexamine your role as a reader within it.

I recommend this work for readers who enjoy being swept along in beautiful prose and who seek out literature that begs to be read again and again and again.

Ozick's sentences are so wonderfully crafted that I feel like I am in the Louvre of writing when I read her. This is just the second book by her that I have read and I am just delighted. It is true, as one reviewer stated, that she maintains a certain distance from her characters, but that allows them to be less predictable, and a greater level of irony can also then by limned. This small novel about an alienated, sad "Monday reviewer" of books in Stockholm, orphaned, who believes he is the son of a murdered Jewish Pole who wrote surrealistic material is a lovely (but sad) story of self definition, inspiration, success/failure, trust. I recommend it strongly to anyone who loves good writing.

With so many studies of anti-Semitism available, the choice of an overview of the central issues is daunting. This book, in my opinion, is a better place to start than historical exegeses that methodically unpick the past hisotry of slurs. Its focus on contemporary commentary by contempoary commentators is its greatest strength. Many non-Jews accept that anti-Semitism existed historically but have great difficulty recognising its current expressions. Conventional liberal wisdom holds that anti-Semitism has gone away; it is a spent force not worth bothering with, except by a few insignificant lumpen elements with no media credibility. Did I slip in the last phrase deliberately? I sure did. It is the media credibility of the new expressions of anti-Semitism that are most alarming. These geenrally take the form of castigations of Israeli military actions extending to Israeli govenment policies, and shading into 'critiques' of Israel as a country, a society, and a nation. Every democracy has to accept scrutiny of its political and security actions. But when criticism moves beyond the political and is genercially directed at a whole society, where no acknowlegement is made of ongoing debates between citizens and government policies, then there is just cause to complain that dark prejudices are at work. This book does a marvellous job of bringing many of these hidden influences to the surface for analysis. Perhaps the most telling line in the text is the concern expressed by the majority of commentators that critics of Israel obsess about its shortcomings while selectively ignoring the brutal human rights abuses taking place in all the countries surrounding it. If you were of the opinion that criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism are decouplable politically, this book may ask you the re-examine that assumption.

This book deals with hatred of Israel and many of the reactions to it. It consists of about 50 separate essays. One of the inspirations for the book was Philip Roth's novel, "Operation Shylock," and the relevant excerpt from this book is included as one of the essays. That essay explains the threat of Israel becoming a sort of extermination camp for Jews, with nuclear weapons rather than Zyklon B being the relevant weapon.

The book, which begins with an excellent introduction by Ron Rosenbaum, is a superb collection of ideas and thoughts. One of the essays that impressed me the most was by Tom Gross, describing the ghastly reporting by the British media of the events in Jenin in April, 2002. Until I read this article, I just couldn't believe that the folks at the Guardian would abandon all journalistic standards just to hurt a few Jews by spouting some absurd lies about Israel. After all, no matter what they thought about Jews or Israel, these people were professionals who I thought were unlikely to wish to destroy the good reputation the Guardian had so carefully built up. Such destruction would cost them money! But this article showed me that they had indeed turned the Guardian into something far less valuable than it had been in the past (perhaps thinking that such an approach would appear more sensational and improve their sales).

I also especially enjoyed the articles by Paul Berman, Robert Wistrich, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Ruth Wisse, Melanie Phillips, Joshua Muravchik, Martin Peretz, Cynthia Ozick, Fiamma Nirenstein, and Bernard Lewis. And of course, I had to read the essay by Daniel Gordis that started "Dear Jill." No, it wasn't to me, it was to Jill Jacobs. But it was a scary look into the politics of a graduating rabbinical student.

There are articles by various opponents of Zionism, including Tariq Ramadan, Edward Said, and Judith Butler. I think it was a good idea to allow the reader to see a little of how they view the world.

I certainly recommend this book.

criticism of Israel is it anti-Semitism?
For example, I am a palestinian who lost his home, which was given to three jewish families came from Morocco, by force, and hence I am very critical of israel. Does that make me anti-semetic?
I think you need to re-examine your assessment. Israel was not established on an empty land. There were cities, and thriving villages. Golada Maer statement : " land without peope to people without land" does not change the facts. For those who want to stay blind and live with the "victim" , and "we are better than them no matter what we do" mentalities would find confort is such "world of illusion".

It never went away. It was hiding in the West, but in the Arab World it has been very prevalent and open throughout the last few decades. The evidence of its resurgence includes the terror onslaught on Israeli civilians, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries in Europe, the twisted habit of some media to equate Israel with Hitler's Germany and Zionism with Nazism, the lunatic conspiracy theories in best-selling books and on the internet, the torching of synagogues in Europe, the rise in attacks on European Jews, the filthy propaganda in the Arab media and the recent pronouncements of the president of Iran.

This valuable collection of essays explores the history and current state of the oldest hatred from different perspectives. A wide range of opinions from across the political spectrum is represented here, including those of Melanie Phillips, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Martin Peretz, Bernard Lewis, Paul Berman, Nat Hentoff, Todd Gitlin, Amos Oz, David Brooks and Robert Wistrich. Those essays that impress the least or come across as insincere or unconvincing are by Judith Butler, Edward Said and Tariq Ramadan.

The essays address a range of topics including the differences and similarities between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism, old and new manifestations of Anti-Semitism, the situation in various European countries and in the Arab World. In Europe, this plague is found amongst the mainly Leftist cultural and government elites and the non-integrated immigrant populations whilst in the Arab sphere it is openly promoted and disseminated in the media and the mosques. Even in the USA, the snake is rearing its head amongst leftwing academics on campus.

The most vivid and shocking descriptions of the madness appear in Jeffrey Goldberg's essay on Egypt just after 9/11, Marie Brenner's piece on the situation in France, Fiamma Nirenstein's history of how the Left turned against Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and Ruth Wisse's frightening comparison between now and the 1930s. She points out how the New York Times ignored the Holocaust then and how the same Old Grey Harlot prefers to blame Israel for every act of Islamic extremism. It is ironic in that the aim of the new Anti-Semitism is the delegitimization and ultimate destruction of the Jewish state.

One of the best descriptions of the new manifestation is by Harold Evans, who makes a lucid distinction between valid criticism of Israel and the frenzied and pathological condemnation of this brave little country by those who ignore atrocities and oppression everywhere else in the world. Historian Victor Davis Hanson has called this resurgent Medusa of Jew-hatred "the worldwide moronic convergence" and its three heads are the Left, the lunatic Right and fanatical Islamism. The political spectrum is not linear, but a circle where extreme Left and Right meet.

The book opens with an illuminating introduction by Ron Rosenbaum and concludes with an afterword by Cynthia Ozick in which she observes that the new Anti-Semitism proceeds in the guise of Anti-Zionism and through the abuse of the language of human rights. And it goes hand in hand with Anti-Americanism. I also recommend Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America by Andrei Markovits, The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It by Phyllis Chesler, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left by David Horowitz and The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel, and Liberal Opinion by Bernard Harrison, for a better understanding of these perilous times.

I have yet to see a honest approach to this complex subject that does other than portray the Jews as victims. There is never any acknolwedgement that all people and, yes, all races/cultures, at time do very bad things to each other. Except for the Jews. With them it is always someone else's fault. Even now, as they do their best to destroy the Palestinians, after invading their homes, stealing their dignity and turning Gaza into another Warsaw Ghetto, they refuse to admit that what they are doing is wrong. And let's not forget that the Arabs are also semites, when we go throwing that "anti-semite" ajective around. There are Jews who recognize and speak out on this problem, such as Norman Finklestein and Gore Vidal. And there are, thankfully, Jewish run organizations in Israel who are fighting for the human rights of the Palestinians, realizing that it is the ongoing mistreatment of others, the continuing claim that Israel is above reproach, that is creating a negative image of Israel - they are doing this to themselves. They are their own worst enemy.

What did Henry James know? What does any author know? Is what they know important to how they write, or what topics their writing examines? Cynthia Ozick begins this loose collection of work with an introduction that quotes H. G. Wells's accusation against Henry James. In a James novel, 'you will find no people with defined political opinions, no people with religious opinions, none with clear partisanships or with lusts or whims, none definitely up to any specific impersonal thing...It is leviathan retrieving pebbles.'

Bold words, and true enough, as it is. Many of James' characters do not seem to do a great deal, at least within the confines of the novel's pages. Nor do they talk much about things beyond the internal, or their relationships, or, often, art. James was never a great facts-stuffer like Pynchon or (George) Eliot, nor did he weigh down his text with massive amounts of allusion and reference like Joyce or (T. S.) Eliot. But what Henry James did have was an unswerving commitment to and passion for art, which through his genius came out in the form of novels, short stories, literary criticism, letters, notebooks and, disastrously, the play, Guy Domville.

Cynthia Ozick's work uses James's great talent as a springboard to discuss first modernism and then a collection of Jewish authors, both pre- and post-WWII. The book is not directly related, with roughly two thirds of the pieces being previously published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New Republic, Commentary, more, and drawn together from over twenty years of writing. What Henry James may be the conceit of the first few essays - which explore first Eliot, then Wharton (a great friend of James), James himself, James again, and then Woolf - but then the collection loses its focus until it picks up another thematic unity by examining a range of Jewish authors - Bellow, Malamud, Singer, Scholem, Agnon. The remaining essays, scattered throughout, tend to be shorter, between four and fifteen pages, and provide a cursory - though interesting - look at more contemporary authors.

At times, Ozick's essays descend into mere biography, which is either a shame or a blessing, depending on your preference - or perhaps both. It is interesting to learn of T. S. Eliot's rise to fame, fortune, and the Nobel - but how does it help us understand the great working of modernity and art, which is arguably the focus of the essay? Eliot 'seemed a pure zenith, a colossus, nothing less than a permanent luminary fixed in the firmament like the sun and the moon'. A literary giant, then, though no longer. Now (and Ozick is writing in the early '90s) he is a 'difficult writer', that horrible label against which only the strongest survive. He is unread - he writes poetry! - impenetrable unless you are learned, educated, determined and willing to bow at the altar of high art. A writer of Ozick's talent - for she is witty, clever, erudite, yes, but most of all, she is a charming writer - stands a chance of bringing Eliot back, or at least, making young readers and would-be writers aware of his talent, his genius, and his belief in art. Eliot should not remain in the dusty back area, that graveyard of art known as 'the classics' or 'the canon' and read by few. No, Eliot, like James, like Woolf, like almost every author in this collection, should be read as much now as they were then. They all have a lot to offer, and though fashion may date, though social mores may change, the temperament of art remains true. Ozick does, it must be admitted, come around to explaining the why of these authors, but so often this why is prefaced with lengthy (interesting), circumlocutory (insightful) examinations of the life and times of the author.

As with all literary essays, the appreciation of the reader often stems from the familiarity they have for the subject being discussed. If, as a reader, you are interested in literature, then you are probably aware of Henry James, even if you have not read his works. Thus, learning of his life, his style and his outlook, as well as reading a detailed and intelligent examination of some of his works, is interesting. This becomes more true if you are familiar with, and enjoy, the works of the author. Myself, I had read perhaps ninety percent of the authors, and I was familiar by name with all but two of the rest. Good for me, but what of the reader who has never heard of S. Y. Agnon? Gertrud Kolmar? (The two I did not know). But also - Gershom Scholem? Bruno Schulz? Bernard Malamud? Agnon, I have since been informed, for all that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a writer that should really only be read in Hebrew, and even then, if you are not well versed in the Jewish faith, the layers of his meaning remain opaque. And Gershom Scholem wrote exhaustively on Jewish Kabbalah which, again, is a specialised topic. The reader, unless they are interested in all forms of literature, may find themselves swamped with a sea of unfamiliar names and concepts.

But hold a moment. Isn't that one of the tasks of a writer, to introduce us to words and deeds and times and places unknown? Yes - and Cynthia Ozick delivers in spades. If you have never heard of Italo Calvino, it would be difficult not to put him on a reading list after completing her essay, 'Italo Calvino: Bringing Stories to Their Senses'. It is almost always the case that, after a possibly discouraging foray into biography, Ozick's essays will cajole, persuade, convince and excite. She writes less with passion or exuberance than with the steady, clear hand of an essayist who reads with a clear eye and is able to uncover, discover and recover authors and texts for others to share and enjoy.

The movement of modernity receives the most exhaustive examination, perhaps because it was more cohesive than the output of the Jewish writers of the 20th century. This makes sense, of course, because the only thing linking Jewish authors together is their religion, whereas modernism had a clear focus, temperament and goal. One towering figure of modernity who is mentioned, but never examined, is James Joyce, though perhaps this is because, as Ozick writes, Joyce has become a fixture, whereas Eliot and Woolf remain less certain. Indeed, in an attempt to capture the artistic essence of Woolf, Ozick writes heavily on the Bloomsbury Group, and of Woolf's husband, Leonard. Again, the problem lies in how much biography the reader can stomach, though also again, the text remains, always, charming, intelligent and entertaining.

So, what did Henry James know? He knew only art, and that, I suppose, is what we are left with at the end of this collection. As mentioned, the majority of these essays were published over a long span of time, which means the work has no real cohesion. That said, invariably the focus is upon art, and how the author fought to write, to show what they knew. The introduction is very grand, and also very exciting, and it is unfortunate that the lack of thematic cohesion for the rest of the work means the introduction's aim to discover what Henry James knew, fails. The essays themselves, however, are not failures, and prove a constant delight. Read them to learn of new authors (though be wary of the biography!), read them to remember why it is you enjoy your favourite authors so much. Ozick is skilled at placing an author within their milieu and examining them separate to that milieu, to show how art both fits in and fights against the temperament of its time.

What did Henry James know? What does any author know? Is what they know important to how they write, or what topics their writing examines? Cynthia Ozick begins this loose collection of work with an introduction that quotes H. G. Wells's accusation against Henry James. In a James novel, 'you will find no people with defined political opinions, no people with religious opinions, none with clear partisanships or with lusts or whims, none definitely up to any specific impersonal thing...It is leviathan retrieving pebbles.'

Bold words, and true enough, as it is. Many of James' characters do not seem to do a great deal, at least within the confines of the novel's pages. Nor do they talk much about things beyond the internal, or their relationships, or, often, art. James was never a great facts-stuffer like Pynchon or (George) Eliot, nor did he weigh down his text with massive amounts of allusion and reference like Joyce or (T. S.) Eliot. But what Henry James did have was an unswerving commitment to and passion for art, which through his genius came out in the form of novels, short stories, literary criticism, letters, notebooks and, disastrously, the play, Guy Domville.

Cynthia Ozick's work uses James's great talent as a springboard to discuss first modernism and then a collection of Jewish authors, both pre- and post-WWII. The book is not directly related, with roughly two thirds of the pieces being previously published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New Republic, Commentary, more, and drawn together from over twenty years of writing. What Henry James may be the conceit of the first few essays - which explore first Eliot, then Wharton (a great friend of James), James himself, James again, and then Woolf - but then the collection loses its focus until it picks up another thematic unity by examining a range of Jewish authors - Bellow, Malamud, Singer, Scholem, Agnon. The remaining essays, scattered throughout, tend to be shorter, between four and fifteen pages, and provide a cursory - though interesting - look at more contemporary authors.

At times, Ozick's essays descend into mere biography, which is either a shame or a blessing, depending on your preference - or perhaps both. It is interesting to learn of T. S. Eliot's rise to fame, fortune, and the Nobel - but how does it help us understand the great working of modernity and art, which is arguably the focus of the essay? Eliot 'seemed a pure zenith, a colossus, nothing less than a permanent luminary fixed in the firmament like the sun and the moon'. A literary giant, then, though no longer. Now (and Ozick is writing in the early '90s) he is a 'difficult writer', that horrible label against which only the strongest survive. He is unread - he writes poetry! - impenetrable unless you are learned, educated, determined and willing to bow at the altar of high art. A writer of Ozick's talent - for she is witty, clever, erudite, yes, but most of all, she is a charming writer - stands a chance of bringing Eliot back, or at least, making young readers and would-be writers aware of his talent, his genius, and his belief in art. Eliot should not remain in the dusty back area, that graveyard of art known as 'the classics' or 'the canon' and read by few. No, Eliot, like James, like Woolf, like almost every author in this collection, should be read as much now as they were then. They all have a lot to offer, and though fashion may date, though social mores may change, the temperament of art remains true. Ozick does, it must be admitted, come around to explaining the why of these authors, but so often this why is prefaced with lengthy (interesting), circumlocutory (insightful) examinations of the life and times of the author.

As with all literary essays, the appreciation of the reader often stems from the familiarity they have for the subject being discussed. If, as a reader, you are interested in literature, then you are probably aware of Henry James, even if you have not read his works. Thus, learning of his life, his style and his outlook, as well as reading a detailed and intelligent examination of some of his works, is interesting. This becomes more true if you are familiar with, and enjoy, the works of the author. Myself, I had read perhaps ninety percent of the authors, and I was familiar by name with all but two of the rest. Good for me, but what of the reader who has never heard of S. Y. Agnon? Gertrud Kolmar? (The two I did not know). But also - Gershom Scholem? Bruno Schulz? Bernard Malamud? Agnon, I have since been informed, for all that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a writer that should really only be read in Hebrew, and even then, if you are not well versed in the Jewish faith, the layers of his meaning remain opaque. And Gershom Scholem wrote exhaustively on Jewish Kabbalah which, again, is a specialised topic. The reader, unless they are interested in all forms of literature, may find themselves swamped with a sea of unfamiliar names and concepts.

But hold a moment. Isn't that one of the tasks of a writer, to introduce us to words and deeds and times and places unknown? Yes - and Cynthia Ozick delivers in spades. If you have never heard of Italo Calvino, it would be difficult not to put him on a reading list after completing her essay, 'Italo Calvino: Bringing Stories to Their Senses'. It is almost always the case that, after a possibly discouraging foray into biography, Ozick's essays will cajole, persuade, convince and excite. She writes less with passion or exuberance than with the steady, clear hand of an essayist who reads with a clear eye and is able to uncover, discover and recover authors and texts for others to share and enjoy.

The movement of modernity receives the most exhaustive examination, perhaps because it was more cohesive than the output of the Jewish writers of the 20th century. This makes sense, of course, because the only thing linking Jewish authors together is their religion, whereas modernism had a clear focus, temperament and goal. One towering figure of modernity who is mentioned, but never examined, is James Joyce, though perhaps this is because, as Ozick writes, Joyce has become a fixture, whereas Eliot and Woolf remain less certain. Indeed, in an attempt to capture the artistic essence of Woolf, Ozick writes heavily on the Bloomsbury Group, and of Woolf's husband, Leonard. Again, the problem lies in how much biography the reader can stomach, though also again, the text remains, always, charming, intelligent and entertaining.

So, what did Henry James know? He knew only art, and that, I suppose, is what we are left with at the end of this collection. As mentioned, the majority of these essays were published over a long span of time, which means the work has no real cohesion. That said, invariably the focus is upon art, and how the author fought to write, to show what they knew. The introduction is very grand, and also very exciting, and it is unfortunate that the lack of thematic cohesion for the rest of the work means the introduction's aim to discover what Henry James knew, fails. The essays themselves, however, are not failures, and prove a constant delight. Read them to learn of new authors (though be wary of the biography!), read them to remember why it is you enjoy your favourite authors so much. Ozick is skilled at placing an author within their milieu and examining them separate to that milieu, to show how art both fits in and fights against the temperament of its time.

I am part of a short story group that meets weekly. We read two stories each week. We've read the first 12 stories so far. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this opportunity to sample authors that "somehow" I completely missed even though I have a master's degree in language arts. Even if I don't care for a story, I am glad to sample the writing. It also gives me an opportunity to decide which artists to delve further into. An example: After reading Willa Cather's Double Birthday I am now reading My Antonia.

Only unknown authors to me. I was expecting some works by Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry and/or Agatha Christie (maybe I ordered the wrong volume!). Also, some of the stories are quite dull and end as if the author didn't know how to end it! Quite disappointing!

I read "The Best American Short Stories of the Century" to get a broad overview of the contemporary American short story genre. John Updike edited the collection. The introduction, written by Updike, is an interesting essay on the difficulties inherent in assembling any best-of collection. I suppose I would have liked to have read more of his thoughts on the form, its progress over the century and perhaps its place in contemporary fiction rather than his struggle in selecting pieces. But taken together with the forward, written by co-editor Katrina Kenison, the two essays offer an interesting look into the fickleness of publishing tastes and how those tastes can be influenced by only a few people. It makes the current consolidation of the publishing world seem slightly less troubling.



In any event, there are many people I would have included in the collection that are absent--John Edger Wideman comes quickly to mind, and Latino writers seem strikingly absent. And similarly, though I would not even pretend to know all that one needs to know to authoritatively assemble a collection with such a presumptuous title, I would nonetheless exclude more than one or two pieces that were included in the anthology. But as I reflect on the collection, it occurs to me that it was written more for the general reading public and less for a person interested in the diversity of the form and its practitioners. There are some great stories in the collection, however, I suspect that it more closely represents a particular writer's tastes than a true overview of the form.



The most interesting pieces for me were those written by writers who I associate with other genres. Robert Penn Warren's "Christmas Gift" is a beautifully raw and sensual story. And although it has been some years since I've read Warren's work, my vision of him was always that of a country gentlemen poet living the gentlemanly life in semi-rural Connecticut. The "Christmas Gift" rivals Faulkner or O'Connor in the evocation of the rough-knuckled rural life. The language of the piece and the structure of the lines felt fresh and new. The images were so unique and evocative that I must make a point not to mimic them in my own writing. The opening paragraph is wonderful, his attention to the details of the place and its people comes out with poetic precision that is at once authentic for the place and yet far, far above the circumstances of anybody involved. In this sense it brought to mind Steinbeck (another writer who didn't make the cut) yet his prose seemed even more carefully measured.



I have always admired E.B. White's essays and now, after having read the short story, "The Second Tree from the Corner," I have come to appreciate his abilities as a fiction writer. It has inspired me to track down some of his fiction--other than that written for children, though those stories are also good. "The Second Tree from the Corner" was somewhat unexpected. It's a decidedly non-country story--a far cry from many of the essays I have read. Its protagonist is a patient who is undergoing therapy--another surprise. However when I think about many of his essays, even the most well known essays written at the height of the war, essays that were intended to bring some measure of comfort to a society and culture that could not escape the general sense that they were indeed fighting for their very survival, I still find in these essays a certain sense of existential angst, of an uncertainty that seems thoroughly modern and non-sentimental.



When I hear people talk about White's well-known essay, "Once More to the Lake," it seems almost as though the last lines are forgotten. There is so much talk of lake weather, farm-girls, and berry pies that that final line seems to somehow not stick to memory. But what a line--the entire piece is informed by that last line. The last two paragraphs keep the essay from become a simple, shallow reflection on the American way of life. It was almost as though, despite the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese Emperor, White could not help but feel almost desperately modern. When he wrote, "As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death," he rescued the essay from the slash pile of Americana.



And just as he rescued "Once More to the Lake," he may have condemned "The Second Tree from the Corner." Though it is a good short story, it is not at all the warm and fuzzy piece that some may expect from White. And again, in the story White waits to put the last nail in the emotional structure of the piece, which could until the final line go in any one of a number of directions. The final direction of the piece is not nearly as comfortable as it perhaps could be. He closes: "He crossed the Madison, boarded the downtown bus, and rode all the way to Fifty-second Street before he had a thought that could rightly have been called bizarre."



We never discover the nature of his bizarre thoughts, we are left to fill them in with our own interpretation of the strange, never the less, the piece is far from conclusive or comforting.



Similarly, I was impressed with Elizabeth Bishop's "The Farmer's Children." Again I am familiar with her essays and of course her poetry, but I had never before read one of her short stories.



There were also stories by writers whom I have never before read, at least as far as I can remember. Susan Glaspell's 1917 story, "A Jury of her Peers," was impressively fresh and full of a very modern sense of feminism. Grace Stone Coates', "Wild Plums," was an emotionally complex story about class in the early years of the Great Depression.



I did not find what I wanted in the collection--that is, an overview of the contemporary American short story form. I suspect that there is no easy or fast way to come to such an understanding. Maybe that has something to do with the nature of the short story, like the personal essay it is a constantly shifting form, something that responds quickly to contemporary pressures, but also somehow stays true to its form as laid down by Chekhov (or in the case of the essay, Montaign).



I did find some things I did not expect in the collection. And thought I confess that I did not like some of the stories in the and found myself questioning why they were included at the expense of other writers, it was a worthwhile read.

To reduce the boredom of exercise I decided to listen to audio books. Short stories work well as I'm inclined to keep moving until the end.

This audio CD collection is very good and really well done. Many of the stories are read by their authors. The sound is crisp and clean, and (with rare exception) the diction fluid and natural. The stories themselves are varied and high-quality.

One thing to note, though, is that the audio version does not contain all the stories from the print version. That may seem obvious, but if you are expecting to hear one or anther of the stories from the book, know that the CD set only includes 22 stories.

The quintessential in the American short story is represented in this collection of fiction. I am reading these tales both for the pleasure they bring me and as a means of studying the craft of masters in a field I hope to enter. As part of my fiction class at the University of Iowa, I have read "Janus" and "Where are you going, Where have you been?" (Beattie and Oates).

These two tales explore the psyches of two women: one a successful married realtor obsessed who owns an artistic bowl that assumes a character of its own and, the other, a young girl who becomes a victim of her and others' obsession with her beauty.

Lesser-known authors are represented alongside the giants of American literature. Points of view representing various walks of life, ethnicities, languages and periods of time abound in the volume. For my own pleasure and out of curiosity, I have read "Zelig," a tale about a lonely man obsessed with saving his money, torn between his new home in America and his native Russian village (Rosenblatt).

Ann Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates and Benjamin Rosenblatt are authors whose works I have relished so far from the collection, and because the stories are so intricately woven, I find myself re-reading them, delaying the pleasure awaiting me in the remaining fifty plus tales.

This novel of Ozick's deals with the constant struggle of achieving perfection. The main character, Joseph, is a Jewish-Frenchman living in the middle of America. He had faced many hardships during the first decades of his life. When he finally is able to overcome them and enjoy the blessings of his emancipation, he cannot let go of his own sense of failure. The relationships he has in the latter part of his life are not fufilling because he focuses on the lack in these people, not thier ability. Joseph fails to value people as individuals. As a result, he is destined to be ordinary and unhappy instead of trying to be extraordinary. At the end of the novel he is given a chance to change his outlook on life. This novel was an easy read and full of beautiful, descriptive imagery.

Joseph Brill, a middle-aged bachelor, is the Principal of a school somewhere in the provincial US. He is very proud of his school, because he was the one to be chosen from the start to be a Principal, he prepared the Dual Curriculum (revolutionary, or so he hopes), and he is fighting with the parents for his vision of the school. He is so engrossed in his dreams that he has even an image of a perfect student in his head.

Brill, born in a Jewish family in Paris, studied astronomy in France before World War II, and survived the Holocaust mainly in hiding - first in a convent, where the nuns put him in a cellar full of books (where he discovered a patron for his school, Edmond Fleg, and reinforced his philosophical inclinations), and then in a peasant's barn. His parents and most of his siblings (except for his three much older sisters) were killed, and he finally emigrated to the United States. His childhood, youth and the years in hiding are shown as a series of images, which shaped his personality and are a tool to explain to the reader why he is who he is.

When Brill gets a new first-grader, Beulah Lilt, a daughter of a scholar Hester Lilt (a very strong, self-confident and educated woman, a great female character), he gets extremely excited at the prospect of having finally a genius in his school. Fascinated by the mother, he tries to understand her, engaging in discussions and verbal duels, convinced, that she is the only person on his real level, while otherwise (he is afraid) he is surrounded by mediocrity. Unfortunately, Beulah is not a student, which would be noticed by any of the teachers for her brightness - they rather remark on her inattentiveness, her daydreaming and lack of eagerness. Finally, Brill gives up (especially that he cannot keep up with the mother, who is sarcastic and does not care about him at all), and immerses (still dreaming of intellectual pursuits, but somehow getting stuck in a vicious circle) himself in mediocrity, marrying an administrative assistant and producing a school genius himself. His son fulfills all his dreams of an ideal student.

In the meantime, Beulah finishes the school and moves to Paris with her mother. And Brill probably would forget all about her if he did not see her on television one day and see how badly he was mistaken and how his fixation on stereotype has failed to help him discover a talent.

Cynthia Ozick analyzed the main character very acutely, in a novel, which does not have any spare words. Her prose is very dense, very clear, and the novel is compact, formally perfect. There are probably many parallels to her own life in Brills life events, a Jewish theme being recurrent in her books. I (being Polish) did not like the constant referrals to the concentration camps and Holocaust as "being killed in Poland", "being moved to Poland" without any mention of Nazis - perhaps such descriptions contributed to the absurd belief, for a time common in America, that Poland was responsible for Holocaust. I somehow am not sure it was an accidental omission, not by a writer so analytical and careful in all the other respects.

Having said that, I must say that this novel is a very strong piece of fiction, very universal, reflection-stimulating and intriguing.