Word: ozick
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...CYNTHIA OZICK...
...previous works, consisting of a long novel and a widely praised collection of stories, Author Cynthia Ozick, 48, displayed an uncompromising intelligence wedded to a prancing narrative talent. In Bloodshed and Three Novellas, she skeptically examines her own gifts. What business has a Jew writing stories in an alien tongue, she wonders: "English is a Christian language. When I write English, I live in Christendom." Given the fiat of the Second Commandment against false idols, she questions a bit disingenuously whether a Jew should write stories...
This problem, of course, can be demonstrated but not solved. Is a sacred truth tainted by the human artifact that bears it? Ozick clearly relishes such paradoxes. Her stories are lush evocations of stony mysteries. In Bloodshed, a middle-aged Jew visits a Hasidic community populated chiefly by survivors of the Nazi death camps. A professed rationalist, he is repelled by the religious sect, with its ancient memories of animal sacrifice, but drawn to its adherents: "Refugees, survivors. He supposed they had a certain knowledge the unscathed could not guess at." Dramatically, he learns that the Hasidim cannot be separated...
...cause. His cold irony makes him a perfect manipulator of international diplomacy. "Don't try to ram against the inevitable," he advises a young black assistant. "Instead, tinker with the timing." If Lushinski has a tender spot, it is his irritation at being reminded that he is Jewish. Ozick displays this trait without venom but with lacerating irony. She leaves the strong impression that nothing bad will ever again happen to Lushinski because nothing he can recognize as good will ever happen to him either...
...Cynthia Ozick New Rochelle...