Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, & Other Literary Essays

by Cynthia Ozick

A collection of new and previously published essays on contemporary literary culture, authors, and critics by the acclaimed writer and critic.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Literature, Books About Books, Criticism, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published July 5, 2016

About the author

Recipient of the first Rea Award for the Short Story (in 1976; other winners Rea honorees include Lorrie Moore, John Updike, Alice Munro), an American Academy of Arts and Letters Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award, and the PEN/Malamud award in 2008.

Upon publication of her 1983 The Shawl, Edmund White wrote in the New York Times, "Miss Ozick strikes me as the best American writer to have emerged in recent years...Judaism has given to her what Catholicism gave to Flannery O'Connor."

Reviews

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This essay collection reminded me of Ecclesiastes more than anything else; it rages against Eccleiastes's unassailable truth: ashes to ashes; dust to dust.

In the last decade, the last wave of memoirs to ever be published by WWII veterans has been published; written by old men who, aware they are approaching the end of their lives, are powerfully motivated to preserve their witness to history in words. In a similar way, in this collection, Ozick is witnessing her life as a 20th century literary intellectual.

Ozick isn't writing literary criticism here so much as she is mourning the passing of an era. I'm very moved by what she writes here, but my feeling has little to do with its intellectual content or its logic, and everything to do with the sadness in it.

To declare, as Ozick does here, that Saul Bellow is the only writer who has survived from her era is sad; it's sad to realize so many great writers and critics, writers central to 20th century letters, are little read today; it's all the more sad to realize as I read this essay that no one reads Saul Bellow much any longer, either.

I come away with the fragile hope that, even as the literary culture and the literature we once experienced as new and vivid becomes old and unread, Ozick's essays will point the way for some literary critic of the future to discover the way back.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth star was really only in doubt on a couple/few of occasions (specifically when Ms. Ozick insisted upon tarring all of the Beats with pretty much the same brush—as she briefly does with we who choose to review on GR/Amazonia, BTW—and labelling them as mediocrities and poseurs who were, at best, iconic-of-their-moment, or then delivering an interminable paean to the Hebrew Poets, who, if they are indeed unjustly forgotten, this reader was not roused by these pages to seek them out). But elsewhere it is a delight to encounter a novelist/critic who celebrates novelists and critics (in that order) who matter to her, especially Kafka, Bellow, and Malamud, the last of which I am now convinced I really need to get to, thanks to Ozick. And her manner of feasting upon and fête-ing of Auden's poetry really drove home how superficial a fully-lived-understanding I have of that poet's work. Finally, she ends with a careful analysis of Martin Amis's The Zone of Interest (a "a veritable Middlemarch of Nazidom", bleak humour to be found in and an unremitting rage against "bourgeois life among the chimneys"), which I've avoided only out of a lethargy for all things WWII, but which is now very much back on my radar—as is the work of Cynthia Ozick.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cynthia Ozick channels her rage against reviewers, targeting in particular those of us who share our amateur opinions on amazon. Therefore, this "review" may be considered a meta approach to the book. I struggled with some of these essays, but overall found them illuminating. The protean nature of literary tastes reflects the times, and some of her observations may seem a little dated concentrating as they do on more venerable works, showing a general dismissiveness toward more contemporary novelists. I'm glad I read it, and hope she regards me as a minnow not a catfish.

[tortoise dreams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ten years of essays by the noted American literary critic.

This book has only 211 pages; I read it at about half my normal pace to absorb as much as I could on a single reading. Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, and Other Literary Essays is the first I've ever read by Cynthia Ozick. I vaguely knew of her as a critic from comments, usually snide, by writers who portrayed her as something of a dinosaur, defending the worst of history, resisting change. I always viewed her (at a distance) sympathetically since I have a weakness for the old world. Knew her not at all as a fiction writer. I haven't parsed it out yet, but the book started off well with "The Boys in the Alley," in which she appeals for what was best in the golden age of criticism, an essay that won me over. But in the 12 essays following she contradicted the thesis of that initial essay. Her discussion of mostly Jewish writers (including the under-read Franz Kafka and the under-rated and too-forgotten Bernard Malamud, one of my favorite authors) and books touching on the Holocaust should have been irresistibly engaging, but instead she comes across as sarcastic, bitter, opinionated without foundation, narrow minded: because I say it it's so. As with most critics, she writes not to be understood, but for the small high school clique of other critics. She despises the digital democratization of readers' discussions (or at least seriously misunderstands them -- I think an Amazon reviewer must've seriously bashed one of her books). If this is the work of the literary critic, it is not persuasive and no longer appealing. I'll go back and summarize this book essay by essay, but except for the reminder to re-read Malamud, I'm disappointed. There must be better.

[Vendedor de rápida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recopilación de ensayos de Oznik. Destaca “Los muchachos en el callejón, lectores que desaparecen y la gemela fantasmal de la novela’ incluido en este volumen y efectivamente parece que está leyendo una novela (con ese título además, como de libro de la editorial Salamandra). Ozick empieza hablando de la polémica entre Frazen y Markus (que tan acertadamente trajo al castellano la editorial @jekyllandjill ) y cuando parece que se va a pronunciar sobre si la literatura está para entretener y sosegar (equipo Frazen) o para molestar e intrigar (equipo Markus), da un giro imprevisto y afirma que el problema no es ése, que lo que pasa es que faltan lectores. Éstos se están yendo a otras cosas, cosas con píxeles sobre todo. Que da igual. Y hasta se atreve a dar una solución: lo que hacen falta son buenos críticos. No reseñistas de Amazon sino lectores expertos profesionales que sepan cómo se conectan los libros de una época, cómo con esas vinculaciones dibujan el sentido de una era. Esto no es fácil de hacer y por eso no hay muchos pero me he acordado de la crítica que Vicente Luis Mora publicó en su blog, Diario de lecturas, hace unos días sobre ‘Remake’ de Bruno Galindo, y cómo encuentra la conexión del asunto que contiene (la repetición de una fiesta como ejercicio de nostalgia) con otras tantas narraciones de varios autores, desde Onetti hasta Mercedes Cebrián. Y he pensado: es esto, es esto seguro. Pero sigo leyendo a Oznik y luego afirma que no se lee, que ni los jóvenes alumnos de los talleres de escritura creativa de Estados Unidos leen libros, porque ellos a lo que van allí es a “contar su experiencia y a “expresarse” y he pensado finalmente que está todo muy mal.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a mixed response to Cynthia Ozick's latest collection of essays, Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, and Other Literary Essays. One of the things I like best about Ozick as a critic is that she pulls no punches; as she says in "The Boys in the Alley, the Disappearing Readers, and the Novel's Ghostly Twin," "[a] critic is, at bottom, a judge, and judgment ought not to be tentative[.]" Yet it is this selfsame certainty which I found irritating in "The Boys in the Alley," perhaps because her judgment here is directed at me, the reader, as much as (if not more than) the literary critics who are her putative subject; that this essay is both the longest and one of the first in the book colored my perception of the book as a whole and diminished, to some extent, my enjoyment of the more traditional literary criticism found in the sections on "Fanatics" and "Monsters."

What bothered me so much about "The Boys in the Alley" (who, by the way, are Jonathan Franzen and Ben Marcus) was Ozick's condescension toward the typical Goodreads reader, whose reviews she describes as contributing merely to "the skin of a genuine literary culture." She goes on in this vein:

Most customer reviewers, though clearly tough customers when it comes to awarding stars, are not tough enough - or well-read enough - for tragic realism or psychological complexity.

Ouch. To the extent Ozick and her publisher intend for her book to sell to the non-literati, they exhibit an amazing amount of chutzpah in denigrating the very people who are most likely to buy it.

Ozick is far from the first (or last, for that matter) person to raise this question: How knowledgeable and well-read must I be for my opinion of a particular work or author to "count," to be worthy of both public expression and public consideration? Ozick surely realizes that we are not all so fortunate as to be full-time readers; most of us are lucky to fit a couple of hours of reading around work and family responsibilities. She also acknowledges that "[t]he literary judgments even of novelists of consequence can be capricious," citing Virginia Woolf's dismissal of James Joyce and V.S. Naipaul's disdain for Henry James. If even such literary heavyweights as these can "get it wrong," why should Ozick so vociferously denounce most of us as "naive and unqualified [not to mention "insipid"] readers who look for easy prose and uplifting endings"?

Don't get me wrong; I am no literary relativist. I agree with Ozick that "a critic is nothing without an authoritative posture, or standard." I believe that not all books are created equal; that we can, and should, recognize some books (the few) as "better than" others (the many); and that we need those, like Lionel Trilling, Harold Bloom, Michael Dirda, and Ozick herself, who can offer what most of us cannot: "horizonless freedoms, multiple histories, multiple libraries, multiple metaphysics and intuitions." What I do suggest, however, is that readers are inherently suspicious of critics perceived to be elitist and that Ozick should remember that just because the current "climate of opinion" doesn't look like Trilling's doesn't necessarily mean that we have no "living literary consciousness" at all.

Getting off my soapbox now, the more conventional critical essays comprising the remainder of the book are well worth reading, with Ozick providing some astute aphorisms, including my personal favorite:

Whoever utters "Kafkaesque" has neither fathomed nor intuited nor felt the impress of Kafka's devisings.

I suggest that readers may appreciate this collection more if they save "The Boys in the Alley" for last.

I received a free copy of Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, and Other Literary Essays from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Luna Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leedlo para flipar con lo bien que piensa y escribe Ozick, pero no lo leáis si no os queréis "contagiar" de su autoexigencia, pues os será difícil volver a escribir después de pasar por sus páginas.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Ozick but she is still fixated on her mid-twentieth century Jewish male writers - Roth, Bellow, Malamud, and her Updike and Harold Bloom, and her beloved Henry James. I try to keep up with her essay collections but every damn one has these same men and she is not reading anyone new.

In fact she admits as much - in the opening essay to this collection. And in a Mother Jones interview she gave while reluctantly "promoting" this book she said: "I can’t claim to be disenchanted 'with the current state of fiction' because I read so little of it." The only contemporary novelist she cites who might be writing novels of ideas (is this the only kind?) is "Joshua Cohen." But she doesn't claim to think his writing is praiseworthy, or even to have read him. She doesn't know.

In this collection she does name and appreciate newer critics like Dwight Garner and Arthur Krystal and Laura Miller (and a slew of others mostly men), but she is stingy about fiction and esp. social media (Amazon reviewers at the time of this piece, which means Goodreads participants today). But as I said I can't really see any evidence that Cynthia Ozick is even reading outside her zone. Unlike Don DeLillo, for example, who goes out of his way to support younger writers and make appearances with them (e.g. Dana Spiotta). I just wish Ozick could be more generous by lending her critique to contemporary novelists - praise them or question them, but just show us you're reading them! (Jonathan Franzen doesn't count, okay?)

[Stetson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection functions as literary criticism of the work of many Jewish authors, a meta-commentary on the purpose of criticism (and more broadly the novel in contemporary culture), and a historical/biographical examination of other literary critics (Again, mostly Jewish). Ozick published this collection in 2016 at the age of 88, which is remarkable. Though this is the first time I've read her, her writing remains clear and sharp at her advanced age. It is evident that she's largely kept up with the contemporary changes in literary culture and society at large. I appreciate these essays for the deeper insight they've provided on figures I've sometimes found enigmatic, including Trilling, Bellow, and Kafka.

Despite learning a lot in particular, I didn't takeaway much in terms of high-impact insights on literature. Ozik's criticism doesn't appear heavily informed by any particular theoretical lens. If anything, she seems mostly concerned with energetic prose and a particular moral vision - one that seems closely linked with her ethnic/religious background. Ozik's aesthetic preferences remain a bit undefined to me, except to the extent she contrasts them with other critics like James Wood. For instance, she appears less insistent about the aesthetic superiority of the style of literary Modernism and Realism. It is clear she has high standards for literature, marking only Bellow for high praise, but it is hard to specify her rubric.

The first essay in the piece is by far the strongest, and the quality of the work generally proceeds in descending fashion throughout the collection. All of the work is readable though, and I look forward to reading more Ozick.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ozick is wicked smart and fiercely opinionated; two wonderful characteristics for a lit critic. She has good words to say about James Wood, but otherwise misses Edmund Wilson and George Orwell, Bellow/Roth/Malamud, and seriousness in general.

Good stuff on Kafka, and intro's for me to G. H. Adler and William Gass.

In her By the Book interview in The NY Times this summer, she said the last great book she read was "Anti-Judaism, The Western Tradition", which might have been the best book I read this year.

[Courtney Ferriter · Rating 3 out of 5]

** 3.5 stars **

Ozick is always a sharp and incisive writer. I particularly enjoyed the essays here about literary critics, Lionel Trilling, Kafka and the term "Kafkaesque," and writers visible and invisible.

Would recommend if you like essays, especially ones about literature and/or literary figures.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ozick, novelist, essayist, and literary critic, doesn’t like ‘lay’ book reviewers, such as write reviews for Amazon, Library Thing, and book blogs, so it’s highly ironic that I, one of the unlettered masses, am reviewing her book. Not that I consider myself a literary critic; I haven’t the education. I do not (usually) read to pick out the symbolism or themes; once in a while those things throw themselves in my face. But citizen reviewers and literary critics are two different things and serve different purposes. Literary criticism is for those who wish to go deep into books and dissect them finely. Reviews are for people looking for something interesting to read. We can coexist, our realms never really touching. At any rate, that is the essay that opens the book, like a blast over the bow.

The rest of the pieces are essays on various authors from the past and present, subjects such as how the terms ‘Kafkaesque’ and ‘Orwellian’ have become degraded, and why we need true critics to preserve literary fiction. It’s really rather brilliantly written and interesting, even for someone without any college classes in literature. One essay is about some Americans who wrote in Hebrew- they weren’t affiliated in any way, they just happened to do it during the same period of time. I’d never heard of them, and will almost certainly never read them even if I could find translations, but it’s fascinating to know about them. Ozick positions Harold Bloom as the pinnacle of literary criticism; I probably agree, even though I feel that he looks down on the common reader.

The writing itself is actually fun to read; I loved her complicated sentences and her broad vocabulary. She is not going to write down in quest of a wider audience. I suspect this book may become a text for some literature classes down the road.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Why must there be a hierarchy, Experimentalism (pushing the envelope) on top, Realism (old hat) below? Mozart and jazz, for instance, live honorably on the same planet” (15).
“And again, with the emphasis of despair: ‘real hell is there in the office; I no longer fear any other’” (117). *quoting Kafka
“The KJV, he points out, has ‘I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up,’ while for ‘lifted me up’ Alter chooses, instead, ‘drawn me up.’ The Hebrew word dolah, he explains, refers to drawing water from a well; the image is of a bottomless crevasse in the earth, fearfully identified in a later verse as ‘the Pit.’ Rather than turning inward, the translator uncovers sacral presence in the concrete meaning of the Hebrew, so that the metaphor of the well instantly seizes on weight and depth and muscle. Which approach is truer, which more authentic?” (134).
“Seductive gates, these, through which I may not pass, forbidden by the bound feet of ignorance” (151).
“...Szmul, the most pitiable of the doomed, the grieving overseer of a vast heaving meadow of human ash…” (196).

*This is silly, but I found the changing of fonts throughout the book distracting.

[Bert Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This woman knows how to write about literature. Her piece on Kafka is brilliant as are the many other smaller gems sprinkled throughout the book. She inspires the reader to seek out new authors as I did reading through Edmund Wilson's The Dead Sea Scrolls piece
Her fiction is as good as her critical writing. I recommend The Messiah of Stockholm.

[Joshua Buhs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unremarkable. Or, at least, it left no marks on me.

I like literary criticism. A lot. Sometimes I find it more exciting to read about books than to read the books. (I know, I know.) A good James Wood essay can leave my synapses buzzing. I don't know much about Cynthia Ozick--all I know is of her folderol with Normal Mailer back in the 1970s--and that she is very well regarded. I'm not here to crush on her reputation. I'm sure she's smarter than me and knows more about literature that I ever will.

I just don't think this book showed any of that.

The show-off piece here is her first. It takes up more than thirty pages of this very slim volume. (It clocks in at just over 200 hundred pages, but there is a lot of blank space.) This essay reads like something that was presented as a lecture and adapted to the page, a little inelegantly. The vocabulary is intimidating, but the structure is a bit bizarre. Ozick starts by considering Jonathan Franzen's now two-decade-old essay on how he wants to win a large audience. She then sets this essay against the contrary position, put forth by Ben Marcus, that the writer's job should be to innovate language and not worry about language.

But then, after pages and pages documenting this debate, she switches and there is no pay-off. She ends up arguing, instead, that what novels need are neither popular acclaim--there will always be novels--nor to be innovative--some will be, some won't be, both types can be good--but solid literary criticism to put novels into their proper context: to explain them, and their connections to others, in order so suss out something about culture more generally. Presumably, this position is meant as a provocation, but it seems . . . about right. Ok. That was a lot of work to prove a point that isn't particularly controversial.

In the course of marking out literary criticism and its job, Ozick is careful to differentiate it from related genres: it is not reviewing, which is just plot summary and evaluation; it is not blogging, which is too ephemeral (!); it is not academic evaluation, which is mental masturbation. It is wider view than all these, a considered view. It is wisdom.

Presumably, then, what follows is meant to be understood as literary criticism. But if that's true, I am confused.

Ozick notes that in recent years, James Wood has alone held the candle of literary criticism. I'm not sure that I can get behind this. But then she argues that there have been some recent additions--writers with whom I was not familiar. But then, later, she goes further and lists a paragraph of people who are literary critics in the manner she understands the term, some of whom I do know. I would think that she would consider herself a literary critic, too, and perhaps she is only note naming herself because of humility. It's hard to know.

This (apparently) difficult-to-characterize situation she contrasts to the mid-century situation when there were "figures," particularly Lionel Trilling and, before him, Edmund Willson. (She also mentions Orwell in an introductory gloss, but never comes back to him, oddly.) Ozick is impressed by the breadth of these figures, and in both cases gives long lists--she likes long lists--of the various subjects on which they wrote. And indeed it is impressive, but one also wonders about an implicit conservatism here.

Ozick is dismissive of blogs and digital media. (The New Republic was good, she says, until it went fully digital.) And certainly digital media is often more transient than print media. But there are other differences that weigh in on the side of digital media: digital media gives readers of various sorts the chance to speak back to writers. One wonders how often an essay by Trilling would have been eviscerated on line with experts able to respond. Indeed, for all the praising of Trilling's and Wilson's range, Ozick evinces a lack of curiosity at some points. For example, she notes that Trilling's friend, Jacques Barzun, claimed that he, Trilling, and Auden were responsible for making "culture" as it is known, a common word. But this leaves out the anthropologists, and particularly Ruth Benedict and Franz Boas, completely. It's as if she couldn't be bothered to check, or worried about contradicting Barzun.

After these first two sections--the essay, then a consideration of the mid-century figures--Ozick offers a bunch of examples of her writing; according to the paratextual material, this was previously published. Most of what is included here are reviews. To the extent that they are examples of literary criticism, they are so by noting that other books have touched on similar subjects; and that they are longer than the usual review--which is a privilege she was accorded by the publications, but one wonders what other reviewers might do in longer space. She doesn't seem to read these writers particularly closely, and there is little about aesthetics. She is interested in historical connections.

The other theme that comes through here is an interest in Jewish history and Jewish culture. But, again, the focus seems to be on the mid-twentieth century (though a bit more broadly defined than usual.) She writes on Kafka, Hebrew in mid-century American letters, the need for authors to maintain a quiet authenticity outside of the public eye, Leo Baeck, Harold Bloom, William Gass, Martin Amis (and the holocaust), and H. G. Adler. These are of varying interest; they all reveal Ozick to do a lot of work and thought in her reviews. But only a few--on Kafka, for example--is her literary criticism enough to place the authors in the general cultural milieu. Very often, these read as book reviews--erudite reviews, no doubt--but reviews nonetheless.

I learned a few things reading this book but I'm not sure what, if anything, I will carry with me for more than a few days. Certainly I did not learn to see the culture in new ways. Not that should be the evaluation for every book: but when the lead essay says that this is what literary criticism *should* do, it's hard not to have a high expectation for what follows. There was no pay off.

Admittedly, though, what I offer here is only a review, and a digital one at that. So, you know.

[Sebastian Uribe Díaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sus textos sobre la crítica literaria y Kafka son tan tan buenos que hacen que todo el libro valga la pena.

[Patti K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ozick's fresh, cogent short essays on mid-twentieth century authors
and critics was published in 2016. Old white men, in particular. Lionel
Trilling, Harold Bloom, Edmund Wilson, Saul Bellow, and Bernard Malamud.
Her wit shines through every piece even when the writer is not of particular
interest to me. Intelligent commentary that does a reader good.

[World Literature Today]

“This slender but dazzling collection of thirteen essays, some previously published but refurbished, is primarily concerned with fiction and criticism, both of which Cynthia Ozick practices with ease. It is clear that she is not a reviewer but a critic. Reviewers are allocated a certain amount of space, while critics can—or should—be given free rein, addressing not just the work but its relationship to the world in which it gestated and into which it arrived.” - Bernard F. Dick


This book was reviewed in the January/February 2017 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:

https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...

[Brenton Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed most of this, even though I wasn’t particularly interested in the subject matter, for the most part. I haven’t read much of the literature Ozick writes about, nor will I.

Ozick seems to find all the themes and thoughts and relevant ideas associated with the people and writings she addresses here - she either does a ton of research or just knows everything about everything. Or both. Probably both.

I should say, I often enjoy reading about books as much or even more than I enjoy reading books. And some of these essays are perfect in that regard. The essay on Martin Amis’ novel about a German concentration camp, in particular.

[Chris Timmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent sampling of Ozick's more recent literary output. She does an excellent job of giving the reader a full sense of her erudition, intellect, and depth of feeling and insight. This is a genuine service to literature. Especially stimulating were the essays on Saul Bellow and the literary climate today.

[Stacie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and insightful essays on the role of the critic and literary criticism is society. A note from my personal journey as a reader, this book is my 2500 "read" book documented on Goodreads. I wonder what books I have forgotten, which I will remember and those waiting for me to discover in the near and distant futures.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very engsging and insightful -- as one of the blurbs proclaims, one of its strengths is its ability to create the feeling of a story of criticism, which at once initiates and informs the reader as a kind of colleague. Some moments felt critically dated, as though I was reading criticism from the 60s ot something, but I took that as a quality of Ozick's long term perspective.

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection jam-packed with ideas, allusions, connections... Specialists in literature will enjoy Ozick's observations and analysis, though generalists --and students-- might be overwhelmed. (She does have strong opinions about amateur reviewers like us!)

[Jami Lin · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved loved loved loved. Ozick is a masterful wordsmith.

[Noah Benner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ozick’s collection of essays of literary criticism on the topic of literary criticism is a masterful illustration of why so few people bother to read literary criticism. In the opening essay, she explains that the lack of sufficient literary criticism in contemporary times leaves us incapable of understanding the context of novels and unable to grasp the fullness of the current literary moment. Fair enough. But Ozick first goes on at length regarding her distaste for both “customer reviewers” on Amazon and professional book reviewers. (Ironically, the short essays near the end of the book which are essentially book reviews are by far the strongest and least pretentious work in the volume). Her contempt for these simpletons drips from the page. She practically vibrates with anger that ordinary people (unlike her) are not deeply versed in the classics and might not enjoy novels that are not, well, enjoyable to read. She also rails against the outrageous tendency of publishers to focus on books that people might actually want to read rather than “the real right thing.”

The phrase “ivory tower” gets thrown around a lot, but it’s rare, at least for me, to encounter a writer who is so happily ensconced in it, with little interest in venturing beyond a tight circle of New York City critics, some animated by a seeming resentment of their lack of success at writing fiction of their own, and mostly writing for each other and a tiny sliver of literary snobs. Ozick continually employs overwrought language to fawn over her preferred critics. At one point, she embarrassingly praises a turgid passage in a poorly-received novel by critic Lionel Trilling as “a mastery of boyhood worthy of Mark Twain.” She is eager to convince us that Harold Bloom’s criticism is on the same aesthetic plain as the best of literature and poetry. If I were her, I would have avoided using the phrase “blowhard hyperbole” in an essay on Bloom, because it perfectly captures most of his writing.

Many of Ozick’s conclusions are, as is the case with much literary criticism, conveniently unfalsifiable, as when she argues that writer’s motivations cannot be uncovered using reason. There is an underlying sense of grievance throughout the book, at popular authors, at other schools of criticism, at anyone who ever refused to denounce Stalin (this comes up again and again), at “corrupt academics,” at “publishing lords,” at “magazine editors,” at the unwashed masses and their disinterest in Ozick’s favorites. Bloom’s famous “school of resentment” moniker could easily be re-applied to Ozick’s vituperative tone towards eveyone outside of her little club of mid-century scribblers.

At one point, she asks, “can poet and critic be equal seers?” I answer: no!

A final note: please shut up about Henry James. We get it. You studied Henry James. Please move on.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this deeply intelligent collection of critical essays in 3 days during the celebration of Passover and Easter in this world gone mad in the throes of the Coronavirus pandemic. Ozick is a celebrated novelist and a deep literary thinker. She seems to have read almost everything and everyone. Her analysis is complex and challenging. One of Ozick's themes is whether or not the novel and literature will survive these troubling times, and this was before the latest disaster bestowed by Mother Nature.

In the end I came away from these essays with the feeling that literature and fiction and art matter even more during a time when nothing else seems to make any sense at all.
Death awaits everybody one of these days but there are things that can lessen our despair in these harsh times. Ozick's collections of essays was a balm for the soul. It revels in intelligence and the complexity of literature's ability to describe the human condition.

[J. J.]

Ozick was a revelation for me. Her sentences dazzle and do more lifting than whole paragraphs from other, lesser writers. She became quickly in my mind a companion to Joseph Epstein, who’s wit and clarity and desire to preserve sanity often seemed to make him stand alone. But I think Ozick would make him feel less alone. If nothing else, they could talk about Bellow. She spoke kindly and generously of Epstein in passing, and I was pleased by this.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry, this book is going nowhere.
Skimmed 50%....then I gave up.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*