The Din in the Head

Cynthia Ozick has long held her reputation as one of the most acclaimed critics working in America. Her essays are, without fail, uncompromisingly optimistic about what literature can do, what literature has done, and the hopes of literature for the future. Unlike other academics or critics, Ozick does not bemoan the novel's current lack of favour when compared to movies or the internet - her approach is positive, reasoned, passionate and compelling. The essays contained in The Din in the Head, while not explicitly thematically linked, share a common bond in exploring either less well-known but still luminous authors of the twentieth century, or the minor works of acknowledged and remembered masters. A Jew, Ozick directly addresses the question of what it means to be a 'Jewish writer' in her essay, Tradition and (Or Versus) the Jewish Writer. She believes that if a Jewish author is not tackling such massive problems as the Holocaust or the creation and stability of Israel, then 'All other subject matter in the so-called Jewish-American novel is, well, American, written in the American language, telling American stories.' She rejects the concept of a Jewish novel unless, as stated, it is forcibly and solely Jewish in origin and intent. Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, etc novels are not usually branded with their religion before being read, and nor should they be - it seems only the Jews and minorities such as colonial literature suffer from this problem. A novel is what it is, the aim of an author is not 'community service or communal expectation.' She finishes by saying that writers 'are responsible only to the comely shape of a sentence, and to the unfettered imagination'. That being said, a number of her essays do directly deal with leading Jewish authors such as Saul Bellow, Delmore Schwartz, Lionel Trilling, Isaac Babel, Gershom Scholem. Other authors include Updike, Tolstoy, Kipling, Plath and Henry James. Roughly half of the book deals with Jewish authors or themes, the other half with novels in general. While the book cannot honestly be claimed as Jewish - witness Ozick's own attack on the concept, but also consider the inappropriateness of a book on literary criticism not analysing the works of such masters as Saul Bellow - Ozick's pride in her heritage is plain. But it is not the pride that comes from grandstanding or self-propelling ambition, rather, Ozick discusses these things because they have merit to herself, and by extension, to others. Her essay, John Updike: Eros and God, is a remarkable piece of sustained admiration for an author who, sad as it is to say, seems to be less appreciated than in his due by today's younger authors, who value the flash and fire of literary psuedo-pyrotechnics, all the while ignoring Updike's supreme command of the English language, his ease and skill and, dare it be said, grace in composing sentences that show us the ordinary in a way we couldn't - wouldn't? - have looked at it ourselves. 'Langu

This is a collection of literate essays about literary characters and subjects. If you think you might never get around to actually reading an entire book by such authors as Henry James, Saul Bellow, John Updike, or Leo Tolstoy - you can read this book instead and get a sense of who these authors are and what they have to say. It's not that Ozick's book is like a cheat sheet or a Cliff's Notes summary. She focuses on some specifically revealing vignettes from the lives of each of these authors, or on some particularly telling aspect of their styles. You'll get something meaty out of these essays. They'll enable you to hold your own in intelligent conversation about these figures at cocktail parties. But these essays might give you an itch to actually go back and read these authors. They're not presented here as dry school subjects. They are "as seen by" Ozick. And her commentaries act like a prism, separating the white beacon of fame that has been shone on these iconic literary figures into distinct personal colors. Even if you don't go anywhere with these essays though, I think you'll enjoy reading them for sheer pleasure. Ozick has a spectacularly limber vocabulary. Her sentences are pirouettes and gran jetes. She has an admitted love affair with words and can arc them across dazzling spans, concluding with fresh twists on her subject matter. The last essays in this book deal with a Zionist author, and then with a man who single-handedly produced a new translation and gloss of the Bible. These are subjects I wouldn't have ordinarily delved into for casual reading. But in a relatively few pages, Ozick shows some of the interesting insights to be drawn from these men's labors. Then if you like this book, I highly recommend the essay collections of Thomas Mallon. He is also a master at illuminating literary careers with a turn of phrase.

Cynthia Ozick is along with being a distinguished novelist one of the best literary critics in America. Her essays are probing examinations of the art and moral meaning of Literature. In this collection she writes about Bellow, Updike, Babel, the young Tolstoy, Kipling, Delmore Schwartz, Lionel Trilling and of course her great master and teacher, Henry James. In a sense in writing about them she is defending the Literary Tradition, the importance of the Novel, of the inner worlds which only words can make. Her tone can be at times a little too schoolmistressy but she is upholding an idea of Literature as the bright book of life, and as a source of true spiritual sustenance. She has been chided for again fighting in this work a battle which many claim already won, the battle to preserve the significance of the Novel as a form. She too has been taken to task for that haughty elitist tone, which sets limits and standards, and sees a place in the Tradition as something to be struggled and aspired for. She is a deep person in feeling and often her prose is complicated and awkward, an overwhelming rush of words upon words upon words. But her mind is a fine and powerful one and she time and again makes the right distinction and perception. Above all readers of these essays can rest assured that they have entered a kind of small higher world, a world where writing and thought , the search for truth and beauty are given a special measure of devotion. This is very apparent in her long essay on the master scholar of Jewish Mystical Literature Gershom Scholem. Ozick is like James a writer of great intelligence, and careful moral judgment. It is just a very great pleasure and privilege to read her work.