One of America's foremost novelists and critics, Cynthia Ozick has won praise and provoked debate for taking on challenging literary, historical, and moral issues. Her new collection of spirited essays focuses on the essential joys of great literature, with particular emphasis on the novel. With razor-sharp wit and an inspiring joie de vivre, she investigates unexpected byways in the works of Leo Tolstoy, Saul Bellow, Helen Keller, Isaac Babel, Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, and more. In a posthumous and hilariously harassing "(Unfortunate) Interview with Henry James," Ozick's hero is shocked by a lady reporter. In "Highbrow Blues" and in reflections on her own early fiction, she writes intimately of "the din in our heads, that relentless inner hum," and the curative power of literary imagination.

The Din in the Head is sure to please fans, win new readers, and excite critical controversy and acclaim.

Signature Review by Daphne Merkin
"Ever since she first started offering up her fiercely (and often unfashionably) judgmental opinions over three decades ago, the din in Cynthia Ozick's head has been worth listening to even if you don't agree with her conclusions. 'This persistent internal hum,' as she characterizes it in her latest essay collection, is set off most memorably by 'the individual's solitary engagement with an intimate text,' be it John Updike's early stories, Sylvia Plath's journals, or Robert Alter's new translation of the Pentateuch. In our cacophonous Age of Buzz, where eloquent literary reflection has gone the way of Wite-Out, Ozick prides herself on resisting the blandishments of popularity for the highbrow's more discriminating vantage point. 'Readers are not the same as audiences,' she reminds us sternly in 'Highbrow Blues,' 'and the structure of a novel is not the same as the structure of a lingerie advertisement.' Although Ozick is equipped with the kind of intellectual muscle that marked Susan Sontag's strongest writing the opening essay, 'On Discord and Desire,' pays qualified homage to Sontag, she also has a rigorous (some might say self-righteous) moral sense and a distrust of radical chic that draws her to burnishing eclipsed reputations, which she does in moving appreciations of Lionel Trilling and Delmore Schwartz, and to upholding classical values, as espoused by Saul Bellow or the Bible. Ozick is most effective when she has more rather than less room to expatiate; the best pieces here are capaciously rendered, like an inspired reconsideration of Gershom Scholem. To be sure, at however exalted an altitude she pitches her criticism, Ozick is not above fretting about the vagaries of celebrity and, indeed, seems never to have accommodated herself to the relative obscurity that attends upon a more elitist calling. I assume it is to this end that we are treated once again to an account of her youthful obsession with writing a Jamesian novel ('James, Tolstoy, and My First Novel') a miscalculation that clearly preys on her. Perhaps it is her wish to make up for her late start that has led her to include every piece of occasional writing she has done (including a review of Joseph Lelyveld's memoir, Omaha Blues, that I remember reading the first time around). If this collection is not the strongest of the four she has published, Ozick's is a strikingly independent and articulate voice, one that rises above the noise of the madding crowd with rare clarity and force. Daphne Merkin is the author of Enchantment, a novel, and Dreaming of Hitler, a collection of essays. She is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and writes a bimonthly book column, Provocateur, for Elle" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Ozick should be required reading for students of literature at all levels." Library Journal

"Erudition lightly worn, eloquence finely crafted." Kirkus Reviews

"Criticism is a difficult form, and Ozick practices it with passionate curiosity, discernment, and pleasure in both rigorous thinking and the crafting of decisive and scintillating prose." Booklist

"Written in clean, clear, accessible prose devoid of academic ponderousness, these are rich, meaty essays to be read again and again." Baltimore Sun

"While known chiefly for her novels, Cynthia Ozick is an eagle-eyed critic with a supple mastery of the essay form.....In her new collection, she demonstrates again a taste in literature that is refined, wide-ranging and unhampered by the current fascination with identity politics." Miami Herald

"[T]he book is full of pithy gems." Seattle Times

"[Ozick] has made herself an indispensable presence in our embattled literary scene." Los Angeles Times

One of America& #39; s foremost novelists and critics, Cynthia Ozick has< BR> won praise and provoked debate for taking on challenging literary, < BR> historical, and moral issues. Her new collection of spirited essays focuses< BR> on the essential joys of great literature, with particular emphasis on the< BR> novel. With razor-sharp wit and an inspiring joie de vivre, she investigates< BR> unexpected byways in the works of Leo Tolstoy, Saul Bellow, Helen< BR> Keller, Isaac Babel, Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, and others. In a posthumous< BR> and hilariously harassing & quot; (Unfortunate) Interview with Henry< BR> James, & quot; Ozick& #39; s hero is shocked by a lady reporter. In & quot; Highbrow Blues& quot; < BR> and in reflections on her own early fiction, she writes intimately of & quot; the< BR> din in our heads, that relentless inner hum, & quot; and the curative power of< BR> literary imagination. The Din in the Head is sure to please fans o Ozick, win her new readers, and excite critical controversy and acclaim.

Cynthia Ozick is the author of numerous acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction. She is a recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Man Booker International prize. Her stories have won four O. Henry first prizes, and Ozick was recently awarded the 2008 Pen/Nabokov Award and the 2008 Pen/Malamud Award. She lives in New York.

Contents

Foreword On Discord and Desire · 3 · What Helen Keller Saw · 11 · Young Tolstoy: An Apostle of Desire · 33 · John Updike: Eros and God · 47 · Throwing Away the Clef: Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein · 57 · Washington Square: So Many Absent Things · 71 · Smoke and Fire: Sylvia Plath’s Journals · 85 · Kipling: A Postcolonial Footnote · 91 · Delmore Schwartz: The Willed Abortion of the Self · 93 · Lionel Trilling and the Buried Life · 105 · Tradition and (or versus) the Jewish Writer · 125 · Henry James, Tolstoy, and My First Novel · 131 · Highbrow Blues · 147 · The Din in the Head · 157 · The Rule of the Bus · 163 · Isaac Babel: “Let Me Finish” · 179 · In Research of Lost Time · 185 · The Heretical Passions of Gershom Scholem · 197 · And God Saw Literature, That It Was Good: Robert Alter’s Version · 219 · Afterword An (Unfortunate) Interview with Henry James · 235 ·