Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Along with our surfeit of fiction and poetry has come a cornucopia of criticism, much of it originating from our universities where the discussion of literature often assumes monkish austerity. Good critics avoid the stifling solemnity that chills our novels and poems, but they also manage to preserve the dignity of reading and, ultimately, of forming opinions. This collection of Ozick's essays should certainly establish her not as a critic preaching a program in which the works become footnotes to hypotheses, but as a sensitive reader who has that rare ability to transform personal reactions into considered opinions and, most importantly, to reveal to us the mechanics of that transformation." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)