Synopses & Reviews
Why do so many brilliant writers turn out to be anything but brilliant in their personal conduct? This is the question asked by Cynthia Ozick, herself one of the brightest stars in our intellectual firmament, in Fame and Folly, as she trains her unwavering gaze and incandescent prose on the fatal disparity, between literary, reputations and literary lives.
Whether her subject is T. S. Eliot -- modernist apostle, fascist sympathizer, and fearfully callous husband -- or Isaac Babel -- the scholarly Jew who rode with Cossacks -- Ozick writes with a fine balance of moral discernment and human sympathy. From Henry James to Salman Rushdie, and from Anthony Trollope to Mark Twain, she looks at our literary idols and reveals not feet of clay, but flawed and beating hearts, and in so doing inspires us to a fresh admiration of their achievements.
Synopsis
From one of America's great literary figures, a new collection of essays on eminent writers and their work, and on the war between art and life. The perilous intersection of writers' lives with public and private domains is the fertile subject of many of these remarkable essays from such literary giants as T. S. Eliot, Isaac Babel, Salman Rushdie, and Henry James.
"A genuine literary education. . . . Each of these pieces is informed, gracefully written and propelled with narrative energy."--San Francisco Chronicle
"A glittering new collection. . . . Each essay shimmers with intelligence."--The New York Times