The Shawl
Cynthia Ozick
This is one of the most powerful things I've ever read. The book itself is divided into two prize-winning short stories, both of which complement each other and follow the same narrative arc. The first takes place in a concentration camp during the Holocaust; the second revisits the woman in question some forty years later as she drifts through life. What gives these stories force is their ability to actually imagine the Holocaust and its aftermath, and bring alive the complete tragedy of the events.
Ozick's prose itself is more concerned with spirit than with convention, and that is fine with me. The stories aren't experimental in their form, but their fragmented style and train-of-thought patterns aren't quite what we expect of great literature, per se. Ozick knows how to get her reader to feel, and she does so by delicately and elegantly painting a picture of grief and utmost emptiness. If things occasionally seem surreal, it is only because the world of Miami is entirely distinct from prewar Poland or the concentration camps that have defined Rosa, the main character. We feel uprooted and confused just as she must be, which is part of the book's power.
I found it interesting, in this day and age, to see a book that treats the Holocaust as a complete and utter tragedy, fully portraying someone absolutely destroyed by its effects. There may be some debate about an American author attempting to recreate the horror of the Holocaust, but Ozick excels at the task and provides what I believe to be a more complete emotional picture than many memoirs I've read. To be able to look at the "survivor" from the outside adds a whole new layer of understanding and depth to the events that occurred and the complete emotional damage inflicted on these people.
Ozick has taken delicate subject matter and treated it with complete respect, even criticizing herself in the process. Ozick takes a look at how deep emotional trauma can forever affect someone and how the pain of the past can never fully be erased from a tormented soul. Rosa and Stella (her niece) have developed their own coping mechanisms, and both come alive with a distinct realism that shines through the floating atmosphere of the prose. This book is emotionally jarring, unsettling, and overall a fitting look at the aftermath of one of history's most horrible eras.
Grade: A
Cynthia Ozick
This is one of the most powerful things I've ever read. The book itself is divided into two prize-winning short stories, both of which complement each other and follow the same narrative arc. The first takes place in a concentration camp during the Holocaust; the second revisits the woman in question some forty years later as she drifts through life. What gives these stories force is their ability to actually imagine the Holocaust and its aftermath, and bring alive the complete tragedy of the events.
Ozick's prose itself is more concerned with spirit than with convention, and that is fine with me. The stories aren't experimental in their form, but their fragmented style and train-of-thought patterns aren't quite what we expect of great literature, per se. Ozick knows how to get her reader to feel, and she does so by delicately and elegantly painting a picture of grief and utmost emptiness. If things occasionally seem surreal, it is only because the world of Miami is entirely distinct from prewar Poland or the concentration camps that have defined Rosa, the main character. We feel uprooted and confused just as she must be, which is part of the book's power.
I found it interesting, in this day and age, to see a book that treats the Holocaust as a complete and utter tragedy, fully portraying someone absolutely destroyed by its effects. There may be some debate about an American author attempting to recreate the horror of the Holocaust, but Ozick excels at the task and provides what I believe to be a more complete emotional picture than many memoirs I've read. To be able to look at the "survivor" from the outside adds a whole new layer of understanding and depth to the events that occurred and the complete emotional damage inflicted on these people.
Ozick has taken delicate subject matter and treated it with complete respect, even criticizing herself in the process. Ozick takes a look at how deep emotional trauma can forever affect someone and how the pain of the past can never fully be erased from a tormented soul. Rosa and Stella (her niece) have developed their own coping mechanisms, and both come alive with a distinct realism that shines through the floating atmosphere of the prose. This book is emotionally jarring, unsettling, and overall a fitting look at the aftermath of one of history's most horrible eras.
Grade: A
No comments:
Post a Comment