Fame & Folly: Essays (Pen Literary Award Winner)

by Cynthia Ozick

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679767541
• ISBN13: 9780679767541
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Typically Excellent

I read most of Inna's superb output on the Internet. If you are not familiar with her writings, do yourself a favor, buy her book. Yuval Zaliouk

Thoughtful Essays

These essays are part autobiographical, part literary review, part reflection on the 20th century as a whole. The clearest example of the merging of these themes occurs in "Rushdie in the Louvre". Here we find Salman Rushdie who to Cynthia Ozick "has become, in his own person, a little Israel'; and defending whom "nowadays... places one among the stereotypes and the `Orientalists'". Here we see a man whose "right to exist is mired in the politics of anti-colonialism-and never mind the irony of this, given Rushdie's origins as a Muslim born in India." And here too we see Rushdie's work; his literary genius. But these themes (so concentrated in this one essay) are scattered throughout the rest of the book as well. In this volume we find a touching portrait of Alfred Chester-a writer who might have been great; the first writer of her own generation Ozick meets; the man who (in many ways) gives her a hand up the ladder, even as he begins his own descent into death. Here we find the warning to our generation because we are too ready to celebrate the Now at the expense of history and culture (a warning that follows on the heels of a smile-inducing history of the Temple's fight against Modernity). And then there are some frankly personal essays. "Helping T.S. Eliot Write Better" will make any editor cringe; "Of Christian Heroism" is as much a personal rumination on human nature as it is an ode to Christians who saved Jews during the Holocaust. But no essay in this volume is impersonal. There are some themes that run through them, of course: anti-totalitarianism, anti-racism, anti-sameness, an abiding admiration for Western culture and literature and an even greater one for the creative spirit. But the author of these essays is ever present. In "Isaac Babel and the Identity Question", Cynthia Ozick decries the lack of "a valid biography of Babel." In this volume of essays, she has (I think) begun to write her own.

Great moral intelligence and literary passion

Ozick is a writer of great moral intelligence and literary passion. Because I love to read about writers, and the relation between their work and their life her essays always provide a special kind of enjoyment for me. Ozick is also tremendously knowledgeable and one in reading the essays learns a great deal about the writers in question. She also has an acute historical sense. Her writing about Eliot and his influence on the literary culture especially of the whole university world of the post- war period rings so true. She has a subtletly in seeing the complex realities of someone like Eliot. One might be a little wearied by her lengthy study of a friend and fellow student of literature, Alfred Chester but nonetheless this too is a kind of instruction in Reality. She is a storyteller also, and therefore her essays have a quality which makes them move along in a definite direction. A first- rate collection for anyone for whom the literary essay is dear.

Ozick is not a politician

That's right: Cynthia Ozick is not a politician: she is a writer. She does not write for a weak politically-minded mainstream; she writes for those who enjoy reading and appreciate scholarship. And from glancnig at one customer review, it's obvious what a hiatus exists between these two groups!It is extremely frustrating that someone would dismiss Ozick as "mildly-talented" because of her refusal to compromise her artistic integrity. Ozick does not care about "hanging out" with the popular kids, nor does she toss out her Jewish heritage in light of its being "not completely feminist."In these essays, as well as in her fiction, Ozick sets high standards for male and female writers alike. Her writing is Modern in its style, Classical in its sensibility. And never dull or uninspired.

Our greatest essayist

Having already reviewed Ozick's other essay collections, I have little to say about Fame & Folly, a wholly splendid book. But I do want to point out that the reviewer who evaluated Fame & Folly solely in terms of its author's feminism (s/he found Ozick insufficiently feminist) did a disservice to those who want some idea of the nature of the book. Fame & Folly does not aspire to be a feminist tract, despite the fact that Ozick is as liberated a woman as you could find (incidentally, her earlier collection Art & Ardor contains several essays in praise of classical feminism). It is a defense of, a hymn to, belles lettres. She writes about Henry James. She writes about Saul Bellow. She recalls her friendship with the late writer Alfred Chester. She shows, in every sentence, why she is America's foremost essayist.