Book Ten: Heir to the Glimmering World, by Cynthia Ozick
This is quite possibly the greatest book I have read in many years. While a number of people would probably say that Philip Roth's The Plot Against America is the best book of 2004, I give that honor to Ozick's character-driven, consistently compelling novel. Set in New York City at a time just between the Depression and WWII, the story centers on a young woman just out of her teens named Rose Meadows. After a difficult childhood with a strange father, she emerges from her home to go work for a family of German immigrants. While Rose is the book's primary narrator (Ozick switches voices from time to time), it is the characters that surround her that make the story engaging. There's a cousin named Bertram and his communist girlfriend Ninel (note that it's Lenin spelled backward), but the Mittwissers, the family to which Rose finds herself attached, may provide for the most intriguing of personalities. The family's benefactor, James, is better known to the world as the Bear Boy. Based on the real-life situation of A.A. Milnes' son Christopher Robin, James is an embittered young man who seeks to distance himself from the way that his writer father had imagined him and presented him to the world. Part of his rebellion is his decision to take the Mitwissers under his wing, which brings him into Rose's life - and that of the Mittwisser's oldest daughter, Anneliese.
Of all of the books that I have read so far in 2005, this is the one I give my highest recommendation. Ozick has mastered the use of language to create atmosphere and theme, and along with the fascinating characters, makes for a marvelous read that is nearly impossible to put down.
This is quite possibly the greatest book I have read in many years. While a number of people would probably say that Philip Roth's The Plot Against America is the best book of 2004, I give that honor to Ozick's character-driven, consistently compelling novel. Set in New York City at a time just between the Depression and WWII, the story centers on a young woman just out of her teens named Rose Meadows. After a difficult childhood with a strange father, she emerges from her home to go work for a family of German immigrants. While Rose is the book's primary narrator (Ozick switches voices from time to time), it is the characters that surround her that make the story engaging. There's a cousin named Bertram and his communist girlfriend Ninel (note that it's Lenin spelled backward), but the Mittwissers, the family to which Rose finds herself attached, may provide for the most intriguing of personalities. The family's benefactor, James, is better known to the world as the Bear Boy. Based on the real-life situation of A.A. Milnes' son Christopher Robin, James is an embittered young man who seeks to distance himself from the way that his writer father had imagined him and presented him to the world. Part of his rebellion is his decision to take the Mitwissers under his wing, which brings him into Rose's life - and that of the Mittwisser's oldest daughter, Anneliese.
Of all of the books that I have read so far in 2005, this is the one I give my highest recommendation. Ozick has mastered the use of language to create atmosphere and theme, and along with the fascinating characters, makes for a marvelous read that is nearly impossible to put down.
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