Dec 31, 2009
Cynthia Ozick begins Bloodshed and Three Novellas with a preface that explores the difficulty of using English to explain Jewish postulates and explains that “Usurpation,” the longest fiction in the book, is “a story written against story-writing, against the Muse-goddesses; against Apollo.” For this author, the act of creation carries the risk of breaking the Second Commandment’s injunction against making idols. Connecting these stories is Ozick’s focus on the problems involved in being Jewish in an essentially pagan, Hellenistic world.
...[The entire page is 2116 words long]
©2000-2009
Enotes.com Inc.
All Rights Reserved