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Title: The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick ISBN: 0-679-72926-7 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 August, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.55 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The best fictional evocation of the Holoaust
Comment: Both stories in this brief book ("The Shawl" and "Rosa") are about the same women, who sees her baby killed in the camps and thirty years later is haunted by her memory. "The Shawl" (the first story) is, I think, the best short story in the English language (it dwarfs Carver and Cheever in scope, has deeper moral thrust than O'Conner and in a few pages evokes the Holocaust as much as Primo Levi was able to do in his eloquent long works). In a few words: Read this story and you will be changed. On the other hand, "Rosa" (a novella) is drawn out and, though powerful, more nuanced and subtle than its predecessor. Although usually good things, these elements work against the story (especially if read in succession) - "The Shawl"'s power is its unwillingness to compromise anything whereas "Rosa" seems to err a bit on the long side. It's almost tempting to give the stories entirely different ratings but the "10" of "The Shawl" so far eclipses any "9" or "8" I would give "Rosa" that I think it unfair to lower the status of the better story. This work is not nice or easy and doesn't attempt any of the catharsis some Holocaust Fiction ludicrously includes. It is hard to read (and should be) because both works are more or less a statement about our own humanity (or inhumanity). The prose itself is wonderfully easy, but the depth of emotion Ozick strikes makes this a very difficult 69 pages. Read it and you too will "never forget".
Rating: 5
Summary: A haunting piece of Holocaust-inspired fiction
Comment: "The Shawl," the book by Cynthia Ozick, is made up of two linked pieces: a short story (also entitled "The Shawl"), and a novella ("Rosa"). Together, these pieces make up a book that is just about 70 pages long. But despite its brevity, "The Shawl" is a powerful work of fiction.
The book tells the story of Rosa Lublin, a Polish Jew and survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. Eventually she settles in Florida. This is a dark, haunting tale with some surreal satiric elements.
There are many fascinating touches to "The Shawl." I was intrigued by Ozick's representation of immigrant "English-as-a-second-language" speech patterns. Also noteworthy is Ozick's look at the complexity of linguistic, class, and national identification within the Jewish community. Rosa's problematic relationship-by-mail with a professor of clinical social pathology is also noteworthy, and struck me as comparable to a certain motif in Toni Morrison's novel "Beloved."
Rosa, who is bitter, angry, and psychologically broken, is a genuinely haunting and tragic figure. "The Shawl" is not light reading, but it is a memorable and rewarding book. Recommended as a companion text: Art Spiegelman's 2-volume "Maus."
Rating: 4
Summary: soul of the holocaust
Comment: I believe the holocast a nightmare - an ugly beast. if Weisel's book " night" be the fictional body of that beast then Shawl is the fictional soul of that beast. This is not first hand description of holocast so it is less bloody but still touching. I liked it for it's literary values and not for it's historical value. even concntration camp kills human beings but does not kill the social barriers that are build inside us from childhood. that idea kind of defeats me. I like the central Character rosa - reminded me of another great novel from Maim Gorky called the "mother"
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Title: Survival In Auschwitz by Primo Levi ISBN: 0684826801 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Tadeusz Borowski, Barbara Vedder, Jan Kott ISBN: 0140186247 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Night by Elie Wiesel, Stella Rodway, Francois Mauriac ISBN: 0553272535 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 March, 1982 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology by Lawrence L. Langer ISBN: 0195077326 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: August, 1995 List Price(USD): $47.95 |
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Title: Maus : A Survivor's Tale : My Father Bleeds History/Here My Troubles Began/Boxed by Art Spiegelman ISBN: 0679748407 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 19 October, 1993 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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