The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick
My rating: 4/5 cats
this is the tiniest book of all time, but it still manages to be genuinely moving and have emotional resonance that sticks to yer ribs.
i have read some holocaust literature, not a lot, but what i have read has been pretty powerful and devastating stuff. but i also know there is other stuff out there that i will never read, that clumsy emotionally manipulative stuff, like (and i haven’t read it, but you can just tell) the boy in the striped pajamas. blech. stuff, stuff, stuff. clearly ozick has not inspired me to any great heights in my own language. but the point is, this is not manipulative. it is matter-of-fact in its plot, but beautiful and delicate in its language. her writing is lovely—the cadence of rosa’s speech, the shattering finality of her sentences—it’s all very well done.
shrug.
that’s all i got; it’s a short book.
stuff.
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