Cynthia Ozick's Writing

Cynthia Ozick's Writing

"His thighs were taut, his calf sinews thick; he had the inky curly hair of a runner on a Greek amphora," and Cynthia Ozick fell in love at once. Actually, she was not struck by that "venerable image of arrow or dart," until her second meeting with this imposing gladiator, when he was marrying one of her friends. It is strange envisioning this instantaneous and objectionable infatuation-this "divination" that caused Ozick an overwhelming sense of loss (as soon as she left the reception)-without understanding a little bit about Ozick's character: she was already married, had been a childhood friend of the bride whom she described as having "a small head and a Cheshire-cat smile," and had only met the bridegroom once during a game of Frisbee. What a plot for a story, and it unfolds in her own heart! She captures this memory in an essay, aptly titled, "Lovesickness," years after it happened.

Ozick is the master of the worlds that she herself creates. She was not defeated by that unattainable love, and in fact "in a week or so" that "dazing infatuation" had faded from her thoughts. The dizzying rapture had lost its excitement, but her suffering was electrifying, and later we see, controllable. She created an opportunity to expunge her affections when she received a thank-you note from the newly wedded couple and observed the groom's handwriting for the first time. She absorbed the details of the note down to the shapes of each letter: "The sentences themselves were sturdy and friendly, funny and offhand-entirely by-the-by" (205). Everyday Ozick traced over this man's scribbles. It was a dark, secret obsession. She "pursued his marks. . .trapped and caged them." She "was his fanatical, indelible ...

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...e decidedly alludes to the fact that as a writer, she leads that journey. She may focus on the readers' role, but behind her love for their imagination is her desire to channel it. She forms a relationship with her readers. The reader, she explains, "rides the seesaw," but it is in fact "along with the writer, [that he weighs] in against the writer's proclivity" ("Imaginary" 160). Readers relate to her thoughts and can use her stories to create their own, but it is Ozick who captures their inspiration. On paper, her fears and her most trivial thoughts carry the same significance, and she has ultimate control over both.

Works Cited

Ozick, Cynthia. Quarrel and Quandary. New York: Knopf, 2000.

"Cinematic James." 147-158.

"Imaginary People." 159-161.

"The Ladle." 162-165.

"Lovesickness." 204-212.

"She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body." 178-187.