Belonging Too Well: Portraits Of Identity In Cynthia Ozick's Fiction (s U N Y Series In Modern Jewish Literature And Culture)

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This page intentionally left blank. Belonging Too Well SUNY series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture Sarah Blacher Cohen, editor Belonging Too Well Portraits of Identity in Cynthia Ozick’s Fiction Miriam Sivan Cover image by R. B. Kitaj, courtesy of Tate, London/Art Resource, NY. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2009 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Ryan Morris Marketing by Fran Keneston Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sivan, Miriam. Belonging too well : portraits of identity in Cynthia Ozick’s fiction / Miriam Sivan. p. cm. — (SUNY series in modern Jewish literature and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4384-2505-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Ozick, Cynthia—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Jews in literature. 3. Jews—Identity. I. Title. PS3565.Z5Z86 2009 813'.54—dc22 2008018854 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is dedicated to Jules Billig A great uncle A discerning mind Tell everyone Now, today, I shall sing beautifully for my friend’s pleasure —Sappho First I thought I was a writer. Then I realized I was a Jew. Then I no longer distinguished the writer in me from the Jew because one and the other are only torments of an ancient word. —Edmond Jabes, The Book of Questions Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. Mishkan: The Ungraven Image 11 2. Golem: The Seeker and the Sought 37 3. Shekhinah: The Whole and Holy Mother 75 4. Etz HaSadeh: Reconciliation with Nature 109 5. Shoah: Words in Spite of Themselves 139 Afterword 169 Notes 173 Bibliography 215 Index 229 This page intentionally left blank. Acknowledgments Earlier versions of some of the material in this book were originally published in the following journals and essay collections: “Framing Questions: Cynthia Ozick’s ‘Shots’ ” (Literature and Theology 16,1; Oxford University Press, March 2002, pp. 51–64); “Cynthia Ozick’s Golem: A Messianic Double” (Literature and Theology 19,1; Oxford University Press, March 2005, pp. 47–59); “The Resurrection of the Phantom Father in Cynthia Ozick’s The Messiah of Stockholm (Literary Canons and Religious Identity, Ashgate Publishing, 2004); “The Synthesis of the Mind and Body in Cynthia Ozick’s The Cannibal Galaxy” (Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal 4,1, Winter 2006); “Lilith and Hester Lilt: The Life of the Autonomous Mother”(Jewish Women’s Writing of the 1990s and Beyond in Great Britain and the United States, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2004); “The Arboreal Metonym: Trees as Seers in Cynthia Ozick’s Trust”(Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory 4,1, Fall 2002, pp. 73–85); “Crossing the Abyss: Language and the Holocaust in Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl” (Studies in American Jewish Literature 24, 2005, pp. 42–