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From Publishers Weekly
"The Shawl" is a brief story first published in the New Yorker in 1981; "Rosa," its longer companion piece, appeared in that magazine three years later. They tell a story of a woman who survived the Holocaust but who has no life in the present because her existence was stolen away from her in a past that does not end. "A book that etches itself indelibly in the reader's mind," concluded PW .
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This is actually a five-page prologue and an extended short story. Aside from that, Ozick gives us exactly what we expect: a meditation, in figurative language at times dense and shimmering, at times richly colloquial, of the consequences of the Holocaust. Accompanied by her niece and hiding her tiny daughter, Magda, Rosa stumbles toward a concentration camp, where Magda is to die, flung against an electrified fence. Years later, in America, we meet "Rosa Lublin, a madwoman and a scavenger, who gave up her store--smashed it up herself--and moved to Miami." She still writes to her dead daughter, whose shawl she covets. When Rosa meets brash, voluble Simon Persky at the laundromat, she resists his arguments that "you can't live in the past" with some persuasive arguments of her own. Indeed, the reader is uncertain to the end whether Rosa will bend--and whether she ought to. A subtle yet morally uncompromising tale that many will regard as a small gem.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
soul of the holocaust,
By
This review is from: The Shawl (Paperback)
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"
5.0 out of 5 stars
A haunting piece of Holocaust-inspired fiction,
By
This review is from: The Shawl (Paperback)
"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."
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing,
By M.S.M (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Shawl (Paperback)
My English Teacher Recommended this book to me. It was one of thirty books, all of which, she claimed, were essential reading. In the midst of finals, I picked up this book (mostly because it was short) and embarked on one of the best reading experiences of my life. This is an emotional, as well as an intellectual masterpeice. The short story in the beginning, is one of the most powerful I've read. It describes the death of Rosa's baby daughter in a nazi concentration camp. The following novella skips ahead 39 years, and we see rosa debilitated and emotionally broken. The sheer tradgedy of this brough me close to tears several times. On a more cerebral level, this book explored themes such as trauma and recovery, relationships to objects, dreams unexplored, and secret fantasies. On a final note, I was very pleased the Ms. Ozick used a secular Jew as her protaganist, because it created a more extreme conflice, and showed that the Nazi exterminations were NOT about belief.
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