BLOODSHED AND THREE NOVELLAS

Four designated "fictions" follow Ozick's exploratory preface which illuminates the creative process and product. Fiction, contends the author, should "judge and interpret the world." As before (The Pagan Rabbi, 1971), Ozick harnesses the polar powers of traditional Jewish dialectic—gods and God; magic and reality. In the title piece Bleilip, the "secularist," confronts a Hasidic rebbe and between them, linking them, are Bleilip's two pocket guns—one real, one a toy. The toy, ironically more "incapable," is the more dangerous as a symbol of deadly potential. In "A Mercenary," a Pole who "makes up" his life as an African diplomat, is once more the levitating Jew brought down by his own fable of himself. In "The Education," Ozick amusingly pinpricks perfectionism, another delusion which puts one at a remove from life's gross opacities. In "Usurpation," the imagery, fantasy and conjurations are so rich and dense that Ozick's torchlight explication in the Preface is most welcome. The tale, she says, is "against story writing. . .magic. . . against idolatry." Legends, stories and news items are shared and snatched back and forth among writers living and dead (including the author) as they all reach for the mythic "silver crown" of fame, and reveal the literary imagination as the deceiver it is. An extraordinary talent which one hopes will not be smothered by its own intricacy and elegance.