Cynthia Ozicks Writing Essay -- Cynthia Ozick Authors Papers

Cynthia Ozicks 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 Ozicks character she was already married, had been a childhood friend of the bride whom she described as having a atrophied 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 defe ated 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, notwithstanding 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 touch and observed the grooms 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 mans scribbles. It was a dark, cryptical obsession. She pursued his marks. . .trapped and caged them. She was his fanatical, indelible ... ...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 head it. She forms a relationship with her readers. The reader, she expla ins, rides the seesaw, but it is in fact along with the writer, that he weighs in against the writers 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 CitedOzick, 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 bear witness as a Warm Body. 178-187.