Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick
Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick is absorbing, interesting but somewhat academic and dry at the same time. The story follows Rose Meadows, an orphan who winds up working for and living with the Mitwissers. Set in the 1930s, the Mitwissers flee Germany, find their way to New York and survive solely on the generosity of a bitter and capricious heir to a popular children’s book franchise.
There’s a lot to like in Heir to the Glimmering World. Ozick captures time and place perfectly, richly describing upstate New York and the Bronx in the run-up to World War II. In addition, the relationships between Rose and her emotionally crippled father, family friend Bertram, and Professor Rudolf Mitwisser are finely crafted, revealing a central father-daughter theme that runs throughout the novel.
Heir to the Glimmering World is about damaged and flawed individuals looking to find their place in a tumultuous world. The character portraits are as interesting as they are diverse: a son who’s only connection to his father was as the source of his books; a strident communist who’s changed her name to Ninel (Lenin spelled backwards); a cynical, gambling single father who resents the yoke of his daughter; a once shining academic star mentally broken by losing her country and profession; and an obsessed academic who hides from his family through his research.
Yet, the plot is rather aimless, and there’s no central conflict to resolve. This natural storytelling element seems to be lost in Heir to the Glimmering World. I’m not wedded to the traditional, but I am looking to connect with the story on both a intellectual and emotional level. So while the relationships that Ozick paints are intense, I don’t feel them in my gut, only in my head. They’re well documented and put on display like a butterfly collection.
For whatever reason, I felt a distance from the characters and actions in the novel. Instead of being sucked into the story, I was analyzing the story. Worth reading, Heir to the Glimmering World is thought-provoking … it just didn’t touch me.
