A review by sam_bizar_wilcox
Antiquities by Cynthia Ozick

4.0

I thought much of praise I read about for Antiquities was heaped because of the author's name. Ozick is, after all, one of the more undersung titans of American letters. The complexity of this slight novel, however, is almost immediately palpable; Ozick writes no ordinary chronicle of age. Much like Kazuo Ishiguro, who echoes here with The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, Ozick writes a narrative that is itself a conundrum. Here is a puzzle-box of memory. It is at once a story akin to Ozick's own literary hero, Henry James (The Aspern Papers are another inspiration, no doubt), and a piece of fiction of its entirely own beast. I'm circling obliquely around what this book really is, and, to be honest, I haven't fully decided (is it a postmodern metanarrative, is it a satire, is it a swan song?). Whatever it is, Ozick is at the peak of her powers here. I won't pretend to be an Ozick aficionado (I've only read a few of her books, but I've loved how connected she is to Judaism, in a way that makes Roth look like a goy), but I imagine Antiquities may hold up as (softening here- among) her best.