Book description
This novel is about the uneasy condition of Jewish heritage in the prevailing Gentile culture of middle America.
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Why read it?
1 author picked The Cannibal Galaxy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Cynthia Ozick's 1983 novel is set in a Midwestern academy founded by a Jewish refugee from Nazi-occupied France who wants to offer students a “dual curriculum” combining traditional Jewish religious instruction with the secular liberal arts. Eventually, this principal comes into conflict with a brilliant philosopher who insists that he not judge her under-achieving daughter too quickly when she becomes a student at the school. Ozick’s richly descriptive prose recreates the horrors of 1940s Europe and the placidity of the midcentury American Midwest as she surveys the dangers of American assimilation and anti-intellectualism with all the rigor we'd expect of…
From John's list on The best novels of ideas of the last 50 years.
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