From the author of

The Messiah of Stockholm and

Art and Ardor comes this collection of supple, provocative, and intellectually dazzling essays. In

Metaphor & Memory, Cynthia Ozick writes about Saul Bellow and Henry James, William Gaddis and Primo Levi. She observes the tug-of-war between written and spoken language and the complex relation between art's contrivances and its moral truths. She has given us an exceptional book that demonstrates the possibilities of literature even as it explores them.