Dictation: A Quartet [Hardcover]

Cynthia Ozick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 2008

Four stories of comedy, deception, and revenge, including one previously unpublished, from the acclaimed author of Heir to the Glimmering World.

Cynthia Ozick’s new work of fiction brings together four long stories that showcase this incomparable writer’s sly humor and piercing insight into the human heart. Each starts in the comic mode, with heroes who suffer from willful self-deceit. These not-so-innocents proceed from self-deception to deceiving others, who do not take it lightly. Revenge is the consequence -- and for the reader, a delicious, if dark, recognition of emotional truth.

The glorious new novella “Dictation” imagines a fateful meeting between the secretaries to Henry James and Joseph Conrad at the peak of their fame. Timid Miss Hallowes, who types for Conrad, comes under the influence of James’s Miss Bosanquet, high-spirited, flirtatious, and scheming. In a masterstroke of genius, Ozick hatches a plot between them to insert themselves into posterity.

Ozick is at her most devious, delightful best in these four works, illuminating the ease with which comedy can glide into calamity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A carefully honed, sharply intelligent new collection of four stories shows Ozick (The Heir to the Glimmering World) at the height of her stylistic powers. The title story, by far the strongest tale, follows the female secretaries of Henry James and Joseph Conrad, both of whom take dictation from the two egoist titans. When the authors meet in London, their two amanuenses collude to make their own mark on their masters' work; in so doing, they exalt, with an undeniably sexual glee, that they will thus attain immortality. Actors looks on wryly as TV character actor Matt Sorley, né Mose Sadacca and nearing 60, reluctantly takes a role that will either cap his career or defeat him. At Fumicaro follows an American Catholic literary critic in Mussolini's Italy as he falls head over heels in love with a pregnant 16-year-old peasant girl: She was more hospitable to God than anyone who hoped to find God in books. The exuberant What Happened to the Baby? follows a young college student and her eccentric Esperanto-spouting uncle to his mid-20th-century meetings of the League for a Unified Humanity. Ozick's stories ingeniously put scholarship in the service of human flowerings. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Four novellas are gathered here, three previously published (in the New Yorker and the Atlantic) and one making its first appearance in print. The title novella is a subtly humorous, erudite, craftily conceived exercise in historical “what if?” As Ozick has it, the two secretaries who perform dictation for famous novelists and personal friends Henry James and Joseph Conrad put their heads together and contrive to fool the world in a literary joke only they will ever know about. In “Actors,” Matt Sorley, close to 60, is a struggling New York actor who gets a fortunate break when the opening night of a play is accidentally a comedic succcess. The very cerebral “At Fumicaro” sees an American writer in retreat in a small town in Mussolini’s Italy;  he offers a young pregnant woman marriage and a life in in the U.S. and then realizes the whole experience with her has been his penance for past deeds. “What Happened to the Baby?” is a raucous but haunting following of a young women’s experiences in getting to the bottom of her sordid family history. These novellas are prime examples of Ozick’s rigorous writing style, her propensity for recognizing the element of ridiculousness in human tragedy, and her second-nature sympathy for eccentric characters. --Brad Hooper

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition edition (March 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547054009
• ISBN-13: 978-0547054001
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,210,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you, Ms. Ozick, for another stunning book, April 28, 2008

By 

B. Rice "BRice" (Charleston, WV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dictation: A Quartet (Hardcover)

It's incredible! Every time a new book of Ozick's is published, I give thanks to the Muses for having provided her the necessary inspiration. As usual, her sentences are gorgeous and lyrical; the characters are funny and utterly compelling.

"Dictation" is the only story contained that has not been previously published. It begins with the master Henry James and an emerging Joseph Conrad. Her characterizations of each man, as well as of Conrad's wife, are hilarious. Soon, however, the story shifts to the writers' amanuenses. For fear of ruining any of the story's surprises - there are many! - I will only say that the story may motivate you to go out and re-read, or read for the first time, certain stories by James and Conrad. (Though of course that may be a foolish enterprise, considering the story's "punch line.")

Familiar themes of morality and art are present, but Ozick explores them in a way I didn't expect.

I highly recommend this book to lovers of contemporary literature.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Water ..., August 4, 2008

By 

Marina Streznewski (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dictation: A Quartet (Hardcover)

How refreshing to read something written by someone with such a facility with language! The stories were wonderful. Highly recommended to me by my cousin -- and he was absolutely right!

3.0 out of 5 stars A type of short story I usually don't care for, August 5, 2011

By 

algo41 "algo41" (philadelphia, pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dictation: A Quartet (Paperback)

The stories in this collection, despite their length, are each driven by ideas (pretty much one per story) rather than characters. The closest to a character driven story, and the one I liked best, is " At Fumicaro", but even this is rather dry. I am sure some other readers will find humor and irony in the "Dictation" story, it is certainly clever.