Heir to the Glimmering World

 

Summary (from the publisher): Cynthia Ozick has been known for decades as one of America's most gifted and extraordinary storytellers; her remarkable new novel has established her as one of the most entertaining as well.

 Set in the New York of the 1930s, Heir to the Glimmering World is a spellbinding, richly plotted novel brimming with intriguing characters. Orphaned at eighteen, with few possessions, Rose Meadows finds steady employment with the Mitwisser clan. Recently arrived from Berlin, the Mitwissers rely on the auspices of a generous benefactor, James A'Bair, the discontented heir to a fortune his father, a famous childen's author, made from a series of books called The Bear Boy. Against the vivid backdrop of a world in tumult, Rose learns the refugee family's secrets as she watches their fortunes rise and fall in Ozick's wholly engrossing novel.  

 

Review: This novel is narrated by Rose, who lost her mother as a three year old and her careless and reckless father when she was eighteen. A cousin, Bertram, takes pity on her and takes her in, but in time Rose discovers that "he was not a cousin by blood. Instead he was a cousin to my mother's first cousin; it was a tenuous in-law connection. Laughing, Bertram had worked it out for me - he was the son of my mother's aunt's husband's sister. He was not really a relation" (19). In time, Bertram's girlfriend boots Rose out, which is how she ultimately winds up in New York as a sort of secretary/nanny/servant/undefined assistant to the Mitwisser family. The Mitwisser family, father Rudolf, wife Elsa, daughter Annaliese, three sons, and a toddler daughter, have fled Berlin, penniless. In time, Rose understands that the family is supported by James A'Bair, the heir to a fortune his father made selling books called The Bear Boy, of which James was the star.

 

Although largely from Rose's perspective, the novel does have flashbacks to reveal James' childhood as a reluctant star of his father's bestselling books. In fact, Ozick based the character off of Christopher Milne, the son of the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh. James resents his childhood and seems hell-bent on blowing through his fortune.

 

In time, it becomes clear that the Mitwisser family is merely a living doll house for the heedless heir, James. As an idolized child star, James received dozens of presents in the mail, none of which captured his attention the way a doll house did: "Wherever he ordered them to go, they went - he had only to grip their yellow heads with his fingers. And sometimes he told them not to move at all, to stand very still in such and such a position. They always obliged him" (173). Seemingly randomly, James selected the poor Mitwisser family to install in a similar house. "This house! This whim! Narrow and tall, three stories high - it had the configuration of a doll house" (297). And like the dolls in his doll house, they oblige his every whim. Until he tires of this toy as well.

 

This novel had such a dreamlike, surreal quality to it. In additional, although set in the 1930s, it almost feels like a fantastical story that could have taken place at any point in time after the invention of cars and typewriters. There's little sense of the historical in the novel's setting.

 

Although I enjoyed aspects of this novel, particularly the complexity of the character of James, I found parts of this unbelievable. In addition, it felt like some aspects of the plot didn't quite connect to be brought full circle. But perhaps Ozick was striving for mixed connections between her largely dissatisfied cast of characters.

 

Stars: 3.5