The Puttermesser Papers: A NovelWith dashing originality and in prose that sings like an entire choir of sirens, Cynthia Ozick relates the life and times of her most compelling fictional creation. Ruth Puttermesser lives in New York City. Her learning is monumental. Her love life is minimal (she prefers pouring through Plato to romping with married Morris Rappoport). And her fantasies have a disconcerting tendency to come true - with disastrous consequences for what we laughably call "reality." Puttermesser yearns for a daughter and promptly creates one, unassisted, in the form of the first recorded female golem. Laboring in the dusty crevices of the civil service, she dreams of reforming the city - and manages to get herself elected mayor. Puttermesser contemplates the afterlife and is hurtled into it headlong, only to discover that a paradise found is also paradise lost. Overflowing with ideas, lambent with wit, The Puttermesser Papers is a tour de force by one of our most visionary novelists. "The finest achievement of Ozick's career... It has all the buoyant integrity of a Chagall painting." -San Francisco Chronicle "Fanciful, poignant... so intelligent, so finely expressed that, like its main character, it remains endearing, edifying, a spark of light in the gloom." -The New York Times "A crazy delight." -The New York Time Book Review |
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anyhow asked bedroom brain Bronx called City Hall cousin Cracow Cynthia Ozick Department of Receipts dream earth easel Emil eyes father felt finger floor fourposter George Eliot George Lewes golem of Prague golem wrote Gracie Mansion Grand Grand Canal green hair hand Harvey Morgenbluth head Jews Johnny Cross kitchen letter Lewes's Lidia look Malachy Matt married Mavett Mayor Puttermesser messer mind morning Moscow mother mouth Municipal Building never night nose nostrils once papa papa's Paradise Prague Putter Puttermesser knew PUTTERMESSER PAPERS Puttermesser's Pyotr Rabbi Judah Loew Rappoport Receipts and Disbursements Rupert Rabeeno Russian Ruth Sakhalin SHEKHINA shoes Socrates sofabed Soviet Street subway tell termesser thing thought tion turned Turtelman Turtelman and Marmel Uncle Zindel Varvara Vilna Gaon voice Volodya walked wedding What's wife window woman Xanthippe York young Zhenya