For someone like me, who loves literary references and allusions, who loves fiction that dares to consider the relative import of fiction, Heir to the Glimmering World is a goldmine. This is a book I may very well reread. I definitely want to read more Ozick.

I'm still mulling over the ending. Fortunes have reversed for all but the main character, our for-the-most-part narrator. Rose Meadows is primarily an observer, an outsider among outsiders, but still, I wanted more for her, more than a realization that her story has simply not been contained within the pages of this particular book, that what I know about her is a mere preface to her actual life.

Sometimes telling myself that a character's life must have turned out all right, didn't they eventually "write" the book I've been reading, is just not a satisfactory path to go down.