Michael Dirda

At the same time, and in radical contrast, Ozick can capture all the hesitation and the painful grasping for the correct nuance that characterize Henry James. In "Dictation," Miss Theodora Bosanquet, amanuensis to the Master, describes the intimacy of their relationship, for she regards herself as singularly "blessed to listen to the breathings, and the silences, and the sighs, and the pacings . . . sometimes, when Mr. James and I have been at work for hours, he will quietly place a piece of chocolate near my hand, and will even unwrap the silver foil for me -- ."

Miss Lilian Hallowes performs the same sort of secretarial and typing work for Joseph Conrad. Each believes her boss to be the greatest novelist of the age, and that in itself makes for some wonderful exchanges between the two. But Miss Bosanquet also has an ambition, which Ozick describes with Jamesian nebulosity:

"What Theodora was after was distinctly radical: she wished to send into the future a nameless immutability, visible though invisible, smooth while bent, unchangeable yet altered, integrated even as it sought to be wholly alien. And it was to be secret. Nor could she accomplish it alone. It demanded a sharer, a double, a partner."

And that partner can only be Miss Hallowes.

To say more would ruin the story, a wonderful adjunct to those recent, novel-length Jamesian homages, Edwin M. Yoder's Lions at Lamb House, David Lodge's Author, Author and Colm Tóibín's The Master. Besides, how can you not love a story where Virginia Woolf -- still Virginia Stephen -- is referred to by a smitten girlfriend as Ginny?

To my mind, "At Fumicaro" works least well of the four stories, if only because it is so Roman Catholic and Graham-Greeneish. Still, the 1930s is the right period for this mix of sex and sin, of an acte gratuit of charity and a leap toward personal salvation. Ozick's writing is just as sharp as ever: "He saw that he had committed the sin of heroism, which always presumes that everyone else is unreal, especially the object of rescue."

Winter is finally past and with it the season of heavy tomes. As it happens, Cynthia Ozick's slender volume slips nicely into a briefcase or pocketbook. So even if you're not a stenographer, you can take Dictation wherever you go. You'll want to, since it'll be hard to stop reading once you start. ·

Michael Dirda's e-mail address is mdirda@gmail.com.