A
Drugstore in Winter by Cynthia Ozick is about Ozick's progression of
reading, and how it is her escape from life. Ozick is a
Jewish-American writer from New York City, and in this short essay
she writes about how reading was her way to take a break from the
struggles that plagued her everyday life during the Depression. I
think her audience is anyone that reads, and enjoys it, because this
essay is a celebration of how reading is a well-needed escape, as
well as a way to find out who you really are. It starts with Ozick as
a young child, reading the books she could get from the traveling
bookstore, her mother's magazines, and anywhere she could find
material to read. She is invisible at first, but blossoms into her
own as an avid reader as the story goes on.
I
think that Ozick did complete her task of showing how reading shaped
her life. It was her go to comfort when bad things happened, but also
a way to relate to the world, to put her story out there too. She
tells her story through the medium of books, who gave her what books,
and what happened to those people. Her memories are tied to books
that keep those people's memories alive. As the darkness starts to
creep in, and she grows older, it turns into a way to remember
happier times. For example, “but after a while other ambushes
begin: sorrows deaths, disappointments..” (Ozick 495). This is her
childhood slowly ending, tearing her away from the books that she
loves, but she eventually finds her way back to them, as well as the
memories that she loves. “...and then one day you find yourself
leaning here, writing at that selfsame round glass table...” (Ozick
496).Books are everything to Ozick, and she conveys that very well in
this essay.
Old Books by the Smithsonian
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