I'm not sure why, but this story failed to connect with me. I guess it felt like there wasn't anything there that hadn't been seen before. The level of involvement with the characters was too shallow for me to feel anything but a general angst (which I always feel when this subject is broached). It was sad, but in the way that knowing this happened to people is sad, not in the specific way that I wanted to find. There was no one character I could relate to in a closer way. Perhaps for me a short story is just too short to convey this level of horror.
( )

I found this to be kind of on the boring side. Don’t remember when I actually started to read this, just remember the joy of finally being done with the book. Maybe reading a sad book during the pandemic wasn’t the greatest thing to do. ( )

Where was I––the I that reads and loves books––when I read this book?

I see it on the shelf at the library. I see my hand reaching for the book many times. It resides on the highest shelf, on the left, in the middle of fiction, centered on the east side of my little library. Standing tiptoed, I pull it down from its spot, more than once. And then, finally, I check it out and bring it home.

I read this slim book in an evening. I admire Ozick's masterly writing.

I had not yet read any of Cynthia Ozick's books, and I had wanted to. And there it was, day after day, year after year, at my library.

I read this book, but...

Where was my soul? Where was my mind, when I read this book? I remember almost nothing about it. "Almost" might be me being too kind to myself. I am reading the reviews here on Goodreads and don't remember this story. Where was I? I'm feeling a bit devastated––if that's possible.

Only because it's also possible I had just finished reading [b:Reading the Holocaust|48840|Reading the Holocaust|Inga Clendinnen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386923664s/48840.jpg|47781], when I picked The Shawl up to read, will I forgive my forgetting. [a:Inga Clendinnen|27425|Inga Clendinnen|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1253355609p2/27425.jpg]'s book left me numb, the Gorgon effect and all. This was all a long time ago, too.

A study in pathology and, maybe, escape from it, told in affecting, crystalline prose. ( )

Una madre, una figlia, una nipote. Tre figure femminili travolte dalla Storia e dai suoi orrori. Un indumento magico, un feticcio: lo scialle che protegge e nasconde. In pagine sobrie ed essenziali, con pochi, nitidi tratti, Cynthia Ozick riesce a narrare l'inenarrabile: l'esperienza del lager, la sopravvivenza al lager. Nel racconto febbricitante e visionario di Rosa, una donna, una madre che ha perduto la figlia e con essa ogni ragione di vita, il passato incombe sul presente e il presente si volge al passato. Il prima e il dopo si richiamano di continuo, senza apparente via di scampo. Il conseguente esilio volontario e l'estraneità al mondo di Rosa rasentano una follia che si erge a baluardo contro la disperazione e contro i tentativi di intrusione altrui. Tutto le appare una grottesca riproposta della tragedia, così rifugge ogni contatto, respinge ogni approccio, rifiuta ogni essere umano. Con un'eccezione, tuttavia, che insinua una tenue speranza, in quello che è un piccolo capolavoro della letteratura ebraico-americana. (fonte: Feltrinelli)