Heir To The Glimmering World Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, and our BookBrowse Review of Heir To The Glimmering World.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. With the brisk pace of its plot, its plucky teenaged heroine, and its tidy, satisfying conclusion, Heir to the Glimmering World may be read as an update of the nineteenth-century novel. How does Ozick allow this old-fashioned literary style to resonate in a twentieth-century story? What ironies are present in Ozick's novel that would be absent from a Victorian novel? Heir to the Glimmering World ends in 1937; how does your knowledge of the world events of the next decade affect your perception of the ending?


2. How do Rosie's actions differ from the actions of, for instance, a character from her beloved Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, and how might she behave differently if the story were to take place today?


3. Herr Mitwisser cites an Arab proverb: "The wise man speaks of ideas, the middling man of actions, the fool of persons." In her novel, Ozick "speaks" of all three. How does she make Heir to the Glimmering World work on different levels — as pure entertainment driven by plot and character and also as a novel of ideas? What elements of the novel did you find most engaging?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Mariner Books. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.