The ardor in Cynthia Ozick's "Art and Ardor" is for dissent. She is a brilliant disagreer whose analysis is so penetrating that in this collection of literary essays it often passes right through the book under discussion. Whether this should be called transcending the author's limitations or missing her point may be a matter of taste.

Miss Ozick polices modern literature and tries to arrest what she sees as self-indulgence. She seems to be morally insatiable, to want every author to wrestle with his book, like Jacob wrestling with the angel, until it blesses him, or us. She is the antidote to all the soft reviews, the easy forgiveness. As she points out, sympathy can be an offense against the truth.

She is terribly smart, to the point where it is just a little dehumanizing. Each time you think you have understood her, after considerable labor, she refines...