The subject was old age. Norman Mailer said there was a grace in aging. He didn’t feel as angry or self-involved as he once did; he wasn’t wrapped up in his disappointments. He had set out to be a “major historical figure,” like the literary matinee idols of his youth, Steinbeck and Hemingway. That hadn’t Read More
I’m in Alanis Morissette withdrawal. I got her new CD, Under Rug Swept, when it came out last month, but now I’m in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, with nothing to play it on. I’m here to do long interviews with people on a serious historical subject, but four or five of Alanis’ songs keep playing in my Read More
The Castle in the Forest, by Norman Mailer. Random House, 477 pages, $27.95.
Norman Mailer’s first novel in over 10 years has a couple of big surprises right off the bat. One is physical, the other spiritual. As to the first, the welterweight from Brooklyn turns 84 at the end of the month; you lift Read More
A book about Jewishness by the playwright David Mamet, you might expect it to be personal, even confessional. Here’s a statement from page 134: “To me, real life consists in belonging.” That is direct and sincere.
It’s the only time. The rest of the book, the author is behind a curtain. He does Read More
A book about Jewishness by the playwright David Mamet, you might expect it to be personal, even confessional. Here’s a statement from page 134: “To me, real life consists in belonging.” That is direct and sincere.
It’s the only time. The rest of the book, the author is behind a curtain. He does not speak Read More
JERUSALEM, Israel—I’ve never been a war correspondent, and this failing has sometimes gnawed at me, say when I am watching Christiane Amanpour. Oh, I could do that, I think, and feel a little wave of inadequacy. Finally, my chance came: I’d traveled to Israel on a personal project, and war had begun in Lebanon and Read More
Talk of Senators Joe Lieberman or Dianne Feinstein being Al Gore’s running mate has raised the possibility of, at long last, a Jewish President. One issue is religious observance. Senator Lieberman is Orthodox and doesn’t work on Saturdays. He has reassured people that the Torah commands one to do one’s duties. In a crisis, he’d Read More
On Feb. 12, 1999, the Senate voted to acquit President Bill Clinton of impeachment charges. Twelve days later, NBC aired a report in which a woman named Juanita Broaddrick accused Mr. Clinton of having raped her in 1978. Why did NBC not broadcast the story until after the impeachment vote? Philip Weiss filed the following Read More
General Forrest Harding’s house in Franklin, Ohio, is preserved as it was before his death in 1970, and it is a museum of disappointment. Musty evening wear fills the closet, a shrunken military tunic hangs from a stand. Hidden away in the drawers can be found pictures of successful generals Harding knew-his classmate “Georgie” Patton Read More
Paul Bowles, A Life , by Virginia Spencer Carr. Scribner, 409 pages, $35.
There are two reasons why people should care about Paul Bowles, the writer and composer who died five years ago in Morocco. He wrote The Sheltering Sky , a masterpiece of alienation that tracks a threesome headed into the North Read More
