By Adam Begley 12/08/03 12:00am

Trapped in a Novelist’s Mind-A Dreary, Airless Experience

Oracle Night , by Paul Auster. Henry Holt, 243 pages, $23.

Remember the moment early on in The Great Gatsby when Daisy tells Nick how cynical she’s become? “Sophisticated,” she says, “God, I’m sophisticated!” Nick doesn’t buy it: “The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt Read More

By Molly Haskell 7/27/98 12:00am

I Crave Ignorance, Just a Little

As with so many trumpeted “breakthroughs” in the advance of human knowledge, I reacted to the news of the identification of the Unknown Soldier with mixed feelings. Disinterred from the tomb and, through the miracle of DNA, delivered from the mystery of his unknownness, he became one particular family’s son–and by that biological unveiling, no Read More