The uncontrollable urge to express himself on every issue of the day was a clear sign that Saul Bellow’s Moses Herzog was losing it. So I have always treated the temptation to comment on blogs or internet magazines as an evil impulse to be resisted.
But today I caved. I really let loose with a doozy in response to an article about Israel in today’s Tablet. There was something about the writer’s tone that I found so distasteful, I couldn’t restrain myself. The writer is of the same Jewish American ilk that Bellow took to task in Herzog characters such as Shapiro, the bombastic historian whose understanding of life couldn’t match that of his apple-peddling father. As Bellow said of Herzog, he had to dis-educate himself to preserve his humanity. It’s a project that could help a lot of people.
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