Mad magazine used to run a feature called “Scenes We’d Like To See,” and the headline above is a scene I’d like to see, inspired by something pretty close.
There’s a talk coming up at the San Francisco JCC on March 11 called Fame, Oblivion, and the Writing Life.
The writer in question is the getting-less-obscure-all-the-time Isaac Rosenfeld [...]
Krim left off list of writers consigned to oblivion
A Princess Project for Intellectuals: Who Will Take Our Surplus Education?
I was listening to NPR just now, and before David Edelstein delivered his review of two new movies by Scorcese and Polanski there was a public service message about the Princess Project, which donates surplus prom dresses to high school girls who cannot afford to buy their own.
Then Edelstein’s voice arrived, transfixing NPR audiences the [...]
Seymour Krim, Saul Bellow characters fit failure pattern set early on
Certain Jewish type has a tough time
Seymour Krim could have told Rabbi Joseph he didn’t stand a chance.
This article by scholar of American Jewish history Jenna Weissman Joselit shows why the rabbi was a goner. Brought from Europe to America in 1888 by New York Jews who wanted the rabbi to set things right, he [...]
Does anyone still read Saul Bellow?
“My god, I didn’t know people still read Saul Bellow.”
That’s what a passerby said to Stanford University professor of Jewish history, Steven Zipperstein.
Zipperstein told that little story in 2001, when this talk was given. And back then, Bellow’s celebrated and controversial novel, Ravelstein, had just appeared.
What’s Bellow awareness like now?
Dunno. But it doesn’t look good. [...]
Salinger article reveals there was no Saul Bellow
It takes a few days for the New Yorker to get to California, so it was only yesterday that I read Adam Gopnik’s Feb. 8 article on J.D. Salinger, which reveals there was no Saul Bellow.
Gopnik was modest about his discovery. He implied it instead of making a big deal about it. But for those [...]
New Madoff book looks to Jewish history, gets lost
It’s only been available in the U.S. for a few days, but Hebrew University professor Bernard Avishai got a UK copy of the new Bernard Madoff book, The Believers: How America Fell for Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Investment Scam, and reported in his (terrific) blog that author Adam LeBor dips into Jewish history to explain [...]
continue reading >>What’s more Jewish: A blog by tech-meister Dave Winer or A Serious Man?
Is Dave Winer’s new blog about Web 2.0 more Jewish than the Coen brothers’ movie A Serious Man?
Yes, it is.
continue reading >>Seymour Krim, Intellectuals, Writers and Saul Bellow
I know it’s a lot of territory, but Seymour Krim is a fascinating postwar literary figure for anyone interested in intellectuals, writers, Saul Bellow and, it should go without saying, Jews.
continue reading >>Farewell, Saul Bellow
As the news of Saul Bellow’s death got around, condolences poured in.
I’m not talking about calls to Bellow’s family. I’m talking about the people who contacted me.
continue reading >>
