Monday, November 12, 2007

Obit Crit

I have little interesting to say about Norman Mailer. Roy, however, has much to say -- and his take is typically excellent (lit-crit is Roy's bread and butter and for Mailer he brings a fresh loaf and the whole churn).

On the other hand, Scott Lemieux's terse, 'blarg, misogyny!' take on Mailer reminds me of Norman Podhoretz's bland dismissal of Henry Adams as just another anti-Semite who also happened to write prettily. But then OIIDP eventually makes for one-trick-pony pundits who eventually make fine Zhdanovian hacks. Scott should -- and does -- know better.

But speaking of NPod, here's a video of him basically saying that Norman Mailer failed as a writer and as a human being because he was insufficiently invested in ethnic tribalism/Identity Politics.