New Criterion articles from March 1999

New Criterion archives from March 1999

Notes & Comments: March 1999.
March 1, 1999... A war without armistice Of the many things that have been said about the agony of President Clinton's impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives and the sham "trial" that resulted in his acquittal by the U.S. Senate, there seems to...

The bright line: liberalism & religion.
March 1, 1999... It is not at all clear whether contemporary liberalism, in its many modes of expression, has betrayed its own tradition in relation to religion or, rather, if what we are witnessing is a gradual and more complete display of liberalism's...

What the Sixties wrought.(Review)
March 1, 1999... "One is clever and knows everything that has ever happened: so there is no end of derision. One still quarrels, but one is soon reconciled--else it might spoil the digestion. "One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little...

Thomas Mann in English.
March 1, 1999... Time runs, the century winds to its close, and the great narrative works of the European imagination it gave birth to--the great works of Proust, Mann, Kafka--which one grew up with, and grew up on, in the familiar language of their first...

"The Aesthetics of Music".(Review)
March 1, 1999... Some dozen years ago, I was riveted by a report in the press about the findings of a study that investigated what male Americans enjoy most in their lives. As best as I can recall, the candidates included work, family, sex, and music. The...

Three late poems by Jorge Luis Borges.
March 1, 1999... During a particularly awkward interview, Jorge Luis Borges was asked whether he considered himself to be more a "writer" than a "poet." Responding with his accustomed self-deprecating humility, Borges answered by saying that "I am a poet,...

The iron coin.(peom)
March 1, 1999... Before us is the iron coin. Now let us ask The two opposing faces what the answer will be To the intractable demand no one has made: Why does a man require a woman to desire him? Let us look. In the higher orb are...

The alchemist.
March 1, 1999... Slow in the dawn, a young man, hollow-eyed from lengthy thought and unrewarding vigils, is lost in his reflections, contemplating the sleepless braziers and the silent stills. He knows that gold, that Proteus, is lurking...

Things that might have been.
March 1, 1999... I think about things that might have been and never were. The treatise on Saxon myths that Bede omitted to write. The inconceivable work that Dante may have glimpsed As soon as he corrected the Comedy's last verse. History...

The meanspirited wunderkind.(Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, New York)(Review)
March 1, 1999... Though it took the English 250 years to find a worthy successor to Henry Purcell, the wait may well have been worth it, given that the Chosen One was Benjamin Britten. Now, just two decades after Britten's death, the English believe a new...

Kata Kabanova.(Metropolitan Opera House, New York, New York)(Review)
March 1, 1999... Kata Kabanova, by Leos Janacek, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. Jonathan Miller's staging of Janacek's Kata Kabanova at the Metropolitan Opera was ghastly in 1991; revived in 1999, it seems even less excusable. Miller has the...

Romeo et Juliette.(Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois)(Review)
March 1, 1999... Romeo et Juliette, by Charles Gounod, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago The wintry blasts that began this annum made one more receptive than might otherwise be the case to Charles Gounod's melodious but problematic opera Romeo et Juliette. The...

The throne of self-importance.
March 1, 1999... One of the great emblematic moments in what must inevitably be called postmodern journalism came last month when, having published an anonymously sourced report that Kenneth Starr was considering indicting President Clinton, The New York Times...

Ex-Friends.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Ex-Friends is volume three, so to speak, of Norman Podhoretz's voyage through and out of the world of the New York intellectuals--or "the Family" as he prefers to call them.(1) Podhoretz did not realize that he was on the road to apostasy when...

A Corner in the Marais: Memoir of a Paris Neighborhood.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Alex Karmel A Corner in the Marais: Memoir of a Paris Neighborhood. David R. Godine, 149 pages, $24.95 Today, those of us who walk through the narrow streets and passageways of the historic Marais district in Paris are in all likelihood on...

The Warden: A Portrait of John Sparrow.(Review)
March 1, 1999... John Lowe The Warden: A Portrait of John Sparrow. HarperCollins UK, 258 pages, 19.99 [pounds sterling] The coincidence of tide between this biography and Trollope's novel of 1855 is wholly intentional, and more than a little mischievous....

Heavy Water & Other Stories.
March 1, 1999... Martin Amis Heavy Water & Other Stories. Harmony Books, 212 pages, $21 Martin Amis has built an entire career out of being the smartest smart-ass on the block. For the last quarter-century he has steadily honed his considerable skills and...

Value-free Harvard.
March 1, 1999... Thirty years ago this spring, Harvard members of Students for a Democratic Society seized and occupied University Hall, the home to the administrative offices of the college. Storming the building, they forcibly ejected Harvard deans and...

Letters.
March 1, 1999... Franz Kafka To the Editors: I have just read Eric Ormsby's review of my translation of Kafka's novel The Castle (November 1998). As Mr. Ormsby himself notes, previous notices of my translation, including those by J. M. Coetzee (The...