The New Criterion
(Mobile Version)

November 2001 Volume 20, Number 3  

Notes & Comments

A burst of clarity

Absolute relativism


Features

The felicific calculus of modern medicine
by Anthony Daniels
The third in a series titled “The survival of culture.”

Charles Péguy
by Roger Kimball
On the poet & polemicist, occasioned by the publication of Temporal and Eternal, translated by Alexander Dru.

We are waging a just war
by David Pryce-Jones
On Islam & terrorism.

Dwight Macdonald: sunburned by ideas
by Joseph Epstein
Occasioned by the publication of A Moral Temper: The Letters of Dwight Macdonald.


Poems

The hunt
by William Jay Smith

Intruder
by David Slavitt

Letters from minor loves
by Chelsea Rathburn

A Serb on a black mountain
by Stephen Stepanchev


London journal

Another painful lesson
by John Gross
On the British press’s coverage of the atrocities of September 11


Theater

In the wake
by Mark Steyn
On Exit the King, by Eugene Ionesco, Rude Entertainment, by Paul Rudnick, Ovid’s Metamorphoses directed by Mary Zimmerman, and Broadway in the wake of September 11.


Art

Eilshemius rediscovered again
by Karen Wilkin
A review of “Louis M. Eilshemius: An Independent Spirit,” at the National Academy of Design & “Louis Eilshemius . . . Imagine That!,” at Gallery Gertrude Stein.

Gallery chronicle
by Daniel Kunitz
On “Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Heads,” at the PaceWildenstein; “Grace Hartigan: A Survey of Five Decades 1950-2000,” at ACA Galleries; “Dorothea Tanning: Drawings, Collages, and Soft Sculptures,” at the Zabriskie Gallery & “Whiting Tennis,” at Derek Eller Gallery.


Music

New York chronicle
by Jay Nordlinger
On the start of the season for the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera.

Gold-standard cycling
by Patrick J. Smith
On the Seattle Opera’s performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle.

Opera note
by Patrick J. Smith
On The Glimmerglass Opera Festival in Cooperstown, NY.


The Media

Cranks & clichés
by James Bowman
On the pseudo insights of those writing about, and expatiating on September 11.


Fiction Chronicle

On the hysterical playground
by Max Watman
A review of The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen; After the Plague and Other Stories, by T. C. Boyle; Up in the Air, by Walter Kirn; John Henry Days, by Colson Whitehead; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon & Pafko at the Wall, by Don DeLillo.


Books

Democracy and pugnacity
by Marc Arkin
A review of Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, by Joanne B. Freeman.

Elusive stances
by Paul Dean

A folklorish giant
by Guy Davenport