The New Criterion

Volume 9

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Volume 9
September 1990 – June 1991

Baer, William

Walking from Conimbriga (Poem), Sept., 54

Baker, Brock

Shorter notice of Family Sins by William Trevor (BOOKS), Oct., 82

Barr-Sharrar, Beryl

Polykleitos redivivus, on an exhibition of copies of works by the ancient Greek sculptor in Frankfurt am Rhein, Apr., 18

Bawer, Bruce

Willa Cather’s uncommon art, Sept., 44;
Shorter notice of Sur Plusiers Beaux Sujects: Wallace Stevens’ Commonplace Book edited by Milton J. Bates (BOOKS), Sept., 76;
A proliferation of Rabbits, on the “Rabbit” novels of John Updike, Oct., 1990, 30;
Shorter notice of American Poetry: Wildness & Domesticity by Robert Bly (BOOKS), Oct., 81;
Formal poetry in the land of the free, on Timothy Steele’s Missing Measures & related matters, Nov., 41;
Shorter notice of The Drummer of the Eleventh North Devonshire Fusiliers by Guy Davenport (BOOKS), Dec., 81;
Donald Barthelme & “la vie quotidienne,” Jan., 22;
Shorter notice of Continual Lessons: The Journals of Glenway Wescott 1937-1955 edited by Robert Phelps & Jerry Rosco (BOOKS), Jan., 82;
Sylvia Plath & the poetry of confession, Feb., 18;
The art of Ford Madox Ford, Mar., 33;
Notes from the surface, a review of American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (BOOKS), Apr., 56;
The Luther of science?, on The Alchymist’s Journal & other works by Evan S. Connell, June, 30

Blasing, Randy

Hardball (Poem), Apr., 33

Bowman, James

“Salmagundi”: the P is silent (NOTEBOOK), Apr., 74;
Hero, a review of Pericles of Athens & the Birth of Democracy by Donald Kagan (BOOKS), June, 63

Boyers, Robert

Irving Howe at seventy (Letter), Dec., 84

Branigan, J. Kevin

George Gissing (Letter), June, 80

Branyan, Richard H.

“The New Shostakovich” (Letter), June 1991, 79

Brooks, Cleanth

Walker Percy, 1916-1990 (NOTEBOOK), Sept., 82

Carduff, Christopher

Shorter notice of Pundits, Poets & Wits: An Omnibus of American Newspaper Columns edited by Karl E. Meyer (BOOKS), Sept., 80;
Shorter notice of Missing Pieces by Stanislaw Benski (BOOKS), Nov., 84;
Shorter notice of Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal (BOOKS), Dec., 83;
Shorter notice of In the Company of Writers by Charles Scribner, Jr. (BOOKS), Feb., 81;
Shorter notice of Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn by Jonathan Cott (BOOKS), Mar., 84;
Shorter notice of Out of Step by Jonathan Yardley (BOOKS), Apr., 72;
Shorter notice of Author & Agent: Eudora Welty & Diarmuid Russell by Michael Kreyling (BOOKS), May, 80

Carne-Ross, D. S.

Is your translation really necessary?, on Homer in today’s English, Jan., 31

Davenport, Guy

Life, chance & Charles Darwin, a review of Charles Darwin: A New Life by John Bowlby (BOOKS), May 1991, 60

Davis, William Virgil

One year (Poem), Sept., 53

Di Piero, W. S.

Modern instances: the art of the Macchiaioli, Oct., 19

Drexel, John

Homecomings (Poem), June, 38

The Editors

Reply to Judy Weinperson (Letter), Sept., 88;
Reply to Paul Lauter (Letter), IX 4, Dec. 1990, 87

Epstein, Joseph

Reply to John Rodden (Letter), Sept., 86;
Selling Henry James, on teaching James to undergraduates at Northwestern University, Nov., 10;
Erich Heller, 1911–1990 (NOTEBOOK), Feb., 83;
Desmond MacCarthy’s familiar criticism, May, 16

Falcoff, Mark

Jacques Soustelle, 1912–1990 (NOTEBOOK), Oct., 84;
Literature & politics in Latin America, Dec., 26;
The historian’s craft, a review of Marc Bloch: A Life in History by Carole Fink (BOOKS), Mar., 77;
France between the lines, a review of My France by Eugen Weber (BOOKS), Apr., 63;
Orphans of utopia, on the 16th International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association in Crystal City, Va. (NOTEBOOK), June, 75

Frank, Elizabeth

(with Ruth Limmer) Louise Bogan & the Pulitzer (Letter), Dec., 84

Fromm, Gloria G.

Rebecca West: the fictions of fact & the facts of fiction, Jan., 44

Galvin, Brendan

A ring of quail bones (Poem), Oct., 70

Gibson, Eric

Jennifer Bartlett & the crisis of public art (ART), Sept., 62;
Becoming Brancusi, on Brancusi: Masterpieces from Romanian Museums at the Gagosian Gallery (ART), Feb., 58;
Fool’s gold: Sigmar Polke & the alchemy of critics (ART), June, 48

Gilbert, Creighton

Titian’s daily practice, Jan., 37;
The sitter in history, a review of Rennaissance Portraits by Lorne Campbell (BOOKS), Feb., 67

Griffin, Walter

New Year’s Eve (Poem), Feb., 46

Hadas, Rachel

Nostos (Poem), Jan., 54

Hammond, Mary Stewart

Found poem on the coffee table (Poem), Sept., 55

Hilton, Tim

Shock of the Hughes, a review of The Shock of the New & Nothing if Not Critical by Robert Hughes (BOOKS), June, 69

Hodgson, Moira

A Balanchine creation, a review of Holding On to the Air by Suzanne Farrell, with Toni Bentley (BOOKS), Oct., 70

Hodgson, Moira

After Diaghilev, a review of The Ballets Russes by Vicente García-Márquez (BOOKS), Mar., 80

Hollander, Paul

Losing faith, a review of Breaking with Communism: The Intellectual Odyssey of Bertram D. Wolfe edited by Robert Hessen (BOOKS), Oct., 72

Hofstadter, Dan

The pear tree (Poem), Feb., 48

Hudgins, Andrew

Raking out the nest (Poem), Dec., 44;
Prayer for an ex-wife (Poem), Dec., 45

Iannone, Carol

Under African eyes, a review of Hopes & Impediments: Selected Essays by Chinua Achebe (BOOKS), Dec., 76

James, Harold

Weimar’s absent father, a review of Reminiscences & Reflections: A Youth in Germany by Golo Mann (BOOKS), Jan., 73

Jimenez, Walt

Walter Benjamin (Letter), Oct., 86

Johnson, Paul

Anti-Anglo attitudes, a review of Blood, Class & Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies by Christopher Hitchens (BOOKS), Oct., 77

Jordan, Barbara

Dirt road, Kilcoe, Cork (Poem), Dec., 46

Kimball, Roger

The contradictions of Terry Eagleton, Sept., 17;
Shorter notice of Courbet’s Realism by Michael Fried (BOOKS), Sept., 79;
Shorter notice of I. M. Pei by Carter Wiseman (BOOKS), Dec., 82;
“Tenured Radicals”: a postscript, Jan., 4;
Shorter notice of Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America by Lucy R. Lippard (BOOKS), Jan., 81;
The periphery vs. the center: the MLA in Chicago, Feb., 8;
The disaffected populist: Christopher Lasch on progress, on Lasch’s The True & Only Heaven, Mar., 9;
Moral homicide: illiberal education in America, on Illiberal Education by Dinesh D’Souza, Apr., 5;
Academic psychobabble, or Richard Sennett goes to town, on Sennett’s The Conscience of the Eye: The Design & Social Life of Cities, May, 9;
Shorter notice of The Oxford Book of Essays edited by John Gross (BOOKS), May, 79;
Fredric Jameson’s laments, June, 9

Kirchwey, Karl

Natural history (Poem), Oct., 51

Kozodoy, Neal

The Lady J, a review of The Book of J, translated from the Hebrew by David Rosenberg & interpreted by Harold Bloom (BOOKS), Nov., 70

Kramer, Hilton

The prospect before us, on the state of the arts in America circa 1990, Sept., 6;
Shorter notice of The Great Terror: A Reassessment by Robert Conquest (BOOKS), Sept., 77;
Irving Howe at seventy, Oct., 6;
Art, revolution & Kazimir Malevich, Nov., 7;
The Varnedoe debacle: MOMA’s new “Low,”on Kirk Varnedoe, the new Director of the Department of Painting & Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, and his exhibition High & Low: Modern Art & Popular Culture, Dec., 5;
Reply to Robert Boyers (Letter), Dec., 85;
The young Picasso, on A Life of Picasso, Vol. I by John Richardson, Feb., 4;
The assault on the museums, on special-interest demands on curatorship, Mar., 4;
Thinking about “The Forties,” on The Art of the Forties at MOMA, May, 4
Seurat, one hundred years later, June, 4

Lauter, Paul

“The Heath Anthology” (Letter), Dec., 87

Limmer, Ruth

(with Elizabeth Frank) Louise Bogan & the Pulitzer (Letter), Dec., 84

Limmer, Ruth

Rolfe Humphries: in the American grain, Apr., 23

Lipman, Samuel

Shorter notice of From Russia to the West by Nathan Milstein & Solomon Volkov (BOOKS), Sept., 78;
Reply to David Saemann (Letter), Sept., 87;
The “Ring,” the Metropolitan Opera & James Levine, IX 2, Oct. 1990, 40;
Weisgall’s marvelous “Six Characters” (MUSIC), Nov., 52;
Shorter notice of Conversations with Von Karajan by Richard Osborne (BOOKS), Nov., 83;
Rehearing yesterday’s violinists, Dec., 19;
Walter Goldwater: a memoir, Jan., 14;
German music in America & England (NOTEBOOK), Jan., 85;
Shostakovich decoded?, on The New Shostakovich by Ian MacDonald (MUSIC), Feb., 50;
Finding Cortot’s place (MUSIC), Mar., 59;
Sellars trumps Mozart, on the PBS telecasts of three Mozart operas produced by Peter Sellars (MUSIC), Apr., 37;
Reply to Donald F. McCabe (Letter), Apr., 80;
Mengelberg at the Philharmonic (MUSIC), May, 44;
Said’s music, on Musical Elaborations by Edward Said, June, 17

Lourie, Richard

The Polish particulars, a review of Breathing under Water & Other East European Essays by Stanislaw Baranczak (BOOKS), May, 75;
What have you taught me, Robert Lowell (Poem), June, 36

Lyons, Donald

Shake-down & stand-up, on John Guare’s Eight Degrees of Separation & Jules Feiffer’s Elliot Loves (THEATER), Sept., 65;
The history & lamentable comedy of Joseph Papp’s “Richard III” (THEATER), Oct., 56;
Shorter notice of Greek Fire: The Influence of Ancient Greece on the Modern World by Oliver Taplin (BOOKS), Oct., 80;
Chekhov at Yale, of the Oleg Yefremov production of Ivanov in New Haven (THEATER), Nov., 56;
A miser & a hypocrite, on recent New York productions of Molière’s The Miser & Tartuffe (THEATER), Dec., 48;
Circles, on recent adaptations of Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle (THEATER), Jan., 63;
Shorter notice of After Bakhtin: Essays on Fiction & Criticism by David Lodge (BOOKS), Jan., 83;
The interests of the Group, on Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre & America, 1931-1940 by Wendy Smith (THEATER), Feb., 62;
Q.D.L., on the literary criticism of Q. D. Leavis, Mar., 22;
Backstage with Odets, on the Roundabout Theater Company revival of The Country Girl (THEATER), Mar., 70;
Büchner, Ibsen & Mr. Wilson’s highchairs, on Jean Cocteau Repertory productions of plays by Büchner & Ibsen & the American Repertory production of the Robert Brustein/Robert Wilson When We Dead Awaken (THEATER), Apr., 42;
Henry IV; monologists III, on Shakespeare’s play at the Public Theater & three one-woman shows on Broadway (THEATER), May, 49;
A crown of withered parsley, on Miss Saigon & other Broadway fare (THEATER), June, 52

McCabe, Donald F.

“The New Shostakovich” (Letter), Apr., 80

McDonald, Walter

Black wings wheeling (Poem), Apr., 32;
Leaving the middle years (Poem), June, 37

Mack, Dana

Janacek at the City Opera, on Christopher Keene’s production of From the House of the Dead (MUSIC), Oct., 60;
Evgeny Kissin at Carnegie Hall (MUSIC), Dec., 63;
Whiling away the hours, on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Music for a While series (MUSIC), Jan., 67;
For Mozart, poor Mozart, on the Mozart bicentennial in Vienna (NOTEBOOK), Mar., 85

Matthias, John

Academic poem (Poem), Jan., 56;
Not having read a single fairy tale (Poem), Feb., 47

Meyer, Michael

Sidney Keyes (Letter), Oct., 86

Meyers, Jeffrey

The Merton fieldmouse, a review of Edmund Blunden by Barry Webb (BOOKS), Apr., 60

Myers, D. G.

Who killed literature?, a review of The Death of Literature by Alvin Kernan (BOOKS), Jan., 78

Norris, Leslie

Borders (Poem), Nov., 49

NOTES & COMMENTS

In praise of “Survey,” Sept., 1;
A sign of the “Times,” on Michael Brenson’s essay Is “Quality” an Idea Whose Time Has Gone? in The New York Times, Sept, 2;
Red Seal survives, Sept., 3;
“The Yale Review” sentenced to death, IX 1, Sept. 1990, 4;
The new liberal orthodoxy, Oct., 1;
Rediscovering the New World, on the Columbus quincentennial & the music of the Americas, Oct., 2;
The Heath travesty of American literature, on The Heath Anthology of American Literature edited by Paul Lauter, Oct., 3;
A nostalgia for disaster, on the “unrealized promise” of Marxism for certain leftist writers, Nov., 1;
Making Cage a master, on the profile of John Cage on PBS’s American Masters series, Nov., 3;
After Cincinnati, Brooklyn gives us “the Unspeakable,” on Joseph Kosuth’s installation The Play of the Unspeakable at the Brooklyn Museum, Nov., 3;
Carnegie Hall at 100, Nov., 5;
Western civ at Yale?, on E Pluribus Unum, Donald Kagan’s address to the undergraduates at Yale College, Dec., 1;
Leonard Bernstein, 1918-1990, Dec., 3;
Affirmative-action book prizes, on the political agenda of certain National Book Award jurors, Jan., 1;
The auction disasters, on the collapse of the contemporary-art market, Jan., 2;
A farewell to decency, on “general standards of decency” & the NEA, Feb., 1;
The NEA & the states, on the congressionally mandated transfer of $12 million in annual NEA funds to state arts councils, Feb., 2;
“Practicing social change,” on the appointment of the feminist Gayatri Spivak to the English faculty of Columbia University, Mar., 1;
Exit MASS MOCA, on the failed plans for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Mar., 2;
The NEA goes multicultural, on NEA staff training in “cultural diversity” & other matters, Apr., 1;
“White Male Writers” comes to Georgetown, on a course that teaches the works of Melville, Hawthorne, et al., as representative products of white American males, Apr., 2;
Next target, the art schools, on The New Art Examiner’s allegation that American art schools are guilty of “sexism, racism, and homophobia,” Apr., 3;
The outlook for the Barnes Foundation, May, 1;
Hate speech at Columbia, on Hate Speech, Sexual Harassment & Academic Freedom, a speech by Mari J. Matsuda at Columbia University, May, 2;
“Culture under Siege”—the politics of the Whitney Biennial, June, 1;
PC comes to music, on Richard Taruskin’s New York Times article dismissing Prokofiev’s music as a product of Stalinism, June, 2

Parker, Alan Michael

If steam is water’s memory (Poem), Dec., 47

Perl, Jed

Revaluating de Staël (ART), Sept., 57;
Classical fragments, on On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico & the New Classicism 1910-1930 at the Tate Gallery (ART), Oct., 52;
New York stories, on Still Life Anthology at the Borgenicht Gallery, Robert Bermelin & other matters (ART), Nov., 62;
Romance, on Gabriel Laderman, Robert Kushner & Balthus (ART), Dec., 52;
Hip!? Hype!? Hooray!?, on Georg Baselitz, Carol Dunham & McDermott & McGough (ART), Jan., 59;
After the fall, meditations on the gallery season (ART), Feb., 55;
The neo-Baroque: Lipchitz & de Chirico (ART), Mar., 64;
Fauvists as tourists, on The Fauve Landscape at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (ART), Apr., 47;
Tradition-conscious, on Melissa Meyer, William Bailey, Philip Pearlstein & others (ART), May, 55;
Stuffed, on Mike Kelley at the Hirshhorn (ART), June, 45

Pevear, Richard (& Larissa Volokhonsky)

The new “Karamazov” (Letter), June, 78

Phillips, Robert

Visiting the Gregorys, a memoir of Horace Gregory & Marya Zaturenska, Sept., 24;
Reply to Louis Simpson (Letter), Nov., 88;
Reply to William Jay Smith (Letter), Feb., 87

Podhoretz, Norman

Portrait of a generation, a review of Our Age by Noel Annan (BOOKS), Jan., 70

Resnikova, Eva

Making omelettes, on the Japanese modern-dance company Sankai Juku (DANCE), Nov., 68

Don’t worry, be happy, on Mark Morris’s L’Allegro, Il Penseros ed Il Moderato (DANCE), Dec., 60

Richman, Robert

Epaulets & decorations, a review of Collected Earlier Poems & The Transparent Man by Anthony Hecht (BOOKS), Sept., 73;
Want list, a review of The Want Bone by Robert Pinsky (BOOKS), Dec., 70;
Mr. Burnshaw himself, a review of A Stanley Burnshaw Reader (BOOKS), Jan., 76;
Shorter notice of Robert Graves: The Years with Laura by Richard Perceval Graves (BOOKS), Feb., 80;
Shorter notice of Journals by Herman Melville (BOOKS), Mar., 83;
At a tangent, a review of Selected Poems, 1966-1987 by Seamus Heaney (BOOKS), Apr., 65

Rifkind, Donna

Katherine Anne Porter & the uses of fiction, Nov., 22;
Victorians’ secrets, a review of Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt (BOOKS), Feb., 77

Rodden, John

Orwell’s reputation (Letter), Sept., 86

Rosenthal, Deborah

Themes & variations: the art of Burgoyne Diller, Dec., 36;
Catching up to the past: Popova at MOMA, May, 27;
Shorter notice of Mondrian: Flowers by David Shapiro (BOOKS), June, 71

Rudich, Vasily

Dostoevsky’s idiom, a review of the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation of The Brothers Karamazov (BOOKS), Mar., 73

Rudich, Vasily

Russian classics, a review of The Cambridge History of Russian Literature edited by Charles A. Moser (BOOKS), May, 64;
Fundamentals of Soviet civilization, a review of Soviet Civilization: A Cultural History by Andrei Sinyavsky (BOOKS ), June, 58;
Reply to Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky (Letter), June 79

Saemann, David

Sir Colin Davis (Letter), Sept., 87;
Poetry workshops (Letter), Feb., 87

Salter, Mary Jo

Art lesson (Poem), Apr., 34;
Icelandic almanac (Poem), May, 40;
Lullaby for a daughter (Poem), May, 43;
Lament (Poem), May, 43

Schmertz, Mildred F.

Gordon Bunshaft, 1909-1990 (NOTEBOOK), Nov., 85

Schneider, Franz

Brecht & Döblin (Letter), Apr., 79

Scruton, Roger

The philosophical hedonist: Arthur C. Danto on art, a review of Encounters & Reflections by Arthur C. Danto (BOOKS), Sept., 69

Simon, John

François Truffaut: saved by the cinema, on Truffaut in his letters, Sept., 35;
The amoral superman: Bertolt Brecht in his letters, Dec., 9;
The condescending smile of the supreme enchanter, on Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years by Brian Boyd, Feb., 35;
Reply to Franz Schneider (Letter), Apr., 79

Simpson, Louis

Mark Strand & the Pulitzer (Letter), Nov., 88;
The cabin (Poem), Dec., 42

Sisson, C. H.

Another autumn (Poem), Jan., 58;
The writer & the Word, a review of Incarnation: Contemporary Writers on the New Testament edited by Alfred Corn (BOOKS), Feb., 75

Smith, William Jay

Rewarded journeys, a review of Secret Destinations: Selected Poems 1977-1988 by Charles Causley (BOOKS), Nov., 80;
Poems for young people (Letter), Feb., 87;
More poems for young people (Letter), Apr., 79

Solomon, Deborah

Barnett Newman’s big ideas, Mar., 17;
The art of the deal, a review of Betty Parsons: Artist, Dealer, Collector by Lee Hall (BOOKS), June, 66

Spires, Elizabeth

The awakening (Poem), Mar., 54;
The summer of Celia (Poem), Mar., 56;
The unfeminine flower (Poem), Mar., 57;
Good Friday. Driving westward. (Poem), Mar., 58

Symons, Julian

Capacities for invention, a review of Joseph Conrad: A Biography by Jeffrey Meyers (BOOKS), May, 68

Tanenhaus, Sam

Racconti italiani, a review of Name & Tears & Other Stories: Forty Years of Italian Fiction edited & translated by Kathrine Jason (BOOKS), Feb., 72

Teichman, Jenny

Love on the couch, a review of Love & Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis by Jonathan Lear (BOOKS), May, 72

Tracy, Walter

Shorter notice of Frederic Goudy by D. J. R. Bruckner (BOOKS), May, 78

Trethewey, Eric

Prescription change (Poem), Jan., 55

Tuttleton, James W.

Lincoln’s generals: Sherman & Grant in their memoirs, a review of The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman edited by Charles Royster & Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs & Selected Letters edited by Mary Drake McFeely & William S. McFeely (BOOKS), Oct., 63;
Arrogance & the canons of historical scholarship, a review of The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity & Race in America from the Colonial Era to the 20th Century by Forrest G. Wood (BOOKS), Dec., 66;
A solitary soul: the career of Kate Chopin, Apr., 12;
Quisling criticism: the case of Paul de Man, a review of Signs of the Times: Deconstruction & the Fall of Paul de Mann by David Lehman (BOOKS), Apr., 50;
Shorter notice of The Man Who Was Mark Twain by Guy Cardwell (BOOKS), June, 72

Vine, Richard

Reply to Walt Jimenez (Letter), Oct., 87

Volokhonsky, Larissa (& Richard Pevear)

The new “Karamazov” (Letter), June, 78

Wattenmaker, Richard J.

Maurice Prendergast at the Whitney, Nov., 33

Weiner, Lauren

Shorter notice of Violet: The Story of the Irrepressible Violet Hunt by Barbara Belford (BOOKS), Oct., 79; .P Weiner, Lauren Shorter notice of A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontë by Katherine Frank (BOOKS), Jan., 80;
Shorter notice of A Writer’s Reality by Mario Vargas Llosa (BOOKS), Apr., 71

Weinperson, Judy

Veritas? (Letter), Sept., 87

Weiss, Theodore

Lucky (Poem), Oct., 47;
Something kept (Poem), Oct., 49

Wilkin, Karen

Memoria in aeternum: Hans Hoffmann at the Whitney, Sept., 10;
Making sport of modern art, a review of A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern by Kirk Varnedoe (BOOKS), Nov., 75;
Abstract Expressionism revisited, on recent exhibitions of paintings by Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still & Adolph Gottlieb, Feb., 28;
The young Old Master: Van Dyck in Washington, Mar., 47;
Delacroix at the Met, June, 23

Wilson, Robley, Jr.