Joseph Heller Joseph Heller
Nelson Algren's 1961 review of Catch-22 is at www.thenation.com.
Dec 15, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Christopher Hitchens
Was Communism Reformable? Was Communism Reformable?
Never in history until the Soviet Union collapsed eight years ago had a great empire gone through such cataclysmic changes and accepted such staggering territorial losses without...
Dec 15, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Robert V. Daniels
What Price, Palestine? What Price, Palestine?
The plan to take Israeli athletes hostage during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games was conceived at a cafe on the Piazza della Rotonda in Rome, in the shadow of the Pantheon and the ...
Dec 15, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Michael Young
Lord High Executioners Lord High Executioners
He looks like a pear that's going bad. Tall, corpulent and much the worse for gravity, W.S.
Dec 15, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
‘Rock’ in a Hard Place ‘Rock’ in a Hard Place
Not since Charlton Heston painted the Sistine Chapel has there been so epic a film about arts patronage as Cradle Will Rock. Heston, you will recall, had to cope only with the Va...
Dec 9, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Exploding Plastic Inevitable Exploding Plastic Inevitable
The fifties may have been the last great moment when Americans entrusted their dreams of transformation to the material world.
Dec 9, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Joanne Jacobson
Kosovo: On Ends and Means Kosovo: On Ends and Means
The spectacle of human beings acting out mindless violence through pack behavior instills more terror in the heart than perhaps any other event in the natural world.
Dec 9, 1999 / Books & the Arts / George Kenney
Stop-Time in the Levant Stop-Time in the Levant
It is remarkable to what extent almost anything having to do with the Middle East in this country--be it political, cultural, historical or even personal--is permeated by the tri...
Dec 2, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Ammiel Alcalay
Algren’s Question Algren’s Question
He would hang his coat neatly over the back of his chair in the leaden station-house twilight, say he was beat from lack of sleep and lay his head across his arms upon the query-...
Dec 2, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Dan Simon