Responses & Reactions, A New Bi-Monthly Department; essay in Commentary December 1962 [with] Responses & Reactions II February 1963

Mailer, Norman, et alia

New York: American Jewish Committee, 1962-63. Magazine. Respectively pp.504-506 and 146-148, the Commentary issues each 10x7 inches. Mailer's contributions are toned like the rest of the two magazines, which are badly toned through and through, though not fragile. Externally both are sound and unmarked, with December a little rough, and February very good. Also find discussions of African Americans by Norman Podhoretz and Harold Isaacs; The Television Problem by Richard Schickel; and more Judaica.

Both Mailer essays concern Martin Buber's Tales of the Hasidim which "has probably had a greater impact on non-Jewish writers -whether theologically inclined or theologically indifferent- than any other Jewish book of recent times." In his second installment Mailer cites Buber but then launches into his own fictionalizing of a modern parallel to one of the tales. Mailer's psychologizing here smacks very much of the novel he was next to write (or improvise) in 1965, American Dream.

Cat.No: 233187

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