http://epikores.com josh lambert's reviews, essays, and fiction. Sun, 18 Jul 2010 14:58:51 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Arguing the Modern Jewish Canon Essays on Literature and Culture in Honor of Ruth R. Wisse Edited by Justin Daniel Cammy, Dara Horn, Alyssa Quint and Rachel Rubinstein Harvard University Press, 750 pages, $75. In September 1976, Commentary printed the letters of three novelists who had taken ... http://epikores.com/?p=91 Sam Astrachan was only 21 when his first novel appeared, in 1956; everyone, including his professor Lionel Trilling and his editor Robert Giroux, thought he would be the great American Jewish novelist. To learn what happened, read my essay on Astrachan, which appeared today on Nextbook.org. http://epikores.com/?p=90 I've recently published two scholarly articles about comic strips and graphic novels. Neither is available online for free, unfortunately, but if you have access to Project Muse, and are curious about a fascinating multimedia phenomenon from the 1910s, please check out "'Wait for the Next Pictures': Intertextuality and Cliffhanger Continuity ... http://epikores.com/?p=86 Breadowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %&*! By Art Spiegelman Pantheon. 72 pages. $27.50. Publishing a literary masterpiece can be a little like creating a golem, it seems: first you’re just proud you were able to create it, then you’re astonished to see how powerful it becomes, and then, suddenly, you’re ... http://epikores.com/?p=83 Ludwig Lewisohn doesn't get much press these days, but he was the most famous Jewish writer in America before WWII, and his books were praised not just by literary heavyweights like Sinclair Lewis and Thomas Mann, but also by Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein. Take a look at my appreciation ... http://epikores.com/?p=82 What do you get when you cross Philip Roth with Alfred Hitchcock? That's the subject of my latest piece for Nextbook.org, a look at a little-known Roth short story called "The Contest for Aaron Gold," and its adaptation for TV in 1960. http://epikores.com/?p=69 Of the many insults and epithets launched at the Jews through the ages, none has quite the cultural pedigree of "dirty Jew." Writers in many languages have seized on it again and again, mostly because it is not only harsh and hateful, but also vague. Dirtiness can refer to anything ... http://epikores.com/?p=68 The Girl on the Fridge By Etgar Keret Translated by Miriam Shlesinger and Sondra Silverston 173 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Think of it this way: if you pay the cover price for Etgar Keret's newly translated collection of stories, The Girl on the Fridge, you'll be shelling out approximately 25 cents for each ... http://epikores.com/?p=64 Going Global: The Word-Wise Adventures of Yisrael and Meir: Book One By Yitzchok Kronblau Illustrated by Ruth Beifus 80 pages. Arscroll/Mesorah. $24.99. Trekking Through Time: The Word-Wise Adventures of Yisrael and Meir: Book Two By Yitzchok Kronblau Illustrated by Ruth Beifus 104 pages. Arscroll/Mesorah. $24.99. Like many comic-book adventure series, The Word-Wise Adventures of Yisrael and Meir begins with ... http://epikores.com/?p=63 Today Nextbook.org published an essay I wrote about the neglected African-American novelist John Oliver Killens, in whose blistering novel, And Then We Heard the Thunder (1963), a Jew teams up with some disaffected African-American soldiers to wage bloody war on the racist U.S. military at the end of WWII. It's ... http://epikores.com/?p=62