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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Boo

_Me Claymore Shops_

BY JOSEPH COHEN

Special to The Jewish News

722 NORTH WOODWARD BIRMINGHAM • 642.7755

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Ralph Laura') For Women
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American Scholar,

In Plausible Prejudices his at-
tractive congeniality has given
way to a harsh stridency,
"Aristides" is the byline Eps-
tein uses for his "familiar essays,"
The original Aristides was a Fifth
Century.Athenian known as Aris-
tides the Just. He earned the ap-
pellation though it later became
an albatross around his neck
when people grew tired of it, Mit-
hridates was the ancient King of
Pontus who imbibed small quan-
tities of poison to offset the lethal
effects of a large dose at the hands
of a possible assassin, "Aristides"
is a Mithridates in reverse be-
cause Epstein isn't taking the
poison, he's dishing it out, That is
to say he is into expressing so
many prejudices he's become a
real poison pen pal,
Take, for example, Epstein's
views on contemporary Jewish
writers. He is one, of course, al-
though if he heard himself so de-
scribed it would probably get his
blood pressure up a bit, ethe-
Non
less, a few years ago he became
the fiction critic for Commentary
magazine, So what do we ham A
critic who is at least nominally
Jewish who writes for a Jewish
intellectual journal, frequently
about Jewish writers, Does that
sound cozy? Well, it isn't! He
doesn't have any tbing$99d to may
ab
them , wit
p oss i -
bl e exception of Saul Ballow
out nhyeoqf
p h et: r ly 4
couple of times but about whom he

has to my knowledge written no
•
The Jewish targets include
Norman Mailer, Philipp Roth,
Bernard Mulamud, E,Id•
tom w, Joseph Bailor, Cynthia

tionntag and the American
Je wish literary C011iii$4411c0• Iiis

strictures ugolinit Mailer and
Roth in "Mailer Rite bottom" and

1440,4111111 1

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nation when she's writing fiction,
Did he really say that? Yes, he
tells her,"I like my Jews
grounded," "Up," I might add, In
the same essay he calls Harold
Bloom "an unreadable critic"
without explaining why he is "un-
readable," Bloom has written
some pretty wild criticism — the
contagion may be in the air — but
itispertainly rfiadable, Like Eps.

Ozick , Harold bloom, Susan

1 0 100 ► 11►

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The critical essays of Joseph
Epstein's new collection, Plausi•
ble Prejudices ( W,W, Norton) may
be straight from the heart but
they are not love letters, On the
contrary, Epstein seems to be
writing these days with a
poisoned pen, If his last collection
of essays was entitled The Middle
of My Tether this new batch indi-
--fir bee vver"a-kiticaue. ,144t,,,
has emerged as one of the most
powerful literary critics in
America, He lives In Evanston,
Ill,, teaches writing and literature
at Northwestern University and
he is the editor of Phi Beta Kap-
pa's prestigious journal, The

Due

•

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Hatchet Man: Critic
Buries Jewish Writers

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Polio

"What Does Philip/ Roth Want?"
um inclined to agree with, but IA)
make a big dual over tlioir child-
ish excesses is old but these dais ,

01' liociorow 'HA Joseph bel-
le', kpiitoin guys in tho essay
culled ls AniraricAn biliorstors An
Opportunity Piraployrar"
that "they ingstra goniphilra
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the sun atop

Could professional jealousy he
Epstein's real problem?
And still in the same essay Elm•
tein describes Susan Sonntag's
capacity for making distinctions
in her writing as resembling
"talmudic study," labeling it in
the same breath as "dumb stuff," a
display by Epstein, in my judg-
ment, of arrogant insensitivity,
And to top it all off, Epstein tells
us that the American Jewish
literary renaissance far from
"entering upon a golden ago," was
rather a "bogus" happening,
claiming "that there has not been

"Plausible
Prejudices" by
Joseph Epstein,
W, W, Norton
Publishers,

all that much Jewish writing, but
ownrliytea,,, number of Jews, coming
from a highly verbal culture, who

It's distressing to sense what is
happening here, A once graceful
writer, thoughtful And consider-
ate, is not into high powered um
woad condemnation, Re's not out
particularly to get his co ,

religionists' goat, lin wants ovary ,
body's bide, Jig's become a fanatic
About it, A lot of non-Jewish

ether critics
novelists,
and academicians
u
are axed ,
with a smile but most with a

grimace, Contemporary Was.
tura, Epstein tells us, has fallen
upon hard times, our culture
disintAgroting, thraproragripton for
writing novels "fornication
uniyur,
fashionable ideas"
sitios have ,ruin literary errti
— tiara's a neat instant' of
biting the feeding hand —and
only good writers era Aced orioo•
n , g
oil onfi

that i4 Jut of ow) Woos 04;400

while Aptitoin is on his way 14
vene rate

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