I am skeptical of any attempt to gauge the greatness of a literary artist when the criteria being considered are not directly related to literature. The recent passing of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has provided some fodder for skepticism. Because of “the effect that he has had on history,” David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, believes…

Two conversations come to mind when I think about the relationship between art and life. The first one occurred some Sunday afternoon during adolescence, after Mass with a friend named Tim. Tim and I were the self-appointed rebels in our Confirmation class, courageously informing our instructor about the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the ubiquitous use…

Last December, I wrote a speculative piece for First Things Online, regarding the upcoming visit of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to the People’s Republic of North Korea. I was responding to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by the critic Terry Teachout, who thought that such a visit would constitute a serenade for Kim Jong-Il,…

After reading his much blogged-about interview in Wired, I would first like to express my admiration for Ray Kurzweil, both for the scope of his ambition and the depth of his desire. While some distract themselves with empty consolations or pseudo-poetic dithering, Kurzweil points out what all of us really want. In contemporary culture, I…

I think Reihan Salam is correct in dubbing the novels of the late Arthur C. Clarke “devotionals,” and his characters are indeed “wooden,” though that doesn’t take anything away from Clarke’s beguiling and seemingly unbounded imagination. This past summer, on whim, I picked up Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama and thought it an impressive feat that…

Mark Edmundson of the University of Virginia has published a fascinating article in the latest Chronicle of Higher Education, describing the current generation of students. They are an active, intelligent, vulnerable bunch: “Its members have a spectacular hunger for life and more life. They want to study, travel, make friends, make more friends, read everything…

In the final moments of the German film, The Lives of Others, the former Communist Minister of Culture, Bruno Hempf, makes a provocative speech to the playwright Georg Dreyman. (Hempf had bugged Dreyman’s apartment back during the bad old days.) “You’ve not written since the Wall fell?” Hempf asks. “That’s not good. After all our…

In The Battle of the Books, Swift writes that “Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” Self-deception isn’t always that easy, however. Sometimes the reflection on the glass is too familiar to ignore. I’m thankful, then, that as far as satirists go, Claire Messud is as…

The charge: a weak imagination, and uneven moral reasoning. The accused: Five American novelists, writing about characters living through the terrorist attacks of September 11. Cheryl Miller’s incisive essay in this month’s issue of Commentary, “9/11 and the Novelists,” is a great sign that said intellectual journal is not succumbing to the trendy temptation of…