Word: podhoretzes
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...Does Podhoretz ever convince the reader that his story is worth telling? Not really. By paying so much attention to the sociology of himself, he withholds those elements that could have bound reader and writer. He tells of strong feelings, of friendship and feuds, but in the end those experiences only lead to the naive discovery that intelligent people can be hypocrites...
Home in New York, his Scrutiny byline and his impressive set of academic credentials opened the doors of literary society, a demiworld about which Podhoretz writes entertainingly and knowledgeably. He sees that society as characterized by its resemblance to a modern, Americanized Jewish family. Though he is quick to note the names of such important gentile members as Mary McCarthy, Dwight Macdonald, James Baldwin, and such "kissing cousins" as Robert Lowell and Ralph Ellison, Podhoretz insists that "the term 'Jewish' can be allowed to stand by clear majority rule and by various peculiarities of temper." The term family...
...first taste of hostility came when he wrote an unfavorable Commentary review of The Adventures of Angle March, the 1953 novel by Family Favorite Saul Bellow. According to Podhoretz, Bellow's friends were apparently persuaded that the review was part of a subtle plot to discredit him. Three years later, a well-known American poet (the reader is never told who) accosted the young critic at a party and drunkenly threatened: "We'll get you for that review if it takes ten years." The book is everywhere littered with the hairs of such neighborhood cat fights, most...
...Down. For all its unpleasantness, the Bellow affair brought Podhoretz the attention he craved. He got review assignments from The New Yorker and Partisan Review, which enhanced his club membership. And like many other members, he carefully cultivated his status. Every morning, he would scan the invisible "stockmarket report" on reputations and measure the gains and losses. By implication, he suggests that other members did the same. "Did so-and-so have dinner at Jacqueline Kennedy's apartment last night? Up five points. Was so-and-so not invited by the Lowells to meet the latest visiting Russian poet...
Nine years ago, Podhoretz' friend and literary confidant, Norman Mailer, brashly announced in Advertisements for Myself that he was embarking on "a revolution in the consciousness of our time." He predicted that his writing would have "the deepest influence of any work being done by an American novelist in these years." Like Podhoretz, he was asking too much, but he has at least gained the fame and riches that his friend is still seeking. Lacking Mailer's style, his sense of irony and his skill at infighting, Podhoretz has several more books and years of exhibitionism...