Years later, I feel as if I’ve seen and heard it all, experienced the farthest depths of that kind of vitriol and hate, and am (sad to say) no longer surprised by anything I hear from the Left. I’m also much more inclined to engage when presented with that sort of worldview. Feel like I have to do something to try to wake us up to the preciousness of what many seem ready and eager to throw away. Hoping some good will come of it.

If Lincoln is, indeed, one of his heroes, our President could learn a lot from him. If.

Yes, Neo, I read the post back in January. Updike was certainly courageous and unswayed by conventional wisdom. I think he could not be ignored by the publishers, as other writers have perhaps been ignored(we’ll never know how many), or effectively punished by the literati because he established his reputation early and his novels sold well.

Norman Mailer tried a little bit of the same thing, being honest, in regards to the more rabid of the gender warriors and was soundly humiliated, having to resort to begging his way back into the good graces of the New York intellectuals. But I never saw Mailer as the towering talent that Updike undeniably was.

Mailer’s the “Naked and the Dead” is one of the most idiotic novels I’ve ever trudged through but its themes massaged some of the major stupidities of the Left so Mailer hit the jackpot with his first quarter. The novel was praised so highly that they could not ignore him afterwards. I think the best that can be said of Mailer is that he was a mildly interesting essayist, writing essays which tended to be too tortured to firmly establish any salient point but which always featured a needlessly complex, contradiction-filled fawning toward the cherished memes of the Left.

In the years to come Mailer’s literary highpoint will no doubt be considered “The Executioner’s Song,” a derivative work, the technique and subject of which was copied from the earlier and better Truman Capote book, “In Cold Blood.” I predict the critics of the future will ignore him except as an oddity. But enough about Mailer.

In Wiki I find this:

The critic John Keenan, who praised the “beautiful and poignant” Endpoint, writes:

“I find it odd that Updike’s reputation as a poet is slight at best.”

Not so odd: Unlike novels, books of poetry do not bring publishing firms much revenue. So poetry critics could ignore or pan Updike with impunity since such treatment costs their publishers nothing. Although literary criticism in general is certainly subjective I think criticism of poetry can be more subjective than criticism of novels. It’s easier for the reader of novels to detect when criticism is biased or unfounded. Critics of novels have to be more careful.

There were two family members missing from the girls across the barrack’s hall, and one of the guys in my graduation group from Bootcamp lost his mom’s entire family, save only his mother. They had a family restaurant in one of the Towers, and she happened to be late that day.
They offered him a free “out” of the military, unlimited time off, a free flight to the funerals– he refused all of it to get through boot camp and down to business. (I think he was an Aviation Ordnance rate, too.)