From TLS, an article on the poet who could smell vowels: Ferdinand de Saussure, the father of structuralism, owed much to Hobbes and Mill, and numbered Henry VII among his ancestors; a review of Descents of Memory: The life of John Cowper Powys by Morine Krissdottir; and a review of Conan Doyle: The man who created Sherlock Holmes by Andrew Lycett and Arthur Conan Doyle: A life in letters. From The Liberal, Poetry and the English imagination: No nation has produced better essayists than France, none has produced better composers than the Germans, better painters than the Italians, nor better novelists than the Russians. And the English? The English do poetry. From The New Yorker, Louis Menand on the slugger who swung at everything. From Counterpunch, Jeffrey St. Clair on the writer as fighter. Not-So-Macho Mailer: Fred Siegel on his showdown with the literary tough guy, and more on a boxing life and more on the pugilist at rest and more on the tough guy. Norman Mailer was a leftwinger from an era when it was possible to be left wing and still love red meat, liquor, tobacco and sex - - without apology. Joan Smith bids farewell to Norman Mailer, a sexist, homophobic reactionary. Arianna says heaven just got a lot more interesting. How to deal with Norman Mailer? William F. Buckley investigates. From The New York Observer, a special section on remembrances.
