Joseph Bottum

The Gospel According to the Son by Norman Mailer Random House, 242 pages, $22 It’s just too easy to start with a gibe at The Gospel According to the Son , Norman Mailer’s new attempt to retell the life of Jesus as a novel narrated by its hero, the Son of God Himself. There is a nearly . . . . Continue Reading »

I should have deadened the street with straw, I should have stopped the bedroom clock and stilled the doorbell chimes with crepe, I should have brought him quinine bark, exotic simples packed in teak, I should have had Te Deums sung with banks of candles, cloistered nuns to say their beads before he . . . . Continue Reading »

Death is the night watch The waiter, the wanter Death is the break The wake of the sleeping death is the waker, the watcher of sleep. death is the breaker, the waking of sleep. Down in the hole Down in the hole The frost on his fingers The blood of the sparrows the creaker is turning. he starts up . . . . Continue Reading »

There are many schools of thought to which an American philosopher may belong, but there is still only one school of American philosophy. The last few Marxists may look to Frederic Jameson to lead them, while the last few followers of Heidegger may look to such writers as John Caputo. Richard . . . . Continue Reading »

The crimson lake that laps her cheek, her scarlet kiss, her madder hair once singed the virgin martyr page but taper down at last to this: Red language, words incarnadine; black scrawl in sifted ash. When I have fears that I may cease to speak before my sullen sun and garner dark at length in day, . . . . Continue Reading »

There being neither bangled dancers swirling cloth-of-gold and green nor golden peacocks set in trees above the marble garden ponds, we are assured we are no king. O, but were I king I would command my flautists out upon the porch and golden bowls of tamarinds and pomegranate seeds in ice set down . . . . Continue Reading »

The beauty school on Brighton Lane spills pink-smocked girls at twelve o’clock. They blossom cigarettes and talk, pluck lilacs from the parish green and plant them in their hair for spring. But the bells of St. Columbkille’s clang and Brighton mourners dim the street, with roses on the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Shadow Man: A Daughter’s Search for her Father By Mary Gordon Random House, 274 pages, $24 Every human situation, Epictetus once declared, is like a vase with two handles. If you have quarreled with your brother, you can grasp the handle which is the fact that you have quarreled, or grasp . . . . Continue Reading »

I “Good Hamlet,” begs his mother at the audience’s first sight of the black-clothed prince, “cast thy nighted color off,” And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not forever with thy lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ‘tis . . . . Continue Reading »

Violence Unveiled By Gil Bailie Crossroad, 293 pages, $24.95 The Gospel and the Sacred By Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly Fortress, 175 pages, $14 paper The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred By James G. Williams Trinity, 288 pages, $16 paper The Sacred Game By Cesareo Bandera Pennsylvania State University . . . . Continue Reading »