More from Julie Subrin
Remembrance Day
(00:11:48)
From: Julie Subrin
A visit to a Rwandan memorial raises questions about when and how we remember genocide.
Farewell to Gertel's
(00:07:40)
From: Julie Subrin
A farewell visit to Gertel's, a Lower East Side kosher Jewish bakery which closed its doors after more than 90 years in business.
It's Not About You
(00:12:40)
From: Julie Subrin
Jesse Green learns some important lessons at his son's bar mitzvah.
Passover candy - an audio tour of a Lower East Side candy store
(00:06:29)
From: Julie Subrin
Jerry Cohen, owner of Economy Candy on New York City's Lower East Side, takes Blake Eskin on a tour of the shop's Passover selection (with a few chocolate bunny and ...
La Nona Kanta ("The Grandmother Sings")
(00:14:21)
From: Julie Subrin
Profile of Flory Jagoda, an 83-year old Sephardic folk singer from Sarajevo
Xmas at the Shelter
(00:06:45)
From: Julie Subrin
Writer/performer Janice Erlbaum tells a story about volunteering at a homeless shelter on Christmas Eve; the one she lived in about twenty years ago.
Paper Trail
(00:11:43)
From: Julie Subrin
A stamp auction in Frankfurt leads an author to a war-time love story
In Claudia Roden's Kitchen
(00:16:26)
From: Julie Subrin
Cooking and chatting with London-based Middle Eastern and Jewish food expert and raconteur Claudia Roden.
Emma Lazarus vox
(00:04:28)
From: Julie Subrin
What people know about the woman who wrote "give me your tired..."
Adventures at Kosherfest
(00:09:27)
From: Julie Subrin
A visit to the world's biggest annual kosher food show
Related Pieces
Piece Description
Norman Mailer, equally famous for his prose-writing skill and his various provocations (literary and political), has a new novel out. Titled "The Cave in the Forest," it's a fictional biography of Adolf Hitler's family history and early years, told from the perspective of one of Satan's assistants. Mailer, now 84, is as feisty as ever, though perhaps less caustic than in his younger years. In a lively conversation with Nermeen Shaikh, who interviewed him for the Jewish culture website Nextbook.org, he discusses everything from his love for E. M. Forster to his antipathy toward the question, "Is it good for the Jews?" He also delves into his own religious upbringing and cosmology, and traces the origins of his interest in Hitler, which dates as far back as 1932.
Broadcast History
The interview has never been broadcast. It was posted as a podcast on Monday, January 29, 2007.
Transcript
Transcript available here:
http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=534
Read the full transcript
Related Website
Joseph Dougherty
Posted on March 02, 2007 at 04:05 PM | Permalink
Review of Conversation with Norman Mailer
As stated in the introduction to this interview, Norman Mailer has often been accused of being overly ambitious as a writer. Arguably true, but that means he has never been afraid to write large, loud, and passionately. Once you decide to live and write like that, the only thing you can guarantee is that you will, more than once, fall on your ass.
My taste in prose has always run in a different direction from Mailer, but listening to this interview there seemed less of the bombast I remember from the past and an encroaching spirituality built in equal parts of God, American intelectualism, and Texas Hold 'Em.
A Mailer fan or not, it's always a pleasure to listen to the confident voice of a powerful writer.