Ira Levin 1929-2007

[gisli]

Goodbye and thank you.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/14/MN06TBP2E.DTL

[DaveM]

A silent pause and gratitude from this corner as well. He will be missed. I just hope he gets a quiet corner in the afterlife that is very very far away from Norman Mailer.

[leslie]

not a fan of Mailer's?

I enjoyed a few of his books but had more fun watching his interviews on Charlie Rose. As a teenager I found him spooky. His mother lived downstairs from us in Brooklyn Heights and I used to see him in the building all the time. He always seemed to be in another world and just a bit off. However, I must admit that when I was older our paths crossed again when I had his son John Buffalo in my preschool class. Sweet and beautiful child.

L

[hoops]

rest in peace
peace
hoops

[DaveM]

For reasons I cannot fully explain, I have never been able to "get" Norman Mailer's writing. My intended reference, however, was more to his self-created reputation as a violent drunk, among other things.

I've always thought of Mailer as a sort of boiler room Hemingway, with great aspirations and a competent prose style. But also with a tendency to mock icons for no reason other than that he could (see "Of A Fire On The Moon"), and become frustrated by an inability to draw a cloud over every silver lining.