Navigate to News section

Wallace Markfield, Renaissance Man

Today on Tablet, J. Hoberman gives Markfield his due

by
The Editors
August 13, 2012

What’s your Wallace Markfield IQ? Aside from being name-checked in “Portnoy’s Complaint,” tell us what trivia you know? Or let J. Hoberman educate you:

Put another way, Markfield was the most gifted also-ran associated with the so-called Jewish-American literary renaissance of 1950s and ’60s: His three Jew-obsessed comic novels were eclipsed by the titanic oeuvre of Philip Roth, his ideas regarding Jews and popular culture were massively elaborated by professor turned new journalist Albert Goldman, and his promising bid to establish himself as a wise-guy, street-smart luftmensh-intellectual Jewish film critic was upended by Manny Farber and trumped by Pauline Kael.

From the editors of Tablet Magazine.