JOSHUA COHEN - OR A CULTURAL MISTAKE a

IN PROGRESS A FULL LENGTH REVIEW OF JOSHUA COHEN'S WORK

https://www.amazon.com/Moving-Kings-Novel-Joshua-Cohen/dp/0399590188

which is initiated here with a letter to the estimable New Yorker reviewer, Professor Wood.

annotations on the books etc.  to be added below


http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/24/a-novel-brings-israels-conflicts-to-new-york

Dear Professor Wood,
re: 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/24/a-novel-brings-israels-conflicts-to-new-york

Joshua Cohen’s „movers“ can operate the way they do in Palestine only under the aegis of fascism, in the U.S. they would be part of, say, a Blackwater type contractor or work for one or the other crime families, perhaps the Jewish mob with whose higher ups I made intimate aquaintance in the late 70 editing Robert Kalich’s autobiographically informed THE HANDICAPPER,
http://artscritic.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-handicapper-or-adventures-in.html
 the featured character subscribed to a book that was eventually pubished by Crown, some of the money came in brown paper bags, it was Urizen Book’s single and rare profitable venture, we made 40 k from my editing abilities and did not have to publish the book and, moreover, its editor had one of his most eye-opening experiences. - You note how much less exciting it is to read about what this group of sadists does back in the USSR! Alas. I would think that the IDF might take umbrage at being revealed as operating like Nazi gangster!

Also, when you write quoting Cohen's novelistic notes to himself„: “There’s nothing worse than description: hotel room prose. No, characterization is worse. No, dialogue is.” So if his most accessible novel yet, rich in all three despised elements, frustrates conventional satisfactions, is it because he has failed to find the right form or because he is trying to found a new one?“  Alas. I think where have both Joshua Cohen & you been, say since the days of Proust, Robbe-Grillet, Grass, Handke! I am going to do a posting on the book and your review at my artscritic blog because both the review but especially this Cohen rub me the wrong way. You do lose your way occasionally - that’s all right, I trust you will find y your way back as you have many times before. Michael Roloff