Rating: 
Summary: AN INTELLECTUAL IN THE REAL WORLD
Review: Born in 1930, Norman Podhoretz was one of the youngest members of New York's legendary "The Family". This group of intellectuals was extremely influential in literature, art, philosophy, and politics.Mr. Podhoretz has written several books which cover most of the fascinating occurrences and turns in his life. EX-FRIENDS deals with some of the famous people he broke with as his beliefs evolved while events in the 20th century turned old political labels and beliefs upside down. Superb writing by the author makes what could have been a dry, self-serving book into a riveting, easy to follow page-turner. Not at all what one would expect from an "intellectual".
Rating:
Summary: AN INTELLECTUAL IN THE REAL WORLD
Review: Born in 1930, Norman Podhoretz was one of the youngest members of New York's legendary "The Family". This group of intellectuals was extremely influential in literature, art, philosophy, and politics. Mr. Podhoretz has written several books which cover most of the fascinating occurrences and turns in his life. EX-FRIENDS deals with some of the famous people he broke with as his beliefs evolved while events in the 20th century turned old political labels and beliefs upside down. Superb writing by the author makes what could have been a dry, self-serving book into a riveting, easy to follow page-turner. Not at all what one would expect from an "intellectual".
Rating: 
Summary: Norman who?
Review: I read this book because I had heard the name "Norman Podhoretz" bruited about in the odd book review here and there. He is, or at any rate was, the editor of a journal called "Commentary", which I have only ever heard of in the context of the Woody Allen joke: "I heard that 'Commentary' and 'Dissent' have merged, and now they're called 'Dysentery'". It seems that the author once knew some people who are now way more famous than him, and he wants to tell us all about how he believes they went wrong. It is not easy for a non-American reader to care more than two shakes of a lamb's tail about what this apparently well-known person thinks. He starts the book with what he obviously regards as a priceless witticism ("If I want to drop names, I just list my ex-friends"). If I had fallen out with the likes of Lillian Hellmann, Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg, I would be inclined to think that there was something wrong with me, but... He goes on to quote some not-terribly-interesting gossip about various writers, and seems to feel that he has said something extraordinarily important and significant by doing so. Who is this guy? What, exactly, is the sum total of his contribution to human joyfulness? I've never heard of him, outside the context of the odd book review (of somebody else's work), and I still don't understand why a presumably solvent publisher sees fit to print his dull grumbling about people who are obviously more talented than him. What is this book for? I am as much a fan of literary chat as the next person, but this book is almost entirely about the private whinges of somebody I've never heard of. It doesn't tell me anything about American cultural life, except that the author is not interested in the subject. He's not even funny. Can somebody explain how this thing got published?
Rating:
Summary: below the belt, as usual
Review: It's unfortunate but inevitable that books like this only serve to set in concrete opinions that are already held by whoever reads them. Also the fact is books like this are fairly useless because a) there is no room for rebuttal, and b) there is no way to verify any of the "information" they contain. The intense bitterness the political right feels towards the perceived immorality of the left is not news. It's boring. It's the undying passion for conformity that unfortunately sits at the base of almost everything in this country. Mr. Podhoretz is hardly a saint, and not because of his dabbling with leftist guerrillas either. In his meanspirited and hateful gossip, and in the cheering section that materializes whenever meanspirited and hateful gossip is printed ("Yay! It's one for Our Side!") he proves once again that the political right is interested only in acting superior while not actually being superior in any sense. Certainly not in the moral sense of which so many reviewers of this book make so much. On the subject briefly of Allen Ginsberg: before he came upon the literary scene poetry and ideas in the acceptable conservative sense were stagnated in a pit of sameness. Rather than read the rantings of a disillusioned man like Norman Podhoretz, which gets boring fast, it would serve the discerning reader well to sit down with one of Ginsberg's many journals and see that yes, this was not a perfect human being. Ego is part of the artist's life. Without it who can get up the nerve to assume we are worthy of displaying our art to the world, much less our politics or religion or sexuality? But Allen Ginsberg had more talent and more lovingkindness in his pinky than Podhoretz has in his entire body, and in a hundred years Ginsberg is the one whose name will be remembered. Thankfully.
Rating:
Summary: Give me a break
Review: Norman Mailer, Hannah Arendt, and Ginsberg are famous and respected names. I didn't even know there was a Norman Podhoretz until I saw his name mentioned in several of Gore Vidal's essays in his mid-90s essay collection. For someone of my generation (early 30s) Podhoretz is a non-entity.
Rating:
Summary: NORMAN PODHERETZ IS A WONDERFUL EXPLAINER!
Review: Norman Podheretz, editor of COMMENTARY for 30 years, presents us with a must-read book of war stories about problematic celebrity friends of his. Poderhetz's crystal clear writing is a pleasure to read, and so especially are the explanations he provides about the writings and thinking of the subjects he describes in EX-FRIENDS: Falling Out With Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer. The author's writing is welcome because these folks are not always easy to understand. For instance, Poderetz explains that Norman Mailer thought that the social revolution of the 1960's would succeed because its advocates gained incredible strength by giving into ALL of their impulses as much as possible. The inhibited opponents of that revolution, Mailer opines, couldn't and didn't compete in the "giving into their impulses" dept. and so didn't do as well. Mailer cites Richard Nixon as an example of too much inhibition. That will shut people who thought Nixon was "too emotional." I always wondered what Norman Mailer was talking about when I used to see him on talk shows like THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW, but it took Podheretz to explain it to me! I always wondered when Allen Ginsburg stated he "saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness," exactly which minds he was referring to. Poderhetz doesn't get into that, but his Allen Ginsberg section is also worth reading. It's hard to be an editor. H.L. Mencken was editor of the AMERICAN MERCURY in the 1920's and early 1930's, he, too, ran into a lot grief from prima donna writers of great talent but short fuses. Hooray for Norman Podheretz. A writer and a good man.
Rating: 
Summary: What's an Ex-Friend for? To write about.
Review: Norman Podhoretz, once a flaming young liberal now a cinder-hard conservative in his 70's, writes a titillating memoir about some friends who are friends no longer. During the 35 years Mr. Podhoretz edited the influential journal Commentary, he befriended some of the so-called "New York intellectuals" of the time: Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer. As he drifted from left to right politically, some of them, the Trillings, Lillian Hellman and Hannah. Arendt, drifted with him but not all the way. Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer did not. They stayed on the left -- or so Mr. Podhoretz claims. But I think there's more to it. All of them -- Ginsberg, Diana Trilling, Hellman, Arendt and Mailer -- particularly Ginsberg and Mailer -- had insufferable characteristics -- at least as described by Mr. Podhoretz. They were not "nice people". They might have been interesting conversationalists, but they come across in this book as overstuffed with their own egos, abrasive and rude. Ginsberg and Mailer, according to Mr. Podhoretz, were not only rude but also downright crude. Mr. and Mrs. Middle America would feel very uncomfortable in the presence of Mr. Podhoretz's ex-friends and probably not invite them over for dinner the second time. They probably wouldn't invite Mr. Podhoretz over the second time either because he too comes across as highly opinionated to the point of rudeness. Mr. Podhoretz's ex-friends were not dull by any means. But they seemed to be friends only when they could do something for him or when he could do something for them. So, what else are friends for?
Rating:
Summary: Telling it Like It Is
Review: Ol' norman is one unhappy guy. Say what you will about the people he can no longer stand , but if they weren't intelligent, incredibly artistic, movers and shakers,Norm wouldn't feel the need to explain to everyone why they are such awful people.
The fact that norman himself, comparativly speaking, isn't really worthy of shining their shoes, I'm sure entered into his reasons for putting them down also. Having read two of Mr' Podoretz's earlier ouvre, while good, were not on the artistic level as only one of Ginsberg's poems much less one of Lilian Hellman's plays. I'm sure he wish's he could write and example of Dashiell Hammet writing like Ernest Hemingway. The fact that he felt the need to criticize them enough to devote a whole book to the job indicates to me that he would love to influence people the way that his subjects did. It's to bad that he's just not that interesting. Strangely, I feel the same way on many of the political issues as does Podhoretz but as in the case of almost all political zealots, right or left, they would take away the rights and defame the characters of people who would hold opposing views. Especially, those who are dynamic enough to reach a large part of the population.
Since Podhoretz is an obvious want to be, but still has the pull to get something published, we will probably see more of his literary jealousy vented in print. It's too bad because he's not such a bad writer and some of his idea's are quite good but putting down people who do not believe the same way as he does will stop him from being taken seriously by all except a very small audience. Not to many people are considered important if they act like overindulged babies.
Rating:
Summary: Tsk, Tsk
Review: Podhoretz is a fun writer to read, but the content of this book is childish in the extreme. What I was confused by was his underlying premise that these people were somehow a "vanguard" or "think tank" for the left. Even the most staunch liberal will tell you: these people were kooks. Ginsberg once opined that prisoners would be better rehabilitated by learning how to chant Hindu mantras and Mailer was well known as a dangerous deviant in literary circles. No one with any sense ever looked to these people as anything but artists, and some were no better than mediocre. But, this is what American liberalism is lampooned as: long-haired weirdos in sandals trying to get elected. The only people who believe this, I reckon, are those who hear too much Limbaugh and not enough W. Buckley, Jr. The spirit of American liberalism is essentially this (though lunkheads like Podhoretz would dispute it): the protection of individual and intellectual freedoms and welfare and the constraining of the corrupting influence of commerce and the corporation. Conservatism ISN'T all that different. They aren't diametrically opposed as Podhoretz would have the gullible and brainwashed believe. Podhoretz got tired of these people (as anyone would) because they were SHALLOW and PHONY, not, I venture, because they were so far to the left.
Rating:
Summary: when all is said and done
Review: Podhoretz is just a thug! He justifies the comment of a Viennese anti-Semite one hundred years ago, Hermann Bialohlawek: scholarship is what one Jews steals from another!
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