Following up on the previous post, here's a timely and interesting review in City Journal by Theodore Dalrymple of new novels by Philip Roth and Ian McEwen. The title of the review is "Careful What You Wish For."In it, Dalrymple notes:
"The idea that mankind might find life beautifully easy if only the right laws could be promulgated and the right social attitudes inculcated is a beguiling one. It suggests that dissatisfaction and frustration arise from error and malice, rather than from the inescapable and permanent separation between man’s desires and what the world can offer him. Difficulty, however, cannot be abolished; it is the condition of human life itself. We try to avert our eyes from this truth as we avert them from death itself."
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