The New Republic

Several weeks ago, the Greek Embassy invited me to attend a luncheon at the National Press Club featuring a speech by the Greek prime minister, whose name escapes me at the moment. It wasn't Papandreou--if that's spelled correctly, thank TNR's assistant editors--whom I believe is dead or very ill, but rather his successor. I think his name ends with -itis. Apparently the embassy believes I'm the house expert on Greece. I was specifically chosen. My name was handwritten on a fancy invitation. Nobody else at the magazine received one. READ MORE >>

Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell Villard Books, 412 pp., $25  I. READ MORE >>

I. The species known as DWEM, which has only recently been isolated and identified, is already the focus of intense controversy. As usually happens to newly discovered species, it is even being broken down into subspecies; I am informed that a professor at a local university has recently offered a course in DWAM, that is, in Dead White American Males, with readings presumably in such writers as Thoreau, Emerson, and Mark Twain. I propose to discuss only the European type, and, in particular, its first appearance on the face of the planet. READ MORE >>

Barcelonaby Robert Hughes(Knopf, 575 pp., $27.50) In the early 1960s learning to love Barcelona required, among other things, an act of will. The city was not, on its surface, attractive; its charms lay hidden beneath a dowdy, scruffy appearance. The heavy hand laid on the city by Franco after the Civil War stifled even the modicum of liberty essential for urban culture to thrive. READ MORE >>

Ovid's Poetry of Exile Translated by David R. Slavitt (Johns Hopkins University Press, 256 pp., $32.60, $12.95 paper) The Last World By Christoph Ransmayr (Grove Weidenfeld, 240 pp., $18.95) READ MORE >>

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FRANCO-ITALIAN relations are in the center of the European limelight once again. Just as France and Spain were about to renew their endless discussion of the question of Tangier, Mussolini sent a division of the Italian fleet there, to help the large Italian community celebrate the fifth anniversary of Fascism. READ MORE >>

Marseilles presents itself to you without preparation and without comment. It is there that the traveler first sees the Mediterranean; usually the tram goes on, and the traveler with it, to the Riviera or to Italy. Neither Marseilles nor the guide book invites you to stop. READ MORE >>