Very sad story about David Levine, the genius New York Review of Books caricaturist. Levine did so many incredible drawings for so long that I took him 100% for granted, and when another illustrator's work started showing up in the NYRB last year it made me weirdly queasy. The story's not complicated or surprising: Levine is 81, and his eyesight's going. He spent his whole life as a freelancer and doesn't have a pension. Go to his gallery on the NYRB site and type in the name of a writer or a politician from the last 50 years. Try the really famous ones -- try Joyce. (There's eight.) Check out Philip Roth: how does he feel to see himself captured like that, eleven times, from 1969 to 2000? Who will replace David Levine?
10/14/08
