This so-called obituary (which I found via Paglia’s Salon column) is an ideological rant, as others have pointed out. The problem with Kimball is that I can predict what he’s going to write before I read it. That was only sometimes the case with Mailer, whose best work will be read and remembered long after Kimball is forgotten. Kimball was obviously scarred in rerverse by the sixties and has yet to put the era behind him. While there is often much to be said for restraint instead of posturing (though constantly biting one’s tongue can shorten it by an inch or two), Kimball is posturing at least as much as Mailer ever did – if you don’t have time for his rant, take a look at that bow tie in his photo – but there’s a difference; Mailer’s posturing, even at its most pompous, is always more invigorating and culturally valuable than Kimball’s predictable cliches about the sixties. He should get a life.