Instinct or Intelligence? Word from: shoshana

There's a new biography out from Oxford on Bernard Malamud--that lesser-known Jewish American writer (or is it American Jewish?)--by Philip Davis (professor at the School of English, University of Liverpool). The book is reviewed here by Lee Siegel for The NYT Book Review.

In her review, Siegel points to Malamud's inferior status when compared to his peers--(Phillip) Roth, Mailer, and Bellow--, which, the reviewer interestingly suggests, comes down to the difference between intelligence and instinct. Malamud, she goes on to write, seems to have been blessed with better--that is more honest, more real--instinct than other writers, but not the same degree of uber-intelligence that informs the writing, and indeed the persona of such literary luminaries as Roth. Of course, this raises important questions about what it takes to be a great writer and the extent to which IQ and creativity are interrelated, or not--that is, the role of intelligence in the creative artistic process. According to Siegel, Roth and Mailer were dismissive of Malamud because he was, to quote Siegel quoting Alfred Kazin "too good to be true," because he focused too much on "rachmones" as a Jewish trait, at the expense of the "ego driven assertiveness and aggression"that defined other writers' portrayal of the new American Jew. Malamud also distinguished himself as, according to many who remember him, a genuinely amicable human being (something few would dare accuse Mailer of). It does often seem that the more reckless one is in life the bolder one can be in pursuing one's art. . . I should mention that this bio comes on the heels of another book about the same author written by Janna Malmud Smith, Malamud's daughter (My Father is a Book, Mariner Books 2007). And on the topic of lesser-known Jewish American writers, W.W. Norton put out a biography of the other Roth (Henry), by Steven G. Kellman, in 2005. Anyone read it?