The Greatest Story Ever Retold The Lawgiver Herman Wouk Simon & Schuster 2012, $25.99, pp. 232  The Lawgiver, a new novel by the 97-year-old, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Herman Wouk, is about a new novel that fails to get written by a 97-year-old, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist named Herman Wouk. It is honest, highly readable, entertaining and more than a little silly. But above all, what any respectful reader takes away from this book is a sense of awe that this colossus of 20th-century American fiction is still at it in his 10th decade. What is particularly impressive is the manner in which this nonagenarian delivers his narrative—in short, almost epigrammatic bits, most via the current media of electronic messaging: texting, emails, phone and Skype conversations between the characters. This from the author who was heralded as the last important writer still composing in...

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