Jon Stallworthy Love letters from Louis MacNeice

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World Views
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On the Origi ns of Human Rights
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Buffon had a longer
nam e than a modern pub-
Jon Stall worth y, Mac-
Neic es biographer, offer s a
for eta ste of some newl y dis-
-c-janet Broughccn. University of Californ ia, Berkeley
lisher of best-seller s might co vered letters to two of the
Paper $19.95 £1 1.95 978 -0-69 1-13416 -1
dem and. He also worked in wome n in the poet' s life,
mor e field s of study than has Nancy Co ldstrea m and Mary
been respect abl e since the Wi mbu sh . Peter McDonald,
Torture an d th e Twilight of Empire end of the eight eenth century Georges-Louis Lecierc the editor of the Collected
From Algiers to Baghdad - math s, ge ome try , ph ysic s d e Buffon Poems (rev iewe d on April
and the massive- selling 27) , read s one of MacNeic e' s
Marnia Lazreg book s of natural histor y for Bar rel was , it see ms, on e of mo st touching lyric s and
"T his book interpre ts torture not as an incidental if whi ch he is now best kno wn those whose wife did litt le to find s it informed by his love
frequent characteristic of n eocolonlal conflict , but as one whe re he is known at all. Ou r boo st hi s c onfidence . for Elea nor Cl ark, by his
of its major elements. Using the Algerian war as a case critic Matthew Co bb reviews On e way or anothe r we fear s at the on set of war, and,
stud y, Professor Lazreg argues that to the French forces a new se lectio n from the heard a good deal about above all , by his complex
the psychological and political significance of their policy works of the man who also W . H . Aud en in his centenary sense of " the pit y of it all".
of torture was far greater than its operational significance.
coin ed one of the mo st yea r, whi ch has ju st com e to Also in this doub le issue for
Her work is certainl y pertinent to the present."
famous phr ases in the French an end. But thi s was also the the holid ay season, Oswyn
-Peter Parer , Institute for Advanced Stud y
lan gu age . cent en ary of his friend and Murray exa mines the life of
Human RIghts and Crimes against Humanity Joyce Ca ro l Oates has one-time coll aborator, Loui s Gilbert Murr ay, And " Bright
Eric D. Weltz, serIeseditor
been con sid ering on e of the M acNeic e, an Ulsterm an by Youn g Peop le" or " Bright
Cloth $29.95 £17.95 978 -0-691-13135-1 top choices of TLS wr iters birth, who was celebrated Youn g Thin gs" ? The writ er,
thi s year , the Lif e of Bernard ea rlie r in the yea r at a confer- D. J. Ta ylor takes one view
Mal arnud by Phi lip Davis. ence at Qu een ' s Unive rsity whil e Christopher Hitch en s
Th e priz e- winning author of Belfast. Thi s wee k we devot e take s another.

[j2> PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Fixer and The Magic all of C ommentar y to two of PS

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 NATU RA L HI S T OR Y 3

Polymath of style
Sensational sales figures, the 'finest pen of his age', a giant of natural history,
geometry and art: Buffon deserves to be restored
his year marked the tercent enary of MATTHEW COBB sys tem for cla ssifying organi sm s wh ich is and winter, he would move to Paris, where he

T the birth of two of the great est natu -

rali sts of the eightee nth century -
the Swede Carl Linnaeus ( 1707-78)
and the Frenchman Ge orges -Louis Lecl erc ,
comte de Buffon (170 7-88). In Apr il,
G eor g es-Louis L ec l e rc
d e Buffon
OE UVR E S
still with us today, but few peop le would
want to read the book he wrote to outlin e his
method. Th e first edition of Linn aeus' s Sys -
lema Natu rae ( 1738) ran to ju st eleven pages
and was esse ntially an index to previou sly
was in charge of the Cabinet du Roi, which at
the end of the eighteenth centur y becam e the
Mu seum national d'Histoire naturell e.
Buffon ' s first passion was mathem atic s,
and in 1733 he solved a major prob lem in
Linn aeus' s 300th birthd ay was celebr ated in Edited by Stephane Schmitt and Cedric Cre rniere publi shed works - prett y dr y stuff. Buffon , prob ability and geo metry, now kno wn as
the scientific j ourn als, mu seum s put on spe - 1,677pp. Gallimard. €65 . on the oth er hand , is worth readin g. And if "B uffo n's needle" . This involves calcu lating
cial ex hibits, newspap ers publi shed articles 9782 07 0 11803 8 you are going to read a book (rather than the prob ability that a needle, dropped on to a
about hi s influ enc e. But for Buffon' s birth- analyse the text) , then you want a proper surface covered with parallel lines, will cro ss
OE UVRE S C O MP L E T E S ,
day, in Sept ember, there we re no candl es on Histoire naturelle, genera le et parti culiere. avec la book , not a shimmering scree n or a bulk y two lines, and requires an es timation of the
the cake. Even in Franc e, not much fuss was descripti on du Ca binet du Roy - To me I ( 1749) print-out. The pub lisher s clearly think there va lue of pi. Buffon ' s interest in this prob lem
made - a conferenc e in Dijon , a few displ ays Edited by Stephane Schmitt and Cedric Cre rniere is some mone y to be made from the se bold was prompted by trying to work out the odds
at the Mu seum national d'Histoire naturelle, 1,367pp. Champion. € 150. ventures - libraries, and , in the ca se of the of winning at a popu lar gambling game.
a flurr y of publi sh ing; and that was it. 978 2 74 5316011 Pleiad e volume, indi viduals, will rightl y Give n his subsequent con version to natural
Fame is relati ve - Buffon has a crat er on want to own the se book s. histor y, he would no doubt have been plea sed
the Moon named after him, Linnaeus does a detai led comment ary, helping the read er One of Buffon ' s pithy phra ses from L 'Hist- to learn that in the ant Leptot horax albipe n-
not - but while the name of the Swedi sh not ice subtleties of langu age, referenc es to oire natu relle - "Le style, c' est l'homm e nis, the workers appea r to use a variant of his
think er should pro voke a glimm er of recogni - other think ers and other uses of similar merne" - has passed into the French language. solution to es timate the size of potenti al nest-
tion in most biol og y stude nts, that of Buffon phrases or ideas elsewhere in the later vol- Thi s correspond s perfect ly to the relation sites by measuring the frequ enc y with which
is more likely to conjure up the athletic umes. With one 1,363-pa ge volume com- between L 'Histoire naturelle and Buffon the the y cro ss pheromone trail s they ha ve laid .
Italian goalkeeper than the father of French plete, Schm itt can look for ward - with jo y or man. The monum ental series of book s that Buffon ' s continuing inter est in numb er s is
natura l history. This is unfortunate, as Buffon trepidation, it is hard to tell - to spending make up L 'Histoire spanned the whole of shown in some fascin ating , but depressing,
was one of the grea t figures of bio logy, and the rest of his career on this proj ect. human knowledge; they were produc ed by a pages of L 'Histoir e na turelle wh ere he tallied
one of the publishing sensations of the Enlight- These book s are being pub lished at a time man with a monum ental appetite for work, and the ages at which peop le died in and aro und
enm ent. Buffon ' s ambition was aston ishin g: when the whole of Buffon' s work is available a vast range of intere sts. Buffon , who was Pari s, and calc ulated life expectancies . Mo st
he wa nted to summarize all human kno w- in text- searchab le form on the web, for free. reputed to work fourt een hour s a day, spent the chi ldren who reach ed the age of twel ve cou ld
ledge about the natural wor ld, under the title This tell s us somet hing about Buffon, and spring and summer in Burgundy writing his expect to live until the ir late thirt ies, while
L 'Histoire naturelle, which began to appear contrasts his lasting impact with that of Lin - book while wear ing manchettes (oversleeves) most of tho se who mad e it to fifty cou ld hope
in 1749 . Not surprisingly, he did not comp lete nae us. Linna eu s might have com e up with a to protect his elegant cuffs. During autumn to live another sixtee n years and sev en
this mamm oth exer cise - he managed to month s. Resolut ely cheerful , Buffon claim ed
pub lish "only" thirty-six volum es in the space that we only start to live morall y whe n we
of thirt y-nin e yea rs, limitin g his focu s to can ord er our thoughts, and that therefor e the
mammals, bird s and minera ls, while a further first fifteen years of our ex iste nce should be
eight volumes appeared after his death. discounted. As a resu lt, a twent y-fi ve-year-
Buffons conte mporary infl uence was ma s- old would ha ve lived on ly a quarter of their
sive. Not onl y did he sell vast quantities of life, eve n though they could expect to die
book s, but his approa ch deep ly influ enc ed age d fift y-six.
the most famou s eightee nth-ce ntury public a- Althou gh Buffon was an enthu siastic exper-
tion , Deni s Diderot' s Encyclopedi e. Some imenter - he studied the tensile strength of
entries in the Encyclopedic were simply wood, created a sizeable menagerie and botan-
taken from Buffon , and Diderot followed Buf- ical gard en , and also investigat ed the coo ling
fen' s lead in con sid erin g that natural histor y of red-h ot iron balls in ord er to understand the
pro vided a key for und erstanding the whole past, pre sent and futur e of the Earth - much
of the world. Did erot also agreed about the of L 'Histoire natu relle is taken up with discus-
impo rtanc e of the comp arativ e method - one sions of the work of other thinkers. In one
of the fo und ations of Buffon' s epi stem ology. decisive case, Buffon made what he thought
With this kind of intellectu al pedi gree, and a was a fund amental contribution to kno w-
superb style - Rousseau said of him , "C' est ledge, which turned out to be completely
la plus belle plume de son siecle" - Buffon wrong . One of the major scientific and philo-
should be more widely read . sophica l prob lem s of the seve nteenth and
eightee nth centuri es was "generation" - the
The best bits of Buffon have now been
cond ensed hy Steph ane Schm itt and Cedric 11.12.07 London NWl appeara nce of ne w life . T he focu s was on
Crerniere, and bound in the dark blue leather how life was form ed and shaped, not on the
of the Bibliothequ e de la Pleiade. Schmitt is The words " Beckett and Pin ter" go £1.1 milli on deal which has much tran smi ssion of charact er s across the gen er a-
also the drivin g forc e beh ind the ambitious togeth er like " love and marriage" in pleased th ose who pre fer English liter- tion s - "heredity" was used in its modern
proj ect from Editions Honore Champion - essays on twent ieth- century drama - ary pa pers to be filed closer to th eir sense onl y in the dec ades after Buffon' s
republishin g the whole of L'Histoire and a good deal more frequently. Th e place of bir th th an Austin, Texas . death. Buffon' s view of generation con trasted
naturelle for the fir st time in over a century. two men who did so mu ch together to Th er e is now adde d evidence of th e two with the two prevailing sets of ideas - those
The first wrist-spraining volume has ju st en ha nce the romance of th e down-and- playwr ight s' shared love of ru gby and of the "ov ists" and the "spermists" , each of
appeared, and it is a marvellous monum ent to out and destroy th e fas hion for excess cr icket - praise from Becke tt here for a whom argued that their favour ed structure
Buffon' s vision, and to Schrniu' s scholar- ver biage were also correspo nde nts and "bang in the eye" poem and sugges - was the sole source of new life. In seve n chap-
ship. Schrnitt' s Introduction is inform ati ve, frie nds. Letters betwee n th e two from tions about how Pinter might usefull y ters of Volum e Tw o of L 'Histoi re nat urelle
insightful and comes comp lete with up-to - Harold Pi nter ' s archives have j ust been lose a par agra ph fro m his 1968 play, (sadly not included in the Pleiad e edition),
date referenc es to the secondary literatur e. sold to the Br itish Lib r ary, pa rt of a Sile nce . " I like it greatly" , he sa id. Buffon criti ciz ed the views of previous think-
His extensive notes to Buffon' s text pro vide Continue d on page 4

TLS D E C EMB ER 21 & 28 2 0 07

4
CONTENTS
Con tinued from page 3
NAT URAL HISTORY 3 Matthew Cobb Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon Oeu vres. Oeu vres completes, I ers and we nt on to describ e his ow n obser va-
tion s. He dismi ssed the sugges tion that
LETT ER S TO TH E EDITOR 6 The London Library, Ga ribaldi, Cra nford, etc female mamm als had eggs , and claim ed
instead to have seen "animalcules" in fema le
AR CHITECT UR E 7 Fiona MacCart hy Herman n Mu th esius Th e English Hou se "semen", ju st like those that co uld be
obse rved in male seme n. Exac tly what Buffo n
BIO GRAPH Y 9 C hristop he r H itc h ens D. J. Taylor Bright Yo ung Peo ple saw remains a matter of deb ate, but it defi-
Joyce Carol Oates P h ili p Da vis Bern ard M alamud nitely had noth ing to do with repro duction,
Clare Pettitt C harles Capper M argaret Fuller and no one could repea t his findin gs.
Robert B. R eich A lan Greenspan The Age of T urbulence On the basis of these mistaken ob ser va-
W illiam P . Ke lly Wayne Franklin James Fe nimore Co oper tions, he we nt on to outline a theory of gene ra-
Landeg W hi te Tim J ea I Stanley tion which sounds rel atively modern . So me
of the mo lecules contained in food , Buffon
PO EMS 11 Robert Ny e The Mi racl e at Ca na argu ed, were shape d by what he called the
16 Angela L eighton Snow man anim al' s "interior mo uld" to form the male
37 John Kinsella The Last of Eng land and fem ale co ntributions to future life, in the
sha pe of the globules and animalcules he saw
T LS N EW YEAR Q UIZ 17 down his microsco pe . Further pro of of his
hyp oth esis was prov ided by the fact that cas -
COM MENTARY 18 J on Stallworthy Loui s in love - Recen tly di scovered letter s from Loui s Mac Neic e
trated animals grew larger than intact ones -
Peter McDonald Fro m cradle to grave - M acNeic e, Elea nor Clark and ' the pit y of it all '
all the molecul es that sho uld have gone into
Zinovy Zinik Free lance
making the next ge nera tion were used instead
Then a nd Now TLS Februa ry 17, 1995 - Loui s M acNeice
to make a bigger anima l, he claimed . His
ART S 18 Clive Sinclair The Assassinati on of Jesse Jam es by the Cowa rd Rob ert Ford theor y - whic h owe d a grea t deal to Ga len' s
(V arious cinemas) o utda ted "two seme ns" theor y of ge neration
A ndrew Porter Gaetano Donizetti L' elisir d' amore (Royal Op era Hou se) - never really ca ught o n. Th inkers we re not
C hristop h Warrack Rom ani an Ci nema - A journey (C ine Lum iere) convinced by his di smissal of Reinier de
Graaf's discovery that something released
FIC TION 25 Paul Q uinn A lexander Theroux Laur a War holic or, Th e Sex ua l Intell ectu al fro m the ovarian foll icle (a n egg) we nt on to
Sheena Joughin Mary G aitskill Veronica for m an embry o, and many were unc omforta-
David Coward Henri A lain-Fournier Th e Lost Es tate (Le Gr and Meauln es) ble with the imm aterial " interior mou ld",
Adrian Tahourdin G illes L eroy A laba ma Son g which did not appear to be co nsistent with the
Lucy Da llas Lydie Sa lvayre Th e Power of Flies res t of Buffon ' s thorou gh ly materialist
Kathryn Su therland Donald McCaig Rhett Butl er' s People app roa ch . O n the othe r hand, there wa s no
ove rw helming ly co nv incing alterna tive. It
LITERA T UR E 28 Be njamin Markovits Edith Wharton The New Yor k Stor ies of Edith Wh arton was only in the middle of the ninetee nth
ce ntury , with new evi de nce fro m ana tomy
LIT ERA T UR E & 29 Adam Smyth Katharine Hodgkin M ad ness in Seventeenth -Century A utobiography and microsc opy, interp reted in the light of
LIT ERA RY C RITIC ISM Martin Wiggins Carol A. Morley, edi tor The Plays and Poems of Willi am Hemin ge heredity and the new cell theory, that the true
Carol Tully August Wilhelm Schlege l Kritische Au sgabe del' Vorles unge n situation became apparent. Buffon had been
Ronan McDonald Tim Parks Th e Fighter wro ng, it turn ed out, but so had eve ryo ne
else .
CLASS ICS 31 Oswyn Murray C hristop her Stray, editor Gi lbert Mu rra y Reassessed Buffon had a long-ru nning dispute with
Linna eu s over the val idity of the multi-leve l
POLITICS 32 K enneth A nd erson J a ck Go ldsmith The Te rror Presidency
cl assificat ion outlined in Sys tema Naturae ,
Andrew Preston Robert Da llek Nixo n and Kissinger
which permeated the who le of L 'Histoire
HISTORY 34 Anthony P a gd en John Darwin After Tamerl ane nature lle. Buffon argue d that on ly spec ies
Al ex Burghart HyweI W illiams Sun Kings - A histor y of magnifi cent kin gship were real, and that the rest of Linnaeus 's sys-
A ndrew Roberts Po lly A. Mohs M ilit ar y Intell igenc e and the Arab Rev olt te m (king doms , orders, cla sses and ge nera)
Guy Hartcup H enrietta Goodden Ca mou flage and Art was en tirely fictiti ou s. We now know that,
strictly spea king, Buffon was right - taxon o-
SOC IAL STU DIES 37 Paul Seabrig ht Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bla ck Swa n mists have since supp le men ted Linnaeu s' s
list by a growing set of phy la, sub-phy la,
PHILOSO PH Y 38 Pet er van Inwagen P . F. Straw son a nd Arindam C hakrabarti, ed it ors Unive rsa ls, dom ains and other interpreti ve fr amework s,
Co nce pts and Qualities which they chee rfully accept do not ex ist in
nature . But Linnae us's classificati on no t only
OR N ITH OLO GY 39 C hristop her Perrins Jonathan E lphick, editor The Atl as of Bird Mi gration help ed imp ose ord er on the natur al wor ld, it
John Fanshawe Pet er Tate Flights of Fancy - Bird s in myth , legen d and superstition co ntained within it the impli cit logic of evo lu-
tion , of a path of developm en t, which wo uld
IN BR IE F 40 Leo McKinstry Sp itfire . Joschka Fis cher Die Rot-Grunen Jahre. Joan
be put to such devastatin g use by Dar win . For
Fitzpatrick Food in Shakes pea re. Margaret Topping Sup ern atur al
simp le heu ristic reasons, Linna eu s' s sys tem
Prou st. Andre Malraux Ca rne t du Front Populaire, 1935-1 936. Rebecca
triumph ed, and Buffon ' s cr iticisms are
G illi eron and Ca th eryn K ilgarriff, editors The Boo kaholics' Guide to
now forgotten . It has been suggested that
Book Blogs . Edward J. Ri elly Sitti ng B ull. Kimberly W ith erspoon and Linnaeu s go t his ow n back on Buffon for thi s
Andrew Friedman, editor s Don't Try thi s at Ho me
squabble by nam ing a ge nus of toad Bufo ,
after his French op po nent. This is sadly
43 This wee k's co ntributors, Crossword
untrue - the Swedish natu rali st sim ply used
NB 44 J. C. Ann iversaries of 200 8, Perambu latory sum ming -up, The nation 's the Latin word for toad, bufo .
favourite book s, etc Lik e virtua lly all his co ntempo rar ies,
Buffon did not beli eve in evo lution - the
transform ation of one spec ies into ano ther.
Co ver picture: Black bird by Georges-Loui s Leclerc de Buffon © Th e Art Arc hive; p2 © Co rbis: p3 © Michael Crab rree : pS Time & Life Pictures/Ge tty Images; But his view was far mor e sophisticated than
p9 courtesy of the Cec il Beato n Studio Archi ve at Sotheby ' s; p l2 © Corbi s: p l 3 © Time & Life Pictures/Ge tty Images; p IS © Th e Bridgeman Ar t Library; p 16 the predominant Christian creatio nism, or the
© Bettmann/Corbi s; p l S and the photograp hs on p l9 are taken from Jon Stallwort hy ' s Louis Mac Neice (1995 ); p l9 portrait of Mac Neice © Natio nal Portrait
rig id fixism of taxon omi sts like Linn aeu s.
Ga llery ; p21 © Bett mann/Corb is; p2 3 © Warner Bro s: p28 © Columbia/The Koba l Co llec tion /P hillip Ca ruso ; p29 ©The Bridg eman Art Library; p30 © Gra ham
Jepson/Writer Picture s; p3 1 © T ime & Life Pic ture s/Ge tty Images; p32 © Reut ers: p35 © Cor bi s; p39 © Na ture Picture Library. Th e TL S (l SSN 030766 1, USPS Firs t, Buffon claim ed that spec ies we re
021-626) is published weekly and distributed in the USA by DCS AmericaInc, 49-27 31st Street, Long Island City, NYI I IOI-3113. Periodicals postagepaid at defin ed no t by morph ology, but by their
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TLS D EC EM BE R 2 1 & 28 20 07
 NATURAL HISTORY 5

A hippopotamus, from L 'H istoire naturelle, generale et particuliere by G eorges-Louis L ecIer c de Buffon

cross with o ther m em bers of th e sa me spe - ages to the north of the Esquimaux Indi ans in and har e s have w hite fur in th e w inte r, w hi le ma rk Buffon as one of the earlies t mod ern
cies . This view is essen tially the one used the New Co ntinent". His jud gement was pre- those in southe rn reg ions are darker. Buf- thinkers about time and the fate of the plane t.
today with regard to most living species dictably distas teful: "These peo ple not only fons co nclusion - based partl y on some The strengths of L 'Histoire naturelle do
(things are more tric ky with fossils). More resembl e eac h other in deform ity, in small- highl y dubi ous disse ct ions - was that heat not lie onl y in Buffon' s style - it also con -
important, Buffons vast knowledge of natu- ness of stature, and in the colour of their eyes was the prime cause of the variation in tain s some supe rb engrav ings that acco m-
ral history led him to recog nize that a given and hair , but also in the dispositions and ma n- hum an skin colour. We are still unsure pany the text. There we re 1,00 8 colou red
spec ies co uld show widely different forms in ners. They are all equa lly gross , superstitious, exa ctly why this variability ex ists, but Buffon plates in L'Histoire naturelle des oiseaux
different location s, showi ng something that and stupid". Th is kind of robust desc ription was prob ably at least partl y right. However, alone, and the dozen or so tiny black- and-
we would ca ll adaptation. Eve n more strik- was not limited to hum ans - Buffon was as although he sugges ted that environmental white reproductions in the section of the
ingly, the most telli ng example of Buffon ' s rude abo ut nightjars as he was about Osti- co nditions led to physical changes in anima ls Pleiade edition dealin g with bird s do them no
thinkin g in this respec t ca me from hum ans. acks. After descri bing the bird ' s big bulging and hum ans, this was not "evolution" but ju stice. Fortunately, the tercentenary has led
Like his contemporaries, Buffon consid- eyes and the long blac k hairs aro und its beak, "degeneration" , a decli ne in the outer fo rm to a spate of Buffones que publi cations - Sch-
ered that all huma ns ca me from an original he con cluded that "the result is a sad and compared to the "inner mould" . mitt and Cre rniere have ove rseen a new edi-
stock. But he did not state that the start ing stupid impression , a strongly expressed but In the final volumes of L' His toire tion of L' His toire naturelle des oiseaux, com-
point was Adam and Eve. For muc h of his dull and unpleasant appearance" . naturelle, Buffo n divided the whole of natu- plete with figures, while Le Grand Livre des
life, he was effec tive ly an atheist, although Despite these lazy prej udices , Buffo n ral histor y into a series of length y epoc hs. In animaux de Buffon, by Claudia Sa lvia, and
he neve r said as muc h - indeed , he backed argued that all hum ans deserved to be treated print, he estima ted the age of the Earth to be Buffo n illustre: Les grav ures de "L' Histoire
down when the theologians at the Sorhonne in th e sa me way. He was fe roc io us ly hostil e arou nd 75,000 yea rs; in private he co nsidered naturelle " ( 1749- 17fJ7), hy Thierry Hoqu et,
attacked his wor k (the criticisms, and to slave ry and to the "miserable conditio n" of it to be more like 10 millio n yea rs. Such radi- both do what they say on the tin.
Buffons deadpan reply, are repro duced in the Africa ns. He attacked the lies told by the ca l views we re in the air - as Buffon was The Pleiade Oeuvres provides the read er
the Pleiade volume) and, like many others, he slavemasters about the allege d indifference dying, the Scottis h farmer and physician with a taste of Buffons grande ur, but the true
grabbed at the last rites when the final of Africa ns to suffering: " How ca n men , in James Hutton claimed that the age of the extent of his ge nius, and of the incredibl e
mome nt ca me. Buffon co mbined contem po- whose breasts a single sentime nt of hum anity planet was "a thin g of infi nite dur ation" . Buf- wea lth of contem porary sources he plun-
rary information about hum an anatomy, phys - rem ains unextingui shed, adopt such detesta- fon ' s view of the futur e was revol utionary - dered, recycled and interp reted , ca n be fo und
iology and anthropo logy in both the Old and ble maxim s? How dare they, by such barba- based partl y on those experimen ts on hot only in the full thirty-six-volum e series. Until
New Wor lds, in a comparative study of the rous and diab olical arg umen ts, attempt to pa l- metal balls, he co ncluded that the wo rld was the Champi on vo lumes are all published, the
human race . His survey bega n in the far liate those oppressio ns wh ich originate solely doomed to death by freezing. O ur curren t cl i- best solutio n will be to co mbine the Pleiade
north, with the Lapl anders, "the inhabitant s from their thir st for gold?". To explain why matic predi cament wo uld no do ubt have with browsing through www. buffo n.cnrs.fr,
of Nova Zem bia, the Bora ndians, the Sa moi- there were so many different types of hum an, struck him as a mere statistical blip on an ine- whic h contains the full text of L 'Histoire
edes , the north ern Tar tars, the Ost iacks of the he drew a striking parallel with anima ls: in luctable process of coolin g. This vision of the natu relle. But wha teve r the adv antages of the
Old Co ntinent, and the Gree nlanders and sav - north ern latitud es, mammals such as weasels vast depth s of the geo logica l past and futur e we b, a book is still the best place to rea d.

TLS DECEM BER 2 1 & 28 2007

6
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
marble plaque with inscripti ons in
Garibaldi's image
Sir, - The Italian writer Kurt Erich
The London Library German and Russian . At the top
in German is "German Military
Suckert, better known by his nom Ce metery", at the bottom the same
de plu me Curzio M alaparte, once Sir, - A. S. Byatt' s letter (Decem ber vineya rd, I will find it hard to bid inscript ion in Russian. Between
observed that "T utto sta in non par - 14) is a littl e ungenerou s toward s farewell to those long stac ks of these are inscribed three crosse s,
lar male di Ga riba ldi" , It would the Lond on Library. The Library open access vo lumes that one can Korostyn in Germ an and Russian
see m from recent reviews, includ- also offers a spac ious, co mfortable take home to Wales in a carrier bag and the years 1941-1 944. Nea rby
ing that by Martin Cla rk (December and peace ful Rea ding Roo m, and that anyw here else wo uld be are two black granite monum ents
7) of Lucy Riall' s Ga ribaldi: Inven- equipped with an exce llent Refer- tuck ed awa y in spec ial coll ection s. I with inscripti ons in Ger man of
tion of a hero, that this max im ence section and a cons iderable shall miss that very English snoo ti- the names of Germa n military
rem ain s as true today as it did in numb er of periodica ls cove ring ness - no fewer than three times I personnel who died in this area
Fasc ist Italy. Any sugges tion that most arts subjects, in several lan- have been met with a clipp ed "Are with their ranks. Facing out to
Ga riba ldi might have occas ionally guages, both spec ialist and non- yo u a memb er of the Librar y, Sir ?" Lake lim en , the small ce metery is
acted in a way that was not purely specialist. Memb ership also allows when making a routine query about now a park where local citize ns
idealistic and courage ous see ms to you to subscr ibe to electro nic refer- something. It is rather fun to feel co me for a picni c to relax and
gene rate a dismissive or hostile ence works, dat abases and ove r a Ietters @the-tIs.co .uk that one look s in St Jamess like a enjoy the fresh air.
response. Co ntrary to what Cla rk hundred e-jo urnals, which ca n also cat burglar who has slipped in M y Russia n friend rather wist-
and others see m to assume , Riall be accessed from home by memb ers. ing cheap . For now, we have both . throu gh a skylight in the roof. But full y said, " I wish our dea d had
does not set out to dem oli sh the The Library is well situated in the Not, perhaps, for long. the fu n and games are now ove r. such a respectfu l rec og nitio n". It
myth of Gar ibaldi. Indeed, she is at heart of Piccad illy, close to Tub e was indicati ve, I thought , that
pains to stress his bravery and funda- and bus rout es, so you ca n eas ily DAVID HERMAN NICHO LAS M URRAY Russians can now come to this
ment al decency, as well as his enor - combine visits with trips to book- 23 Cred iton Hill, London NW6. The Rack , Kinnerton, Presteig ne, qui et nook and acce pt it for wha t it
mous contribution to the ca use of shops, galler ies , cinem as, etc, but Powys. is in their ow n troubl ed history.
Italian unifi cation. What she adds to you can also order books and period- Sir, - As a reasonably long-standin g
the traditional picture put for ward ical volumes throu gh the post. Mem- member of the London Library Sir , - In writing about the Lond on PAUL M. AUS TIN
from Treve lyan to Alfo nso Sciroc co bers living in Lond on may borro w whose craft has found ered on the Library, A. S. Byatt inform s us that 3650 rue de la Mo ntagne , Mont real.
(whose Gari baldi is also rev iewe d up to ten volumes at anyone time; reef of the recent 80 per cent "almost any book I need ca n now be
----~.----
by Cla rk) is that Gari baldi was memb ers living outside Lond on, up membership fee hike I would add to bought che aply and fast" onli ne.
neith er a po litical innocent nor to fifteen. These may be kept until
reques ted by ano ther memb er.
the coge nt points made by A. S.
Byatt a few more reaso ns for ending
We can onl y ass ume that by now
she ha s browsed eve ry shelf in the
'Cranford'
above exploiting his image and pop -
ularit y, often in a rema rkably inno- Of cour se, you ca n now buy the relationship. Library and has no more need of Sir, - Jo hn Bo wen ' s sharp eye
vative fashion, in order to pur sue many book s online but this is not Many of us who are freelance serendipitous discoveries among lighted on "one stray plastic drain-
his clearly defined and coherent pol- always cheap, espec ially once you authors of more or less serious books which public libraries di scard pip e" in BBC I ' s ada ptation of
itical goals. Riall' s is not an unsym- get off the beaten track. B yatt' s boo ks have seen in the last all too soon. Cranford (Ar ts, Decemb er 14). I
pathetic portrait of Gar ibaldi. Wh at selection of "Christmas Books, decade our income fallin g steadily. On e of the Library' s cop ies of the am rath er more concerned about
she has done, through a mastery of a pas t, present and futur e" co mes to Advances are in retreat, more rights 1972 ed ition of Harin gton' s transla- Judi Dench' s recit al of lines fro m
phenomenal range of sources, is to ove r £2 15 at Amazon (ove r £300 if are demanded each time a contr act tion of Ario stos Orlando Furioso Tenn yson' s "Locksley Hall":
question the noti on that Gariba ldi she wa nts a "very goo d" edition of is negotiat ed , and age nts have was indee d rashly dit ched by West- "Cursed be the soc ial wa nts that
was no more than a simple and one parti cul ar book) and hardly any increased their percent age commis- min ster Council's libraries. Should sin again st the streng th of youth ! /
valia nt serva nt of the Italian ca use, of her choices we re new. Buying sions. Applying strict Mic awber- Ms Byatt wish to buy a copy her- Curse d be the social lies that warp
and to sugges t instead that he quit e online is also destroyin g sma ll esque principles of financial man - self, she is now looking at upward s us from the living truth". There is
consciously manipul ated his image quirky book shops. No thing is with- age men t, high outgoings such as of £200. a strong troch aic template for this
to further that ca use . out its price. We must all make our the London Lib rary fee are starting As Ms Byatt also adm its to using poem , and the "e" of "cursed"
I for one believe that there is a ow n choices , under very different not to make sense . This is the taxis rather than publi c transport , need s to be sounded, makin g it a
book to be written that both circumsta nces , but there is a larger contex t in which the Library has perhaps that Ariosto is a snip to her. two-syllable word , for the line to
debunks Gariba ldi and stresse s the cho ice faci ng us all : librarie s and c hosen to se nd its fee s soar ing. scan prop erly . On tel e vi sion it was
dama ge done by his actions. Riall's sma ll booksho ps or Amazo n and I shall miss it. As someo ne who CHRISTOP HER HAWTR EE red uced to a demoti call y fam iliar
brilli ant and groundbreak ing piece the big chains, pilin g high and sell- has toiled in the nineteenth-century 38 We stbou ne Gardens, Hove . one-sy llable wor d. Perhap s Judi
of scho lars hip is not it. Dench herself knew better ; one
--------------~,--------------hopes so at least. Perh aps the pro-

DAVID LAVEN in 1535. Henr y' s Sacra Bibli a may chur ches. Interestin g as it is, the costs of count erin surgency in north ducer ove rrode her in the interests
54 Wi llow Way, Manche ster. thu s be the first bibl e printed in Biblia Sacra was an evo lutionary India those two years. of listener-fri endl y access ibility.
England, but the fact that the first dead-end in the history of English Mi ss Matty would certainly have
----~,----
bibl e in Eng lish was print ed in the bibles. HA YDEN BELLENOl T been more literate and inform ed .
same year was no doubt the most
Henry VIII's bibles important factor in minimizing its HA NNIBA L HAM LlN
Department of History, US Naval
Academy, Annapolis, Maryland 2 1402. BERNA RD RICH ARDS
Sir, - Ar thur Free man's rediscovery impact. Whereve r Cove rdale's 1535 Shakespeare Library, 20 1 East Capitol Brase nose Co llege , Oxford .
----~,--­
of Henry Vlll 's responsi bility for Bible was printed, it was intend ed Street SE, Washington, DC 20003.
----~,---
the 1535 Sacra Biblia (about which for an English rea ders hip. Unlike
----~,--- German memorials
he wro te in Co mmentary, December the smaller Bibli a Sacra, the Cove r- Murali
14) is important and will no doubt dale Bible was an expens ive folio,
but the dem and for a seco nd edition
East India Company Sir, - Russia n friends recentl y took
me to what must be one of the most Sir, - I note the TLS (Decemb er
impact on studies both of Henr y' s
religion and the history of the Eng- sugges ts that it sold well, and it Sir , - David Finke lstein's revi ew of mo ving Ge rman wa r memori als (see 14, p3) has decid ed that the off-
lish Bible. However, Free man' s started an ava lanche of Eng lish Indian Ink, Mil es Ogborn ' s book on Letters, most recentl y November spinner Mutti ah Muralith aran "has
statemen t that Cove rdales English bibl e translation , the impetu s for the Eas t India Co mpa ny (Dece mber 30). It is located near Koro styn, deep earne d the right to be ca lled the
version of the Bible was "dedicated which really began with Tynd ale ' s 7), stumbled across one important inside Russia on the south shore of grea test Sri Lank an" .
to Henr y and first print ed in England translations a decade ear lier. Cove rd- discrepancy. The Co mpa ny was Lake lim en, the large lake stretching Was the word "cricketer" lopped
in Au gust 1537" may mislead ale was repri nted in 1538, 1539, abol ished - for all intent s and pur- west from Novgo rod, 200 kilometres off in error by a sub-editor from
some readers. This 1537 print ing 1550, and 1553, the "Matthew" poses - in 1858 as a result of not south of St Petersburg, which was on the end of that sentence, or did your
was , as I ' ill sure Freeman is aware, Bible appea red in 1537 and the only its ambiguous role in Indi a, but the front line between the German editors form a view after careful
the seco nd edition of the Cove rdale Great Bible in 1539. The futur e of also becau se it cost £50 milli on to and Soviet armies. Set inside a comp arison of his doosra with the
Bible. It was indeed the first printed English bibles was to be in English, suppress the Indian Mut iny/Civil simple cemetery surrounded by a film s of Lester Peiti s or the essays
in Eng land, but the first edition, not Latin, as Henry him self clearly rebellion of 1857- 8. The tea trade five-foot wall of natural stones on of Martin Wickramasinghe?
printed somew here on the Co ntinent realized, given his responsibility for it carr ied on after 1857 was in fact three sides , near a few white birches
(Gu ido Latre has made a strong the authori zed Great Bible that was negligibl e, and wo uldn' t have come and three small white crosses, there RtCH ARD ORAYTON
argument for A ntwe rp), appeare d ordered to be placed in all Eng lish close to breakin g eve n to cover the is a large white bould er with a Corpus Christi Co lleg e , Cambridge .

TLS D EC EM B ER 2 1 & 28 2 007

 ARCHITECTURE 7

t the beg inning of the twentieth did not troubl e to sep arate the Sco ts.) Many

A century, the histor ian and crit ic

Hermann Muthesi us was cultural
attac he at the Ger man embassy in
London, whe re he was cha rged with investi-
gating English con temporary architec ture and
A good cruet of his chose n buildings share the "exalted
aes thetic and spiritualised atmos phere" he
prai ses in Leth aby' s rare architectural work.
But he also find s so mething more outr e and
unsettlin g: an uncom promi sing ruggedn ess
art. After seven years in Eng land M uthesi us F IONA M ACC AR THY miss. Shaws architec tural repertoire of plain of charac ter. To the Contine ntal eye these
retu rned to Germany and his findin gs were bricks, pantiled roofs and tile-hun g gables, Engli sh hou ses "appear so mbre, hard, sec re-
publi shed in Berlin in 1904--05 in three vol- H e rm ann Muth e siu s ch imney stac ks rising tall at the side of the tive, inarti stic and indeed almos t repellen t.
umes entitled Das englische Haus. Like those house, and white painted woodwork surro und- Dark masses of brick rise from the gro und
of his later counterpa rt and compa triot T HE ENG LISH H O U S E ing doors and windows , set the pattern for the without any form of articulation . . . .
Nikolaus Pevsner, his meth ods were thorough Ed ited by Denn is Sharp and tran slated houses of the genteel suburbs and the Eng lish Reserved, tough and embattled, these
and his energy prodigious: "Few, I imagine, by Janet Se ligma n and Stewart Spe ncer garden cities for dec ades to come . houses stand in the foggy English air". Had
768p p. Frances Lincoln. £ 125.
travelled as far as he did over a short period of As Muth esius describ es the wor k of Webb, Muth esius' s travels taken him to Charnwood
9780 7 11226 88 3
time to experience, photograp h and catalog ue Nes field and Shaw, the Eng lish free style pio- Forest, close to Leicester, he would ha ve
exa mples of so many different houses" , as neers, one has the sense he is still searc hing, found the most original late- Victorian Eng-
Dennis Sharp comme nts in his Introdu ction innovation and experi me nt had amaz ingly pursuin g his ideal of an endem ic modern lish house of all. Ernes t Gims on's Stoneywe ll
to this new edition of Muthesi us's great work. tran sform ed itself ove r four deca des into the English architec ture. He finds it in a group of Co ttage , compl eted in 1899, is a stone-built
No one has doubt ed the importance of major influ ence on ava nt-ga rde Euro pea n younger architec ts then in their thirties and dwelli ng so reserved , so close to nature, it
Muth esius in catalog uing and definin g the design and architec ture. forti es, Muthesi us's ow n cont emporaries. It see ms hewn out of the rockface. Huge flat
great domes tic architec ture produced in Eng- In first definin g the sty le we now know as is at this point in The English House that we sto nes protrude from the maso nry; the house
land between cl860 and the early 1900s, the Eng lish free style, Muth esius cites his three get the feelin g of history actually happenin g. was origin ally roofed in thatch with a straw
period he refers to as "the present golden age " heroes of the older generation: Philip Webb, E. S. Prior's The Barn at Exmouth; Bailli e cox comb. It manages to seem both alien and
of Nor man Shaw, Philip Webb, Voysey, Ede n Nes field and Norman Shaw. At the Sco tts Black well and C. F. A. Voysey 's we lcoming . Stoneywell and G imso n's other
Lethaby, Mackinto sh and Baillie Scott, with time of his survey Webb and Shaw we re in Broadley' s, both on Windermere; George Charnwood houses would have brilli antl y
Lutyens a rising star on the horizon. In his their seven ties , Shaw still enormously, flam- Walt ons The Leys at Elstree; Leth aby' s adva nced M uthesiuss theories of the distin c-
Arts and Crafts Arc hitecture (1980), Peter boyantl y, productive; Nes fie ld had died in Avon Ty rell; Lutyens' s Deanery Gar dens; tive English combination of prim itiv ism
Davey rightl y acknow ledges Muth esius for 1888. Muth esiu s gives Webb "a position of C. R. Ma ckintosh ' s Wind yhill and Hill and homeliness. Yet, inexpli cabl y, Gimso n
his "definitive analysis of the domes tic sce ne" the first importance in the histor y of English House: the now most celebrated Arts and is the only major Arts and Crafts architec t
durin g that pivotal crea tive period . The prob- architec ture", that of the so litary geni us, the Crafts houses we re j ust at that moment bein g Muth esius misses out.
lem with Muth esius has not been lack of inter- ma n of quirky reticence, "seeking to appea r designed and built. What were the roots of the move ment?
est or respect, but inaccessibilit y. No English less rather than more than he is". Muthesi us's Muth esius visi ted all these and dozens Muth esius pours out reaso ns for the strength
translation was availa ble until 1979 when The first case history is Red House at Bexley more, record ing, respond ing and co ming to and independ ence of English free sty le archi-
English House was publ ished by Grana da in a Heath in Kent, designed by Webb for the conclusions about the particular qualiti es tectur e. The nation ' s geog raphic isolation :
trunc ated single-vo lume editi on, translated new ly married Willi am Morri s and com - of Englishness these houses possessed. (He The English House is esse ntially an island
by the late Janet Seligma n. Now , in Frances pleted in 1860. He views Red Hou se as the
Lincoln ' s handsomely boxed new set, a "first private house of the new artistic cul-
three-volum e facsimile of Wasmuth ' s second ture" , conce ived as a whole inside and out.
(1908) Berlin edit ion, Muthesius' s full text, Part of the fascin ation of Mut hesiu s' s wor k is ..Y. 0. <>
o .,
with additional translatio n by Stewa rt that we are acquainted with the subsequen t :) ~o 0~
Spencer, is published in English for the
first time.
fates of the hou ses that so thrilled him on his
late nineteenth- century travels. In 200 3, Red
o
u "8
.8 ~

The three volumes record a unique voyage House was acquired by the Nation al Tru st.
S
c: ~!
of architec tura l discovery by an informed
enthusias t. As with Pevsner, it took a deter-
The moderni st Muthes ius was not so
wholehea rted about Shaw , who by the 1890s
oN o
"6
mined out sider to form a coherent narr ati ve had reverted to the "blight of histor icism", o o
~
out of so confused an English arch itec tura l
sce ne . Muthesiu s was hi m self an arc hi tect,
building Bryanston in full-bl own neo-classi-
cal style. Shaw had earned his place "at the
E i:

the son of a small buil ding con trac tor from top of the tree of modern architec ture" on the
a ~

f
Thuringia. His respon sibiliti es as an embassy basis of his gro undbrea king earlier wor k: his
officia l we re techni cal as well as pure ly cul- versa tile and beautiful brick- built London
tural. It was his job to report back on techn o- hou ses of the 1870s, many of them designed
logic al adva nces in the Briti sh railway sys- for his artist friend s; Dawpool, the grandly
tem, for exa mple, to the Pru ssian Board of idiosyncratic countr y house near Birk enhead
Trade. There is a similar comp etitive national- built in the 1880s for the Liverp ool ship-
istic aspec t to his survey of England's new ow ner Thom as Henr y Ismay. Muthesius the arms of morpheus
artistic architecture. The ambitious Muth e- describ es Dawpo ol as "a jewel among ' ''''''M ''' -~IlIJ-
sius, who was in his mid-thirties when he Eng lish country-ma nsions" :
arrived in Lond on, was motivated in prop os- It lies in virgin heathland, from which
ing this in-depth study by "the stir the new fine gar de ns and a park have been wrested
movement is causing us at home" . and rises majesticall y in sombre dar k red sa nd-
There was an eleme nt of cultural espio- stone masses fro m the ge ntly ro lli ng co untry;
nage in the way M uthesiu s chose to live not a profo und so lem nity broo ds over the w hole
in Ce ntral Lond on , as was usual for a diplo- building.
mat, hut in the Arts and Crafts heartl and of
Ham mersmith . A photograph shows Her-
mann and his yo ung wife An na taki ng tea in
Hi s eyewit ness acc o unt is th e m ore va lua h le
since Dawpo ol was demoli shed in 1925.
Muthesius also credit s Shaw with the inven-
the arms of morpheus
their aes thetic rent ed hou se, The Priory, in tion of "the new type of sma ll house com - I essays on swadenborq and rnys klsm I
1896, the year of the death of Willi am Mor- pletely at home in England", describin g enjoy -
ris, Hamm ersmith ' s most influ ent ial artistic ably the cultura l impact of the Bedford Park
resid ent. Muth esiu s success fully infilt rated estate in the 1880s. "These streets with their
"the new movem ent" , making friends with cheerful little houses nestling amid the gree n- Elf. ec by iepll Mc 111 Essayson 5wedenborgand JacobBoohme.
WaIter Crane, Charles Rennie Macki ntosh , ery see med to bespeak quiet co mfort and Rudoll 5101nor: Madamo Guyon. tho xobboloh,
his wife M argaret M acdonald and her sister refreshing 'joie-de-vivre"'. Both in terms of
RRP £9,50 Pmocetsus. Ibn 'Am ~ , wilh on inlroductory essov
poperbock by NobetPI!Z wtm ing poetCZeslaw MJlOSZ.
Frances . A sense of personal under standing its architec ture and artistic lifestyle, Bedfor d
and involvement brings a freshness and Par k ca me as a "complete revel ation" to the
exc iteme nt to Muth esius' s thesis that a coun- contemporary world, an experience no Am er-
try hitherto "without art" in the sense of ica n passing through Lond on could afford to

TL S DECEM BER 2 1 & 28 2 007

8 ARCHITECTURE

story . The inb orn love of rur al life and the is his interest not ju st in visua l effec ts, but in
lack of cafe culture in a co untry in which the meth od s of co nstruc tion and adva nces in tech-
capital itself struck Muth esiu s as bein g "no nol ogy. Thi s is a writer who, using techni cal
mor e than an imm ense village", informal and drawin gs, ca n co nv incing ly ex plain the wa ter
haph azard . The dan k and gloo my Englis h cli- clo set as "one of Eng land's grea tes t cultura l
mate precludes "those long hours spen t idly achieve ments", more adva nced than wa ter
in the piazza beloved of the southerner and clo sets on the Co ntinen t. It is in his third
the Parisian ' s stro ll do wn the boul evard" . volume, on the Eng lish Hou se interior , that
Muthesiu s was surp rised an d enc hanted to Muthes ius's practi cal ex per tise co mes into
discover how co mpl etely the Eng lishma n's its ow n, as he itemi zes the co mpo nen ts and
way of life was cent red in his ho use to which the treatm ent s that give the Englis h modern
- "the mark of spec ial affec tion" - he eve n hou se its spec ial charac ter. He takes the
gives a name. reader on an ex pert hou se tour , start ing with
Th e ro manti c A nglophile trac es the move- the walls design ed to take a Burn e-J on es
ment back to the simple, nobl e lives of the frieze or a Morris paper. He proc eed s to the
old Englis h peasantr y. "T here is still much of ceiling, sometimes pla stered as by Bailli e
the peasant in eve ry Eng lis hma n", Muth esiu s Scott at Black well , or by Leth aby at Avon
wrote in 190 3, attributing to this lon g tradi- Ty rel!. (Ernes t Gim son ' s abse nce is aga in
tion of peasant plainness, unaffected non cha- regrettable.) Nex t it is the floor s, with
lence an d cou ntr y co mmo nse nse the "sound their carpet s by Morris, Voysey or George
and unostentatiou s but finely develop ed Wa lto n. Muth esiu s' s view of Walton as on
taste" that has fin ally deli vered a trul y a par with Mackintosh rem inds one of how
nation al art. "Everything breathes simplicity, und erestim ated he still is. We are then led on
hom elin ess and ru ral freshn ess ... there is, to the "openings in the wa lls": firepl aces,
thank heaven, no trace of Art Nouvea u." In baroni al chim ney pieces by, or in the style
his embrace of sta lwart Eng lish free style as of, Shaw; Bailli e Scott built-in settles, cosy
a bastion aga inst the excesses of the Co nti- co rne rs, inglenook s.
nent , Muth esiu s co nve niently ignores the The Barn, Exmouth ; from the book under review Door s and windows; knob s and knocker s.
eleme nts of art nou veau in his favourite Muth esius syste matica lly tackles every littl e
designers, Ma ckintos h and Bailli e Sco tt. me n, and integr ation of the building and the not ju st writing an archit ectu ral treatise. Thi s detail of the A rts and Crafts interior, prai sing
Mor e spec ifica lly, Muth esius connect s the decorating crafts. Thi s was seen to be the is rivetin g soc ial histor y, too. the furniture of Voysey, Edg ar Wood ,
new English way of buildin g back to the Victo- way of achiev ing a new crea tive demo cratic Mo st notable of the changes by cl 900 has Charles Spoo ner and sing ling out Mackin-
rian cam pa ign for a return to medieval values, way of livin g, summed up in the ca tchphrase been the rein statement of the hall as the " star tosh and his Glasg ow circle as "the most
aban doned in the capitalist onrush of the nine- "the art that is life" . Muthesiu s himself had a turn " of the hou se, a space restor ed to its pron oun cedly indi vidu al artists of a modern
teenth century . He was the first critic to think deep and sophistica ted und erstandin g of the or igina l medieval promi nence an d often age" . This was at a tim e whe n M ackintosh
throu gh the chain of influence and pro test concept of a hou se that held together in all its com pleted with an upp er min strel s' gallery . was still co nside red decadent by the maj orit y
we now regard as obviou s: the Pre-Raphae lite ma ny aspec ts; the co nstruc tion, the gro und Muth esiu s describ es how the famil y and of Englis h critics and the Glasgow des igners
revoluti on in paintin g, with its emphas is on plan, the decorati ve detailin g, the terra ces hou se part y foregath er in the hall until sum- we re co ld-sho ulde red by the Lond on-b ased
nature and spiritual idea ls; Ca rlyle's critique and garde ns. Wh at mak es him so invalu able a moned to the dining roo m by the ritu al "three Art Work ers' Guild. He com me nds W. A. S.
of "cheap and nasty" indu strial products and commentator is thi s critica l ability to view a muffl ed stro kes of the go ng" . He notes how Benson' s metalwork designed for qu antity
his ca ll for "work, silence and sincer ity"; John livin g space as a co herent work of art. the drawin g room , traditionally the mistress' s producti on , and Heal' s furniture shop in
Ruskin ' s espousal of what became the central What sort of peopl e were co mmiss ioning ow n enclave, is becoming a space for mor e To tte nha m Co urt Ro ad: both early signs of
Art s and Cra fts principles of "good, decent, these hou ses? So me we re aristocra tic fami- ge neral entertainment now that Eng lishmen a mo ve towards design for a ma ss mark et.
solid workmanship". Above all, the Eng lish lies caught up in the cult of beaut y, still build- are breakin g their old habit s of rem ainin g Muthesi us 's exci tement at his Eng lish disco v-
hou se was inspir ed by Will iam Morri s, who ing large hou ses o n co untry es tates but in the ro und the tabl e for hou rs after dinn er ge tti ng eries is palpabl e. In Pioneers of Modern
was revered by Muth esius as possessing "the newly modern style. Muth esiu s inevitabl y unsociabl y dru nk. Muth esiu s views the Design, Pevs ner co mme nts that
intelligence of the discoverer and pathfinder". visits Clouds in Wiltshir e, com miss ioned by Eng lish hou se rhapsodi cally as "the perfect , It must have been a delightful surprise to those
It was Morris who led the return to practical Percy and Madeline Wyn dh am from Ph ilip secl ude d wor ld of its ow n, a little par adise on who - like M uthesius - came to E ng la nd ,
handm akin g and invented the workshop Webb in 1886, a discreetl y pe rfec tionis t earth" , and within thi s en tity he is alert to weary not only of Victorian stuffiness but also
mo vement thirt y yea rs before similar craft buil din g which, almos t before it was com- inno vati on s, for exa mple the sma ll workshop the licence of Art Nouveau, to see a toast rack
gro upings on the Continent. pleted, was being des cribed as "the ho use of with its joi ner ' s bench, reflecti ng the new or a cruet set designed by Voysey .
Th e Englis h Hou se archit ect s we re them- the age" . But he keeps his high est prai ses for enthusias m for handicraft s for boys, and the So it was , and Muth esiu s was o ne of the first
selves prot esters aga inst "parvenu develop- the sma ller and less form al country hou ses littl e ga rde n lod ges and keeper s' hou ses with critics, all those years before the Bauh au s, to
ers " whose corn er- cutting practic es result ed with their fo ur-t o-t en bedro om s and two-t o- thatched roofs. He surmises that sometimes credit the importanc e of indi vidu al function al
in "the flashy but mean environ ment of the four recept ion roo ms bei ng built in large these we re not really needed for a keeper but dom estic obj ects in for min g a total architec -
urban flat". Intell ectu ally, thi s was a pu rist number s in outer Lond on , Kent , Surrey and we re "simply an exc use for erecting a small tural ensem ble.
ru ral mo vem ent in tun e with the back-to-the- on the south and eas t coasts, followin g the building". Th ey were small-scale arc hitec - Aft er Muth esiu s returned to Germ any, he
land impul ses of the period. Practi cally, it ex pa nsion of the railways and coin cidin g tur al fant asies as pretty as a pictu re in a resum ed his own arc hitectural practi ce. Th e
was a prot est aga inst the ge neral de-skilling with the grow th both of prosperit y and artis- ch ild's story book by WaIter Cra ne. first hou se he designed in the Berlin suburb
of the building trades and increasingly damag- tic aspirations in the English middl e classes. Muth esiu s' s volumes are especially ofZe hlendor f has a qu asi-Engli sh "butterfly"
ing profession al di vision s between the archi- So me of Muth esiu s' s sharpe r co mments absorbing in their analysis of new attitudes to plan, remini scent of E. S. Prior' s Th e Barn
tect and building co ntrac tor. Man y of the are those of the for eigner in Eng land baffl ed gar de ns. They ch art the ea rly yea rs of the at Ex mo uth. In 190 7, Muth esius was pri me
arc hitects cit ed by Muth esiu s chose to super - by such ritu als as "coming to stay" for long modern Englis h garde n mo vement , which mover in the foundation of the Deut scher
vise their buildings person ally, returning to wee kends in country hou ses; the Englis h invol ved a return to English plant s and Werkbund, a pressur e gro up of Ger ma n arc hi-
the methods of the medi eval guilds. C. R. evening "A t Hom e" with its " pos itive ly inade- simple informal layout s of flo werh ed s and tect s, de sign er s, artis ts, crafts me n and indus-
As hbee, for instanc e, worked alongs ide the qu ate food " ; the strange custo m by which lawns, rose garde ns, lily gar de ns, go ldfish trialists aim ing to raise standa rds in ind ustrial
memb ers of his own G uild of Handi craft: "a Eng lish parent s hand their children over to a pond s. Muthesiu s strolls throu gh Ge rtrude production. He had becom e a leadin g theoreti-
gro up of co nsc ientious wor kmen, say a joiner nur se residin g in a separa te nur ser y wing Jek yll ' s wo odland ga rde ns. He sees, and cian and spokesman for the Ge rman modern
or two, a few mason s, and a coupl e of black- in their ow n hou ses. Muth esiu s comment s approves, how late Victorian garde ns are movement when in 1927 he was killed in a
smiths, all of whom we re intim ate with me, di sbelievin gly, "she is in dut y bound not to beginning to be treated as "a co ntinuation of road acc ide nt. Hi s great legacy in Eng land
knew my ways and worked in my spirit" . leave the children for an instant day or night " . the room s of the hou se" , ma n-made art merg- was the setting of new standards of arc hitec-
Thi s was so mething that Muth esiu s, the But he record s and celebra tes new ways of ing sea mless ly with natu re. Kitch en ga rde ns tural narrati ve. Mark Girouard' s 1971 survey
master ma son' s son, co mpletely understood. life evolving. New Eng lish hou ses with their and fruit ga rde ns , for merl y off-l imit s to all The Victorian Country House, for exa mple,
Th e Art s and Crafts hou se was the ultim ate free-fl owin g and com pani onable layout s, but toilin g ga rde ners, are no w recon stituted is Muth esian in its organizatio nal clarit y and
ex press ion of the Victori an ideal of the unit y show n in marvellou s and meticulous det ail in as "inviting publi c spaces". He paint s a vivid sco pe. Muth esius was a man of unu sual
of arts. Mor ris and his brethren in the Art these volumes, mak e soc ially prog ress ive atti- pictur e of the hou se and its surro undings in perc eptions. We we re lucky that he circum-
Work ers' Guild had argued for profession al tudes mor e feasibl e. The age of the New its pre- Ed wardian evo lutionary pha se. navigated Eng land in his hyper-ob ser vant
parit y between artists, architec ts and crafts- Wom an is definitely loomi ng. Muth esiu s was Wh at makes Muthesiu s so reli able a critic early middl e age .

TLS DECEM BER 2 1 & 28 2007

 BIOGRAPHY 9

If Taylor misses a trick here, it is in ha ving

Burnt ornaments failed to inter view Perr y And erson who, as

well as bein g the best Marxist critic of
Anthony Powe ll, is also a cou sin of the
Pon sonb y famil y.
CHRISTOPH ER HIT CH E NS

W
ell, ju st for a start, are we talkin g briefl y joined the business him self. The early Generally anx ious to avoid the "j udgemen-
abo ut peopl e or thin gs? Many of Waugh , and the Anthony Powell who pre- tal" ton e that he o nce ado pted, Taylor may
those who took or take an interest D . J . T a ylor dates A Dance to the Music of Time, are the also skip ove r some indic ation s of ge nuine
in the peri od , from Eve lyn Wa ugh to Steph en fictional ch ronicl ers of thi s period , from Vile nastin ess. " It was nearl y wrecked the first
Fry, prefe rred or prefer the "thing-ification" B RI GHT Y OUN G P EOPLE Bodies to Afternoo n Men. " Now see here wee kend" , wrot e Elizabeth Pon sonb y to
of the phenom enon , which in my opinion is The rise and fall of a generation, 1918-1 940 Sym es, I like your page" , says Lord Mono- Clive Bell about her plann ed country idyll
more co nsistent with the argo t of the time and 322pp. Chatto and Windus. £20. mark of the Daily Excess to Adam Fenw ick- with "Babe" Plunket Gree ne in a borro wed
with the soc ial stratum und er review. (" How 978 07 0 1 17754 6 Sym es. " It' s pepp y, it' s got plent y of new cott age, "as Eddie + Brian + two other of ' the
are we , old thin g?" is a qu estion that allows nam es in it and it' s go t that intim ate touch." bo ys' came down + put all the owner' s Afr i-
one to "place" a person with fair ex actitude .) Guinness and the rather sick-making Prin ce Th e ind ividu al who, for Taylor, mo st can ornament s on the fir e ' To see what they'd
But D. J. Taylor has decided to go with of Wal es, one is put in mind of that rebarba- decid es the personhood of the thin gs is the look like burning'". The bor ed callou sness of
"people", and thi s may be part of a determina- tive later mom ent in the Diari es of "Chips" afore mentioned Eliz abeth Pon sonby. Th e thi s rath er outruns even the drunken va ndal-
tion to hum ani ze what might otherw ise onl y Cha nnon, where lob ster ice crea m was serve d mod el for Agatha Runcible in Vile Bodies , ism of the Bollinger Club, havin g "great fun"
be a "phenomenon" . He see ms to impl y as to top off a perfectl y ripping lunch at the thi s mo st ruthl essly pepp y yo ung lad y was with a Ne wdi gate Pri ze manu script in the
much when he co nfesses to havin g o nce divin e Ribb entrops. the daught er of Arthur and Dorothea Pon- op enin g chapter of Decline and Fall . Tay lor
written the followin g gritty ve rdict, on Philip Th e ph enom enon of "brightness" is of sonby. Arthur was a leadin g memb er of the does not specify , but "Eddie" here mu st have
Hoares Serious Pleasures: The Life of potenti al usefulness to social histori ans Labour Part y, a se nior me mber of the first been Eddie Gathorne-H ard y and " Brian"
Stephen Tennant, in 1990: "The humblest because it help s mark the time when we Ram say MacDonald governme nt and on e of may we ll have been Brian Ho ward , both of
co al min er who eve r tried to write a sonnet is started to periodize by ten- year counts rather the party 's first leaders in the Lords, so there them usuall y rep resent ed as languid and epi -
of mor e intrin sic literary - and social - inter- than by reign s (there had been "the hun gr y is a pleasing inversion in the usual rebellious cene rather than thu ggish or malic iou s. (By a
es t than Stee nie Te nnant, but ala s, the toff rever sal of ton e to which I tak e exce ption in
hagiograph y strain of Eng lish letter s a different way, Taylor sternly describ es Tom
end ures". Hi s ow n form er tou gh-minded Drib erg as a "predatory" homosexual. I knew
plebeiani sm now mak es him wi nce a bit , and the old dar ling, who, eve n whe n he was a
it may be worth spending a mom ent furth er yo ung darl ing, yearne d onl y to admini ster
o n thi s point , because Taylor goes o n to oral car esses to the adult pro let ariat, and I fai l
qu arr el with his ow n hero Geor ge Or well in to see what can be term ed "predatory" about
order to und erlin e the di stinction: that. Whil e I am about it, I also register an
A Bright Young Person may have been a adjecti val doubt as to whether "sexual promi s-
Bright Young Thing, but not all Bright Young cuity " can be "unswerving", as Ta ylor avers
Things were Bright Young People. The chatter- in Ga thorne-Hardys case.)
ing twen ty-som ethin gs who infest literary In his splendid biograph y of Ge orge
parties attended by Gordon Comstock, the dis- Or well , Ta ylor included some sta nd-alo ne
affected hero of Orwell' s Keep The Asp idistra feuill eton s as a kind of amuse -houc he
Flying (1936)- "troops of bright young things betw een chapter s, and he repeats thi s happy
who dropped in for half an hour, formed circles idea here, with a shor t take on surv iving
of their own and talked sniggeringly about ph otographs entitled " Elizabeth in Parti es"
other bright young things whom they referred and an ex celle nt anatomy of futil ity called
to by nickn ames" - have nothi ng to do wit h "The Book s Bri an Ne ver Wrote" . In the first,
Elizabeth Ponsonby and her friends: this is we enco unter Ceci l Beaton , "hair a Harlo wed
simply Orwell' s shorthand for anything exp anse of platinum" , which is very goo d,
ju venil e, bumptiou s and loud . and in the seco nd an exploration of what it is
We sha ll be coming to Mi ss Pon sonb y in a to ha ve writer's block w he n tryin g to wr ite
mo me nt, but ju st to sum up : about writer's block.
In the last resort a Bright Young Thing was a A generat ion can always be describ ed as
stereo type, a Bright Youn g Perso n an ide ntifi - "rising" but may it, even in a presum abl y
able individual whose footprints could be intentional echo of Wau gh , be descr ibed as
tracked all over the landscape of the London ha vin g "fallen" ? Eas ier, perh aps, to say that
Socie ty magazines . . .. The first ever Bright Teresa "Baby" J ung man and Zita Ju ngman (late 1920s) by Cecil Beaton it was "lost" : the preferr ed locution of ever y
YDung Person , acco rding to Os bert Sitwe ll, was cu ltur al critic since Gertrude Stein. Tay lor
Beverly Nichols. But Nichols had no real con- Forti es" and "the nau ght y Nineties" in the "order" : instead of a young sprig of the nobl e reason abl y objects to thi s, borro wing from an
nection with the Jun gman sisters and their precedin g century, but "the Twenti es" have a line aro using alarm and despondency at aper~u of Eve lyn's elder broth er Ale c, who
imm ediate circle: he was an up-and -com ing lit- go od clai m to be the first of the mod ern Blandings Cas tle by espo using unorthodox actu all y serve d on the Western Fro nt, that it ' s
erary man with one eye on the stage and a wea k- decades). And "brightness" anticipates the views or taking up with unsuit ab le partners, flippant and insultin g to confl ate the notion-
ness for the society of elde rly aristocra tic lad ies. now-p er vasive (and decade-a ssociated ) there is grave disappointment in serious- ally "lost" (ie, the se lf-ind ulgent and the aim-
So all atte mpts to net the butt erfl y, it notion that generations are eve rything. mind ed socialis t circles at the way the yo ung less) with the actual and aw ful " losses" suf-
seems, are to a certa in degree futil e. The Jun g- Finally, we are also spea king of the birth of these days are going to the dogs. "Takes not fer ed by their imm ed iate elde rs. And he find s
ma n sisters? Well , there was a time whe n what Daniel Boor stin later chri stened as the the least intere st in anything that goe s on", a near-perfect cod a in Terenc e Ratrigan' s
"Zita" and " Baby" we re the shimmering " non-event" : the spectacle that is "put on " Dorothea Pon sonb y writ es of on e of her play Aft er the Dance, which ran g do wn the
centre of a world that included Cec il Reaton , solely in the ex pectation, or mor e accurate ly younger chi ldren, " Doesn' t as k about the curtain on the hright and the young and the
Ivor Nove llo, Tallul ah Bank head , Steph en with the prearranged understand ing, that it strike which is ragin g & very serious" . Later , fooli sh when it opened in Jun e 1939. " Yo u
Tennant and at lea st one mor e Sit well in the will be lavishly co ver ed in the medi a. Ce leb- Lad y Pon sonb y deftl y notes of another of the see ", says Helen to Da vid :
shape of Sach everell. Reviewin g Zita 's long rity culture was hugely acce lerated by the young peopl e that she "showed no jo y or When you we re e ightee n, you didn 't have
and fri vol ou s life, which ended in some sort sprea d of the tab loid press and the willing- amuse ment - onl y thinking she was n' t smart anybody of twenty-two or twenty-five or thirty
of grace -and-fav our es tablis hment on a Guin- ness of man y non -tabl oid typ es to collude enough - or so me body else was smarter" . or thirty-five to help you, because they'd been
ness estate, Taylor nearl y lapses back into his with it. Tom Drib erg could be said to have Thi s is the kind of affectl essness cau ght so wiped out. And anyo ne ove r fort y you
earlier tumbrel mode by inquiring peevishly got his "start" by writing snippets abo ut we ll by Powell in the days when he used to wouldn' t listen to anyway. The spotlight was
"what, on e wo ndere d, had Z ita don e with brittl e and spoiled part ygoer s for the Beaver- compose in terse, j azz -age sente nces : on yo u, and yo u were n' t even young men; yo u
her 102 yea rs on the planet ?" . And indeed, bro ok press (and sometimes claimin g that he " Do yo u know wha t we ' re doin g?" we re children.
it may be un wise to discard Or welli an hop ed to inflame the cla ss wa r by doin g so), "No." And , what, David inquires idly, had they
cen sori ou sness too soon. When one reads but Eve lyn Wau gh wa s not hoping to inci te "Shall I tell you?" done with thi s spotlight? " You danc ed in it" ,
of the riff-raff escapades of the prot o- social insurr ection when he fed his old school- "Yes." repli es Helen , in a wither ing summary that ,
fasci st Fifth Co lumn, form ed aro und Di ana mate Drib erg those titbits of goss ip, and even " We are was ting our youth." in its time and cont ext, puts out mor e flags.

TLS DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 200 7

10 BIOGRAPHY

short stories , one day to compri se The Magic

Today I invented sunshine Barrel, began to be publi shed in such maga-

zines as Partisan Review and Harper 's
Bazaar. After his marriage to "an Italian
beaut y" - not without warning her : "Though
hen Berna rd Ma lamud was in his JOY C E CA R O L O AT ES itself into that achieve ment" and to "show I love you and shall love you more, most of

W late fifties, a Pulitzer Prizewinner

(for The Fixer , 1966) and National
Book Award winner twice over (for the story
Philip D a vi s
BE RNARD MAL AM UD
serious readers all that it mean s to be a seri-
ous writer, possessed of an almos t religious
sense of voca tion - in term s of both the uses
my strength will be devoted to reali zing
myse lf as an artist" - and thei r move to far-
away Oregon in 1949, M alamud began to
collec tion The Magic Barrel, 1959, and The of and the costs to an ordinary human life" . publi sh frequ ently; his early novels The Natu -
Fixer) , at the height of his accla im and yet, as A writer's life Born in Broo klyn in 1914, of Jewish immi- ral (1952 ) and The Assistant (19 57) were
always, assa iled by self-do ubt, he once 377pp. Oxford University Press. £18.99. gran t parent s, Malamud seems to have been accla imed, and The Magic Barrel, the
rem arked to a friend "completely out of the 9780 19 9270095 obsessively preocc upied with mem ories of most impr essive of Mal amud ' s seve ra l story
blu e" that he regretted not having known the his arduous, impoveri shed back ground , as of collections, quic kly acquired the aura of a
love of several beautiful wome n. The story is oddly tone-deaf memoir My Father is a Book the sto ic example of his groce r-father, Jewish-Am erican classic. (And how aptly
told in this wo nder fully readabl e, illuminat- (2006) - sure ly the most chilling of titles! - through hi s life. Long after Malamud had titled , this gathering of stories that so bril-
ing and enterta ining biography, the first full- recalls how, whe n the Malamud s we re living asce nded to the literary aristocracy of his liantly combin e the gritty realism of cont em-
length Life of Malamud to appear. Malamud in Oreg on and her fath er was teachin g at time - president of Am erican PEN, member porar y urban settings with the fabuli st
rem ained marr ied to Ann de Chiara from Oregon State University at Corva llis, then as of the Am eri can Aca demy of Arts and "magic" of the Jewish story telling traditi on .)
1945 until his death in 1986, thou gh the two now not the most distin gui shed of Am erican Letters, reci pient of countless awa rds and Malamud' s third nove l, A New Life (196 1),
were not consisten tly faithful to eac h other: uni versities, she wo uld ove rhea r him talkin g hon orary docto rates, not least the author of set in an Orego n aca dem ic co mmunity
their marriage was , by M alamud ' s descri p- very like Corvallis, with an idealistic but
tion, a "ne rvo us" one; indeed the sharp ly schlemiel-like prot agonist named Levin, has
opinionated Mr s Malamud was in the habit of an idiomatic ease and access ibility that distin-
assuring her insecure writer-husband that guishes it from Mal amud' s more charac teris-
"though a good writer, he was not a grea t tic work, and certa inly from The Fixer, a
writer such as Faulkner or Joyce". Knowin g grim ly co mpelling fabl e-lik e tale of virulent
of Malamud' s lifelong pre occ upatio n with anti-Sem itism in tsarist Russia, as if Isaac
rout ines, sched ules , and devoting eve ry possi- Bashevis Singer and Franz Kafka had collabo-
ble hour to his work, his co mpa nion replied rated with Do stoyevsky to come up with the
that such love affa irs would have taken up a worst possible nightm are for a Jew - the accu-
goo d deal of Malamud ' s time: "Which of sation of having com mitted a ritual murde r/
yo ur books wo uld you have given up for sac rifice of a Christian child. Yakov Bok ' s
these loves?" . Ma lamud was silen t for a gradual emergen ce as a tragic hero is the sub-
mo men t and then said, "None" . stance of Malamud' s novel, which was enor-
The Yea tsian conundrum - "perfection of mously difficult and exhausting for him to
the life or of the art?" - carr ies with it an over - write over a period of several yea rs : "Some-
tone of (unconsc ious?) megalom ania: for th ing in me has changed . I'm not the same
who, counting even William Butler Yea ts, is man I was. I fear less and hate more" (The
likely to achieve "perfection" in either life or Fixer) - a triumphant if treacherous epiphany
art? Rather more, the writer might hope to for a Jew held capti ve in a Russia n prison on
perform as brilliantly in both as he is able, or lurid criminal charges . Beyond The Fixer,
simply to perform at all, with a modicum of Malamud see ms to have cast about for a co m-
success in both quarters. Yet, to the des per- parably wor thy subjec t: though he wor ked
ately ambitious Malamud, as he eme rges in with his charac teristic obsess iveness on the
Phili p Davis' s sympathetic yet pers uasively sem i-autobiographical Dubin 's Lives (1979),
"objective" portrait of the artist, such para - and on the fabuli st/proph etic God's Grace
doxi c al qu e sti o ns we re of the ut m ost import- (198 2), it is the shor t stories that co nstitute
ance. For to Malamud , writing was not Bernard Malamud with his wife Ann, Old Bennington, Vermont, August 24,1971 ; the most mem orabl e wor k of the last two
merely "writing" but carr ied with it an ele- from the book under revi ew decades of his life, notably the mas terfully
ment of the visionary and the mag ical: exec uted and com pelli ng "M y Son the
"The more 1 see of artists the more I think of to him self while shav ing: "Someday I'm an ecce ntric baseball nove l, The Natura l, Mu rderer" , "Talking Horse" , and the near
the great talent in the frail self." How many going to win" . There is a Wood y Allen-esque mad e into a film star ring Rob ert Redford - he novell a-length "Ma n in the Drawer" fro m
"nebbishes" - weak, spineless people - look irony to the fact that, when Malamud gives ev idence of bein g as "time-haunted" as Rembrandt 's Hat (1973). In 1983, The
good, beca use of "this marve lous book of received the National Book Award for The he ' d been as a boy whose father had fled Collected Stories of Bernard Malamud was
mag ic in them." What Malam ud wanted . Magic Barrel, he was at last "allowed" to Ukrai ne "amid a rising tide of anti-Se mitism publi shed , to much critica l accl aim, and in
was to "loo k good as a man", to use some of teach liter ature, as well as creati ve writing, at and pogrom s" and whose had mother died in 1989, three years after his dea th from a heart
his mag ical talent as an artist to "i mprove as a this uni versity best known for its agricu ltura l a ment al hospit al when he was fift een . attac k, his final, incompl ete novel, The
person". It "goes with the theory I have of the schoo l. (He soon quit Oregon and return ed to (Ma lamud wo uld one day remark to an Ghosts, was published along with his previ-
person as ' stuff' '' : "stuff' was the raw material the Eas t, where he would teach intermittentl y interviewer that he had to find in a "second ously uncoll ected stories .
of one's life, and self-will could be deployed to at the more prestigious Bennington Co llege .) life" what he had lost in the first: "T he death At the pinn acle of his career in the 1960s
shape that stuff and form it creatively not j ust And eve n Ma lamud's publi sher, the gra tingly of my mother , while she was still young, had and early 70s, Malamud was as highl y
in writi ng but in living. . "I think that art corr osive Roger Straus (of Farrar, Straus and an influ ence on my writing and there is in my regarded as his coeval Saul Bellow and
would be riche r if the self were. " Giro ux), wou ld one day sneer at the possibil- fiction a hun ger for wo men that co mes out in his younger contemp orary Philip Roth : an
T he w rite r Jay Ca nto r, a form er stude nt in ity of a biograph y of Ma lamud : " I thi nk it' s a consc ious way".) acc ide ntal trium virate of hugely talent ed
Malamud ' s writing cla ss at Harvard in the ridi culo us. There was nothi ng there; as a life Like many another child of imm igrant Jewish-American writers ruefull y desc ribed
mid-1 960s, vividly reca lls: it was unexcitin g. Saul Bellow was filet parent s, Malamud was determined to invent (by Bellow him self) as the "Jewish
Ma lamud was a short man , with a c1ose- mignon, Malamud was hamburger." (In droll himself as an Americ an; he distin guished equivalent of the fir st-generation rag trade
clipped grey ing mustac he, weari ng ofte n a grey Yiddish it wo uld sound better: with such himself as a student, attende d Co lumbia on a go ne upm arket - the Hart, Schaffner, and
clot h cap and a somew hat grey and restrained friend s, who needs ene mies?) gove rnment loan and received a Mas ter's Marx of literatur e" . (Add to which, as in a
man ner. He was surro unded then, and always , Shallow, flashy Straus was mistaken: Degree in English in 194 2 (his thesis, on Chaga ll fant asy, the transfigur ed Isaac
by an air that was both melancholy and deci- Malamud is indeed well wor th a biography, Thomas Hardy' s reput ation as a poet in Bashevis Singer, the most triumphantl y "Jew-
sive, as if he were weighed down by the guid- and in Davis, Professor of English at the Am erican periodicals, see ms to have been ish" of twent ieth- century A merican writers,
ance of a specia l Ta lmud only he knew about University of Liverpool, he is posthum ously uninspir ed and pedes trian); he began writing floatin g ove rhead .) Given the relative narrow-
that said he must move, speak, act, in a certain very lucky to have been gra nted an ideal fiction while teachin g at a high school in ness of Malamud ' s subjec t matter, the more
way, whether it gave him pleas ure or not. biographer, who has more than fulfill ed lauda- Bro okl yn , began to be publi shed in the subdued range of his writerly voice, and an
More co mica lly, M alamud' s daughter ble aims : "To place the work above the life - mid-1 940 s, and achieved his first notable suc- aesthet ic purit ani sm temp erament all y at odd s
Janna Malamud Sm ith, in her unsparin g and to show how the life wor ked very hard to turn cesses in the 1950 s when his remarkable with the flamboyant self-displays of Bellow

TLS DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 2007

 BIOGRAPHY 11

(Herzog, Humb oldt 's Gift) and Roth (Port- standing, for biographical truth is not to be of sculpture ." One of the surprises of thi s went on to the next. Some writers can write a
noy's Comp laint, etc), it see ms inevitabl e, if had , and even if it we re it couldn't be useful ". bio gr aph y is a virtua l treasure tro ve of writ- qu ick first draft - I can' t. I can' t sta nd reread-
unfortunate, that he should com e to seem, Such an irrational outburst leads one erly pensees, sca ttered through 570-plus ing a first draft, so [ had to make each para-
in tim e, the least impressive of the four ; to wond er what Freud was desperate to pages, that might one day be gath ered and graph as good as it could possibly be at the
Bellow ' s and Sing er ' s Nob el Priz es (1976 conceal from bio graphers, and whether he rei ssued as a writer's diar y of sorts, to set time. Then when I had the whole story down, [
and 1978 respectively) have given their work succee ded; in the ca se of Da vis' s Life of besid e such a ge m of the sub-ge nre as found I could revise with ease .
the imprimatur of intern ation al acclaim, and Mal amud, it seems to be that the subje ct, Leon ard Wo olf' s Virgini a w oolf: A writer 's
Roths daz zling energies, that continue to thi s Mal amud-as-writ er, was both enigmatic to diary . Here Bern ard Malamud emerges as a I must experiment. I must exp ress myself - my
ver y da y, have give n to his wor k an air of ob server s (like Fra nk Alpine of The Assist- tireless craft sman, trusting not to rushes of belief in life. [ must work to handle material
improvident virtu osit y utterl y for eign to ant, "he could see out but nobody could see inspiration but to "so much labor": originally - original form. I must try symbol-
Malamud' s more journeyman-like career. In in") and yet, in his letters, draft s and not es to If you think of me at my desk, you can' t be ism . I must work for art. I must try harder. 1
the preface to thi s bio graphy, Da vis not es him self, coll ect ed in the Har ry Ransom wrong - today, tomorrow, next month , possi- must hit my highest possible level.
that he was invit ed to undert ake the proj ect Ce nter at the Unive rsity of Te xas at Au stin , bl y eve n a year from now. I sometimes wonder
by the Malamud famil y out of their concern Malamud is tirele ss in his self-scrutiny, eage r when there is time to live although somehow 1 I do a good bit of writing and that same night
"that [Malamud' s] nam e was fadin g, his read- to be understood, and unsparing of what he do. bits of it crumple apart .. . . [ think of each
ership and liter ar y standing in dan ger of perceived to be his limitation s eve n as he page as a wet painting. Tom orrow when it' s
decline" . In the preface, too , Da vis quotes the tak es deser ved prid e in his con siderable When I can' t add or develop, I refine or twist. dry, we change here and there.
notorious rem ark s of Sigmund Freud on the accomplishments. Davis spe aks of Mala- Can you see that in my work? Mo st bio gr aphi es trud ge along the surface of
futility of the biographical enterprise: "A ny- mud ' s commitment to "the human sentence" a life, amass ing and presentin g fact s, like
one turning bio grapher has committed him- - pro se that is not so much writte n as meticu- Rewriting tend s to be pleasurable, in particular rubble on a shove l, in which a very few
self to lies, concealment, to hypocrisy, to flat- lou sly shaped through num erou s revision s: the enjoyment of finding new oppor tunities in preciou s ge ms might be visible ; this
tery, and eve n to hidin g his own lack of under- "The sentence as obj ect - treat it like a piece old sentences , twisting, tying, loopi ng struct ure pion eering biography of Malamud present s
tight er, finding pegs to tie onto that were appar- ge m-like aphoris ms like tho se quoted above ,
ently not there before, deepen ing mean ings, and insights and ob ser vations of the bio gra-
strengthe ning logicality in order to infiltrate pher ' s, on virtually eve ry page. It is rare that
the apparently illogical, the apparently absurd, a biogr aph er succee ds in ev oking, with a
the absurdly believable. no veli st ' s skill, such compassion for his
The Miracle at Cana (flawe d, hum an) subje ct; yet more rare, that
Today I worked in mosa ics, sentences previ- a biogr aph er succee ds in so dr awin g the
ously noted , and put together in many hours reader into the shimme ring world he has
What' s seldo m said about the miracle ... . Today 1 invented sunshine ; 1invented it in con stru cted out of a small infinity of lett ers,
At Ca na is that too much wine was mad e. the book and the sky of the dark day broke. draft s, not es, manu scripts, print ed texts,
Conside r, Jesus tell s the wa iting servants inter view tran script s etc, that the barri er
To fill six pot s with wa ter, each pot holding [ would start the story, writing each paragraph bet ween reader and subje ct becomes near-
Tw o or three firkin s, about twent y gallons. over and over until I was satisfie d, before I tran sparent.
The liquid then dr awn out is found to be
Win e of choice vintage , and the brid egroom' s praised
For keeping back the best stuff till the last.

But six hu ge pot s, each holding twent y ga llons,

Would make nin e hundred pint s (stron ger than beer)
With sixty mor e for luck. Rememb er also
This win e is called for only when the guests "Richard Price has had
Have drunk the boo ze the brid egro om has provided , a long andtorrential
So that presum abl y a merry tim e
Has been already had by eve ryone.
romance with the
What need to dro wn in mor e wine than enough? Saramaka Maroons of
Suriname. . .. With
The reason , so so me say , is Messianic. TRAVELS Wit hTOOY . Tooyas guide and
The new age was to be an age of plent y
dtheAjri,"n American ImaginatlOn
And Israel' s saviour might we ll usher in HIStOry, Memory, on mentor, across three
The go od tim es with a great fea st for his peopl e.
What bett er plac e than Ca na for its start
RICHAR D PR ICE centuries ofAfrican
And at a wedding too ? Th e world' s a wedding exile andresettlement
As we all know, some of us mor e than oth ers, in theAmericas, we
And all like wine , some mor e than oth ers of course.
revisit the recent or
And yet, it see ms to me, an irrit ation forgotten spaces of
Shows in what Jesus answer s when his moth er,
Beside him , nags and wo rries at his sleeve :
Price's nearforty years
"They have no wine ." "Wo man, what's that to me?" ofpatient, scholarly
Wa sn 't he fre sh arr ived in Galil ee research. It is an
Fro m that Dead Sea encounter with the devil
Wh ere starving from a fast he had been tempted astonishing performance,
To turn stones into bread to feed him self? rendering these treasures
Paper ofanthropological
"My hour is not yet com e ." There, can 't you see £13.00
The shrug with which the son has turn ed away, materials in a narrative
Leavin g his moth er to instruct the wa iters style as lucid and
To do whateve r he might say they should?
Perhaps it was indifferenc e, nothing mor e, Trade enquiries to: UPM, 0117 9020275 cordialas the best
Turne d water into wine that day at Ca na, Distributed byJohn Wiley, 01243 779777 contemporary fiction."
Either divin e indifferenc e or ju st not kno win g -George Lamming,
Available in-bookstores
.........
Wat er can taste like wine when you are drunk.
The University 0' ~Chicago
www.press. •chicago.edu
Press author of The Pleasures
ofExile
ROB ERT NY E

TLS DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 20 07
 12 BIOGRAPHY
The Edwin Mellen Press
Publisher ofScholarly Books

The Ethical Foundations ofSocialism:

The Influence of William Temple
First learn his language
and R.e. Tawney
C LA RE PE TTI T T
Richard Woolley
University College Lincoln
C har les Ca p pe r
978-0-7734-5283-1
MARGAR ET FU L LER
An American Ro mantic life
A Translation ofAlexandro Malaspina 's 649pp. Oxford University Press. £23.99 (US $40).
Meditacion sobre 10Bello 978 0 195063 134
en la Naturaleza
John Black & Oscar Clemotte-Silvero he seco nd vo lume of Charles Ca pper ' s
Malaspina University College
978-0-7734-5404-0 T two- volume bio gr aph y of Margaret
Fuller - the first was published in
1992 and wo n the Banc roft Pri ze - charts her
emergence into publi c intellectu al life in
The Philosophy ofEmerson Boston ; her move to New York ; her ex tended
and Thoreau trip to Rom e durin g the Risor gim ent o siege
Shoji Goto of 1848- 9; and her death by drow ning in
Rikkyo University (Emeritus) 1850. Exceptionally intelli gent and we ll-
educa ted, Fuller was the only wo man to ge t
978-0-7734-5351-7
anyw here near the Boston Tr anscend ent ali st
Club - she was a friend to Eme rson, a prol ific
journali st and editor, and the author of the
The Violent Woman as a 1844 she left Boston and mo ved to New York neyed" - unsurpri singl y his ardo ur cooled
New Theatrical Character Type ex tended essay Women in the Nineteenth
Century, the imp ort anc e of wh ich has still to edit the literary pages of Hor ace Gree ley 's rapidl y. In 1839 she as ked "how can a
Shelley Scolt not been full y appreciated even by femi nist liberal pap er, the New York Tribune. But by wo man of genius love and marr y?" , and she
University of Lethbridge in Alberta scho lars. In it, Fuller makes a radi cal claim 1845, watching the ann exation of Texas and see med to be set on her single co urse until
978-0-7734-5445-3 for a bi-gend er hum anit y anticip atin g by 150 the Mexican War s, she grew disillu sion ed she set off on her Co ntinenta l tour. By 1848,
yea rs the work of mod ern the ori sts such as with the Am erican Eag le, which "has scarce her friend s back in Am eric a were wo nde ring
Judith Butl er. Ca pper is able to appreciat e achi eved a Rom an nobl eness, a Rom an lib- when she was coming back . Hor ace Greeley
How Can We Explain the Persistence of the imp ort anc e of Full er ' s thinking, and he erty" , and was beginning to look distin ctly wrote " I cann ot co mprehe nd your lon g stay
Irrational Beliefs? plac es her in the first rank of nineteenth- vulture -like, "her eyes fixed, not on the sta rs, in such a region of the dea d" , and wa rne d her
Essays in Social Anthropology century Am erican intell ectu als. but o n the possession of other men" . She that if she did not return soon, "you will grow
Fuller vacillated ove r an American "ident- decid ed to set off across the ocea n in sea rch old your self. I am sure one mu st grow wrin-
Gregory V Loewen
St Thomas More College ity": her Tra nscende ntalist credenti als made of new libert y. kled and rummeyed by gaz ing at ruin s -
her ferociou sly patrioti c, eschew ing lesson s Wh en criticizing the United States South ruin s" . What he - and all of her Am eric an
978-0-7734-5508-5 from the old wor ld of "bankrupt Europe" in Sea Island expedition, Fuller had written friend s - did not kno w was that Fuller was
favour of bein g "touched inwardl y" by the "would yo u speak to a man, first learn his lan- not ga zing on ruin s at all - she was nursin g
glory of the new. At the Palaz zo Borghese in g uage !" , and when she arrived in Italy, she her newborn son, Angelo. Li ving in a village
Using Computers to Create Art Rom e, she admired Titi an' s "Sacred and Pro- studied Italian "sed ulously" (much harder outside Rom e, Fuller was und ergoin g the
fane Love" , but on the whole felt that the paint- than Dicken s had don e on his trip there the sleepless trials of new moth erh ood; " it is a
Tracey Bowen
University of Toronto at Mississauga ings would not "float the heart on a boundl ess ye ar before). She is scathing about the Eng - great anxie ty to be alone and so ignorant w ith
sea offeeling, like the starry night on our West- lish, the "Murray guide boo k mob " which a bab y in these fir st days of his life" , she
978-0-7734-5655-6 ern Prairie". Fo r Pulle r, Am eric a wa s sublime: "elbows the Gree k marbles, guide-boo k in wrote to the bab y' s father, Count Os soli. We
"the garde n of the world !" where all the hand - ch atters and snee rs through the Mi ser- don't know whether Fuller eve r ma rrie d
"healthy seed" produced by immi gration ere of the Sistine Cha pel, beneath the ve ry Ossoli: there is no record of such a marri age.
Manet, Baudelaire and Photography could "develop itself into a different plant, in glance of Michel An gelo' s Sib yls . . . praises One of the few peopl e she confided in early
the new clim ate" . Her views on racia l inter- SI. Peter ' s as 'nice:". Her ow n engageme nt on was the poet Arthur Hugh Clo ugh who
LarryL Ligo
Davidson College breedin g were as radical as her views on ge n- with Italy was deeper. She is uniqu e amo ng had been with her throughout the Rom an
der. She cons idered that if a ge nuine mixing An glo-American visitors in the nin eteenth revolution of 1849. Fuller wrote to him in the
Book One 978-0-7734-5695-2 of Europea n and African characteristic s eve r centu ry because she was prepar ed to allow winter of 1849 that she had feared "the jo g-
Book Two 978-0-7734-5697-6
took place it would give to hum an ge nius a Italy to be modern . Ca pper point s out that the trot of do mes tic life" , but was findin g it mor e
"balance and harmony beyond what has been Risor gim ento leader, Giuse ppe Mazzini, con geni al than she had expected.
see n heretofor e in the history of the world" . knew that if Italy were to have a nation al After she had nur sed her two- year-old
The Gospel ofMark:
An Indexed Bibliography 1980-2005 One of the reason s that Fuller has not been future, much of the co untry 's feud al ord er through sma llpox on board the merch ant ship
as we ll remembered as others of her ge nera- wh ich und erlay its admired culture would which was tak ing the Ossoli famil y back to
Hugh Minear Humphrey tion is that she did not leave a full publ ished have to be destroyed or drastic ally reord ered . Am eric a, and after the ship 's capt ain died of
Fairfield University
record - although Ca pper has made go od use Fuller was exceptional in und erstandin g the the same disease, the ship hit a sandbar off
978-0-7734-5553-5 of her private j ourn als and lett ers. Her early impli ed violence of Mazzini' s posit ion, Fire Island beach in a fierc e storm. Less than
death depri ved us of her " History of the Lat e alth ough she grieve d for the dama ge to the 300 yards away there were peopl e onshore
Itali an Revolut ion s" : the subjec t she report s chu rches and the art of Rom e after the bom- who watched and did nothing. The last pages
We invite proposals for books that will as "so in my heart" in Februa ry 1849. But per- bardm ents of the 1849 engageme nts with the of Ca pper' s book are harro win g to read .
make a contribution to haps her grea tes t talent was for co nve rsa tion. French: "0 , Rom e, my country! Co uld I imag- For nearl y twel ve hour s the passen gers and
She held form al "Conversations" in Boston , ine that the triumph of what I held dear was crew were left han gin g on to the rapidl y
scholarship .
and her vivac ious, open-minded writte n style to heap such desolati on on thy head! " . disint egr atin g ship. Eve ntually, one of the
We reply promptly to all enquiries.
gives us an echo of the brilli ance and sensitiv- Margaret Fuller's intell ectu al life was crew atte mpted to sw im to shore with littl e
ity of her talk . She put a grea t deal of faith in always part of her emo tional life . She com- An gelino - and they we re both dro wned . A
The Edwin Mellen Press con versation - of one soul touching anoth er - plained in Boston that she had " no real, per- few minut es later O ssoli was was hed off the
16 College Street and she hop ed too for a new nation al con ver- manent co nnection with any so ul", and her ship by a wave. A surv ivor wrote , "M argaret
Lampeter SA48 7DY sation, parti cul arl y throu gh newspapers, a atte mpts at forming intim ate sex ua l ties sat with her back brac ed again st the fallen
Wales UK medium abo ut which she was initi ally opti- tend ed to fail. In Boston, she flirt ed with a for ema st, still in her white nightdress, her
Tel : ++4 4 (0) 15 70423356 mistic: "newspaper writing is next door to fello w writer while correctin g his Latin allu- ha ir loo se on her sho ulde rs and her hand s on
Fax: ++44 (0) 15 70423775 co nve rsa tion, and should be cond ucted on the sions and refu sing to publi sh his account of her knees" until she too was swe pt off the
[email protected] sa me prin ciples" . It was w ith thi s faith that in hi s tra vel s to Rom e because it was "hack- ship to her death . She was fort y years old.
www.mellenpress.co.uk

TLS D E C EMB E R 2 1 & 28 2 007

 BIO GRAPHY 13

Objective taxes
ow did a self-described " lifelong lib- RO B ERT B . R E1CH

H ertaria n Republican", son of Jewish

immigrants and foll ower of the co n-
troversial 1950s philo sopher and author Ayn
A la n G r e en sp an

Rand, become the most powe rful force in the THE AGE OF T URBU L ENCE
Ame rica n eco nomy for most of the past two Adventures in a new world
decades - inclu ding the entire duration of the 529pp. Alien Lane. £25.
Clinton ad ministrat ion? As Alan Gree nspan 9780 71399982 2
US: Penguin Press. $35. 978 159420 131 8
reveals in his memoirs, his succe ss was due,
first, to bein g in the right place at the right
time. He was appo inted chairman of the began to acce lerate after a protracted period
Fede ral Reserve Bank, America's central of sluggish growt h .. .. Most com panies were
bank, at a time when Keynesiani sm - the reporting rising operating profit margins. Yet
belief that gov ernment could wisely stabilize few had raised prices. That meant that their AIan Greenspan, 1987
the ec onomy throu gh spending and taxing - co sts per unit of output were co ntained or
was becomin g discredited , and when Am er- even falling . Productivity was truly Clinton administratio n (I was a memb er of needed to pro vide health care, education and
ica began relying as never before on its acce lerating. And if so, then rising inflatio n Bill Clinton 's Ca binet) was how much deficit job trainin g, and repair the nation ' s infrastruc-
central bank to do that jo b. Greenspan was would be unlikely. redu ction was nece ssa ry, and how much of ture. But Gree nspan did not trust the gove rn-
also fortun ate to enter gove rnmen t ju st as Gree nspan convinced his coll eagues at the Bill Clinton's original age nda would have to ment to do any of this. He threw his suppor t
Republican s were in the ascendant. He j oined Federal Reserve Board not to ra ise interest be jetti soned as a result. Greenspa n urged behind a tax cut, instead :
Richard Nixo n' s Presidenti al ca mpa ign in rates, and the rest is history. "By not bein g Clinton in no uncert ain term s to make defi cit Chronic surpluse s could be almost as destabiliz-
1968 and Nixo n appo inted him to chair the too quick to raise rates, we help ed clear the redu ction the priority and sac rifice every- ing as chronic de fici ts .... Spending would
President ' s Council of Econ omic Advisors . way for the postwar period ' s longest eco - thin g else. "The path to a beneficient futur e, I have to be raised or taxe s cut, and to me the
In 1987, Ronald Reagan appoint ed him chair- nom ic boom ." Unemployme nt eve ntually told the president- elect, was low ering the preferable co urse seemed cl ear. I have always
man of the Federa l Reserve. Above all, as his drop ped to aro und 4 per cent , and, as dem and long-term traject ory of federal bud get defi- worried that once spending is notched up, it is
memoir reveals, Gree nspa n's power lay in picked up for unskilled wor kers , inequa lity ci ts." What Gree nspan did not tell Clinton, difficult to rein in. The same is less true about
hi s deep understand ing of the way the Ame r- temporaril y narrowed . Bill Clinton is usually but adm its in his me moirs, was that Clinton tax cuts.
ican eco nomy actua lly wor ks, as opposed to credited with the 1990s boom, but it was had been saddled with Reagan ' s profli gacy - Green span' s testim on y befor e Co ngress in
how it wor ks in theor y. As Am erica' s ce ntral rea lly a product of Gree nspa n' s willingness almos t exac tly as Republican s had planned it. 200 I, callin g for a tax cut , was critica l to
banker, Gree nspan eschewed standard eco - to take a fresh look at the high-tech eco nomy "Reagan had borro wed from Clinton, and George W. Bush ' s succes sful musterin g of
nomi c mode ls in favour of hard data. His that was emerg ing in Amer ica and rejec t the Clinton was having to pay it back ." Gree n- the politi cal support he needed for his
em piric ism had dee p root s - as a young man economic models created in a different era. span 's adv ice to Clinto n came with an mamm oth tax cut, the benefit s of which have
he had been deep ly influenced by Lud wig Gree nspan's most di sturbing legacy sprang impli ed promi se and threat. If Clinto n cut the go ne mostly to wea lthy Am ericans. The Bush
Wittge nstein and logical positivism. "The from a different source. As a young ma n he defi cit, Gree nspa n wo uld redu ce interest tax cut drained the federal treasury, eliminat-
wor ld would become a better place" , Gree n- foun d in Ayn Rand the moral guida nce he felt rates and allow the econ omy to expa nd ing the entire bud get surplus within mont hs.
spa n learned, "if peopl e focu sed exclusive ly he needed for the rest of his life. Rand , briskly. This would make the "latter part of Gree nspan writes that he did n't intend to
on what was knowable and important , which found er of a libertarian philo soph y she the 1990s .. . loo k awfully good", thereby endorse the Bush tax pro posal specifica lly,
was preci sely logical positivism ' s aim." later term ed "objectivism" , had made virtues impro vin g the odd s of Clinton's re-election . but this see ms disin genu ous. Bush ' s prop osal
Greenspan's grea test legacy stemmed fro m out of individualism and enlightened self- But if Clinton failed to cut the deficit ade - was the onl y one und er consid eration at
hi s commitment to what was knowa ble and interest, and was deepl y susp icious of all qu ately, Gree nspa n would not reduc e interest the time, the new President had made it the
important when the standard eco nomic mod- collective effort. Greenspan grew to share rates , and the ec onomy would continue to centrepi ece of his eco nomic poli cy, and
els suggested otherw ise. Based on how the Rand ' s views . In particular, he was sceptical limp along, perhaps threatening Clinton' s re- Co ngressional and medi a attention was
economy had perfor med in the 1970s and about efforts to help the less fortun ate. "What e lectio n. G ree nspan ad m its he was "not ob liv - rivet ed on it w he n G reenspa n te stifie d .
80s , those models assumed that if it grew attracted me to Reagan", he explains, "was the ious to the fact that 1996 would be a presiden- Greenspan must have known his testimony
faster than 2.5 per cen t a yea r and the rate of clarity of his conserva tism which was to say tial election yea r" . He was, in shor t, engag ing would be interpr eted as support for Bush' s tax
unemployment dropped below 6.5 per cen t, that tough love is goo d for the individu al and in politi cal extortion. The choice was cut. He had spent decades in Washin gton and
infl ation would result. Prices wo uld rise as good for society." This "implies much less Clintons, but G reenspan held a gun at hi s well understood the ways of the capital city.
wor kers dem anded higher wages and supp li- government suppor t for the downtrodden" . head . "E ither he could opt for a package of "1 resigned myself to the idea that my testi-
ers ' invent ories grew depl eted. By the spring Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 , in part to spending program s that would fulfill some mony wo uld be politi call y framed ." He later
of 1996 the US eco nomy was growi ng at an rever se what Reagan had wro ught. Clinton of his camp aign promi ses, or he could opt for told his wife, in the mocking tone Claude
annua l rate of 6 per cen t and unemployment prom ised to provide all Ameri cans with the a defi cit- cutting plan . . . there was no Rain s once used with Humph rey Bogart, " I
had dropped to well below 5.5 per ce nt, sug- health care, education, job trainin g and other in-b et ween - we couldn' t afford both ." am shocked, shocked, that there is politi cs on
ges ting that Greenspan and his colleag ues suppor ts they needed in order to adap t to a Seve ral ofC linton' s advisers, of whom I was Ca pitol Hill" . Indeed, Gree nspan admits
should slow things down. But Gree nspan the fast-changing eco nomy, as well as repair the one, did not believe the bud get needed to be he was "willing to be optimistic about the
em piric ist saw an eco nomy very different nation' s road s, brid ges and ports, which had cut as much as Greenspan wanted, or that so legislation' s effects. It would work down the
from that of the 1970s and 80s . "Innovations been neglected for many years. Yet by the much of Clinton' s ca mpaign had to be aban- surpluses befor e they became dan gerou s" .
like the Internet and e-mai l we nt fro m exo tic time Clinton ca me to office, the federal bud- don ed. As Gree nspan put s it, "the conflict What Greenspan still views as "danger-
to ubiquitou s. Something extraordinary was get deficit had grown so large he had to trim ex tended to within the Whit e Hou se, where ous" was a tragicall y missed opp ortunity to
happening . .." , he writes: his ambitions. Ironically, that deficit had bal- key people we re still pushin g for an age nda redress the nation' s long-term probl em s.
The te xtbook strategy wo uld be to tighten loon ed largely because Ronald Reagan had less compatihle with Wall Street" . Rut only They transcend the ups and do wn s of the
rates, thereby slow ing eco nomic growt h and cut taxes and increased spen ding, mostly on Green span had a gun. So he and Wall Street business cycle, and must still be dealt with if
nipping inflation in the bud. But what if this the milit ary. Alth ough he was chairman of w o n. middl e- and lower-inc ome A merica ns are to
wasn't a normal business cycle ? What if the the Federa l Reserve Board during Reagan ' s Th e ens uing boom seemed to va lidate the have any chance of improving their sta ndard
tec hnologica l revo lution had, tempo rarily at final years in the Whit e House, Gree nspan 's choice Clinton mad e, but in realit y it only of living. In the new global economy, private
least, increased the eco nomy 's ability to mem oirs don 't suggest he warned Reagan validated Gree nspa n's pow er. Lower interest investment will go anyw here aro und the
expand? . . . I zeroe d in on what I belie ved to aga inst the widening deficit. It see ms more rates had the des ired effec t, at least in the world it can get the highest rate of return. The
be the primary riddle of the technology boom: likely that Greenspa n agree d with Reagan short term. The ec onomy surge d for ward, only aspec t of a nation' s eco nomy that
the question of productivity . . . . Year in and and others in his adm inistra tion that deficit and Clinton wo n re-election . In the ensuing remains uniqu e is its people - espec ia lly their
ye ar out, busine ss had been pouring vast spending as Reagan undert ook it would serve yea rs, tax revenues exploded, the bud get educa tion, health and the transport and co m-
amo unts of money into desktop co mputers, to "starve the beast" , forcin g any subseq uent defi cit disappeared, and by the start of the muni cations system s linking them togeth er.
servers, networks, software, and other high- Democ ratic President - such as Bill Clinton - Bush administration the federal government These gene rate lasting prod ucti vity gains. But
tech gear .... This became e vident as early as to offer less support to the downt rodd en . had a signi fica nt budget surplus. For the first partl y ow ing to Green span the libert arian,
1993 when new orders for high-tech capital The question we faced at the start of the time in decades, Ame rica had the resources it eve n if a Democrat were to retake the Whit e

TL S DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 20 07
14 B IOG RAP HY

Hou se in 2008, the gove rn ment wo uldn' t Th e con sequ ence s of prominenc e for
have nearl y enough money to do what is
needed . Am erica ' s prim ary and sec onda ry
schoo ls will lack the necessary res ources to
Last frontiers Cooper's dom estic stature were not altoge ther
positive. Som e US journalists question ed his
long absence abroad and his clo se ties with
pro vide young people from lower-i ncom e Europe 's liberal elite; others reprinted Briti sh
famili es with the educa tion they need . Te ns n the Janu ary 1820 edition of the Edin- WILLIAM P . K ELLY and French attack s on his Republican princi-
of millions of Am ericans wi ll co ntinue to
lack health insur anc e and tens of milli on s
more will bar ely be able to afford the insur -
I bu rgh Review, Sy dney Smith vigoro usly
denounced the rising tide of Am eric an
chau vini sm. Th e United Stat es, Smith wrote,
Wa yn e Franklin
ples. Followin g his return to New York in
I ~ 3 3 , his relation ship with Am eric an readers
furth er soured. Alth ough Cooper rem ained a
ance they do have. Am eric a' s inf rastru ctu re must not . . . allow [itself] to be dazzled by J AM ES F ENIMOR E C O O PE R productive writer - he wrote twent y-seven
will continue to deteriorate. Last Jul y, a steam that galaxy of epithets by which orators and The ear ly year s novels, alon g with many volume s of travel
conduit datin g fro m 19 14 exploded in New newspaper scribblers endea vor to persuade 708pp. Yale University Press. £25 (US $40). writing, social criticism and history - he never
York City; last Augu st, a fort y-year-old their supporters that they are the greatest, the
9780300 10805 7 recaptured the acclaim that gree ted his early
brid ge coll apsed in Minn eapoli s, killin g most refi ned , the most en lightened, and the work. The reason s for the declin e were many.
several mot ori sts. Fina lly, and for all these most moral people on earth. The effect of this Sketch Book' s popul arit y answe red Smith's Cooper lacked Irving' s gift for winning
reason s, inequality will continue to wide n. is un speak abl y lud icrou s on thi s side of the qu estion about who read the work of Am er- friend s amon g the influenti al (a talent he
Althou gh the second half of his mem oir At lantic - and, even, on the other, we should ican writers, but it raised another: did a book describ ed ruefu lly as Irving ' s instinct for
dip s into several important areas of pub lic im agi ne , mu st be rath er hu mili ating to the publi shed by a Ne w York er , in the style of an gold) . Mor e important, Cooper was a Repub li-
polic y, Gree nspan barely menti on s the crisis reason abl e part of the popu lation . Eng lishman, con stitute an Am eric an book ? can in a democratic era. His commitment to
in Am erica ' s health care system or the desper- Unde rscoring the disparity between the Th e appea rance in 1821 of The Spy , James the settled values of the early Republ ic, its
ate state of the nation ' s infrastru ctur e, and he bo mb ast and the achieve ment of "this self- Fenimore Coo per's Revolution ary War emphas is on hierarchy, decorum and civic
gives cursory attent ion to education. He urges adulating race" , Smith posed a qu estion : " In novel, put the issue to rest. Th at and four virtue, was out of place in an age addled
that educators put greater reliance on "market the four quarter s of the globe, who read s an other novel s which Cooper published in the by spec ulation and get-rich-quick schemes.
forc es" such as vouchers ("I suspect Rose and Am erican book , or goes to an Am eric an play , next fiv e years drew their form from the His habitual did acticism made that conflict
Milton Friedman . . . were right on track "), and or looks at an American picture or statue? " . Waverle y novels, but they were unq uestion- particu larly bitter. The dem ographics of the
briefl y acknow ledges that "the cost of educa- Smith' s remarks were wide ly report ed in the abl y Am eric an . Cooper's subjects - the inter- American literar y mark et played a role in
tion ega litarianism is doubtl ess high and may US. The War of 18 12 had left behind a stro ng necine violence and divid ed loyalties of the the demi se of his reput ation . Always pre-
be diffi cult to ju stify in term s of economy residu e of anti-E ng lish sentiment, and Am er- Revo lution, fronti er settlement and the dis- domin antl y female, the audience for American
efficiency and short-term productivity" . ican editors of eve ry stripe attac ked him as possession of nati ve peopl es, the brutal strug - novels became, with the rise of sentimental
Green span writes that he is concerned about the incarn ation of Brit ish arro ga nce . Sim- gles of the French and Indi an War - rend ered and dom estic fiction in the 1830s and 40 s,
widenin g inequ ality, lamentin g that the first ultaneou sly, they renewed their call s for an visible the particular circumstanc es, ten sion s inhospitab le to Fenimore Coo per's tales of
decad e of the twent y-fir st centu ry has been Am erican literature capable of ex press ing the and aspirations of American ex perience . wilderness and ocea n adventure . But most
"marred by a disturbin g shift in the concent ra- emergin g glory of the Ne w Wor ld. Wh ere Irvin g soug ht to brid ge the gap that respon sible for the eclipse of his reputation
tion of income" and that "two-tier economies That lon gin g for a decl arat ion of cu ltur al the Revoluti on had opened, Cooper ampli- were the failin gs of his pro se. Famously paro-
are common in developin g count ries, but not ind epend enc e was only parti all y satisfied by fied the rupture. died by Mark Tw ain in "Fe nimore Cooper's
since the 1920 s have Americ ans expe rienced the transatlantic success of The Ske tch Bo ok For a tim e, Coo per was received on both Litera ry Offenses", Cooper's fiction had
such inequ ality of income". But given his by Washin gton Irvin g, a few month s after sides of the At lanti c as the quintessent ial becom e, by the end of the nineteenth century,
support for Bush' s lop sided tax cut s for the Smith's es say appea red. Irvin gs collec tion American writer. Resident in Europe for emblematic of everything realism had con -
wea lthy and his deep ave rsion to Clinton' s of ske tches and tales was hai led in the Lon- seve n years after publi shing his mo st endur- signed to the ashb in of literary history. Eve n
original agend a for poor er Am eric ans, his don and Edinburg h journals, mo st of his ing wor k, The Last of the Mohican s (1826 ), in his ow n era, the prolix style and creaky
words seem strangely disembodied , if not sketches were set in Eng land, and their tenor he was lionized by liberal reformers and contri vance s of Cooper' s plots were the
hypocritical. A lan Greenspan the empiricist evok ed not the untr amm elled reach es of a sought after by literar y hostesses in London, subjec ts of j est. At his death in 1851, he was
contributed a great deal to Americ a, instigat- cont inent but the walled prec inct s of country Pari s and Florenc e. In both his pub lic state- already a faded figure, a gho stly precur sor for
ing the longest eco nomic expansion in recent churchyard s. Eve n the volume's mo st recog- ment s and his fic tion , he embraced the ro le a new ge neration of American writers.
history and rew riting the rules of monetary nizabl y Am eric an piec es, " Rip Van Winkl e" of national apolog ist, denouncing mon archi al Nevertheless, several of Coo per' s novel s,
polic y. But A lan Gree nspan the Ayn Rand and "The Legend of Sleep y Hollo w" , we re go vern ment, aristocratic pri vilege and reac- not ab ly the five volumes of Leath er- Stocking
libert arian has cau sed the nation grave injury. adaptations of Europea n folk tales. The tionary politics at eve ry opportunity. Tales, remain alive in popu lar and in aca-

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TLS DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 20 07
 BIOGRAPHY 15

demic culture. To so me extent that endura nce ec onomy that began for Britain ' s North
has to do with Coo per's prim acy of place. As
the foundin g father of Americ an historical fic-
tion , he fram ed the vocabulary and syntax
Am erican colonies in the mid-eighteenth
ce ntury reached a point of ex treme volatility
in the period imm edi ately foll owin g the War
A pool of his own
Am eri can writers have used to addr ess the of 1812 and clim axed in the devastatin g
burd en of the past in a nati on singularly Pa nic of 1819. Durin g tho se yea rs, A merica n n January 1963, before going to uni ver- LAN DE G WHIT E
unwillin g to acknow ledge the force or eve n
the ex istence of histor y. But his resilienc e
has to do with more than bein g first in line.
life came to be domin ated by bankruptcies,
sheriff's sales and wes tward di splacement.
Franklin places Cooper square ly at the centre
I sity, T im Jeal set out by stea mer, bus
and truck on a journey from Cairo to
Joh ann esbur g. Over fort y yea rs on, wha t he
T i m J e al

Joseph Co nrad, who admired his work, of that dram a. His father, Willi am Coo per, mainl y rem emb ers abo ut this trip is his feel- STAN LEY
arg ued that Cooper "wrote before the grea t was a successful fronti er developer. Rough- ing of insecurity, of bein g utterl y dependent The impossi ble life of Africa's greatest exp lorer
A meri can language was born" . His hewn him self , he had ambitions for his on the und epend able: a " guideless stranger 570pp. Faber.£25.
"me thod", Co nrad wrote, "may be often family 's ascend ancy, se nding James to Yale would soon be lost .. . and likely to die in the 978057 122 1028
fault y, but his art is ge nuine" . Identifying the University. When he was expelled for di sci- bush , if not from thir st or exha ustion then in
sources of that art has been the obje ct of a plin ary reason s in his junior yea r, a mid ship- the jaws of a wild beast" . At night , when he Henr y Morton Stanley, claimin g that he had
good deal of Americ an critici sm. To a degree ma n's warra nt was obtained and a naval was not frettin g about snakes or scor pions, he been adopt ed by a wea lthy store ow ner; he
disproportionat e to its modern readership , career set in place. Those plans were aban- thou ght about those Victorian explore rs, mak- fought on both sides in the Civil War,
Coo per's fiction has served as a significa nt doned when James met and married Susa n ing similar j ourn eys without diesel truc ks or deserted from both the Union army and navy,
count er in the game of cultura l meanin g. DeL ancey, a memb er of a soc ially prominent insect repellent cream s, and his admiration and led a di sastrous expedition to Turkey ,
famil y that had supported the loyalist ca use for them became a lifetim e obsessi on. before landin g the job of war cor res pondent
durin g the Am eri can Revo lutio n. In 1813, Earlie r writers on Afri ca have had similar for the New York Herald, whose flambo yant
Coope r and his wife and daughter returned to epiphanies - Ge orge Shepperson, speculating tycoon publi sher, James Gordo n Bennett Jr,
Cooperstow n to take up residence in a new about the Nyasalanders under his command prov ided the financial backin g for Stanl ey' s
stone man or house he had commi ssioned . in Burma duri ng the Seco nd World War, Jan 1869 expedition to Africa to find Living-
But the land he and his siblings inherited Vansin a, made curious by his spell of stone. Jea l reckon s the idea of the Living-
after his father ' s death in 1809 was heavily milit ary service in the Belgian Co ngo, Basil stone search, which made Stanley fam ous
mor tgage d and vulnera ble to the deepenin g Davidson , wo ndering in mid-t ravel s why and Livingston e a saint, was Stanley's own -
nati onal depr ession . William Coo per's there was nothin g he could read about the though Sta nley him self always attributed it to
empire melted away, leaving his heir s with ancient cities of West Afri ca. By 1963, along his boss.
little more than debt and unsettl ed claim s. with a handful of others, these had becom e In respect of his conduct durin g that, and
Franklin record s in close detail James the founding father s of the new disciplin e of three subsequent African ex peditions, Jeal
Cooper's unsuccessful strugg le to right him- Afri can History. Jeal com ments that as he marshals several lines of defenc e. Stan ley
self by investin g in agriculture, real estate, passed through independent Uga nda and was his ow n wo rst enemy, his "insecurity"
whaling and trade, while defendin g what soo n-to-be independ ent Tanganyik a, he knew coupled with "his psyc hologica l need to
re mained of his fath er' s prop erty in a ser ies the ex plorers were con sidered "anachronistic prove that no one eve r got the better of him",
of futil e lawsuit s. The most dam aging of em barrass ments" . But he has stuck with leadin g him to diminish his rea l achieve -
them was filed by his sister and brother-in- them, and imbib ed much of their world-view. ment s by lies and relentl ess "pepping up" . In
law. His own famil y fragment ed , Coo per His 1973 biograph y of Livingston e was Through the Dark Continent (1 878 ), his fir st
came to rely on his in-l aws, but that relati on- something of a hatchet job . Much of Co ngo narrative , he claimed to have set out
Th e front cover ofa 1949 edition of The ship also foundered on the shoa ls of finance. Livingston e' s geography was hayw ire, his from Za nziba r with a massive caravan of 356
Last ofthe Mohicans His chroni c indebt edn ess alienated the neglected wife became an alcoholic, he failed peopl e. The true figur e was 227, makin g his
DeL anceys and left him largel y adrift. spectacularly as a lead er of Europe ans, he expedition no larger or better armed than ,
The task that confront s Wayne Franklin, Inspired by the exa mple of Waiter Scott, he blamed the dying missionaries who had fol- say, that of John Speke and Jam es Augustus
author of l ames Fenimore Cooper: The early sought to redeem his fortun es by becomin g a lowed his lead for lettin g him down, and by Gra nt. In the incid ent that fir st damaged his
yea rs, is a restorative one, a resettin g of writer, approaching novels as speculative the end he was depend ent on the very Arab- reput ation, when he was attacked on Bumbi-
Coo per and his art for a new genera tion of transactions, investments of time that might Swa hili slave traders whose atrocities he reh Island durin g his circumnav igation of
readers. To some extent, the challenge is co m- generate profit. The absence of an established docum ent ed . Jea l coul d, in fact, have said a Lake Victoria and shot "fourteen" Africa ns,
plicated by an absence of precedent. Coo per dom estic market and the lack of an inter- lot more had he paid more attention to the the true fi gure was o ne or perhaps tw o. The
resisted biograph ers durin g his lifetime, and national copyright law made the likeliho od of African side of the story . He comment s, exaggeration was unfortunate, makin g his
his five surv iving children maint ained that significant return remot e, but Coo per's early somew hat wryly, that while his book has shoo ting of a furth er thirty-thr ee (not forty-
sta nce after his dea th. It was not until 1949 novels sold well, eve n if literary success was rem ained the best-resear ched on Livingstone, three) at the same spot ju st three month s later
that his descend ant s named James Franklin not as lucrati ve as he had hoped. His financial the saintly doct or ' s reputation see ms intact. seem excessive .
Beard literar y exe cutor and opened the circumstances remained precarious throu gh- Jeal has now produc ed a massive Stanley claim ed to have had thirt y-two
famil y archi ves to him. out his life; at his death, he left an estate so biograph y of the man most responsibl e for "fights" durin g the descent of the Co ngo. On
Beard collected and publi shed Coo pe r's modes t that his famil y was forced to sell the creatin g the Livingstone legend , and long the evidence of his papers, together with the
letter s and journ als over a period of forty manor house he had laboured to sustain. excoriated as Livingstone ' s antithes is. Far diaries of comp anions such as Frank Pocock ,
years, and initi ated a scholarly edition of his Franklin does a good job of relatin g from bein g a hatchet jo b, this is clo se to mo st of them were minor skirmishes. For
writing. But at the time of his death , in 1989, Coope r's down ward spiral, and his wilful hagiograph y. Fro m the first page (where instance, the "naval battle" fought aga inst
Beard had mad e little prog ress on a much rise throu gh the exercise of hi s pen. At times, Stanley becomes "Africa ' s least und erstood "sixty canoes" launched aga inst him by the
deferred biograph y. Franklin , a professor of the weig ht of det ail - Franklin's comprehen- explore r") , to page 470 (where he is called Nga la never involved more than eight at a
English and Direct or of Americ an Studies at sive acco unts of real-estate and legal transac- "Ho meric") , the reader is repeatedly rapped time. Jeal contends that Sta nley was actually
the University of Co nnecticut, takes up the tions, and of the compl ex arrangeme nts of ove r the knu ckles for not apprec iating the no more brut al than Ca ptain Lugard or
wor k with admirable vigo ur. In this, the first early Ame rica n publi shing - threaten s to imm en se accomp lishments of this paragon of Ge nera l Gordo n, and he quotes, tellin gly,
of a proj ected two- volum e study, he follo ws derail the narr ative, but the fact s docum ent Victori an willpower. Using the papers held at Gordons com ment on Sta nley 's publi shed
Coo per from his hirth in Burlin gton , New the extrao rdinarily fragile state of the times the Mu see Royal in Brussels, onl y accessibl e acc ount that "these thin gs may he done hut
Jer sey, in 1789, throu gh the publication of and yield a sharply etched portrait of genera - in 2002 , Jeal is the fir st to uncover Stanley 's not adve rtised" . Unfortunately for thi s argu-
The Last of the Mohicans. Thoroughly tional vulnerability. pri vate life. And the private life Stanley took ment , there we re also times when Stanley had
researched and scrupulously docum ent ed , Cooper's fiction registers the imp act such troubl e to cam oufl age is the key to to suppress dama ging inform ation, most nota-
Franklin's biograph y will satisfy scholarly of that ec onomic turm oil. His novels, as Jea!' s defence of him . bly durin g the piratical farce of the Emin
audiences and serve as the definiti ve acco unt Franklin enables us to und erstand, rec ord Born John Ro wland s, in 1840 or 184 1, Pasha rescue mission.
of Coo per's life for the foreseeabl e futur e. with remarkable se nsitivi ty the seismic shift Stanl ey was the illegitim ate son of at least After Go rdons death at Khartoum in 1885,
By cas ting Co oper as a represent ative fro m cl assical to liberal Republicani sm . In two possibl e fathers and of Eliza beth Parr y, a public opinion dem anded that "E min Pasha" ,
figure of his age , Fra nklin enha nces the inter- retelling Am erican histor y as a series of maid who we nt on to have four more illegiti- one of his pro vincial gove rnors, should be
es t of hi s subje ct. He takes appro priate notic e success ive displ acem ent s, James Fen imore mate children . His matern al grandfather, his "rescued" . In fact, this Ge rman ex -doctor
of Cooper's role as a maker of myth s and Coope r see ks anchorage in a civil soc iety that fir st guardian, died in his sixth yea r, and he masqueradin g as a Turk was in no danger
originator of genres , but the co ntext that most chec ks the power of both gove rnment and was placed in the St Asap h Workhouse. He and had no wish to return home: his Turkish
concern s Franklin is eco nomic. The long the mob. Wa yne Fra nkliu's biograph y makes left at fift een and foun d his way via Liver- mistress, aba ndo ned in Ge rmany ten yea rs
march from a property- to a market-b ased the strugg le compelling and resonant. pool to New Orl eans. He took the nam e earlier, was suing him. The Prime Mi nister,

TLS DECEM BER 2 1 & 28 2007

16 B IOG RAP HY

Lord Sali sbury , was unimpressed, but a pri- eas t. At Lin yanti , the y had ivor y for sale, and and , more important , to reco gnize a diver-
vate expediti on , led by Stanl ey and fin anced they needed guns to prot ect them sel ves gence of inter ests. But in this book , Afric ans
by "philanthropists", was org aniz ed . When aga inst Mzilikazi' s Nde bele, their nearest rarely have mot ives. They are mostly faithful
King Leopold insisted it should proc eed by and most recent enemy . When Livingstone ret ainers or aboriginal savages . Or worse .
way of the Congo, but then failed to provide spoke of missionary settleme nt and trade, the The word "cannibal" does not featur e in
the promi sed river steamers , Stanley was idea appea led at seve ra l levels. Livingstone ' s Jeal' s index but cann iba ls are round eve ry
forc ed to divide his expedition. The behav- wife, Mary, was the daughter of Rob ert corn er in the text. M iramb os follo wers are
iour of the " Rear Column" , left at Yambu ya Moffat , who was known to have intlu enc e at cannibals, Manyem a is "cannibal country" ,
und er Major Bartt elot to organiz e carri ers Mz ilikazi ' s court. The pro spect of trade the Wenya are cannibals, the Kumu are canni -
and protect the stores to be brou ght upriver with the coa st, of access to firearms, clinched bals, the Nga la are cannib als, the Soko are
from Stanley Pool, could not be made public. matters. Seleketu , Seb itoane' s success or, cannibals, along with others who don 't have
When the allega tions of murder, beatin gs and became the sponsor of Livingstone' s trans- names, ju st nasty habit s. Jeal takes all this at
sexual abuse by men handp icked by Stanl ey Afr ican journ ey, equipping him with trade face value, and the idea that Stan ley might
began to leak out , he was made to appear a goods and a team of carr iers as he tra velled be lying here, too , or at lea st "pepping up" his
liar - not for his boa sting , but for what he had first to the Atlantic coa st at Luanda, and materi al, doesn't occur to him . Some of tho se
conc ea led. then to the Indian Ocean at Qu elim ane. claims read very oddl y. A passage reading ,
Stanley' s contributions to geographical Without this sponsors hip, and the policies "He see med unaware that Mi rambo' s tactic s
knowledge were und eniabl y substantial. He that dict ated it, the journeys would have been would be to set fire to his ternb es thatch to
was the fir st to circumnavig ate and map Lake impo ssib le. forc e him into the open . His bod y would then
Victori a, settling finall y the debat e about the By the 1870s, discovery was big business be mutilated .. . and eaten by Mir amb os
source of the Nile. He was the first to circum - at Za nzibar, with seve ra l hundr ed Afric an men, mixed with a little rice and goat meat" ,
navigat e and map Lake Tangan yika, pro ving entrepreneurs in the trade. Bo mba y, Chuma, is sourced to Stanley' s own Diaries.
it to be a secondary source of the Co ngo. He Kalulu , Ali Kion gwe, Susi and others, whose It see ms as thou gh Jeal has spent too long
was the fir st to descend the Co ngo, mappin g biographi es are record ed in Donald Simp- with his nineteenth -century explorers and
it fro m Nyangwe to the Atl ant ic coast. Jeal son's Dark Compa nions (1975 ), had made read far too little else. A book publi shed in
complains that we no longer value such feats. numerou s journeys of exploration. Living- 2007 that describ es one Afric an as "fine-
But it' s possib le to admire them while shift- stone's son, Tom , said of the lead er of his Henry Morton Sta nley featur ed" and another as "dandified" is all
ing the per specti ve a little, and acknowledg- father ' s final journey, "S usi's geographical too redol ent of its sources . Jeal has con sult ed
ing that men like Stanle y and Livingston e kno wledge is so mething wonderful", and In Nove mber 1883, back in the Congo as Norm an Benn ett' s Mirambo of Tanzania
could not work alone. Horace Wailer, who edited the Last Journ als, King Leop old ' s age nt, he was faced with (1971 ), which is prob ably respon sibl e for the
When Livingstone reach ed Linyanti in agreed that Su si and Chuma were "actual the resu lt of his handiwork. A little above more sympathetic portrayal of Mirambo than
May 1853, in what is now the Ca privi Strip , geog raphers of no me an attainments" . It does Stanley Pool , "an area somew hat larger than of any other Afri can figur e of note. But such
he met the Kolo lo Chief Sebitoane. The not diminish the achieve me nt of men like the whole of Ireland" had been devastated by basic texts as the Cambridge Histo ry oj
Kololo had been driven from their homel and Stanley to emphas ize their utter depend enc e Nyangwe -base d slavers, and ten s of thou - Africa (Volume Five, 1976, and Volume Six,
by the rise of the Z ulu Empire in the south- on such guides, guards and interp reters sa nds killed or captur ed . Jeal comment s that 1985) or John Iliffes magisterial A Modern
Stan ley was now faced "with the practic al History of Tanganyika ( 1979) pass Jeal by
realiti es with which Leopold had long been completely. Thi s mean s that Stanl ey' s
grappl ing". Hitherto, he had been a free- accounts of "Darkest Afric a" are not tested
trad er. Onl y if the Congo becam e a colony crit icall y aga inst any other materials whatso-
would the kin g have authority to ex pel the eve r, least of all anything writt en from an
T HE BO O K OF EBE NEZER LE PAGE Afr icani st' s per spect ive.
slave rs . So Stan ley signed up to the "Free
by G. B. Edwards State" holoc au st, in which an estimated 10 When in October 1876, Stan ley left
Introduction by John Fowles million Congolese peri shed . Nyangwe to begin his descent of the Lualaba
". . . a near-for go tt en classic of post-coloni al fiction-yet it How should such a history be written? River, he was confronted by peop les deter-
comes , no t fro m some far trop ical sho re, bu t fro m an old Jeal' s tone of pa ssion ate vindication see ms mined not to let him pa ss. Thi s was how Afri-
man writing in the 1970s about his native Guernsey. .. . All wholly inappropriate. He has rep laced a ruth- can societies - tho se "cannibal" Wenya and
hon our to the New York Review imprint for restoring him less Stanley with a brave, gullible, menda- Soko and Kumu, with their pit traps and poi-
cious fi gure , w ho felt occa siona l mi sgi vin g s. so ne d ar rows - tr ied to limit th e ra va ge s of
to his obstreperous glory." - The Independent (UK)
Stanley may have shot fewer Afric an s than the slave trad e. It was only in alliance with
Paperback' £10.99 /$ 16.95 he claimed ; tho se treaties wer e prob ably Tippu Tip, the biggest trader of them all, who
forged ; and the Co ngo's worst atrocit ies furni shed him with 140 men arme d with gun s
T HE NEW YORK STO RIES OF occurred after Leopold had dispen sed with and a furth er seve nty spear-bearers, that he
ED ITH W HA RTO N his services . But the event s had their own was able to proce ed . Jeal record s that Stan ley
Selecte d and with an in troduction by Roxan a Rob in son sava ge logic, to which only Conrad's sea ring found it a "distasteful business to have no
iron y see ms adequ ate. alternati ve but to shoot" his way throu gh.
T hese twent y sto ries of the city, w ritte n over the course of
W ha rto n's career, show the growt h of an Am erican m aster
and en riches our understandin g of the central the mes of
her wo rk. Snowman
Paperback' £ 10.99 /$ 16.95

I'll last all night -

SU NFLOWER
brea st pockets of cold on my hard heart ,
by Gyula Knidy
con sub stant ial, at the full .
Introduction by John Lukacs . Translated by John Batki To morro w, my parked anatomy will slump,
"[Knidy's] literary power and greatnessare almost past compre- my crystal nerves run out, my soul
hension Few in world literatur e could so vivify the mythi cal be j uice on the ground.
in reality W ith a few pencil strokes he draws apocalyptic
scenes about sex, flesh , human cruelty and hopel essness." I' ll last one night -
-c-Sandor Ma rai to answe r the round, questionl ess moon ,
unev entful, at the full.
Paperback ' £8.99/ $14.00 To morro w, its perfect unozoned coo l
NEW YORK REVIEW B O O K S will glaz e across my biting co at
GIlD CLASS ICS
that water s the ground.

Available from booksellers and www.nyrb.com

Sign up for our free e-naoslen er at www.ny rb.com ANG ELA L EIGHTON

TLS D E C EM B E R 2 1 & 28 2 0 07
 17

TLS New Year quiz

Readers are invited to supply the answers to the ques tions below, and to send them to a) "ate an aw ful pie" at Sheffi eld Stati on ? " instructed in all languages, living and
reac h us by January 16. Ent ries should be add ressed to " TLS New Year quiz" , Times Hou se, b) sa id to a blacksmith " I' m sorry to say, dead" ?
1 Pennin gton Street, Lond on E9 8 1BS. A prize of £50 in book tokens and a Foyl es "goody I' ve eat yo ur pie" ? b) was "able to write simultaneously / in three
bag ", will be awa rded to the fi rst co rrect entry opene d on that date, or f ailin g that the most c) plann ed to send a rop e ladd er in a pie, langu ages - / English, Germ an and French"?
nea rly cor rect. Second and third prizes (of a £3 0 and £20 book token, respectively, and a adding "And I' ve eat worse pies"? c) at Port Said , was offered "indecent post-
d) "bought a meat pie at a coffee-stall" in card s in sev entee n lan gu ages" ?
Foyl es "goody bag " ) will also be awarded. Overseas winne rs will receive a cas h equi valent
London, whil e her hu sband was sea rching for d) said to her employer " I shall talk French
in lieu of the book token. The solution, and the nam es of the winners, will be published in the
the Pie-wi es in Brazil ? four days of the wee k and Ru ssian in the
TLS ofJanuary 28. Preference will be show n to entr ies comp iled without use of the intern et. e) cooked her hu sband a pie cont ainin g his remaining three" ?
The qu iz has been se t f or the TLS by Tony Lurcock of Oxford. own belt ? e) "Several lan gua ge s did understand / But
now lay sick and speechless on his pillow" ?
1 Striking openings. Of which works? b) had seve n stars in her hair? 14 Who
c) was follo wed by seven bloodhounds? 18 Who is echo ing the Scotti sh Play?
a) Tu sh! d) sold onl y seve n copi es of hi s treati se ? a) fini shed his autobiogr aph y at thirt y-fi ve,
b) G r-r-r e) meditated on "Time ' s ruin s and the "because there see med to me a symbolic sig- a) - Wh en did we three last meet ?
c) PFF FRRRUMMMP. Seve n Law s" ? nific anc e in havin g reach ed the exa ct half- - Let us not spe ak.
d) BRRRRRRRlIllIlIIIIIlIIlIllIlNNG! way point in threescor e years and ten" ? b) Chri stina paused aga in. " Untimely
e) "SHIT," sa id Capta in Detterling. 8 Who publi shed under the se pe n names? b) wrote "Oft in Danger and alive / We are ripp ed" was hor ribl e. Quit e di sgu stin g, in
com e to thirt y-fi ve" ? fact. Like the whole busine ss of childbirth.
2 An swer briefl y (with so urce) the a) Edward Easterw ay c) said of who m that she "has been thirt y- c) M y days are in the ye llow leaf; / The
follo win g poetic qu estion s: b) Jo seph Kell five ever since she arrived at the age of fort y, flow ers and fruit s of Lo ve are go ne.
c) "The Hypochondriack" which was man y yea rs ago no w" ? d) Ever yone enq uires after you - and
a) Is the night chill y and dark ? d) Acton Bell d) decl ared that "thirty-five has nothing to everyone desires their rem embrances to you.
b) Wh y has not Man a microscopic eye? e) Qu evedo Redi vivu s do with matrimony" ? You mu st get we ll Tom then I shall feel
c) Th e mo st unu sual thin g I ever stole? e) "thunder' d on / to die at thirty-fi ve in " Whole and ge nera l as the ca sing Air ".
d) "W ho knocks?" 9 Pond s. Wh o Bab ylon " ? e) Lik e a tale of little mea ning tho' the
e) Wh ere are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzi e and word s are stro ng.
Edith? a) wrote about a pond with a surface area 15 Which literary works are set in
of only six sq uar e feet ? 19 In which work s do the follo win g app ear ?
3 Thr ee sisters. Found in which works? b) wrote "The pond was my well read y a) Coketow n?
du g. For four month s in the year its water is b) Cullerne? a) Mr Bunting
a) Elizabeth, Ann e and Mary as cold as it is pur e at all tim es"? c) Chandra pore? b) Bach elor Bowring
b) Mirand a, Perd e and Cordelia c) sa id " I am managing to ex ist in a wilde r- d) Ca rshall? c) Mr Bantling
c) Ginn y, Ro se and Ca roline ness but I cann ot drink from a pond" ? e) Grover ' s Corne rs? d) Mr Bowling
d) "The eldest is eleven; / The second and d) used to "collect the passing village rs e) Mr Belling
the third nin e and some five." and kick them in the pond" ? 16 For which famou s book s were these the
e) Elsie, Lacie and T illie e) visited Mortimer' s Pond, Dor set , after reject ed titles? 20 Of which novels are these the final sen-
den yin g any acquaintanc e with his form er tenc es?
4 Books. Who employe r? a) "Too Late Beloved"
b) "The Gentleman Caller" a) "The Herr Doktor doe s not kno w about
a) claim ed , poetic ally, that the bod y was 10 Who died as a result of c) "First Impr ession s" peopl es."
love' s book ? d) "The Last M an in Europe b) And , poor boob y, he was ban g right.
b) ob stin ately upheld that "you don't find a) the sound of bell s? e) "Man in a Rage" c) "He was always such a perfect gentl e-
eve ry thing in book s" ? b) bein g kick ed in the testicles by a m an."
c) had a librar y which "contains not any giraffe? 17 Poly glot s. Who d) "... For you was a good man , and did
mod ern book " ? c) chestnut blight? good thin gs."
d) died , and "books fell ov er him in a d) being carri ed out to sea by a kite ? a) und ertook that his charges would be e) Of such is the Kingd om of Heaven.
showe r"? e) an accide nt with a buzz-saw ?
e) was astonished that his COU SIn s hu s-
band had been upset by a book? 11 Who was blind and

5 Who ow ned or rod e a hor se called

a) Gr yngolet?
a) kept chic ken as pet s?
b) capt ained a ship?
c) was addresse d by his monarch as " Blind
Read the TLS
b) Hark away ?
c) Ca pilet?
d) Me srour?
C upid"?
d) was trampled to death by a hor se?
e) watched a television programme about
guided tour to
e) Th e Pie?

6 Whi ch fictional femal es wrot e these books,

cath edrals?

12 Who declined to marry , or be romantically

'A Christmas
and in wh at novel s do they occur?

a) Stor ies of Grea t M en, taken from

invol ved with,

a) " a punk " ?

Carol'.
Plut ar ch b) "a slack-twisted slim-looking Maphro-
b) The Transfi gu ration ofthe Commonplace tite fool " ? Why did Scrooge become a miser?
c) The Wonder of England c) "a skinny old hen with a brood of Buff
d) My Sa ucy Bark Orpingtons" ?
Did Dickens rush his story?
e) Henry James and the Ambi gu ities of d) "a Hott entot Venu s" ?
Dialo gu e e) a man who "wo uldn' t play tenni s" with Visit www.the-tls.co.uk to share your
her brother? views on Will Eaves's take on one of
7 Who the great festive classics.
The leading paper ill the
13 Pies. Wh o world/or literary culture
a) insisted ob stinately that "we are seve n"?

TLS D E C EMB ER 2 1 & 28 2 0 0 7

18

Louis and the darlings

Recently discovered letters from Louis MacNeice to two "ladies of
his life " reveal a new pattern in his love s and in his poems
It was a handsome house with thick walls. The JO N STALLWORTHY ances in Mac Neice ' s poetry, they had ga th- murmurs remin d us that (in "Autobio-
window s on the west side looked towar ds ered shadows from the ce metery : we see gra phy" ) "My moth er wore a ye llow dress; /
Co nnemara , Mayo and the Sea . Those to the centred o n the gar de n rather than the hou se. them first in a poem or iginally ca lled "Remi- Ge ntly, ge ntly, ge ntleness". Th e ge ntle
south scanned Dorset, The Downs and Mar l- Another "lady of his life" , whom Hedli does niscences of Childhoo d" : murmurs of surrogate mother-co mfort are
borough - the windows to the nort h over- not ment ion , was his moth er, and he wo uld Trains came threading quietly through my succeeded by a silent " shifting epitaph" of
looked Iceland and those to the east, India. later rememb er her "walking up and down dozing childhood, smoke, as one after anoth er the trains see m to
The front door was wide and always open the bottom path of the ga rde n, the path Gentle murmurs nosing thro ugh a summer follo w her underground, and the motherless
. . Upstairs there were two rooms, the first, behind the hed ge that was alw ays in shadow , quietude, ch ild com es to bitt er aw areness: "(For now
rat her bare, received the casual lady encounter talkin g to my sister and wee ping". Wh atever Drawing in and out, in and out, their smoky all thin gs are there that all we re here once )" .
or the tentative relationship of short duration. the actual circ umstances of Mr s Mac Neice' s ribbon s, Rememb erin g how the shipya rd siren would
The second room contained paintings, flow- dep artur e (to a ment al hom e) in Au gu st 191 3, Parting now and then, and launch ing wa ken him at dawn , the poet gives it a "steel
ers , a gra nd piano, and was elegan tly furnis hed it is clear that her son has imagin ativel y full-rigged galleons bosom " , perhaps ass ociated subconsc ious ly
- there, the five ladies of his life lingered , some ord ered tho se eve nts to conform to bibli cal And scrolls of smoke that hung in a shifting with the harsh Ulster nann y who ra n the
more than others. The first, a young girl "with paradi gm s - a deject ed woma n abo ut to be epitaph. hou sehold after hi s mother left.
whom [he] shared an idyll five years long". ejec ted from a ga rde n, and another wo man Then distantly the noise declined like The term s in which Ma cNeice takes leave
Through her he finally escaped from the Angli- wee ping beside a tomb in another ga rde n: a descending graph, of his moth er wo uld be repeated in leave-
can church background of his father. The next Ge nesis 3 confl ated with St John 20 and with Sliding downhill gently to the bottom of the takin gs from oth er loved wo me n ove r the
four all had worlds of their very own, a painter. the psalmi st ' s "walk throu gh the valley of the distance yea rs that followed : the voice of the sire n,
a writer, a singer to whom he was married for shadow of death " . (For now all things are there that all were intim ation s of death and di saster , somet imes
eig hteen year s and a talented actress. As her son's poem "Autobiography" co n- here once) ; deferr ed by slee p. The first, his farewell to
Ove r the lintel of that door was written tinu es the story : And so we hardly noticed when that metal Mary, within wee ks of their divor ce in I931i,
Love, Loya lty, Loneliness and Disill usion. When I was five the black dreams came; murmur came . is proph esied
On September 3rd 1963, with the words Nothing after was qu ite the same. But it brought us assurance and comfort all by ever y evil iron
"Am I supposed to be dying?", he quietly the same, Siren and what it tells:
closed the door of the house he had built. Come back early or never come. And in the early night they soothed us to sleep, The earth compels,
And the chain of the rolling wheels bound We are dying, Egypt, dying.
hat is fro m "The Hou se that Loui s The dark was talking to the dead; Though he and Mary were still callin g

T
us in deep
Built " , a remar ka ble distill ation of The lamp was dark beside my bed. Till all was broken by that menace from eac h other "Darling" in their lette rs,
Lo uis M acNeices life by his We kno w from The Strings Are False who the sea, MacNeice was soon in love with Na ncy
second wife, Hedli (nee Andersen ), "was talk ing to the dead" : "W hen I was in The steel-bosomed siren calling bitterly. Co ldstrea m and she with him. Th ey travelled
"the singer to who m he was ma rried for eig ht- bed I could hear [my father' s] vo ice below in Writt en in 1926 , thi s offers a map of the to the Western Isles togeth er , she illu strating
ee n years" . "The five ladies of his life" are the study - and I knew that he was alone - my thic terr ain of MacNeice country that was his book I Crossed the Min ch , he writing her
his first wife, M ary, of the five- year idyll , intonin g away, communing with Go d. And to rem ain esse ntially unchanged for the rest a love poem , "Leaving Barra" . In Au gu st
Na ncy Co ldstrea m the paint er, Elea nor Clark because of his co nspiracy with God I was of his life. The train s that pass from the high 1938 , he began what wo uld pro ve to be his
the writer, Hedli herself, and Mary Wimbush afra id of him" . Beyond the Carrickferg us gro und to the west - from garde n to cem etery masterpiece , Autumn Journal, opening its
the actress. In writing M acNeices bio graph y, Rectory ga rde n lay a ce metery and, beyond - on their way to the low gro und by the sea , fourth sec tion with a lyrical aubade :
I had acce ss to man y of Mary Ma cNeices that, a railway emba nkme nt along which, have unmi stakabl y feminine ass oc iations: Septem ber has come , it is hers
letter s to him ; many of Elea nors to him and several tim es a da y, ran a train . By the tim e " thread ing qui etl y .. . . Dr awin g in and out, Whose vitality leaps in the autumn ,
his to her; many of his to Hedli; but none of train s made the first of their man y appea r- in and out , their smoky ribbons" . Th eir ge ntle Whose nature prefers
those bet ween him and Na ncy , or him and Tree s without leaves and a fire in the fireplace;
M ary Wimbush, see med to have surv ived . So I give her this month and the next
"Seemed" because - happil y in this, which Though the whole of my year should be hers
has been Ma cNe ice 's centenar y yea r - man y who has rendered already
of his lett ers to Nancy and perhaps all of So many of its days intolerable or perplexed
those to Mary Wimbush have been disco v- But so many more so happ y . .
ere d and bou ght by the Bodl eian Libr ary. We have no way of kno wi ng whe n
Th ey shed fresh and revealin g light on his life MacN eic e saw how the person al them e
and writing between autumn 1938 and 1942 , would parallel the public one ; the end of
and bet ween May 1960 and his death three the love affair presagin g the end of Peace.
yea rs later. A ll of "the five ladies of his life" Ce rtainly it was before Februa ry 2, 1939,
- along with an unid entifi ed transient, Eileen when he sent the completed typ escript to
- featu re in these new lett ers and, readin g T . S. Eliot at Fa ber and Faber, and it was
them , I see a pattern in his life, his loves and prob abl y before Christmas that he kn ew -
his poem s I had not see n before. eve n if he had not yet writte n - that "The
"The book of life begin s in a garden", said lad y is gone who stood in the way so lon g, /
Oscar Wild e, and that is where it began for The hypn osis is ove r and no one / Ca lls
Loui s MacNeice. Wh en he was three and a enco re to the so ng" . Eve ntua lly he takes his
half , his father moved to Ca rrickferg us leave of Nancy
Rect or y, a mil e or so inl and fro m Belfast . . . whose eyes are blue, whose ways are foam ,
Lou gh ; and in Macn eices unfini shed auto- Sleep quiet and smiling and do not hanker
biograph y The Strings A re False, we are told For a perfection that can never come.
that thi s hou se " was in a ga rde n" . The ph rase Sleep, the past, and wake, the future,
is revealin g in that it seems to asc ribe priorit y And walk out promptly through the open door;
to the ga rde n rather than the hou se. Writ ing But you, my coward doub ts, may go on
to his father in 1914 or 1915, age d seve n or sleeping,
eight, he tell s him "I rea d so me Ge nesis" , and You need not wake agai n - not any more.
thi s and oth er letter s of that period sugge st In Decemb er 1938, Loui s him self
that the young poet 's rich fantasy life was "walk[ed] out promptl y throu gh the open

TLS DEC EMBER 2 1 & 28 20 07

 COMMENTARY 19

door" , travellin g to Barcelon a, where he & we took on exactly where we left off as if the
wro te the seco nd Spani sh section of Autumn last 9 months hadn't existed. She does repre-
Journal only week s before the cit y fell to sent some thing to me I' ve never met anywhere
Franco ' s force s. Then, in M arch 1939 , he else & which I find quite overwhelmingly excit-
boarded the Queen Mary for Am erica. There, ing. Not that I suppose it "leads anywhere" in
at a Partisan Review party, he met Eleanor the ordin ary sense. I expect there's no future to
Clark, a tw ent y-five-year-old short-story it & in the meantim e I don' t want to think
writer, with whom he fell in love at fir st sight about the future; I think perhap s eve ryone
or soon after. She accompanied him to the messes themsel ves up by always regarding rela-
sa me Queen Mary he reluctantl y reboarded tionships as a process or in terms of duration
in the third week of April. Cross ing the . .. . Darlin g, you are not to be angry with me.
Atl antic , he con soled him self for their separa- In the long (probably not so long) run I stand to
tion by "talking" to her in a twenty-four-page be almost unbearably unhappy from all this;
lett er. Thi s insists that eve n now I am terribl y troubled when I am not
The chief things are (a) that I love you & (b) with her. And it is not a matter of compa rison,
that you have got to love me & (c) that if (a) & darling, or of preferring her to you; it is ju st
(b) are established, «a) is anyway) things will that she gives me something I have always
be lovely & there is nothing really - except in needed , a uniqu e kind of happ iness
the short run - to be sad about. My love, I will Darling, you know I love you a very great deal
talk about some oth er things in letters besides & there fore you are to be imagi native & und er-
you and & me (in case that is boring you) but Louis MacNeice (1938) by stand about it. I am not being romantically
ju st at the mom ent it is so on my brain - or Nancy Coldstream escapist: I may have been [on] the first two Mary Wimbush
heart - that you are really almost virginal (this occas ions I met her last year but, however the
has nothin g to do with how many times you Wher e wo me n we re concerned , Louis w a s thing originated, it has turned out to be some- "Am still in the air about the summe r. If I am
have slept with peopl e; nor of course is it an the least secretive of men . Nancy ev ide ntly thing so real that it makes most things I have coming back , I want to go so mew here with E.
insult) & that therefore we were probably quite knew of his affa ir with Eileen, but ma y have done or known (not you, darlin g, & not a cer- first". Such hop es came to nothing. Aft er
right not to sleep together ju st now because been surprised when his letter continued: tain fraction of my poetry) just a dithering almost four months of silence, he wrote from
that makes it (a) much more delicate but (b) Last night I couldn' t go to sleep & , thinking of around the fringes. I shall probably see her a New Hamp shir e ho spit al:
much fuller of possibiliti es; when we have a lot you a lot, wrote you a pencil letter in bed but very little once I go to Cornell [where he had You will be amused to hear that I am com ing
of time, it will all evolve very naturally and this morning I found it was (a) quite illegible, taken a lectureship], suppose I shall anaesthe- back to England after all - by order of the
beautifully. All the same I feel very Western (b) shockingly schoolgirlish, and (c) possibly tize myself with work . . . Briti sh gove rnment. I am really rather pleased
Wind about it. And you MUST COME, dar- immoral, so I burn ed it. The chief point of it He was right about Corne ll, where teaching at having the onus of choice remo ved from me.
ling. There shall I be, waiting in the benighted however - which was how devoted to you I kept him busy - too bu sy to spend more than Shall probably sail sometime in September but
old World, & if you don't come, I shall just am, darling - I should like to endorse here & the occa sional wee kend with Eleanor in New it depend s on how I co nvalesce . Have been in
give up the affectio ns & turn Parisia n. One of now in the co ld light of reason . York. At the end of February , he told Nanc y: the hospital a month followi ng an operation for
the first things I shall do in London is clear up Th e newl y discovered lett ers to Na ncy I'm not sure that half the point of our relation - acute appendicitis & periton itis; they all
the situation with my married friend. Of touch on man y topic s of interest, but I ship isn' t its irregularity. I miss her a lot up expecte d me to die when I came in. After the
course , I have been clearing it up for some time shall confine myse lf to what they tell of his here, but I hardly pine at all; because it seems war I think I shall migrate here for good -
- negatively, by explaining that I am no longer relation ship s with "the ladies of his life" - inevitable, like the plan ets every so often unless there is a socia l revolu tion in England
in love with her - but I had better now, I think, fir st, that with his ex -wife, Mar y. In Decem- reappearing. (Planet in Greek - did you know - which makes eve rything new. I have got v.
make it quite positive that I am definit ely orien- ber 193 9, he compl ains that she "keeps writ- means "wa nderer".) There is no scramble attached to this country & I like it being so big.
tated elsew here . . . ing letters - one long moan afte r another" . about it at all, so that inquiri es about "love- E. & I still intend to try to make a go of it when
With thi s lett er he enclosed the po em "Since I took up with [her] in 1928" , he tell s life" see m almost - very surprisingly, I admit - the mess is over . ... I am going to a v. rural
"Meeting Point ", writte n the follo win g day. Nancy (to whom it might not have been irrelevant. Techni cally we have crosse d the spot to conva lesce when I get out of here.
Back in "the beni ght ed Old Wo rld " , he new s), "most of my tim e has been taken up border, but that is about all. The assumption Th e "rural spot" was the Connecticut
was depressed by eve nts on both the priv ate with women." " It is quit e true", he says in the being that there is infini te time. hom e of Eleanor' s moth er, where Loui s too k
and the public fronts. Quarrelling with his sa me letter , "that I am not adeq uate ly pater- (By "technica lly we have cro ssed the bord er" his leave of anoth er love, with the po em
" m arrie d fri end" (N ancy w as still ma rri ed to nal. But how ca n one be adequately paternal Ma c Neice seems to ha ve m eant th at he and "Cradle Song". A month later, in a last
the painter William Co lds tream), thou gh not when on e is alw ays feelin g the lack of affec- Ele anor had mad e love [see Peter McDon- lett er to Eleanor from America, he wro te:
over Elea nor, he se nt her a cop y of Au tumn tion oneself?" Mary, it would seem, had not aid' s essay which foll ows thi s articl e] .) There "perhaps ... we ought to call it a da y. You
Journ al by post. She read its prophec y of the lost her affe ction for him. He tell s Na ncy, in was not " infi nite time" , ho we ver. T he cl aims see , darling, you don't app ear to need the
end of their public and pri vate wor lds, in March, of a weekend shortly to be spent with of Bedford College and his son could not be sort of intimate relationship which I need
tear s, on the London Tube . Their quarrel , Mary "w hich will be rath er a stra in; she infinitely deferr ed . In April, he tell s Na ncy: so badl y" . Loui s returned to London du ring
ho we ver , was soon for gott en and they wro te me a letter all abo ut her views on sex the Blitz , where, "with bomb s still fallin g" ,
resum ed a loving fri end ship , arg uably the the other day". In February 1940 , he wro te to he wro te to two "darlings" - Elea nor and
closest and mo st lon g-l astin g of Loui s ' s life. Nancy: Nanc y - tellin g each that he had marri ed
Mean whil e, as Elea nor showed no sign of Darling, lt was lovely getting your two letters Hedli. Th at marriage end ed , eightee n
coming to him , he began to plan a return to this morning .... By the same post . . . I got a yea rs later, not with a lyrical leavetakin g
her. In Jun e he told her , " I have blackm ail ed very astonishing letter from Eileen (the girl in (perhaps because, in the langu age of the tim e,
myoid ladi es [at Bedford College, where he Dublin). You know she is practically unedu- the poet was "the guilty part y" ), but with
was lecturing] into giving me a yea r's leave cated (only having been through an Irish a poem of deli ght ed reawakenin g, call ed "All
of abse nce" . Eve n so, troubled by the conve nt if you kno w what that means) but this Over Again". Written for the partn er of a
thou ght of leaving his bab y son with the letter, quite unlik e her usual matter-o f- brief encounter in Cape To wn, thi s became
bo y' s grandparents in Belfast, he applied for factness , was all moralising plus mysticism & the fin al poem of Solstices, a coll ection
the Ch air of Eng lish Literature at Trinity Col- quo tations fro m De Quincey etc. Perfectly dedi cat ed to M ar y Wimbush : " ... age iam
lege, Dublin ; hoping, perhaps, that if he genuine & rather upsetting. She is taking me as meorum fini s amorurn" [com e no w, last of
were success ful, Elea nor might be per- an ep isode. my loves].
suade d to j oin him. More imp ort ant - to us and to Mac Neic e - The ecs tatic voic e of the newl y disco vered
One can sense his reli ef when the Dublin is what the se lett ers to Nancy tell us of lett ers to Loui s' s last Mar y is that of "A ll
electors resolved the problem for him . On Eleanor. "America", he would later write, Over Again". A sentence in one of them con-
Decemb er 9, he wro te: "for peopl e in the Briti sh Isles is a legend. " tain s the seed of another poem : "To see yo u
Darling Nancy, Here I am again in Dublin. I Half way across the Atlantic aga in, in January again will be like the fir st day of cre ation " .
came down here - paradoxically - as soon as I 1940 , he reports that Eleanor "has rather Thi s would flower into the first writte n for
heard I hadn't got the job at T.eD. (it went to a become a myth. It is quit e possibl e I shall re- (a nd, obliq uely, about) Mar y, "Apple Blo s-
nice but very staid old thing from Belfast). So I fall in love with her on meetin g her & I can 't som" , which ends : "For the last blo ssom is
am now due for America. I have been discuss- of course do anything either to effect thi s or the first blossom I And the first blossom
ing it all afternoon with my Irish friend [Eileen] prevent it." A fortni ght later, he wro te: is the best blo ssom I And whe n from Ede n we
who thinks America will be the end of me. The mom ent I saw E. she cease d to be a myth Mary MacNeice and Betsy take our way I Th e morning after is the fir st

TLS DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 20 07
20 COMMENTA R Y

day" . There was to be no leave-taking po em Houlih an by Yeat s, whose early poem s he dis- Goo d-bye yo ur hen s runnin g in and out of the Lou is' s life to whom he was introduced in a
for M ary, but the last day becom es a domi - co vered - appro priately in the "green" West white hou se gree n grave.
nant theme of the last poem s, the dre amlike of Ireland - when he was seventee n. Ten You r absent- mind ed goa ts along the road, yo ur
"Charon" and the MacNeicean version of Ca t- yea rs later, he tried to take lea ve of her with black cows This is an edited version of the opening
ullus' "Ave atque va le", "The Introduction" : his " Valediction" : Y our grey ho unds and yo ur hu nters address at the MacNeice Centenary Confer-
"They we re introd uced in a gree n grave" . I will exorcise my blood beautifully bred ence in Belfast earlier this year. Extracts
Hedl i, in "The Hou se that Loui s Built " , And not to have my baby-clothes my shroud Your dru ms and yo ur dolled -up virg ins and fro m Louis Mactveice 's letters to Nancy
overlooked two of his lad ies: fir st, his moth er I will ac quire an attitude not yo urs yo ur igno rant dead . (Coldstream) Spender and Mary Wimbush
and, finally , one with whom she wou ld for- And becom e as one of your holid ay visitors, He tried to take leave of Kath leen-n i- appear with the pe rmiss ion of the Estate
ever be ass oc iated in his imagination . He was And however ofte n I may co me Hou lihan, but she would never let him go. of Louis MacNeice. © The Esta te of Louis
almos t certa inly introduced to Kathl een -ni- Farewell, my country, and in perpetuum [.. .. ] M ary Wimbush was not the onl y lad y in MacNeice.

--------------------------~.--------------------------

of answer is kno wn to the spea ke r: it will be

From cradle to grave the mo ment for sex ual love . Another kind of
answe r, of eq ual importance in the poem , is
kno wn as well to "The wa tchers on the wa ll",
who can see thin gs beyond the sleeping
E lean o r 's h orizon s , such as " w h at thi s war is
MacNeice, EleanorClark and 'the pity of it all' going to do to Eng land and Ireland as I kno w
them & to particu lar peop le whom I kno w
he fin al poem in Loui s Ma cNeice ' s PETER M cDONALD there". This "pity" is clearl y some thing apart

T
to have so man y politi cal mean ings and rami-
co llection Plant and Phantom (1941 ) fication s, is prob abl y attributable mor e than from the feeling that Elea nor 's refu sal to
is the lyric, "C radle Son g" : into "The pity of it all", but thi s do esn 't qu ite anythin g else to his need to see Elea nor again beco me Lo uis' s lover "is a grea t pity" .
Sleep, my darling, sleep; erase the presenc e of the madd ened Moor. (see the essay by Jon Stallwor thy that pre- "Cradle Son g" is a reveal ing poem , bu ild-
The pity of it all Wh at is mor e, the vo ice in MacN eice ' s poem cedes this one) . By the autumn of 1940 , when ing into its wor kings so man y eleme nts
Is all we compass if is that of a lover addr ess ing a young wo man Mac Neice was recuperating from a serious which are co mplica ted, shadowe d and over-
We watch disaster fall. as leep - as leep on a bed , quit e possib ly - case of perit on itis at Elea nor's par ent s' home laid by oth er parts of MacN eice ' s life, and
Put off your twenty-odd whose innocenc e shades into a kind of igno- in Co nnecticut, the love affair itself was, if oth er part s of life, from which the po et hab itu-
Encu mbere d years and creep ranc e ; like Desdemona, di sco vered on her not cooling, then com ing to term s with the ally dr ew po etic resourc es. The poem ' s voice
Into the only heaven, bed asleep at the beginn ing of the last scene insup erability of ob stacles in its way . Some is aw ake while the obj ect of its address is
The robbers' cave of sleep. of Othello, she see ms una ware of the "cause" of these were decided ly pub lic: the wa r in as leep, and to that ex tent, ge neric con vent ion
that will keep the spea ker (a nd those "watch- Europe, above all, and Loui s' s adult res po nsi- is firm ly in control. But wa kefulness is impor-
The wild grass will whisper, ers o n the wall") so busy. bil ities toward s his infant so n, who m he had tant to M ac Neice , and sleep is figur ed in his
Lights of passing cars But here another (and argu ab ly incompat- left beh ind in Eng land. In love though they work either as something that does not come
Will strea k across yo ur dream s ible) allusion suggests itself. For any poet of were, Loui s and Elea nor qu arr ell ed , partly or some thing that, whe n it com es, bri ngs
And fumble at the stars; MacNeice' s ge neration, "pity" was a word about poli tics. In a long lett er sent to Eleanor nightmares and dr eam s: and the nigh tmares
Life will tap the window wi th a pot ent literary (and literary-political) in May 1940 , Loui s rebuked her for her outnumber the dream s. In the ju venili a, these
O nly too soo n agai n, charge, espec ially when give n its defin ite arti- accusation that he has "an awful lack of anx ieties are mor e stark, and the bed is
Life will have her answer - cle in "the pity" . Thi s deri ves from Wi lfred curiosity about the wor ld". Th e ton e as well ro utinely regard ed as a grave . In Blind
Do not ask her when. Owen ' s draft " Preface" : "My subject is War, as the content of thi s rebuke is imp ort ant : Firewo rks (1929) , the child ' s con sciou sness
and the pity of War. Th e Poetry is in the I was curious abo ut the world & sufferi ng for is who lly unprotected fro m night terror s:
When the winsome bubble pity" . In Oct ob er 1940, mo re than a year into my curiosity about it before yo u were born . "The candle in his white grave-cl othes ,
Shivers, when the bough the Briti sh war with Naz i Ger man y from And if you think the only way "the world" always turn ing his cow led head" ("Candle
Breaks, will be the moment which Ma cNeic e had so far absent ed him self, impin ges on me is throu gh my nerves, yo u are Poem s" ); " I fell in a nightmare do wn
But not here or now. he could not keep Owen from imp ingin g on - I am sorry to say, darling - a fool. When for sudde nly / . .. Mu sic died above my head ,
Sleep and, asleep, forget "the pity of it all" through which Elea nor the last wee k I have been fee ling steam -rollers died in silence" ("Child' s Te rror"); " Yet
Th e watc hers on the wall Clark was sleeping . If "Cradle So ng" allude s go over me all the time, that was n' t j ust nerves; all the time on the wi ndow -pane / Shadow
Awake all night who know to Othello, its voice makes a point of not it was imagining (with my brain & also - if I fingers of the trees / Grope, grope , gro pe
The pity of it all. bein g Oth el los; if it brin gs to bear Owen ' s may be hackneyed for want of a better word - aga in" (" Imperm anent Creative ness"). The
Th e poem had already appea red between "pity", it has also absorbed a kno wled ge of with my heart) what this war is going to do to candl e ligh ts M acNeice to bed, but not to
hard cover s, in Poems 1925- 1940 , pub lished pity' s limitat ion s: "The pity of it all / Is all we England and Ireland as [ know them & to parti- slee p; the nightmare is that of literall y drop-
in the United States at the beginn ing of 1941. compass if / We watch disaster fall" . cular people whom I know there. pin g off, into a limitless vo id; and the wor ld
Th ere, too, it was the fina l po em in the book; MacN eic e himself introduced the critical Mac Neice writes as Clark' s elde r here, and out side the haun ted bed room enters only to
there , too, it was ass igned a dat e of com- com monplace of an " ' impure ' poetr y" , in the pu ts her right abo ut his own relat ion ship to "grope, gro pe, gro pe aga in". In a way, the
po sition ("October, 1940" ); and there it bor e light of which so much of his ow n wor k has the world eve nts whose significa nce is clearl y voice of "Cradle Son g" tries to rend er these
as a subtitle the dedi cation " For Elea nor", subse quently been read ; but readers and com- at issue between the two . There was a second fear s posit ively, as things that can no w be
which in Plant and Phantom is carri ed by the mentator s have app lied this largely to poem s issue lurk ing in thi s qu arr el, though. In the guarded aga inst. Instead of Mac Neice' s
who le boo k (ded icated "To Eleano r Clar k"). which have ob vio us pub lic significance , sa me letter, which is full of recriminations outl andi sh teenage Gothic, now it is ju st
"Cradle Son g" conc entrates its autobiographi- whether for the 1930 s or after. Yet his own about levels of curiosity and the need (or oth- "Life" that wa its to interru pt the slumber; but
cal mean ing in a repeated phra se - "The pity love po etr y, too, is "impure" . The person al erw ise) for a "w or ld view", it is Eleanor 's like earlier grisly figur es, this "Life" is go ing
of it all" - that fuses the atte ntive ness of a eleme nts in these poem s have soa ked up all nature as "sexually inhibited & to some to brin g something to an end - something,
lover with a broader and mor e melancholy kind s of difficult and recalcit rant materi al: ex tent se lf-dece iving" which dra ws out pot enti ally, like love.
kind of wa tchfulness . not as things to be transfigur ed, and not to be Loui s' s har shest rem ark s ("I think ," he co m- The unsleepin g, or slee p-tro ubled, person a
That atte nt iveness is far from uncompli- tran scended, by ass imilating them to the sclf- ments, "it is a great pity"). " Sleep, my dar- in M ac N e ice is o f course on e w ith d eep ro ot s
cat ed . Although "Cradle So ng" operates with awa reness of a transcending poetic personal- ling, sleep", "Cradle Son g" ex horts - and in his life . Much of what we kno w abo ut thi s
a delib erate simplicity of means, "The pity of ity; instead , Mac Neice let s them do their sleeping is, in thi s light, ju st what Elea nor is in his unfini shed autobio gr aph y, pub lished
it all" brings into play matt er not at hom e in wors t. In "C radle Song", "pity" brings both seems determined to do in bed . But the co st after his death as The Strings A re False. Mac-
straightforwa rd regi ster s of love . The imm ed i- pri vate pain and public anxiety to the show, of this, in the serene poem as in the frau ght let- Ne ice see ms to have set him self to write it
ately ob viou s echo (it mayor may not be an Oth ell os stricken cry and Owen ' s deliberate ter , is that Elea nor's " internal reality remains while prep arin g to move to Am eric a, and
allu sion ) is of Othello Act Four, Scene On e, artistic morality. in a sense in the nur ser y" (as he puts it); and much of the writing was prob ab ly don e there,
" .. . but yet the pity of it, lago ; 0 lago , the Elea nor Clark, who m "Cradle Song" the poem sets itself form ally at an angle to the with some on the dan gerou s voyage back at
pit y of it, lago !" . This suggestion cou ld addresses, was the yo ung left-wing American nur sery rh ym e to which it alludes - "R ocka- the end of 1940, and some mor e in the first
hardl y, on the face of thin gs, be more out of wr iter with who m M acNeice had been in bye bab y, on the tree top". " When the bou gh / half of 1941. The book was edited for publi ca-
place: what is the wounded rage of sex ua l love since 1939 (a nd in whose compa ny he Breaks will be the mom ent " , M acNeice tion by E. R. Dodd s, a fellow Ulsterma n
jea lo usy doin g in a lullaby? Tru e, MacNeice felt , as he reported in o ne letter, "timelessly writes, with the emphatic acknow ledge me nt who, as Professor of Greek at Birmingham
takes awa y the stacca to edge from Ot hel los happ y" ). The po et ' s deci sion to go and work that the mom ent will be "not here or now" . Unive rsity in the 1930 s, had employe d Ma c-
repea ted words , smoothing and calm ing them in the USA at the end of 1939, which see med But what will it be the mom ent for ? On e kind Neice and beco me his fr iend and ment or.

T LS D EC EMB E R 2 1 & 28 20 07
 COMMENTARY 21

Dodd s reported that the manu script was callin g upon Othello ushers in the anxieties
given to him for safe keeping (he had since of sex ual j ealou sy and betrayal , but these are
moved to Oxford as regiu s Professor of bein g brou ght to bear on a sex ual nightm are,
Greek) whil e Mac Neice was livin g in Lon- for which Ci rces mena gerie of lovers (goa ts
don , dur ing the nightly attacks of mid-1 941 ; and monk eys?) is the requisite myth:
the author, it appea rs, never retrieved his And as the young man shrinks away , the white
wor k, whether becau se he for got abo ut it or Body beside him vanis hes and leaves
(fa r mor e likely) bec ause he had no wis h to The bed to him and the beasts, while the bitter
cl aim it back. Wh en he did go to sleep, M ac- bright
Ne ice rememb ers, the dream s "got worse and
wor se" : Day creep s under the door and under the eaves
"Oh God, I do not want to have any dreams. If Outside the sparrows yield to a louder bird:
I am goi ng to go to sleep, do not let me have " I told you so, I told you so," it grieves.
any drea ms. And if 1 am going to have drea ms, Fro m "the wro nge d lover" to the young man
do not let me go to sleep, God, please I will do in Circes crowded room , MacNeic e ' s
anything if only You keep me awake." But I images for the sex ual life are shadowed by
always went to sleep all the same. One night I "the pity of it". And thi s "pity" is not enoug h
woke up and yelled, my father came up from - it is, indeed , a part of the probl em. But then
dow nstairs, there was light and his voice, he "Cradle Song" is also a poem in which sex ual
told me nothing would hurt me. I felt quite safe fulfilment is postponed at best. The lover' s
when he had gone but next morni ng Miss Craig voice in the poem, however, ma kes a poi nt of
was very angry; my father had forgotten to go its exper ience of "Life" , and a sex ual histor y
down again to the study and had left the lamp is one part of that ex per ience . The Strings A re
burning there all night. I was a very wicked False builds both sex ual betrayal and pro -
boy and might have burnt the house down. miscuit y into its account of a perso na l life in
In Mac Neice' s recollection , fallin g as leep is which Elea nor Cla rk is to offer the happ y
dan gerou s - not ju st in the sense that it ushers resoluti on.
in bad dream s, but becau se it occas ions In Varieties of Parable, MacNeice, prais-
danger in the real wor ld, a kind of derelicti on ing Bun yan , wro te of how "The plainn ess is
of dut y which might have ca tas tro phic Eleanor CIark like a truth dru g or, putt ing it very differentl y,
con sequ ences. the knife that almost killed the writer will cut
The Strings A re False is an autobiography, Queene, whose wife elo pes after setti ng fire another poem, writte n very shortly before the reader to the bon e" . A relati on between
but it is also partl y a love story . M acNeic e to the hou se, "The whiles her husband ra nne (a nd also at Elea nor's hom e in Connec tic ut), style and hon esty had in fact been intuited by
cast his own life, in 1940 and 1941 , as a with sory haste / To qu ench the flames". The invert s the lullab y ge nre, and is not co mfort- M acNeice long before . Plainn ess like " a truth
ser ies of wo me n lost, to be co ncl uded with person al reson ances here would have eluded ing, but co mfor tless . In "Autobiography", a dru g" or (in a ph rase fro m the poem "The
the story of a wo man found , "someone whom MacNeice' s or iginal audience , but ev ide ntly wa keful child mak es a song out of his own Old Stor y") "a surgeon's knife witho ut an
acc ording to fairy story logic I was bound to they rem ained stro ng for the author. The abando nment in the night ; its refr ain, "Come anaes thetic" does not sugges t much co mfort
meet but according to common sense never" , disru ption of a dom estic env ironment, in back early or never come", is one not of in the matter it conveys, but it also bri ngs into
"A woman who was not a destroyer". The The Strings Ar e False, mark s the en d of a reassur ance, but of wo unded ultim atum . focu s the unsentiment al awarenes s which
lost wo men are Lo uis's moth er, whose going marriage; while the imagined confla grati on The poe m is a lullab y thro wn into reve rse , or M acNeice' s best poe try had alway s culti-
away from hom e and subse quent death ea rly in the Rec tory is the con sequ ence, indirectl y, turn ed inside out. vated. His best love poem s wor k partl y
in his childhood cont ributed largely to his of the abse nce of anoth er wo man, his moth er. When I woke they did not care; becau se of their intern al resistance to the
nightm ares, and his first wife, M ary (nee Th e biographi cal fac ts here are natur all y Nobody, nobody was there. kind s of comfort for which, on a hum an level ,
Ezra), with whom his ow n marri ed life had tan gled, obscure and equivo ca l; but the they wish. This mean s that wor ds (and
ended ca lamitously when, in 1935 , she too co nnec tions made in M acNeice ' s crea tive Com e back ea rly or never come . images), however potent their private assoc i-
left witho ut wa rning. The third wo man, with tran sform ation s of them are both simp ler and ations, are ex pose d in MacNeice' s writing to
who m the book tries to find its happy ending, more di rect. The figur e of Ma cN eice ' s Whe n my silent terror cried the full forc e of the diffi cult , some times hos-
is Elea nor Clark . It was life that refu sed to m othe r is th at of so me one who di sappears Nobody, nobody replied. tile, sometimes indifferent life of which they
give the raw materi als for that kind of ending; mys teriously, not to come back early for her are also a part. " Pity" is o ne such word;
Elean or and M acNeice parted for goo d at the child, and then never to co me back at all; and Com e back ea rly or never come . "Sleep" is another, a wor d Mac Neice wa nts
end of 1940 , and thi s might be one reason that of his first wife is of someone who also The poe m see ms to bite back its own remem- to protect, but can' t quit e, as a talism an of per-
why the MacNeic e of mid-1941 and after had leaves abruptly, abando ning not j ust her hu s- bered pain. This voice does not solicit pit y, sonal comfort. Th e fin al sec tion of Autumn
no wish to return to his unfinished book. band but also their inf ant son. In thi s repeti- and one way that is show n is in its rejection Journal opens with ju st thi s wish:
He presents his ear ly ma rried life (a nd tion of a pattern of loss, it is not illness and of self-pity . Sleep, my body, sleep, my ghost,
ind eed his who le relation ship with Mary) in dea th that enforce the parting but per son al M acNeice ' s poetry tend s, in any case , to Sleep, my parents and grand-parents,
terms of a kind of share d inno cence. The unfulfilment and sex ual infide lity . For the infl ect the wor d "pity" negatively, and oft en And all those I have loved most:
yo ung lovers brave fam ily di sappro val on thirt y-three- year-old author of The Strings towards "self-pity" . In " Valediction" , the visi- One man's cof fin is another' s crad le.
both sides, and inh abit their ow n ro mantic Ar e False, thi s parall el only makes creati ve tor is instruc ted to "leave ten per ce nt of pity / But it wo n' t work , or not so neatl y as thi s;
vignettes in places like Achill Island and sense in so far as it prepares the way for the Unde r yo ur plate for the emigra nt"; in " Letter for one man' s cradl e is the sa me man' s
Pro vence, before settling in a dee ply arriva l of "a wo man who was not a to Graha m and Ann e She par d" , "we .. . feed coffi n. The next line , " Sleep, my past and all
dom estic nest, surro unded by but esse ntially des troyer", who will be neith er moth er nor our brains on backchat and self-pity" , while my sins" similarly kn ows itself doomed to
imp er viou s to the Birmi ngh am of the ea rly domestic part ner, but will ca ll forth from in "Eclogue from Iceland" a vo ice tempts the failure. Mu ch , of cour se, is wished for, and
1930s. Incr easingly, the couple 's com fort- MacNeice his ow n powers of protecti veness listeners to "let yo ur self-pity swell with the pro perl y to be wished for:
able retr eat is figur ed as a hoth ou se, or an and co llaboration; not so meone to roc k his mu sic" . In Autum n Journal, there is a need to Sleep, my fancies and my wishes,
aqu ar ium ; a ll c o m es to an ab ru pt e nd with th e cradle, hut whose cradle, so to spea k, he ca n " abj ure the luxury of se lf-pity" , and in "To Sleep a little and wake strong,
o utbrea k of a fire in the hou se - "Soon there rock ; and not someone in whose co mpa ny he the Publi c" , "We do not need your indul- The same but different and take my blessing -
was a large hole in the floor and the bucket- can retreat from life, but with who m he ca n ge nce, much less yo ur pit y". Anoth er, more A cradle-song.
ful s of water and fragm ent s of cem ent were work to mee t life on real term s. literary, use comes in Ca nto XI of Autumn But thi s cradle song, like others by
fallin g on the head of our landl ad y' s lod ger". But the acknow ledge ment of "fairy story Seque l (1954 ), which con cern s itself with M acNeic e, is voiced for one of the unsleep-
Th e very next morning, Mar y leaves in the logic" alrea dy co ntained the see ds of eve n- ro mantic attachment and loss. Here, the vo ice ing "watchers on the wall" who kno w, amo ng
compan y of her lover, the yo ung Am erican tual disappointment. In Am erica in 1940 , of the Parrot coldl y " Repeats ' I told yo u so, I other thin gs, the truth abo ut lull abies,
stude nt Charles Katzm an. MacNeice co uld still identify the pot enti al told yo u so, I am Prett y / Poll y who knows and abo ut the relation between the crad le and
Is there a co nnection between the fire in for goo d dream s in a love affair, and see the that one peck makes a kiss " ', to be answe red the grave.
the Rectory that did not start, and the fire in possibility of night mare as com ing from by the lines "But what doe s o ne lost hand-
Birmin gh am that did? In the posthumou sly somew here outside the pur el y per son al kerchief make? Th e pity / O f it, Poll Parrot, This is an edited version of the first
published Varieties of Parable, his Cla rk sphe re . "Cradle So ng" mak es its poetic vo ice the pity!", and by the idea of how "the BBC Louis MacNeice Memorial Lecture,
lectures of 1963, MacNeice discu sses the medi ator between the loved one and the wronged lover does himse lf more wro ng / given at Queen's University , Belfast, earlier
Spense r's Malbecco , from The Faerie "watchers on the wa ll / Awake all night" , but Waki ng in Circes roo m" . This unequivocal this year.

TL S DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 20 07
22 COMMENTARY

have always dr eamt of havin g my own A fleetin g thou ght of con vert ing to Islam

I studio, away from my hou se cluttered

with boo ks and mem ori es in the lower
reg ions of Bel size Park , but the dream
FREELANCE again vis ited my mind . Close beh ind came
the thou ght of perm anent revol ution and
ex ile: witho ut Tro tsky and his revoluti on, I
becom es less an d less rea listic eve ry yea r, as Z IN O V Y Z IN I K Suddenly, the van stopped and Mehm et' s wo uldn' t have been here, in Istanbul, looking
Lond on prop ert y prices keep on rising. Th ere men j umped out and ran across the square. for propert y as a literar y device.
is always a possibility, of co urse , that my ex treme ly stro ng Turk ish red tea, which we nt "We are to ca tch some petty criminals" , Tro tsky's island of Biiyiikada in the Sea of
next book will become a best- sell er. In case it straigh t to my head . Mehm et didn 't question M ehm et said. " Boys on bicycles. The thieves M armara is only a one -ho ur trip on the slow
doesn 't , I decided to look ove rseas for a my messianic am bitions but asked whethe r I are now tryin g to run away via a back stree t. ferry fro m the heart of Istanbul but yo u arr ive
ch ance of makin g my dream come true. My myself ever con sid ered co nversion to Islam. But the way out is blocked by us. M y in a nin eteenth- centur y idyll of shady , leafy
Turkish friend Mehm et, the owner of the I was sensible enoug h to avoid a direct men will ge t them.Let' s see so me pro per ty stree ts with huge white mansio ns belon gin g
keb ab shop on my stree t, urged me to turn answer, by tellin g him that Istanbul gave no w ." to the Istanbul nobility. It is, moreover, an
my atte ntion to Istanbul before it becomes asylum to yet another false messiah: of We dro ve for half an hour, far from the eco log ica l paradi se with no cars. Instea d,
part of the European Union. Th e only thin g mod ern Jewish - Russ ian-Jew ish, actually - cen tre of town , soon findi ng ourse lves in a hor ses with dro shkies are used, and bicycles.
he strictly forbade me to do was to bu y an history. I was thinking of Leon Tro tsky, a co ncre te suburban j ung le of fou r- and five- Turkey was the onl y co untry that voluntee red
apartm ent witho ut first consulting his co usin prophet of the perm anent revoluti on ary strug - storey apar tme nt blocks with vibrant life on to give asy lum to the arch- enem y of Stalin in
in Istanbul ; otherw ise, as a for eigner , I co uld gle, a co nve rt from Judaism to Ma rxism. the balconi es and rooftops, as intense as 1929, but the cho ice of thi s beaut iful resi-
eas ily be ripp ed off by local es tate agent s. Mehm et was not a grea t adm irer of Trotsky; among the sta lls and shops belo w. A cousi n dence co uld be ex plained by the fact that, at
On arriva l in Istanbul , I met Meh met ' s however, he told me that Trotsky had spent of Mehm et , an estate age nt (also ca lled the time, Istanbul prop er was heavin g with
cou sin (also called Mehm et ) at an obsc ure his Istanbul yea rs on one of the Princes' M ehm et), ran his office from the terr ace on White Ru ssian em igres who had fled their
ca fe somew here behind Ayia So phia. I Island s nearb y, where prop ert y is ridicu- the gro und flo or which was open to the stree t, hom el and for the Turkish capital bec ause of
ex plained to the Istanbul Me hmet, a sho rt but lou sly ex pens ive . He said he wo uld help me den sely popul ated with peddlers, stray dogs, Trotsky 's revoluti onary propheci es.
athl etic yo ung man in check ed shirt and find much cheaper accom moda tion. Wh en I beautiful childre n and wo me n with cove red I found the ho use where Tro tsky had spe nt
jeans, that Istanbul attrac ted me as an ancient as ked abo ut his line of business, I go t an faces. It felt like being at so me body el se ' s his fir st four yea rs of ex ile in comfort able
city which throu gho ut the ce nturies has give n answer that made me think . Mehm et worked fam ily ga thering, j olly, noi sy and wa rm. alienation. Acc ording to my guide book , the
asylum to a number of Jewish false mess iahs , for the criminal investi gation s departm ent of I was show n a few cheap apa rtmen ts. All hou se at 55 Ca nkaya Ca ddes i was the form er
proph esyin g the end of the world, who at the Istanbul police . of them reminded me of dil apidated council mansion of the head of the Sultan's sec ret
a cert ain stage of their lives had chose n to Th e next mo rning, Meh met picked me up hou ses in Brezh nev' s Moscow . In front of po lice . Trotsky co uld affor d it as a best-
con vert to Islam. Since their religious doubl e from my hotel in a va n wi th unid ent ifiable eve ry door the rows of shoes stoo d like in selling author. I wa nted to have a photogra ph
ident ity was the ultim ate manifestation of the insigni a on the side . Inside , he was not alone. front of a mos q ue. In one of the apar tme nts, of myself standing in front of the building.
me ntal du alit y of life in ex ile, which was part The mo me nt I got in, we took off at grea t ge tting cleaned for rent or sa le, a gro up of Two neighb ourh ood boys with their bicycles
of my per son al ex perience too , I thought it speed, zigzagging through the stree ts with old er wo men sat on the floor around some- stood by, licking ice cream and wa tching me
wo uld be a goo d idea to teach the subjec t in total disregard for the traffi c signa ls. Two of thin g which resembl ed the Ru ssian samovar, with idle curiosi ty. Th ey vo luntee red to help
o ne of the dozen universit ies of Istanbul. Last Meh rnet ' s partn ers in the back seat were guid- wa rmi ng themselves up with a cup of chai . with a snapsho t. I handed ove r my digital
year, I ran a cl ass at Co lumbia, New Yor k, ing him with brief, sharp instru ction s. W hen Russ ians adopted a lot from Tur ks witho ut camera and ass umed a prop er pose in fro nt of
unde r the title "Emigration as a Literary we drove into a broad thorou ghfare with a havin g ever ackn owled ged it. Mehm et Trotsky 's hou se. With out batting an eye lid,
Device" . W hy not from time to time teach tramlin e in the middle, spee ding along with couldn' t und erstand why I was so keen to get the boys climb ed on their bicycl es and rode
a no less promi sing co urse in Istanbul the whee ls of the va n right on the ra ils of the back to downto wn Istanbul , which in his eyes off, wav ing goodbye to me with my digital
ca lled " Religious Conversion as a Literary line as if aiming for a de liberate co llision look ed like a larger versi on of So ho, criminal camera . " Property is theft !" , as yet ano ther
Device" , sharing my time between Istanbul with a tram , it daw ned on me that thi s ride and expens ive. " You sho uld settle down false messiah once sa id. It looked as thou gh
and Lond on ? was not abo ut show ing me some bargain here, instead . Here, people wo uld love yo u as Mehm et ' s men had not ca ught all the thieves
We dr ank a num ber of littl e glasses of property. Indeed, it was n' t. No t at thi s stage . a brother" , Me hmet sa id, and I beli eved him. on bicycles earlier that day in Istanbul.

ate. But were these the reason s? When the

IN THENEXT
Rector rem arri ed in 1917, he was quickly
won ove r by "the co mfor t and benevolenc e"
acre of gar de n and apple trees enclose d by a his stepmother brou ght to the hou se,

IS
hawth orn hedge. The railway ran past it and whereas Willi e see med to him uglier and
TLS February 17 1995
they could listen o ut for the Larn e- mo re mon strou s on eve ry visit. His mar-
Louis MacNeice Stranrae r boat-t rain. They were taken on sea- riage is an altoge ther different ma tter.
side holid ays where the Atlantic "exploded At the age of nin e, he was sent to scho ol
Follow ing on from the articles on Louis Mac- in white and in gulls". fir st Sherbo rne, then Marlb orou gh and con-
Neice , we look back to a review by Penelope They we re taken to Belfast Lou gh to see side red himself to be we ll out of Ireland
Fitzgera ld of Io n Stallworth y's biography of the Tit anic on her way to the sea, the "one Though yet her name keeps ringing like a bell
Peter Pulzer the poet from the TL S of Febr uary 17, 1995. shining glimpse" Loui s rem embered fort y- In an underwater belfry . .
It can be read in f ull at www.the -tls.co.uk five yea rs later, in his elegy for hi s step- At Marlborough , he fell in with Anthony
How the Holocaust moth er. The images, as Sta llworthy shows, Blunt and with John Betje ma n, who were
ouis M acNeice was Ang lo-Irish, giv- had already taken up their appo inted plac es.

L
lending a hand with a new school magazine,
happened ing him , as he sai d, "a hold on the Quite often, in fact, Loui s felt the drunken- The Heretick. Under Blunt' s tuitio n, as Stall-
sentime nta l Eng lish", but starting ness of thin gs not bein g va rious. The gar - worthy puts it, "the dutifu l son of the rectory
him off in life as a "j umble of oppos ites" . de n, the sea and the hou se wo uld be there was fast beco ming a sceptical rebe l, who
Justin Beplate These see m never to have been po litica l so to meet him at every turn . wanted co rnfie lds to look like landscapes by
much as a long-d rawn- out diffic ulty in rec - Hi s moth er died when he was ju st seve n. Van Gog h" . A closer friend, the closest of
Gertrude and Alice onciling him self to his father. The grand- Hi s fath er , w ho " m ade the wa lls re sound" , all, was Grah am Shepard, the son of R. H.
father had been a scho olteac her with the alarme d him . He had an elde r sister , Elisa- Shepard. He is described here as having "a
Irish Church Miss ions , whose aim was co n- beth , who was of great impo rta nce to him more conventional Home Co unties back-
Patrick McCaughey version and who were felt to be bribing and invented with him, in the garde n's ground" than Loui s, but in fact in 1923 his
Ca tho lics in hard times by offerin g meal hidi ng-places, a game ca lled "the Cult of father had not yet done the illustrations for
The emancipated ticket s and a bett er educa tion. In 1879, the the Old". Hi s broth er , Willi am , suffere d When We Were Very Young and the
Picasso MacNeices had to be rescued by the pol ice from Down' s syndro me and was sen t for a Shepard s were living in rustic Sham ley
from stone-throwe rs. The eldes t son, John , tim e to a me nta l hom e in Sco tland. But is Gree n with a hand-pu mp ove r the sink. Louis
Loui s ' s father, took orders , marr ied ano ther Sta llwo rthy right in sayi ng that the loss of saw Graham as a "stray from some other
Bee Wilson mission teacher and devoted himself Loui s' s moth er to the grave, his broth er to place or era" , but if so he was a practical
fiercely to non-ret aliation and peace. They an institution and, later, his wife to another stray , liked messing about in boats and was a
The devil in the soup brou ght up thei r famil y in Belfast and later man, "gave him a fell ow-feelin g for the goo d drau ghtsman. Of Lou is himself at this
at Carrickfe rgus Recto ry, with fifteen de prived and suffe ring"? Ce rtai nly, thou gh time Stallworthy quotes yet another friend' s
rooms, some with great windows, and an not a trouble-t aker , Loui s was co mpassion - descri ption ; he was a kind of magician ....

TL S D E C E M B E R 2 1 & 28 2007
 23

A retired outlaw andhis personalJudas

After Blue Cut

CLIVE SINCLAIR in a horizontal position. Behind the corpse
sits a black-clad audience. At first the scene
TH E ASSASSI NATIO N OF lE SS E resembl es a Dutch painting of an anatomy
lAME S BY TH E COW ARD ROB ERT lesson, but then the board is raised, the
F OR D spectators transform ed into a cong regation ,
Various cinemas and the image into a religi ou s icon . The illu-
sion persists onl y as long as the photo gra-
Ron H ans en pher' s exposure, but it leaves a lasting impress-
TH E ASSASSI NATIO N OF lE SS E ion. In fact it is the culmination of a theme that
lAMES BY TH E C O WA R D ROB ERT is common to both mo vie and novel.
F O RD At one point, Bob Ford lists the ways he
304pp. Souvenir Press. Paperback, £8.99. resembles his hero. "I ' m a no good , Bob",
97802856 37542 cautions Jesse . "I ain' t Jesus." Even so, there
are as many parall els betw een Jesse and his
he Jam es Gan g always had a flair sav iour; like Jesus, Jesse carri es stigmata (in

T for amateur dr amatic s (especi ally

Frank James, who professed a great
admiration for Shakespe are). This
was reco gniz ed earl y by Jesse and Frank's
chief admirer, John Newman Edwards , editor
the shape of unhealed bull et wounds to the
chest), doctors the sick (thou gh his rem edi es
are crackp ot, and don 't work), has prophetic
po wers (not entirely reli able) , and is a chari s-
matic leader of men (whose deed s, unfortu-
of the Kansa s City Time.'. A supporter of the nately , are the other side of hol y). Th e viewe r
antebellum South , he publ ished the foll owin g (and reader) spo ts these coincidences, as
when the boys stole the proceeds of the doe s Jesse him self (son of the Revd James, of
Kansa s C ity Fair (back in 1872): "There are the New Hope Bapti st church). This leads the
men in Jack son , Cass, and Clay - a fe w there hunted man to the ob viou s conclusion that
are left - who learned to dar e when there was one of his discipl es will eve ntually betray
no such word as qu arter in the dictionary of him unto death. Thereafter he plays cat-and-
the Border. Men who hav e carried their lives mou se with hi s eo-workers from Blue C ut,
in their hand s so long that they do not kno w dispatching any whom he doubts with merci-
how to commit them over into the keepin g of less efficiency . Eve n thou gh he ha s suspi-
the law s and regulations that ex ist now , and cion s of the Fords , he invites them into his
these men so metimes rob. But it is always in hou se in St Jo seph. Rob ert Ford rep ays his
the glar e of da y and in the teeth of the multi- ho spit alit y by shoo ting him in the back on
tud e. With them booty is but the second April 3, 1882 , a few da ys short of Easter, a
thought; the wild drama of the adv enture fact the mo vie is not shy of mentioning.
first". Nonsense, of course, but appealing non- Wa s Jesse - like man y a mart yr - eo m-
sense. plicit in his own end? Han sen' s novel is
After his younge r brother' s death , Prank equivoca l, but Dominik' s mo vi e rem o ve s all
gave him self up, was charg ed , tried , and Brad PiU as Jesse James, and friend doubt. His Jesse practically invites Bob to
found not guilty by a sympathetic jury. His end his life, and actually wa tches him do it in
next move wa s to re-enact before a payin g notabl y WaIter Hill ' s The Long Riders (1980). of Roger Deakin s (w ho favours low camera the glass of the picture he is du stin g (a pose
public the very crim es of which he had ju st The Assassination of Jesse l ames by the angles to capture rushin g skies, and wide which, incid ent ally , resembl es a crucifixion
been acquitte d. Frank's eo- star wa s his Coward Rob ert Ford is like non e of them. It open spaces , not to menti on the seas onal scene) . Thi s narci ssistic detail repri ses an
cou sin Cole Young er (who had served hard begin s conv enti onall y enough, with a spectac- chang es from golden har vest to mono chro- earlier incid ent whe n Jesse shoo ts hol es in
ular train robbery. But the Jam es bo ys are
tim e in Still wat er for his part in the bungl ed matic mid- wint er), and unu sually committed ice that mirrors his fac e, while as king Bob ' s
Northfield bank robbery). Audi enc es, how- already past their prim e, and forc ed to recruit ensembl e acting. Of the two prin cip al s, Brad broth er if he has ever cont emplated suicide
ever, did not echo the judgement of John from nincompoops and rub es (one of whom Pitt plays Jesse with felin e assurance, while (but Charley hasn 't the sand to kill him). So
Newman Ed ward s (the inad equ acie s of the is shocked to the point of protest by their Casey Affl eck makes Rob ert Ford see m like Jesse pick s Bob. What this does is mak e
actor s manque are con vincingly describ ed in charming leader' s spiteful brutality). When a mou se in eat ' s clothing. Thi s is perh ap s a Rob ert Ford see m even mor e Judas-lik e, and
True Grit - not the mo vie, but the novel by Bob and Charley Ford - novice s both - ask if doubl e bluff, as Jesse not es when Bob man- Jesse even mor e omnipotent.
Charles Porti s). Frank's failure does not they can join the ga ng on a permanent basis, ages to catch him unawares: "Yo u must' ve Lik e Frank James before them , the Ford
negate the point, ho wever : show business was the less-th an-charming Frank tell s them to jot creeped up on eat' s pa ws". broth er s take to the stage in ord er to re-en act
hardl y slower than the law in pur suing Jesse the following in their diaries: "September sev - The irs is the film ' s central relati on ship their crim e. Charley pro ves to be talentl ess
Jam es. enth, eightee n eighty-one ; the James gang (compared to which Jesses partner ship with and dwindl es into madn ess, but Rob ert Ford
Taking into acc ount The Assass ination of robbed on e last train at Blu e C ut and gave up his wife is a silent affair). At one point , exas- prosp ers , though regr ettin g more and more
Jesse l ames by the Coward Robert Ford, the their nightriding for go od" . And so does the perated by Bob ' s unhealth y intere st in him, the way he came by his fam e. In both book
late outlaw now j oin s Bill y the Kid as the movi e - more or less - as it change s direction Jesse ye lls: " I can 't figure it out: do you want and film he dies "before he could say the
mo st featur ed Am erican character in mo vie to chart the course of Jesses terminal melan- to be like me, or do you want to be me?". But right word s". Unforg iven, unr edeem ed, the
histor y (both having appeared in fort y-ei ght choli a. In thi s it rem ain s rem arkably faithful it is far mor e than the mere study of the rel a- good within him unrealized. Thi s melan ge of
fil ms). Hi s own son - Jesse James Jr - played to the novel on which it is based. tion ship betw een a celebrity, and a nob od y show busine ss, reli gion and crim e is what
him in on e of the first (1921) , but the man But how to re-cr eate the vitality of Ron who wants to be a somebo dy . It is a study of a mak es both book and movi e uniqu ely Amer-
who reall y mad e him bankable was Tyrone Hansen ' s vibrant pro se, which con stantl y fal se messiah , and his doting but treacherou s ican (though the dir ector of the latt er is actu-
Power, star of Henr y King ' s sa nitized but magick s noun s and adje ctives into verbs, into apostle . ally a New Zealander); that land where every-
colourful story of a man more sinned against words of action? Andrew Dominik, the direc- As was cu stom ar y after the shooting of a bod y wants to be a some body, in the eyes of a
(by Yank ee capitalism) than sinning. Most of tor , does it by using a voice-ove r, and by lift- notorious outlaw, Jesses bod y was strapped theatre audience, God, and the bank man-
the oth er film s are to be avoided like the ing much of Hansen ' s state ly dialogu e intact. to a bo ard and photogr aph ed . In Dominik' s age r; that land where self-fulfilme nt at all
plague - especially Jesse lames Meets Frank- Eve n so, such ingenuity would never out wit ve rsion, the late Mr James is bled dr y, costs, co sts others plent y; that land which -
enstein's Daughter - but a few are exce llent, inert ia witho ut the inspir ed cinematography strapped to a board, and placed centr e scree n one blessed day - will say the right word s.

TLS DE C EMB ER 2 1 & 2 8 20 07

24 ARTS

furniture and fabrics chucked about ; the

Hidden by a haystack obli gator y copul ation scene (to "enliven" the
prett y barcaroll e); bar e feet, a drunken
fem ale chorus, a reelin g Belcore, and
onizetti' s "melodramma giocoso" A NDR EW PORT ER foll ows a credibl e real-life version of the tale: drunken so ldiery in Act Two . Her most tire-

D L 'elisir d'a more (1832) was a hit in

its day and continued to delight audi-
ences . Caruso brou ght it new popularity
G a etano D oniz etti
a potion not quit e what it purports to be (in
L 'elisir, it' s che ap clar et) does its work;
und er its influ enc e, Ne morino becomes
some additions involved "D r Dulcamara' s
ass ista nt", who failed to do the one thin g
Rom ani requires of him - play the tru mpet -
when he sang Ne morino at La Scala in 190 I L ' ELI SIR D ' AMORE bold er, and Adin a ' s heart is won at last by his but otherwise acted his head off. A single noc-
(Toscanini conducting) , at Cove nt Garden in Royal Opera Ho use steady devotion . When we laugh at him , it is turnal set, by Lez Broth er ston - facade of a
1902, and at the Metro polit an Opera from Gly ndebo urne To uring Opera con tenerezza. publi c building to the left , lamp post, two
1903 to 1920. Then Doniz etti fell from Both the Cove nt Gard en and the Gl ynd e- skeletal oli ve trees, black backcloth and
favour. His rein statem ent dates from the bers not found in Scribe: aga in and aga in we bourn e present ations we re upd ated, and on wings - serve d for all four scenes (out side
second half of the twenti eth century. The leave the world of com edy for one of deep both a director had laid an over-inve ntive, Adina ' s farm , pia zza, inside her farmh ouse,
Scal a comp any brought L 'elisir to London in and true feelin g: Terezin es sprightly "La at times singer-slighting hand . At Cove nt rustic courtyard). Ag ain , the chorus sang
1950. Cove nt Ga rde n mount ed its own coqu etterie fait mon seul bonh eur" is Ga rden, a huge zigg urat of a haystack filled well. Enrique Mazzol a' s conducting was
production in 1975 (dir ect ed by John Co p- replac ed by the lovely duet "Chiedi all' aura most of Cha ntal Thomas' s attractive set. In lively, sometimes bri sk to a point that pro-
ley), and pla yed it for more than two dec ades lusin ghiera" . Nemorinos poignant "Adina, Laurent Pelly' s staging, the soloists we re duced ragge d ense mble bet ween stage and
with some exce llent casts: Carreras, Ber- credimi " , launching the fir st-act final e, has often set far back , and irrelevant gags with pit. The opera was sung in Italian ; visual gags
gonzi , Pavarotti , and Alfredo Kraus amo ng no count erp art in Scrib e. Nor has the fam ous bikes or a trained dog comp eted for the audi- and surtitles pro vided the laugh s.
the Ne morinos, Geraint Eva ns a star Dulc a- "Una furti va lagrima" (included at ence 's attention. Stefano Secco was a plea s- Despite eve rything, both shows were enjoy -
mara. Now Covent Gard en has a new produc- Doni zetti' s insistenc e, Rom ani' s widow tells ing Nemorino - not capti vatin g in timbre, able. The cas ts were acco mplished. But bel
tion , shared with the Paris Opera; and so does us; Rom ani thought it would hold up the no Gigli or Schipa, but stylish, delicate in ca nto opera was better served in two recent
Glynd ebourne. action ). phrasing. Alek sandr a Kurzak' s Ad ina was Lond on conc ert perform anc es that put first
L 'elisir, hi s first biograph ers tell us, was Bellini and Doni zetti were rival s at the deftl y sung, without much charact er. Lodovic thin gs first, and we ren' t scraw led ove r or
run up in a fortni ght to plug a gap when time, one jealou s, the other generous. In Tez ier' s Belcore lack ed vocal swagger. For embellished by a direct or. Each had a remark-
anoth er co mpose r fail ed to deli ver : Doniz etti 1830- 31, when Doni zetti' s Ann a Bolena so me reason Paolo Ga vanelli addresse d able heroin e. At Cove nt Garden Patri zia
allotted Felic e Romani a wee k to write the triumphed , Bellini , fearin g comp etiti on , " Udite, 0 rustici " to an empty stage, and he Ciofi has been a good Gilda; as Alaida in La
poetr y and him self a wee k to compose the abandon ed his opera seria Hernani and in see med more stern than genial. The choru s stran iera, presented by Opera Rara and the
mu sic. Rom ani took up Scrib e ' s libretto for semiseria ve in co mposed La sonna mbula sa ng we ll. Mikk o Fra nck conducted tri mly. LPO in the Festival Hall, she was grea t, carry-
Aub ers Le Philt re, a comedy played at the (another of Romani ' s Scrib e adaptations). A In the Glyndebourne version, Elisi r was set ing pure, unforc ed, beautiful tone throu gh all
Opera the yea r befor e. The same baritone, yea r later , his Nor ma triumphed and in the 1930s. The Adin a, Adrian a Kucerova, the range, weightin g and utterin g Romani ' s
Henr y-B ernard Dabadie, created both Doni zetti ' s Ugo failed . Ro mani and wore slacks, and Nemorino, Peter Aut y, was words and Bellini ' s long phra ses with uncom-
Aub ers Joli-Cceur and Donizetti ' s Belc ore. Doni zetti prob abl y rememb ered La sonnam- the village electrician. She sang prett y we ll; mon eloquence . In Donizetti ' s Maria Stu-
(The conductor was Vicenzo Lavigna , with hula when, two month s after Ugo, they his phrasin g was elega nt, romantic. Massimo arda, present ed by the Che lsea Op era Group
whom Verdi was studying .) Several of Rom- embar ked on L 'elisir. "Chiedi allaura" is a Cava letti, a black shirt ed Belcore, and in Cadog an Hall, Majella Cullagh's tones
ani' s numb ers are prett y well stra ight transla- count erp art to Bellini' s lovely "Son geloso Luciano di Pasqual e, the Dulc am ara, we re were likewise pure and beautiful throu gh the
tion (eg "Je suis riche, vous etes belle, J'ai del zeffi ro" (a Rom ani addition to Scribe's unrem arkable. In figur e at lea st, Di Pasqual e full range of the role - throu gh high and
des ec us, vo us des ch arrn es" / "la so n ricco , sce nario). The score has no wea k numb ers. recall ed a famou s Dulc ama ra, Luigi low, loud and soft, fla shin g coloratur a and
tu sei bella, 10 ho ducati , e vezze hai tu"), but When the curtain rises, Adin a is readin g "la Labl ache; but a fat man wigg ling his hip s at poignant cantil ena. In eac h opera there was
the tone is quit e different. Le Philtr e is a storia di Tristano" (Wag ner's setting thirt y us is a jok e that soon palls. Annabel Ard en ' s also a good bass: Mark Stone as Bellini ' s
clever , elega nt, rather brittl e comedy. L 'elisir yea rs in the futur e), and she break s into relentl essly busy production, exe cuted with Vald ebor go, Roderick Earle as Doni zetti ' s
is warmed by the addition of emotional num- merry laughter at its absurdity. But there gusto, was a strea m of lemmin g cliche s: Talbot.

--------------------------~--------------------------

D
uring an interview at this yea r's with his famil y under the bombardment of
London Film Fes tival, the veteran
Indi an filmmaker Buddh adev Das-
gupta describ ed how, after he had been
Light from the east Buch arest by the US and Briti sh air forc es in
1944 , a raid designed to stop milit ary
deli veri es to the Eas tern Front.
awa rded the Best Director priz e in Ve nice in CHRISTOPH WARRACK long life" . Back in Romani a, the film has As with 4 Months and The Death of Mr
2000 for The Wrestlers , not a single Indian been criticize d for its bleakness. Lazarescu (reviewed in the TLS, Au gust 4,
offici al in Italy was to be found offering con- RO M A NI A N C IN E M A Ab sent from the scree nings at Cine 2006), 12:08 Eas t ofBucharest, the debut fea-
gra tulations. At the same time, Jafar Panah i's A journ ey Lumi ere was Cristian Ne mescu, the director ture of Co rneliu Porumboiu , takes place in a
The Circle rece ived the award for Best Film, 4 Month s, 3 Week s and 2 Days of Californ ia Drea min ' (Endless), who was single day, compounding the droll perspec-
and a thron g of delighted Iranian mand arin s Califo rnia Dre amin ' (Endless) killed , aged twent y-seven , in a ca r acc ident tives of its charact ers with the reali sm found
engulfed the Lido . The differenc e was that 12:08 Eas t of Bucharest shortly after completin g a "fine cut" of the in all of these film s. Porumboiu ' s static
The Circle was ridin g the cres t of an Iranian Cinc Lumi ere film. His first and only feature, it is bein g ca mera opens on the light s of the town bein g
"new wave", exe mplifying an emergin g present ed in preci sely the state in which switched off by a centrall y controlled sys tem,
nati onal cinema brou ght to light by 1990s, three film s by Lucian Pintili e also he left it. This natur ally gives the film a as dayli ght gradually dawns. Three men
enthralled criti cs and festival selec tors, reached Cannes ; and at this yea r's festival, poignancy as well as a sometimes frustratin g asse mble for a television talk show to
thou gh inevitabl y lost on mainstream distribu- two Romani an films, 4 Month s, 3 Weeks and open-endedness. Admittedl y, this latter qual- remini sce with indetermin ate acc uracy on the
tor s. 2 Days and Califo rnia Dream in ' (Endless) ity does suit the true story it was developed sixteenth anniversary of the Romanian revolu-
Like Iran, Rom ania has had new waves won the top two prizes. Cine Lumi ere in Lon- from. A group of Am erican soldiers is tion . The heroi c account s of their involve-
before. Within onl y five month s of the don rec entl y presented the most important detain ed indefinitely in a remote Ro mani an ment are contested not ju st by one anoth er
Lurni ere broth ers' introduction o f c ine ma to new Rom anian titles, introduced hy the film- chec kpo int village, on their way to deli ver but by eac h of the viewe rs who phones in to
an astonished audience in 1895 in Pari s, one makers, and wider relea ses are set to follow. "strateg ic communications equipment to the show .
of their camera men was in Buch arest shoot- Cristian Mun giu ' s Palme d'Or-winnin g 4 Serbia for NATO" . As they wait for someo ne The unreliable testimo nies are comi call y
ing docu ment ary shor ts and helpin g launch Months acco mpa nies two Buch arest stude nts in the capital to overrule the obdurate station- ev inced by the unp oli shed technique of the
the film indu stry there. Romani an cin ema on a single night ' s traum atic sea rch for assist- master , a fax mach ine elegan tly ushers their studio's novice ca mera operator. When his
was nation ali zed und er Co mmunism in 1948, ance with an abortion. The film is set in 1987, urgent communiques into an ove rflow ing ca mera loses focu s on one of the charact ers,
and new film s were authorized for produ c- and we se nse the immin enc e of momentous bin. and picks up a detail of the huge backdrop
tion not as art but as instrum ent s of ideol ogi- cha nge. In desatur ated gree ns and greys, Eve ryo ne is waiting for so mething in this photo graph of the square where the revolu-
ca l influ enc e. By 1965 Liviu Ciulei had over- Mun giu uses handh eld, widesc ree n takes of sleepy and sometimes dreamlik e back water: tion took place, Porumboiu' s aesthetic s
com e these con str aint s to win the Best Dir ec- extended dur ation to achieve a grand inti- the men for better work, the women for the combine with his politic s and become, for a
tor Pri ze in Cannes for The Forest of the macy, po werfull y match ed by the perform- Am ericans to help them esca pe, and the moment, the imperfect act of historical
Hanged, depic tin g Rom anian s forc ed to fight ances of the leads. There is a hum ane, dark so ldiers to compl ete their mission. Nemescu memory: " It' s calm and beautiful. Like my
aga inst their countrymen in the Sec ond hum our in the way one chara cter says of brack ets the film with monochrome footage memory of the revoluti on . It was calm and
World War. In the ongo ing turbul enc e of the another in such circumstances, "I wish her a of the stationmaster as a young boy huddling beautiful " .

TLS D E C E MB E R 2 1 & 28 2 0 07
 25

Alexander Theroux' s revenge

Anatomies of love and hate

PA UL Q UI N N how to pass passion ate states throu gh a elbowe d aside Stephe n and Bloom, along
co mic filt er of pseudo- sch olarship . Imagin e a with their guiding wit and compass ion, to
A lex an der T hero ux latter-d ay Pe trarch , dedicating him self not to take the stage for ex tended period s. All of
sing ing Laur a' s prai ses but to rec iting her Th erou x' s no vel s have taken it on them sel ves
L A U R A WARH O LIC vices. Unsee mly and unchi valrou s as thi s to ca talog ue the var ieties of hu man passion
or, T he Sex ual Intellectu al sounds, there is a deeper purpose invol ved and, by ex tension, the varieties of hum an
888pp. Fantagraphics. $29.95. here, for Laur a Warh olic is depicted as the hatred and prejudice.
978 1 56097 798 8 repr esent ati ve of a taint ed zeitgeis t. Th e desire to ed uca te Laur a brings out
Thero ux's hero , the eccentric po lymath the best and wors t in Eyes tones . He pro vides
lexander Th erou x 's best know n Euge ne Eyes tones, writes a regular colum n eva nge lizing lists of the thin gs that make life

A nove l, Darconville 's Cat ( 198 1),

w as reput edl y generated by ro man tic
disapp ointment. Jilt ed by hi s intende d,
on the oddities of mod ern life for a Boston
arts and culture magazine ca lled Quink,
under the byline The Sexu al Intell ectu al. The
wor th livin g and regales her with his collec-
tion of 78s and the found poetr y of titles like
"What Do We Do on a Dew-D ew-D ewy
Thero ux ado pted the first and last resort subjec t of sex , Eyes tones believes, is "the Day" , or " I Lik e Pie, I Lik e Ca ke, But I Lik e
of the write r and pro mise d to immortalize best way to scrutinize the natur e of man and You Best of All" . He is a co llec tor of facts
her ma nifold foibl es in fict ion. " Do yo ur his stra nge ness ". This strange ness is classi- such as , "Cowboys always point ed the wago n
wors t" , she is allege d to have sa id . Ta king fied at len gth , using the essayistic mo de that ton gue toward the No rth Star at night before
her at her word, Thero ux eventua lly The ro ux develop ed to grea t effec t in his they wen t to sleep". Th erou x is parodyin g
produced hi s 704-page encycl ope dic novel , accla imed boo ks on co lour: The Primary the ency clo pedic tradition, emphas izing its
the first half of whic h treats of love , the Colors (199 4) and The Secondary Colors tend enc y nowadays to coll apse into nerdish
sec ond of hat e . Hi s re al-life in spiration was (199/i). The glea nings we are give n from tri via or non seq uitur. Yet , at th e sa me tim e ,
tran sfigur ed into the anti-heroine , Isabel Eyes toness Quink essays orc hes trate apho r- it is part of Eyes tones's urgent project to inter-
Raw sthorne, who , at the cli max, repeats ism s, vignettes and curious fact s. The com- est Laur a, and by impli cation her ge nera tion,
the legend "do your wors t !" to the bereft pendi ou s chapter, "W hat in Love or Sex Isn 't in anything o utside the banal or co mmo di-
scho lar-nove list, Darconvill e. Th erou x also Odd ?", for exa mple, includes such delight s fied. He has hi s wor k cut o ut. "Laura hated a
encry pted his form er lover ' s nam e in acros- as "W henever W. H. Aud en headed into a know-it- all. With a forked smile, she impu-
tics and anag rams, and eve n cited her as dark tunn el by car, the poet always mutt ered dentl y held up the digiticus impudicus , which
the autho r of the spoo f books whose titles ' Hello, moth er " and "An Ap ache son-in-law A former gas sta tion and cafe in Creston, Euge ne ignored ." Thi s is typi cal Thero ux : he
are sca tte red through the nove l, which relent- in an unalt erabl e taboo never spea ks to or Wyoming; from The Lincoln Highway: insinuates the Latin ate an d learn ed eve n into
lessly pur sues its objec t throu gh a number of look s at his moth er-in-law". Coast to coastfrom Times Square to the the descri ption of a vulgar ges ture.
liter ary mod es and rhetorical figur es. Eyes tones 's mu se, unb ekno wn st to her, is Golden Gate by Michael Wallis and Wh en not giving Eyes to nes the fin ger,
Whil e set in present-day America , Laur a War ho lic, a feckless, needy, thirt y- Michael S. Williamson (293pp. Norton. Laur a rebuffs hi s did actic im pul se in other
Darconville 's Cat, owes mu ch to the literar y something with a "parodyable fac e and vas t $39.95.9780393059380) ways . She responds to one piece of arca na
prehi story of the novel: the scho las tic summ a ears big enough for echo location", still fro m the Sex ual Intell ectu al' s store ho use of
(his charac ters are always quoti ng author i- locked in a Ge neration X permanent ce rta inly a toxic bun ch , each favourin g lore - the fact that the Ro mans removed any
ties, eve n his misoth eists know their Bibl e, ado lescence and unable to summo n en thusi - a parti cul ar prejudi ce in the way a ch aracter repr esent ati on of armpit or pubi c hair fro m
ch apter and verse); anatomies, like B urton's; as m for anything save thir d- rate grunge in a Jacob ean comedy is harn essed to his femal e statues - with an unimpressed ,
and, in parti cul ar, the ency cl oped ic tr adition band s, loveless sex and self-pity. Fo r the hu m ou r. T he mi sothei st and T imo nesq ue "Wowski", It is the equiva lent of Lolita blow-
of learn ed wit. Rab elais is an important much old er Eyes tones, ho wever, she is the misa nthrope, Ratnaster , has a scorc hed-ea rth ing bubble gum in the face of the fru strated
precur sor, both for his erudite satire and for perfect exe mplar of the sou lless mod ern approach to critiqu e which takes in no n- ed uca to r, Humbert. But Eyes tones 's desir e
possessin g the most expansive and Ameri ca he exc or iates in his column, and he combatants and legit imate target s alike to infu se Laur a with a love of know ledge is
creatively mutable lexico n of all French uses her as a kind of lab rat carr yin g the ("Today the wor ld is eating Franken foo ds! more than ju st bro wbeating or ped antry, it
langu age writers. The dictionary as we ll as "vi rus of lost sta nda rds" , which she manifests bo vine grow th horm on es . . . cabbages in- has a philosop hica l imp etu s: "Since he
the encyclo pedia, then , pro vid e the ter ms of in her treacherou s person al and sex ual beha v- se minated wi th the ge nes of flound er s!"). beli eved that the sole purp ose of life for all
reference for Th erou x' s alm ost medieval iour , and also in her lack of taste. Ly ing to Chas uble is a ca mp cineas t and cas ual miso- of us was to figur e out its meaning". Thi s
sense of wor ld as book and book as world. Eyes tones, with who m she form s a depend ant gy nist, while misandry is uph eld by Ann for mul a, with variations, is repeated throu gh-
Th erou x' s next no vel , An Adultery (1987), and doo med rel ation ship , she lusts after and M arie Tubb (w hose T-shirt bears the legend o ut the novel , and it may see m, to readers
was very different in style. The story of a pur sues Jeff Bummell y, the age ing leader of "I Go From Zero to Bitch in 2.5 Seconds") acc usto med to more hardb oil ed and less
New Eng land artist's failed love affair with a terrible band , the Craven Slucks. Jeff is as and her partn er, the Krauth amm er. The designin g aes thetics, ga uche and ungu ard ed ;
his slippery, illi cit objec t of desire was told emotionally indifferent to the dam aged an d chapter where these two enterta in Laur a at a but it is ce ntra l to Eyestoness moti vati on.
in the fir st per son ; and desire, betrayal and desperat e Laura as she is to Mic epockets, lesbian club, the Sew ing Circle , is a feast of Th e injun cti on s pil e up and take o n a frantic
loss were ex plore d with an ex haustive, her crippled landlord, who ob sessively, if hostil e banter. One club goer wea rs a button- ton e. "'Stay awa ke ' , he told her. ' Watch !
Jamesian scrutiny and barb ed elega nce. j erkil y, stalks her. Laur a' s incor rigibility pin adv ising " The Best Way to A Man 's Heart Listen ! Die knowin g so mething! Our
Laura Warholic, Thero ux 's fir st novel for rema ins a challen ge to Eyes tones 's bett er Is Through His Ches t" ; anoth er asks the perti- passage here on ear th is so terribly brief ."
twenty yea rs, has the psyc ho log ica l rigo ur of natur e, thou gh he is increasingly drawn to the nent qu e sti on , " If th e y can se nd a man to th e This imp erati ve ex plains the len gth and
An Adu ltery, and the wit and learnin g of altoge ther more ange lic Ra punze l Wisht , a moo n, why can 't they send them all?". Most breadth of the ency clo ped ic novel ; the
Darconville 's Cat. A ltho ug h more lexicall y Boston baker y worker he idealiz es from afar. virulent of all the Quink staffe rs is Disc- attem pt to cra m as much matter into it as
restrained than the earlier book , it is ano ther Laur a is the form er wi fe of Quink's editor, kni ckers, an anti-Se mite who clashes reg u- possible, to make its size and sco pe a
lingui stic co rnucop ia, with curiosities like the loud , sexist Mi not Warholi c, who ca nnot larl y with the Jewish Warholi c, his boss. At respon se to life' s brevity and narrowness .
"drumbubbling " and "hur lothrurnbo" rub- resist any opportunity to criticize her, or tim es, especially when Discknickers is left to Eyestoness project for ed uca ting Laur a
bing up against technical term s, and pitch- threaten her with litigati on. Th e natur e of ra nt on unchecked , his hateful tirades reac h a invol ves geogra phy as we ll as history. He
perfect ph oneti c rend erin gs of Boston the Quink offic e is best describ ed by a noun ro iling pitch rivallin g Ce line . Th e reader ' s tak es her on the roa d, intending to soa k up
accent s ("Two mok ah rahmo nd cwoffees !") from Darconville 's Cat, a "bigotoriurn" - an unease lies in whether Discknickers sho uld wha t they ca n of their vast co ntinent, thou gh
Onc e aga in, an un worth y love objec t is di s- exce ption to this rule bein g the saintly be allowed such latitud e . Is the qu arantine of she is more atte ntive to the region al
sec ted at length . A ll three no vel s are hate- Du xbak , who urges his friend Eyes tones to qu otation mar ks enough? Does free indirect stereotypes displayed on bumper stickers as
filled anatomies of love, which show how eas - " Look aro und our office, a meton ym of the style, with its uncomfortabl y close and they pass from place to place: Dall as (" Kee p
ily rhapsod y ca n be tran slated into invect ive. wor ld. Ca n yo u name anyo ne who is not dis- cl amm y atmos phere, have eno ugh distanc e? honk ing, I'm reloading" ), Los An geles
Th ey are also very fun ny; The ro ux knows gru ntled abo ut so mething?" . The staff are It is as though the Citizen, in Ulysses , had (" Ig no rance is bli ss"). Despite the vas t di s-

TLS D E C E M B E R 2 1 & 28 2007

26 FICTION

tanc e s co vered , Laura is unmo ved by their happening no w, except her noti cin g the trees,
gr and tour; on e pa ssage in particular brin gs
hom e ju st what Eyestones is up aga inst and
takes us to the hea rt of the nov el' s soc ia l and
Elegiacallyadrift the we ather, and so forth . She takes us wi th
her, on her diffi cult j ourney, ponderin g the
abse nt Veronica, alon g with other beautiful
eco nom ic conc erns: losers she lov ed and lost before .
ary Gaitskill ' s peopl e have no SH E E NA JOUGHIN

M
Historical places mostly bored Laura. She Vero nica was an enigma to all who knew
liked loud, high-gloss, postapocalyptic mega- pattern to their lives. Refu gees her, and rem ain s so to us. We learn that she
mall s rimmed w ith fast-food ea teries and video from brut al , abusive or affec tless M ary G ait skill wor ked as a proofreader, was tou gh but
monit ors and banks of light for miles outside . back grounds, they drift throu gh the "trash- tender, knowing, naive, happ y, sad, sex ually
Silent, tired fat men with baseball hats blo wn" streets of her fiction in "a kind of VE RON ICA ex plosive but sometimes shy, and had a bi-
grouched and stumbled through these malls exc ited alarm ". Ideas of pain intri gue them . 257pp. Serpent's Tail. Paperback, £10.99. sex ual lover from whom she cau ght AIDS .
Dan ger fascinates, as do es "nasty-stuff ', 978 I 852429737
behind acquisitive , ove rwe ight, middle-aged Lik e eve ryone else here, she wrestl es with
wo me n with doubl e chins in joggin g su its and which ge nera lly involves sex ual violence or pain . In fact, " Vero nica 's pain was so deep
white socks and sneakers who to the drone of degr adation . Bein g alive is a j an gled yet the "beauty" of vulnerability, the glory of that she had beco me deep , whether she liked
unidentifiable piped-in music virtually drifted empty bu siness, with relation ship s shadow ed "mo nstrous wants and go rgeous terrors", and it or not" . Retrospecti ve platitudes flo w
like melancholy balloons from one shop to by what the sex ually abuse d Ju stine in Two the courage it took to exist in a world of freely through Vero nica's sad tale , and leak
another with faces of placid imbecility badly Girls, Fat and Thin (19 91 ), describ ed as free-floatin g " pain". into Ali son' s mu sin gs on her own childhood.
lookin g for so me thing to need to wa nt to buy, "decla rations of dominanc e, of territ ory, the Charac terization here is skimpy , as is plot, She no w und er stand s that her onc e-h ated
supremely indifferent, all the while, to anyone sw ift blind play of po wer and weakn ess" . but abstractions com e thick and fast. " We parent s were simply bewild ered and she
behind them . .. So me mot ive deeper than Narc iss ism is the prevailing psychologic al we re stupid, spoiled and arroga nt. But we ex pla ins their " mild confusion ", their inabil-
greed animated Laura when shopping. She state, and it leads to feelin gs of unr eality, were right too . . .. We were right. " "O ur ity to conn ect , except with the ga rble of tele-
actually could not afford much of anything. It when these misfit s are alon e. About half way embarrass ments and lusts we re actua lly vision or the fleetin g coh erence of old love
see med that hers was a decl aration as much as through Veronica (w hen its epo nym o us beautiful ... or at least could be made to look songs on her father ' s gramo phone .
an activity queerly taken up as if to verify for heroine is no mor e than a whispe r), the it." How peopl e look (and are look ed at) is Veronica is a less combativ e book than
herself that she had the right to spend money narrat or, Ali son , sees a flock of pigeon s at naturall y dwelt on in thi s nove l narrated by Gaitskill ' s previou s work and it was much
. . . there seeme d, curiously, not a trace of joy her feet: "I look ed at them and for a mom ent an ex-mo del. But we are give n line drawings, admired on its publication in the US last
or satisfac tion when she did buy so me thing. the world becam e strange to me. Then I rath er that portrait s. Much of its cast see ms ye ar. Yet its nostalgi a for a lost Am erican
Man y of the lists, litani es and ca ta log ues rem emb ered that it had always been strange" . borrowed from so me Dylan esqu e lyric, in pastoral rin gs fal se ; its epipha nic listl e ssness
in Laura Warholi c address the going or the Ali sons wor ld, on pap er , see ms mor e which shallow sophisticates figur e: "She is fru st ratin g, and somew hat infantile . "Like
go ne. Eyes tones mourns the ruin s of old sq ualid than stra nge, although her mood in wore jewelle ry and hats. She wrote plays. peopl e we re all runny and liquid ... looking
N YC : "Gone the liqu or y breez es from the these pages is typi cally di ssoci ated , as she She had a rich famil y". At parti es (of which for a cont ain er to hold eve ry thing in pl ace" .
dark bar s and the stree tlights with corru- wa nde rs throu gh some unspecifi ed parkland , there are man y) peopl e talk of Ezra Pound, Th e "war on terror" is implicitly link ed to
gat ed tin cro wn s and the brok en cobble". rememb erin g the 1980s, when she was a opera, Bett e Da vis, reincarnation , earrings , the AID S epide mic, as if both we re eq ually
But thi s nostalgia tak es on a sha rper mor e mod el , ex ploited, assault ed and und erp aid in art and the violent moo n. Ironi c, elega nt, pu zzlin g. At on e point on A liso n's refl ecti ve
critica l edge when compared with its Pari s. Back in Am eric a, she moved bet ween bored and empt y, these bright yo ung thin gs walk, she run s her hand s ove r trees which
alt ern ati ve: the ahistor ica l prisonhouse of Los A nge les, San Francisco and New York, swi ll about in Ali son' s rhap sodic mem or y, see m diseased but which a local reassure s
co nsumption and manufactured need s to picking up any job she could. Th e peo ple as she walk s through the lush autumnal land- her are health y. "The mud and lea ves go into
which Laura and her cont emporaries are co n- she met during those ragged yea rs were uni- scape of the present , in which she no w has a slow churn I feel so mething ri sin g
demn ed. In Loli ta , Nabokov could invok e an forml y charml ess, yet the y now see m to her Hepatitis C. The walk she takes struc tures the from the churn ing in visibl e . Something
Am eri can pop culture and an eco no my admira ble , for reason s she strugg les to articu- no vel - not entirely success fully, since a lot we haven 't kill ed and never will." God bless
vibrant eno ugh to be subs umed by erotic s. In late, but which have something to do with happ ened in the past, and nothing much is triumphali sm. And also pigs that fly.
Laura Warholic, advance d con sum er capit al-
ism has become solemnized into a danc e of
e Grand Meaulnes was publi shed in A bald summary makes Al ain-Fournier ' s

L
death. Th e image of the mel ancholy balloons H enri Al ain- Fou rn i er
in the mall is haunting. The syntactic contor- 191 3, has never go ne out of print part- autobiogra phic al , part fair y-tale narr a-
TH E LOST ESTATE ( LE G RAN D
tion , mirroring inn er turmoil, of " looking and has been translated into thirt y- tive see m melod ram atic and sentime ntal. It
M EA UL N E S )
for some thing to need to want to bu y" is three lan guages. Thou gh far from uni ver- is also full of improbabilities - the marri age
Translated by Robin Su ss
ski lfully don e . Finally, the fact that a decl ara- sally admired on publ ication (Gustave 256pp. Penguin Classics. Paperback, £8.99. o f Frantz de G alais to a sea ms tress is as
tion of hum an rights can be reduced to the Lanson was not alone in findin g it impl aus- 978 0 14 1441894 impl au sibl e as that of the "peasant"
right to bu y typifi es the pyrrhic victor ies of ible), it soo n acq uired cult status as the great Meaulnes to the high-b orn Yvonn e - and
pseudo-happiness. French novel of adolescence, and Henri to his lost garde n of delight where he had uncertainties: is Meauln es' s deci sion to
Whil e the narr atives of the ear lier no vels Alain- Fourni er, who was killed early in the been so trul y and unexpectedl y happ y. The leave Yvon ne a grand sac rifice or a refu sal
trac e a descent from ro mantic ideali zatio n First World War, entered the literary pan- rest of the novel , as Ad am Gopnik observes to grow up? Reser vation s of thi s sort have
into di sillu sion and cont empt, Laura theon as a kind of French Rup ert Brooke. in his enthusiastic introduction to this newly never both ered tho se who see only charm
Warholic tries to asce nd toward s ge nuine Augu stin Meauln es is tall , broad and publi shed tran slation by the late Robin Buss, and encha ntme nt in the book . Co untless
sympathy and pity for Laur a, and to achieve seve nteen yea rs old when he arri ves at the "tells of Meauln es' s attempt to understand reader s have been put in touch with their
a full er appreciation of lonelin ess and village school of Saint e-A gath e run by the what had happ ened to him .. . and to make lon g-vani shed childhood selves by spe nd-
vulnerability in a God less Am erica (so reads father of Francoi s Seur el, who is fifteen and the vision which has chan ged his life part of ing a season in Fournier's Shangri-La-sur-
the Hotel de Dream ' s brok en neon sign). Thi s becom es his best friend. It is not Meauln es' s oth ers' lives too". Cher and have retu rned refr eshed .
is not easy , give n that she has been so size but a charismatic boldn ess of spirit that As told by Francois Seur el , narra tor of Le Grand Meaulnes is a book about child-
minutely and unsymp athetically scru tinized earns him the sobriq uet "Grand" . When thi s rites of passage story , it is a ch ronicle of hood , yet it is not a children 's book . It not
from the start. Ey esto nes come s to see that Meaulnes sets out to co llect Franco is' s gra nd- loss. Frantz returns, mysteriou sly, as a stroll- only reflect s the spiritual odyssey of a ge ner-
his dista ste has obj ectifi ed her, almos t as parent s from the station for the Christmas ing player and then vanishes again. The prin- ation soon to be swe pt away, but Meauln es' s
much as his romanticization has obj ectifi ed holiday of 189- , he gets lost and wand ers cess turns out to be a se amstress . Meauln es "land without a name" captures a mor e ge n-
Ra punzcl. Re ali zing, too , that he has into the grounds o f a country mansion w here cannot for get or regain his midni ght garde n eral nostalgia for "the end of youth" . It is a
ex ploited Laur a, for all her repr esent ati ve strange festivities are bein g enac ted by a dis- and the moon maiden he found in it; and quest for a purit y which, throu gh a line run-
awfuln ess, almos t as much as she has used parat e coll ect ion of children and ado lescents Seur el becomes a village schoolmas ter liv- ning from Dickens and Rimbaud to Pagnol ,
and abu sed him , and acknow ledg ing that in fancy dress. They have gathered for the ing vicariously off golde n hopes. Eve n has a rustproof appea l for those who clin g to
Laura has been base metal transmuted into wedding of the son of the hou se, Frant z de when he locates the seques tered estate and their youth. Fournier's novel is both a ce le-
columnist ' s go ld, he sets out at Christmas, Galais, and a fair y-tal e princ ess. Th e reunit es Meaulnes with Yvonn e, par adi se brati on and an elegy , a vivid ev ocation of
the snow fallin g ge ntly on his epipha ny, "strange fete" ends when the princ ess run s rem ain s lost. Fran tz is a rootless the yea rs of innocenc e and wo nder which are
resol ved to offer her from no w on a radi cal, away , but not before Meaulnes has fallen wa ndere r, Meauln es aba ndo ns Yvonn e who routin ely annihilated, save in memor y and
open- end ed sympathy and an unconditional under the spell of Frantz 's once-glimpse d, dies leavin g a dau ght er who remains the the imagin ation , by life' s spoiling power.
friend ship that is innoc ent of ex ploitation. ethereally beautiful sister, Yvonne. When o nly livin g link with hi s va nished yo uth, This is the "lost estate" which Robin
But for a no vel which has so compendiously the part y breaks up, Meaulnes sets out to while Seur el is left empty-handed : tim e Buss takes as the title for his last, lyrical
ca talogued hum an foll y and weakness, to return to Sainte-Ag athe but again loses his has robb ed him of love and friend ship and tran slation.
pro vid e a happ y resolution is out of the way and thereafter cann ot find his way back placed his childhood out of reach for eve r. DA V ID COW ARD
qu estion. Th erou x do es his wor st.

TLS D EC EMB E R 2 1 & 28 2 007

 FICTION 27

ranco- A merican cultura l relations can " dans notre vie". Lero y devotes a who le chap-

P be puzz ling to the outsider. Who , for

instance , can fathom the dec ision by
Jac k Lang, culture secre tary in Franco is
Ecole Fitzgerald ter to Ze lda's infatuation, in the summe r of
1924 , with the French aviator Edo uard Joza n,
which gets a passing mention in the
Mitt errand' s soc ialist government, to bes tow Letters ("T hen there was Josen and you were
the meda l of Officie r des Arts et des Lettres AD R IAN TA HOU R D IN down from Prin ceton. Ze lda 's mother is j ustifiably angry", Ze lda wro te to Scott ). In
in 1992 on Sy lves ter Stallone (later to be show n to have all the prejudi ces of a So uth- Save M e the Walt z, Dav id "found her and
followed in that dis tinc tion by Bruce Willis)'! G ill e s Le roy ern lady toward s the son of a failed door-to- Jacqu es sitting in the sa nd like a couple of
But on a literary leve l at least, the two nations door salesma n from St Pau l, Min nesota . On - well a couple of some thing, he said to him-
have always had productive links : American A LABAMA S ONG their weddi ng day, Scotts breath stinks of self distastefull y" . Leroy gives us a more
writers have been draw n to France, and the 190pp. Mercure de France. € 15. Bourbon , and his decli ne into alcoholism is sexua lly exp licit version of the enc ounter.
Fre nch have repaid the com plime nt with a 97827 15226456 graphica lly depicted. Read ing Lero y' s novel , In an afterword Leroy exp lains that most
keen appreciation of their wor k. F. Sco tt we shudder once aga in at the couple's insa ne of the even ts in the novel are imag ined -
Fitzgerald, who was in the vanguard of what Fitzgerald, though more ecs tatic than yours". ex travagance, experience her boredom as he including an episode where Ze lda walks
now see ms like a wave of America n literary Perh aps she is here referrin g to its occas ional strugg les with his writing - "Q uelques mois into a room in the Hotel George V to find
ex iles, spe nt some yea rs in France in the plunges into purple prose : "The mo ire shee n plu s tard paraissait ce fameu x roman tant O'Connor with his head between Sco tt's
1920s with his wife Ze lda . Gilles Leroy ' s of the afterno on polished the sterility of the attendu, celui qui devait ecrase r Pro ust et th ighs. Nevertheless he ci tes seve ral authors
novel A labama Song , which last mon th was room s' co lonial pictu resqueness . .." . Sc otts Joyce reunis, Neuf ans a l' ecrire . .." . We are as sources but , curiously, not M atthew J.
awar ded the Prix Go nco urt, is an attem pt to letter s to Ze lda abo ut her novel have not show n Ze lda's lack of matern al instincts as Brucco li, the leadin g Fitzge rald scholar.
retell - in the first perso n - the story of Ze lda survived, but we know that he approve d of well as her belated and fru strated attempts to Leroy also describ es a visit to the Fitzge ra ld
Fitzgerald's tragic life. it, after initi al rese rvations; he comp lained to turn herself into a ballet dancer. house in Mont gomery, now a museu m,
Ze lda herself wro te a vivid autobiograp h- his editor Maxwell Perkins that she had It is not clear that Leroy has brought very whe re he reads a sober press report, from
ical nove l, Save Me the Waltz, in six weeks draw n on the same material - their yea rs much to the story, although the writing is the Montgom ery Advertiser, of Ze lda ' s death
in ea rly 1932, mos tly while con fined in the in Fra nce - that he was usin g for the novel lively and he brings out well the was te and in a fire at the Highland Mental Hosp ital in
Henr y Phipps Psych iatric Clinic at Johns he had been wor king on for yea rs. His novel, ruin of her life. He replicates Ze lda's fond- Asheville, NC, in 194 8, to which he adds
Hopkin s, Baltim ore. She had been diagnosed Tender Is the Nig ht, which was published in ness for mixing reco ndite voca bulary and the (unnecessary) observation: "There are
with schizop hrenia in 1930 and after several 1934, is regar ded by many critics as his plain spea king: "sa ngu inolents", "I' ecrivail- death s before which the spirit stumbles . . ..
months spen t at a cli nic in Ny on, on the mas terp iece. Ion" , "ce pretentiard" , while Alabama is A nd death in a fire is in my view the wors t.
shores of Lake Geneva, she and Sco tt Leroy has clea rly draw n on Save Me describ ed as "le trou du cuI du mond e". The It' s by burnin g that we destroy rebels,
return ed to the US with their young daughter the Waltz (in which the male protagoni st, novel' s ope ning sce ne at the aviators ' ball is witches and saints - deviant s and mad-
Scotti e. Ze lda wrote to Sco tt fro m Baltimore David, is a painter) for hi s acco unt of the well done, and Tallul ah Bankh ead has wo men"; co uld Ze lda Fitzgerald, he wo n-
(in a letter publi shed in Dear Scott, Dearest Fitzge ralds ' ea rly life together. He describ es seve ral droll walk-o n parts. The portrait of ders, have been awa re of the tragedy engulf-
Zelda: The love letters of F. SCOft and Zelda their first meeting at an avia tors' ball in Ju ne Scott is mostly unsymp athetic, occ asionally ing her ? Did no editor at Mercu re de Fra nce
Fitzgero ld. ed ited by Jac kso n R. Bryer and 1918 in Montgomery, Alabama, she a bitter, while Ernes t Hemin gway (here th ink of trying to persuade Lero y to delete
Ca thy W. Barks), " I am pro ud of my novel Southern belle and the daughter of a judge, renamed Lewis O'Connor) is present ed in a his final sentence, "Adieu, Ze lda . Ce fut un
.. . . You will like it - It is distinct ly Ecole he a ha ndso me and ambitious young writer hostile light: " Puis ce gros lard est entre honneur'"]

-----------------------~,----------------------

on ea rth did he manage to get married? What Sa lvayre 's assured, flui d pro se, whic h moves
Pascalforcornpany happened to his sister? The psychological
descent and denouement feel too Oedip ally
neat; he hates his father and wa nts to prot ect
with ease from the loft y pro nounce me nts to
dirt y-minded co nversa tional French. There
are a couple of lapses, but she has kept the
L U CY D ALL A S especially his beloved Mama. These remi nis- his mother, with whom he is obsesse d, ce ntral sense of charac ter crucial to the boo k:
cences are bleak and painful, as he reli ves the maki ng him a latent homosexual. one man' s descent into inhumanity, with no
L ydi e S al v a y r e dai ly ritu als of hatred, violence and fear he Jane Kuntz has don e a goo d jo b with one but Blaise Pascal for co mpa ny.
suffere d as a boy. As an adult, he perpetu ates
THE P OWER OF F L IES the situation by bullying his wife ; althoug h
Trans lated by Jane Kuntz he adm its that his wors t fear is to end up like D on ald M c C a i g fraught relations wi th vario us wr iters w ho
186pp. Dalkey Arc hive Press. Paperback, £7.99 his father , it is clea r that he has adva nced far have attempted to do so. Donald McCaig,
(US $ 12.95). RHETT B U T L ER ' S P E OPL E
along that path. He is not unaware of this; in his ow n right an acc omp lished Civil War
978 I 564784209 500pp. Macmillan. £ 17.99.
indeed, he is an intelli gent charac ter, who can novelist, has now publi shed, with their full
978 0 230 70395 7
pun ctu ate his grim stor ies with fla shes of cooperation, an "authorized" companion
ne of the morals to be drawn fro m disarming humour. argaret M itchell did not rate Gone piece, retelling even ts throu gh the seduc-

O this inten se, compe lling and unpleas- His former job as a museum guide at the
ant nove l could be: don 't read too Port- Royal-des-Champ s, a convent with close
much Pascal. The narrator of The Power of ties to the Janseni sm defended by Pascal
M with the Wind very highl y, but it
won a Pulitzer Prize and
in the years since it was first publi shed in
tive ant i-hero Rhett Butler. It does not
wor k. As both Scott and Mitchell knew,
historical romance does not requi re the
Flies is obsessed by Blaise Pascal and his aga inst Jesuit attack in the seventee nth cen- 1936 it has sold ove r 28 million copies hero to have an interes ting mind or a dee p
Pensees, and it is in part his attemp t to tury, allowed him to tell moralizing stories worldw ide, making it one of the bestselling soul. Not only is psyc hologiz ing burden-
integrate their phil osoph y into his dail y life and quote his hero to his heart' s content, until novels of all time. In fact, it is a vigorous some to the form, it risks collapsing the
that brings about his do wnf all. The story is his interest began to tip over into obsession. and intelligent reappr aisal of the for mula fictional distance between past and present
told throu gh a series of answer s to ques tions Unlikely as it may see m, Port- Ro yal provides for historical romance made popular by wh ich is integral to the genre 's power.
posed by a j udge, a doc tor, a nurse and a some very funny moments, including a sce ne WaIter Sco tt in the nineteenth century. In Sequels are anxious thin gs, weighed
lawyer ; we never hear the questions, but this in which the narrator decides that the bes t Mitchell' s hands, history and romance are dow n by informati on, bereft of enigma .
rather clumsy narr ative device makes it clear text to we lcome an important visitor is directed to the viewpoint of the Southern Accordin gly, Rhett Butler 's Peop le trades
th at the pr ot agoni st, w ho rem ain s nam eless, Pascal ' s Thre e Dis co urses on the Con di tion women who refused to he hroken hy the in exp lanatio n and ex oneratio n: detail s of
is in priso n and on trial for murder. Lydie of M en of High Ran k, which concludes with: Am erican Civil War. Scarlett 0' Hara, Rhett' s abus ive father, Rhetr' s com pass ion
Salvayre makes us wait until her fin al sen- "yo u are esse ntially nothi ng but the kings of pampered and selfish, finds grit in adve rsity, for the do wntrodden ; and it explains away
tence to find out who he has murdered, greed . In other wor ds, whores". He not ices declaring "As God is my witness, as God is the sca ndals that clin g to him. It linger s on
retainin g an element of the po licier in what is their faces and wo nders whether he might my witness, the Yankees aren ' t goi ng to lick Rhett's talent s for reconcili ation and
esse ntially a psychological case study, the have "committed an error" . me. I'm going to live throu gh this" . Severa l appease me nt, applying the airbrush to his
monol ogue of a damaged man who finally Salvay res anti-hero ca n be percepti ve hund red pages later, the novel ends tantaliz- mad , bad quirk s. The inside of Rhetr' s
unravels. By the end, however, the question when it comes to other people; his desc rip- ingly, maintainin g to the close its appea l to head, which we enter all too often, has a
of who has been murd ered seems almost tions of the touri sts who come to the muse um history in its sensational form as a record of twent y-fir st-centu ry famili arit y. Even the
beside the po int. - pensioner s, students, Ger mans - are full destruction beyond recovery and Scarlett fam ously taut end ing does not escape the
Pasca l is not the onl y person res ponsible of insight, if acid, but he walks blindl y to his 0 ' Hara as its mos t complex witness. reviser' s smoothing .
for the narrator ' s ruin; much of the novel ow n fate. There are probl em s and un- Mit chell pers isted in her refu sal to pro-
is taken up with stor ies of the vileness of his answe red questions in The Po wer of Flies, vide a sequel, and her estate has had K A THRY N SUT HE R LAN D
father, who terror ized the whole famil y, and which was publ ished in France in 1995. How

TL S D E C E M B E R 2 1 & 28 2007
28 LITERATURE

Manhattan partings
t wo uld be hard to imagin e, for a cer tain B ENJAMI N MARKOVIT S In "The Oth er Two", a man marries a ch arm-

I kind of reader, a more attra ctive vo lume

than the New York Review Book s
edition of The New York Stories of Edith
E d i t h Whar t on
ing woman who has been twice divor ced . For
reaso ns both personal an d profession al, he
find s himself keepin g up relations with her
Wharton. Th e cove r shows a scene from THE NE W Y O RK S T OR IES O F form er hu sband s. Aft er a while, he can no
a painting by the prettil y impr essioni stic, ED IT H WH A R TO N longer blind himself to the ev ide nce of his
and appropriately Am eric an, arti st Childe Se lec ted by Roxa na Robin son wife 's emo tiona l pliability: she has pro ved
453pp. Ne w Yor k Rev iew Book s. Paperback ,
Hassam. A line of trees o n Washin gton capable of lovin g, of suiting herself, to eac h
£10.99 (US $ 16.95).
Squ are marches, in grand parade, away from of them in turn. This is one of the facts of life
978 I 590 172 483
the famous arch ; a lady holding up her white that the sex ua l revoluti on has more or less
skirts, a woma n shielding her pram with a inur ed us to; we are blind to it. But Wh arton
par asol , a ge ntleman in a top hat , and a two- first a chill and then pneumonia and dies. Th e seems to be writing at a tim e whe n the defini-
hor se carriage move slow ly towards the building work co ntinues regardl ess. A yo ung tion s of love and marri age we re both at stake,
viewe r. Th e im age plays to one of the man, livin g beyond his means on embezz led both chang ing, and the di sson anc e between
par ado xes of a literary ap petite. Much of mon ey, interrupt s a suicide atte mpt on the old and new loves was parti cul arly audible .
Wh arton ' s wor k reveals the stifli ng artificial- eve of his ex pos ure , and uses his last few ill- Her style so often sugges ts that of her
ity of the society she grew up in; but it is the go tte n doll ars to save the poor woman before friend Henr y James - and mostly its virtues,
attr acti ve aspec ts of that society, the glitter of turning him self in. Elsew here, a happil y mar- it should be said, rath er than its fault s - that
its artifice , the grande ur of its real estate, that ried woman find s her hu sband , a widowe r, o ne can not he lp feelin g wha t a wonder ful
draw so many read ers to it. Wh arton ' s fic- being plag ued by a series of identical lett ers. invention it is. Invention see ms too techno-
tion al New York and Hassam ' s stately and She suspec ts the wors t kind of infid elit y, but logic al a word for a writer 's "voice" , but
some how heartb reakin g view of Wa shin gton the truth turn s out to be, in the most occult what else sho uld we call some thing that
Squ are make the sa me appeal: 0 , what a way , something worse still . . . . Eve n others ca n put to such good use ? If there' s
world to be unhappy in! " Roman Feve r", ju stl y praised by Ro xana an idea behind Jam esiani sm, it might ju st be
The se lection is loo sely defin ed and spa ns Robin son in her introduction to thi s volume, thi s: that the land scape of our slightes t and
mor e or less her whole career : from the hin ges on a long- ago ass ignation, a forg ed mo st private intentions is susce ptible of the
fir st sho rt story she eve r publi shed, "Mrs letter , a sec ret meetin g, an ad ultero us affair, same kind of treatment, both precise and
Man stey' s View" (18 9 1), to "Roman Fev er" , an illegitimate birth. metaphorical, as the land scap es of the natur al
which ca me out a few years before her death One of the stro nges t early stories , "A Jour- world. Th ese stor ies are full of wo nder ful
in 1937 and is co nnected to New York only ney" , describ es a woman's reaction to the touch es. "Her elasticity was the res ult of
by the fact that the two old ladies in it, whe n death of her hu sband . She pretend s that he Mich elle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis in tension in too many different di rection s" ,
they are not on holid ay, live on Eas t 73 rd is still alive . Th ey are o n a train to New York, The Age oflnnocence (1993) Wh arton rem arks of Mr s Waythorn , the wife
Street. I wo uld have liked to see the dates where her famil y live, an d she worries that at the centre of "The Oth er Two" . And yet, as
(either of co mp ositi on or publica tion) give n one of the stewa rds will force her to disem- by giving in to his grea t techni cal sen timental the collecti on grows, she learn s how to make
after eac h story, in part bec ause the evo lution bark if he discovers that her travellin g facility. He ca n do a Mu ngold and make sim plicity count for as much as subtlety . In
of New York society is one of Wh arton ' s comp anion is a co rpse . The madn ess of her his fortune ; the difference is that Mun gold "Roman Fever" , a widow mourn s her dead
them es, and in part because her own evo lu- actions has a great intern al appeara nce of mean s it, and he doesn 't, and there the sin son. "She had fought thro ugh that ago ny
tion as a writer makes up so mu ch of the inter- reason ableness, and that appeara nce itself and the sha me of it lie. These glib di vision s, becau se her husband was there, to be help ed
es t of the co llection. Sho rt stories are stra nge sugges ts, as nothing else could, the madn ess bet ween the fashionable and the real , see m and to help ; now, after the father' s death , the
thin gs. They de ma nd an interest in form, in of griev ing. This is perha ps the simples t of themselves to be mor e fashion able than rea l. thou ght of the boy had become unb earabl e."
the invention of for m, that poet s and artists her dr am atic conc eit s, and the mos t effective: It isn' t eno ugh to ironize yo ur hero by allow - Wh arton has co me a long way from the
share; noveli sts can usually ge t away with it relies only on the natur al dram a of a natural ing him to ma ke a con sci ou s joke of living up poe tica l exaggerations of Mr s Manstey.
bein g a littl e more co nse rvative . In the hand s event, not on a frame of improb able c o inc i- to La Bo he me , Eve n so, she never had (nobody has)
of a noveli st, sho rt stor ies ca n sugges t a sub- denc es. Robin son is right to praise its "power- If these stor ies have a defining subje ct Jarn es' s co mplete mastery of his ow n sty le.
ject their author found insufficientl y interest- ful , precise and startlingly mo dern" qu aliti es, (other than New York ) it is divorc e, which Beneath the sur face of his style, there see ms
ing to ex pand on ; yet they also offer a chance eve n though a true modern ist might have begin s to repl ace art as Wh arton' s ex cuse for to be a substance that ex actly resembl es it.
to ex periment. The sense of fru stration s, of figur ed o ut a way of ending it somew here in di scu ssin g the fashi onabl e and the real. In Beneath the Wh arton poli sh, yo u some times
freed om s, both of read er and writer, come the middl e, which Wh arton can 't quit e man- fact , one of the pleasur es of a collecti on like find coarser and more common elements,
thro ugh clearl y in thi s co llection. age. Short stor ies are notori ou sly diffi cult to thi s is that yo u can trace her tend enci es in it - well dressed up. There ca n be a virtue to such
Plotting, in the highest sense, is what fini sh . To her credit, she never develop s a and the way they develop. She is bett er at imp erfecti on s, and at her best, she mak es use
Wh arton , at her best, was particularl y good at formula for solving the probl em , which isn 't divorce than art; she is better at divorce than of it. Her plot s turn ofte n on the plau sibl e and
- the no veli st ' s art of capturing the revolu- to say that she eve r does solve it. marriage. "Autres Te mps" , one of the ge ms the ordin ary ; she can be movin g in a way that
tion s of that "unbeatable slow machin e I Th at Wh ere she is less eve ntful, Wh arton tend s of the co llection, describ es the ge neration James mostl y fail s to be. It sho uld be added
brings what you' ll ge t" . There 's not much to be mor e hum orou s. A grea t deal of her ga p between Mr s Lid cote and her daught er, that in thi s coll ection she mostl y fail s too. In
ev ide nce of Larkin' s machin e in these pages. whimsy , espec ia lly in her early caree r, see ms both divorc ees. The mother can 't quit e The Age of Innocence, Wh arton mana ged to
In The House of Mirth and The Age of Inno- to be dir ect ed at the natur e of art, both liter- beli eve how easy it is for her child to re-ent er fill a no vel by describing a deep attrac tion
cence, Wh arton shows us with painful clarit y ary and paint erl y. Art allows her to distin- the society that excluded her a few decades that co uld neve r be acted on - in these short
the limits of her hero es; their only cl aim to guish bet ween the fashion able and the "real", before: she is "wru ng with the iron y of per- stories, she stretches a great dea l mo re into
bein g tragic or rem arkable is that they recog- and since thi s distinction is really the ce iving that the success or failure of the deep- a grea t deal less. Th ere are com pen sation s,
nize that the limit s imp osed hy their soc iety starting point of much of her work, she takes est hum an ex perie nces ma y hang on a matt er ho wever , and New York itselfi s on e of them .
are still narro wer than their ow n. Thi s isn't a adv antage of the arts as a means of makin g it of chronology ". This is a big idea, but It is almos t as if we are watching the cit y
plotlin e that ca n be cut short or sketched in - ex plicit - sometimes rather clum sily. In "The Wh arton ge ts it right in sma ll ways, too. Her itself grow up in these pages: from the hum-
it takes the slow devotion of a noveli st' s art Portrait " , the grea t arti st Ge orge Lill o for daught er ass ures Mr s Lid cote that the times ble, dirt y back wat er of a coloni al satellite
to do it ju stice, and Wharton doesn 't have the once misses his mark because he wa nts to pro- have change d; eve n so , she usher s her moth er into the mod erni st vision of a towerin g struc-
space for such devotion here. Her stor ies tend tect his sitter's dau ght er from a true es tima- into a pri vate room when impo rtant gues ts ture that dwarfs the poor hum an crea tures
to be more eve ntful than her novels. They tion of her father. Lill os bru sh is ca pable of arrive . that built it and live within:
turn o n mor e terrible or mor e whimsica l, and stripping bare the soul of his subje ct; it is a Th e vario us probl em s of "chro nology" Outside, the immense black prospect of New
con sequ entl y less moving, twists of fate. terrible power, and Wharton makes a grea t begin to concern Wh arton more and more. York, strung with its myriad lines of light,
So metimes the terrible and whimsical act deal o ut of the difference bet ween the " You yourse lf sir sho uld grow old as 1 am , if stretched away into the smoky edges of the
in co ncer t. An old widow , who lives for her insight s of an artist and the insights of his art. like a crab yo u could go back wards" , Hamlet night. He showed it to her wi th a gest ure.
view, fin ds that a neighbo uring landl ady is " Full Circle" appli es the sa me idea to a tell s Polonius. It is a line whose simplicity "What do yo u suppose such words as yo u've
about to blo ck it off with an ex tension. One writer's life. Th e hero of "The Pot-B oiler" , a hid es a grea t many terrible truth s - Wh arton been using - 'society', 'tradition', and the rest
dark cold night she sets fire to it, but catches strugg ling paint er, dabbl es with popul arit y ges tures at a numb er of them in these pages. - mean to all the life out there?"

TLS D E C EM B E R 2 1 & 28 2 007

 LI T ER ARY CRITICISM 29

" Madness'" Kathar ine Hodgki n Discourse Concern ing Trouble of Min d
writes in this elegan t analys is,
"is some thing that wa nders ." Not
only are the mad ofte n linked with jou rneys,
Comes and goes (1691 ), "on which no Sun at all see ms to
shine" yet also a fashion able upp er-cl ass
mo de ass ociated with scholarship and imagi-
vaga bo ndage , a restlessness of body and nation. Hod gki n is exce llent on the ways in
mind that produ ces ca lls for co nfi nement; ADAM S M YT H which radica l re ligious sec tar ians, such as the
but, more fundamenta lly, madness, as a con - prophets Lady Elea nor Davies and A nna
cep tua l category, is mo bile. Madness mean s K ath a rin e H od gkin Trapn el, "recl aim led J the idea of madness on
different thin gs at different times, and symp- thei r ow n term s" , appro priating erratic beh av-
toms that modern psychi atry co nnects with MADN ESS I N SEV ENTEENT H- iour as a marker of ge nuine reli giou s ex per i-
mental di sord er might have alterna tive early CENTU RY AUTOB IOGRAP HY ence, and ex pressi ng what Cleme nt Hawes,
mo de rn con notations. Vision s and uncon- 266pp. Palgrave Macmillan. £55 (US $68). in Mania and Literary Style (1996), call s a
troll ed speec h, for example, "can be located 978 I 4039 1765 2 "rhetoric of enthusias m": an ex travagance of
in a relig ious and cultura l co ntex t which ex press ion, chara cterized by incoherenc e,
makes them perfec tly reasonable". In Mad- since all three texts were writte n for circula- allu siveness and assoc iative leaps, and a
ness in Seven teenth-Century Autobiography, tion - Fitzher bert had fair copies deposit ed in commitment to the communication of
Hod gkin present s neith er a static definition libraries; Ali en and Trosses writings were ex periences defin ed by their inexpr essibility.
of ma dness, nor a triu mph ali st pro gression printed - these texts conform with part icul ar System s of care were corres pondingly
fro m barb ari sm to enlightenment. Mu ch diligence to exe mplary patterns of crisis and fluid : with no clear category of the doctor
more com pelling ly, she examines how mad- reco ver y. for the mad , "a mixed economy" of spec ialists
ness is co ntinua lly remade as a ca tegory, in Hod gkin is acutely awa re that these spirit- and amateurs provided support across dom es-
the ear ly mo dern period and today. ual autobiographies employ a lan gu age of tic, famili al, medi cal and spiritual co ntex ts.
Studies of madn ess often, foll owin g in the ment al crisis to satisfy devotion al expecta - In the stories of Trosse and Fitzherbert 's
tid al wake of Fouca ult's Histoire de la fo lie tion s, but she suggests we can discern depic- recoveries, women - moth ers, hou sekeepers,
a l 'tige classiq ue (1961 ), endorse or cont est tion s of madn ess in mom ents when these doctor s' wives - play a cen tra l role. For tho se
sweeping narr atives of ex clusion, but narratives exceed generic demand s, surp ass- "Melancholy" by Jacob van Loo famili ar with descripti on s of eightee nth- and
Hod gkin ' s focus is more prec ise . She offers ing, or divergin g from , conventi on s. Thus , nineteenth- centu ry confineme nt, Hod gkin' s
detailed readi ngs of three early- to mid- Trosse 's writte n life, the poli shed wor k of a Thi s recurring confi gur ati on of madn ess as account will cause surprise, sugges ting an
ce ntury autobiographies which describe mini ster ' s pen, full of mor al lesson s and bal- verba l chaos crea tes a probl em for authors : early modern conception of madness not as a
peri od s of me nta l di sturbance, by the O xford- anced rhetori cal oppos itions, breaks do wn in ho w does one find words for a loss of control perm anent sick ness excluding sufferers from
shire ge ntlewo man Dion ys Fitzherb ert , the a desc ription of hallu cinations and violence over wo rds, exce pt by produci ng the parado x- the hum an, but instead a curable condition to
Presbyterian Hannah A lien and the No ncon- that is diffi cult to assimil ate within the frame- ica l effec t of a ca lm, orde rly description of be treated medically and spiritually throu gh
for mist minister George Trosse . As Hod gkin work of spiritua l autobiography. In these irration alit y and traum a, the measur ed rep re- the reint egration of the suffe rers into the
makes clear, her atte mpt to find madn ess is mom ent s of generic ove rflow ing, madn ess is sentation of intemp erance ? This probl em social. Early modern madn ess afflic ts,
comp licated by the fact that these narratives co nstruc ted as "woful confu sion"; a kind of grows acute since all three writers describe Hodgkin wr ites, "and then it goes away
are spiritual autobiographies and so desc ribe hermeneutic al wi ldness , the tendenc y to madn ess fro m a positi on of professe d sanity, again" . Hod gki n' s patient , contex tual analysis
periods of se lf-loa thing, delu sion and bewil- attribute stra nge mea nings to even ts; priva- as a state that has passed or is di savowed. is a we lco me cor rective to book s that rea d
der men t as a cond ition of their ge nre : a lan- tion (of reason, com mu nity); hallu cin ation; Madn ess is spo ken of from the outside, as early modern symptoms by twenty-fi rst-
g uage of cris is we might link with madness ph ysical pain ; de mo nic possession ; disrup- someth ing witho ut its ow n vo ice , by writers centur y criteria. And by stress ing the mobilit y
wor ks to ge nera te the effec t of spiritua l integ- tive love; "affl icted con science" ; a malfu nc- anx ious to separate themsel ves from the of madn ess as a category, Hodgkin sugges ts a
rity . Fitzher bert pos itions her public break- tioning bod y that con sum es excessively or condition they describ e. continuum between the mad and the sane,
down within a bro ader pattern of sin, punish- not at all, that desires the wro ng thin gs, that Hod gkin track s the shifting con ceptions thu s exposi ng the dan gers of insistin g o n the
me nt and rede mptio n; Trosses descripti on of wa lks naked or dresses with wild ex trava - of these ter ms, and is parti cul arl y go od on otherness of madn ess, and of ass uming the
hi s spraw ling yo unge r yea rs spen t propped ga nce ; and, mo st frequ ently, a loss of co ntro l melancholy, und erstood as a hum or al imb al- rationality of all hum an beh aviour. " Unreaso n
up in taver ns conform s to co nven tional narr a- over langu age, and in particul ar the inability ance leadin g to lethargy - a "Land of da rk- shadows all human subjec ts", Hodgkin
ti ves of prodi galit y reformed . Moreover, to inter rupt the articulation of inner thou ght s. ness" according to Ti moth y Roger ss writes, and is part of eve ryone 's life.

-----------------------~,-----------------------

texts, thou gh it is regrett abl e that Morl ey

Clunkingly clever admits an anonymous poem to the ca non
on no firmer gro unds than spec ulatio n that
Hemin ge might have been the author. (He

L
ike a spaceship pilot stee ring desper- MARTI N WIGGI NS is inept or kno wing: does Heminge expect migh t. So might almos t any oth er poet of
ate ly away from a black hol e, Caro l his audience to recogni ze a quotati on , or is the time. ) But for most rea de rs, Hemin ge' s
A. Morl ey demand s for her autho r, C aro l A . M o rl e y , e d i to r he a me re plagiarist ca ught out by the longer main interest will necessarily be as ev ide nce
Will iam Hemin ge, an approa ch unbi ased by shelf life of his source material ? Morl ey of how Shakes pea re was read by the next
o ur prior know ledge of Willi am Shake- T HE P LAYS AN D PO E M S O F wa nts to read it in term s of the mod ern cine- ge neration. Morl ey' s spa rse ann otation is
spea re. Hemin ge grew up in Jacobean theatre- WILLI AM H EMI N G E matic con vent ion of hommage, but neglect s only interm ittentl y informative about the
land , the son of John Hemin ge, business man- 47 1pp. Fa irleig h Dickinson University Press. $80; to engage with two objec tions to thi s point s of contac t bet ween the two authors. If
ager of Shakespea re's acting co mpa ny and distribut ed in the UK by Assoc iated University approac h. In man y cases, Hemin ge was the the obje ctive is, in admirable pur suit of an
eo- compiler of the First Folio. Lik e man y Presses. £51.50. very first author to qu ote the ph rases in unbi ased hearing fo r Heminge, to minimize
978 08386 40395
theatri cal famili es of the time, the Hemi nges qu estion , so the arg umen t risks circularity : the oppor tunity to infer plagiari sm, this is
were upwar dly mobil e, and Willi am we nt the crucial ev ide nce that they we re famili ar futil e: we can 't unl earn Shakespeare, and the
to Oxfor d, but ulti mately declin ed to take and sadistic situations which the lesser Ca ro- eve n in the 1630 s is simp ly not there. More- material is und eniabl y there .
hol y orde rs and return ed to literary Lond on . line playwri ght s customarily employed in the over , it is a diffi cult case to sus ta in afte r noti c- But if, as Morl ey proposes, the echoes are
Hi s first play, The Jews ' Tragedy, tell s hope of achiev ing the sublimity of their great ing some of Hemi nge' s other, less obv ious a delib erate part of Hemin ge' s artistic effec t,
the lab yri nthin e story of the Ro ma no-Jew ish forebears. To cap it all, Hemin ge did it using Shakes pea rean glea nings , such as , in two it is per verse to suppress information about
war which ended with the destru ction of a ge nero us helpin g of Sh akespeare' s ow n different sce nes and co ntex ts, the distinctive them. Wo rse, it leaves readers to rely o n
Jeru salem . It is interestin g as the dram atic wor ds . but pure ly fun ction al phr ase from King Lear what they kn ow alrea dy, which mean s that
mee ting poi nt of Heminge ' s two worlds, Wh en a wicked qu een ' s lover escapes (an d onl y King Lear), "Hence and avoid my Hemin ge ' s sense of Shakespeare' s mem ora-
combining the histori cal fussiness of from her bed room wea ring a suit of armo ur sight!" . Thi s is the point when speci al plead- ble passages will start to seem remarkably
seve ntee nth-ce ntury uni ver sity traged y with belon ging to her suppose dly dead yo unge r ing for Hemi nge wo uld have to shade into like our own: if he appears to have used noth-
an insti ncti ve - one might almos t say inb orn son, and is mi staken by the elde r son for a doubl ethink: if the borrowed phr ases that ing fro m, say, Timon of Ath ens, does that
- und erstandin g of the techn ology of the co n- ghost rise n to demand vengea nce , the situa- you imm edi ately recognize are self-aware testif y to Ca roline or mo de rn neglect ? Th ere
temporar y co mmercial stage . He we nt on to tion may strike us as risibl e. The im pression qu otation s, then the ones yo u don 't must be remains mor e work to be don e on Willi am
write The Fatal Cont ract, a play brimmin g will be reinforced whe n the so n blurt s out, uncon sciou s appropriations. Hemin ge, especially as a reader and admirer
with the sensational ex terna ls of Jacobean after Haml et , "My bro ther 's spirit in arms". Enthusiasts and scholars of the period are of Shakespeare. At least thi s edition will
traged y, the relentl ess, convoluted intri gues The key issue is whether thi s sort of thin g we ll enoug h serve d by the caref ully edited make the j ob sign ifican tly eas ier.

TLS D E C E M B E R 2 1 & 28 2007

30 LITERARY CRITICISM

he Romantic era in the Germ an con- Berlin lectures, while other collecti ons such

T text was undoubtedly a good time for

famil y enterpri se of an intellectual
nature, as siblings and spouses inspir ed
Favoured sons as tho se of Amor etti (192 3) and Lohn er
(1967 ) focu s almos t excl usive ly on the earl y
lectur es at the expen se of Au gust Wilh elm ' s
each other in a dialogu e which encompasse d other work, which includ es poetry, pro se
almo st everything from literature to cultural CAROL T ULLY the period is the subje ct of a con stant stream and , of cour se, tran slation.
theory. The most famou s fratern al pairing of of doctoral theses, essays and articles , despit e Tho se hopin g that the current Sch onin gh
the period must, of course, be those unassum- August Wilh elm Schl eg el the fact that it was arg uably Au gust Wilh elm venture would help to redr ess the balanc e
ing giants of philology, the Broth ers Grimm, who gained the most imm edi ate international in August Wilh elrn ' s favour will be dis-
them selves now a feature in world folklore KRITIS CH E A US GAB E D ER reputation. August Wilhelm ' s Vienna Lectures appointed. Frus tratingly, the curr ent vo lume
thank s to their seminal collection of popular V O R L E S UNG EN (180 8) appeared in several Europea n lan- is part of an edition, also begun by Behl er in
tales. Jacob and Wilh el m were, however , Vo lume 2/ 1, Vorl esun gen uber A.sthetik guages onl y a few yea rs after their publica- 1989, wh ich is once more onl y conc ern ed
(1803-1 827)
onl y part of a famil y network which tion and form ed the ba sis for Rom antic with the lectures. It form s part of a project ed
35 1pp. Paderborn : Ferdinand Sehiiningh . €78.
includ ed, among others, their artist broth er debat e acro ss the contin ent and beyond. Vet series of six volumes coverin g August
9783 506778529
Lud wig. The Brentanos, Clemens and these con stitut e only a fraction of his theoreti- Wilh elm ' s lectures on literar y and cultural
Bettin a, are another example, their relati on- cal writings , which appeared in a range of histor y from 1798 to 1828 and is the first
ship inten sified throu gh Bettina' s marri age to conc ept happil y absorb ed by the Disney literar y journals, as well as in hi s publi shed full critic al edition of the lectures to appea r.
Clernenss clo se working associat e, Achim generation and one whi ch Ludwi g, for all his lectures. Add to this the monum ent al task of The direction chosen for the edition is not
va n Arnim. artistic talent , could never hop e to emulate. tran slatin g both Shakespear e and Calder6n, elabora ted in Geor g Braungart ' s clo sing
One could also add to this list the Fouques, Not able too are the mixed respon ses to tho se as well as hi s later work on Sanskrit and Eas t- remarks, in which he cites onl y the relati vely
Friedrich and his wife, Caroline, and the fem ale contributors to the Romantic debate. ern cultures, and there can be little doubt as vag ue plans left behind by the origin al editor.
Tieck s, Ludw ig and his dau ghter, Doroth ea. Bettin a B r entan os own talent for self-promo- to the ra nge and va lue of Augu st Wilh elm ' s Such limit ation s notwith standin g, this is an
And , of course, Au gust Wilh elm Schl egel tion survives her and ensures a level of inter- contribution to the und erstanding of world impressive piece of scho larship and must be
and his younger broth er , Friedrich, who, est in her work which curr entl y threatens to literature. appl auded as such. However, the length y ges -
inspired and aided by their respecti ve wives , eclipse both brother and husband alike, while Vet, despit e his early success and the last- tation of the edition of Friedrich's works and
Caroline and Dorothea, created a bod y of Caroline de la Mott e Fouqu e ha s the feminist ing impa ct it has had , August Wilh elm' s the relati vely slow progress evident in the
work which was central to the development literar y revival of the 1960s and 70s to thank work is still to appear in the critic al edition emerge nce of this coll ection provokes refl ec-
of the Rom antic aesthetic and at the forefront for her current status above her once more which an oeu vre of this standing so clearly tion on the nature of such scholarship in a
of a growing fascin ation with comp arati ve fam ous but arguabl y far less productive hus- deserves. Indeed, here too , in the modem criti- fin anci all y dem andin g age . Examination of
critici sm and literary historiograph y. band , Friedrich. Also redi sco vered , but never cal land scape, August Wilh elm find s him self the recentl y publi shed volume, for which the
Perhap s ju st as fascin atin g as the famili al trul y in the limelight, is Doroth ea Tieck , the at a di sad vant age when compared to his annot ation s and commentarie s are to foll ow
interaction of the Romantic period itself , are silent voice behind a numb er ofTieck ' s tran s- broth er. The Schoningh critical editi on of in a second part of similar len gth , highli ght s
the cultural shifts reflected in the posthumous lation s; similar appraisals could be made too Friedric h's work, compiled und er the direc- the preci sion and breadth of kno wledge
critical rivalri es to be found in the modern of Doroth ea Schlegel and Caroline Schl egel- tion of the late Ernst Behler and incorporat- required to carr y out such a proj ect. Thi s is a
reception of these various figur es and their Schelling . But what of the Schl egel broth ers ing his work as theori st, creative writ er and labour of love as much as it is an exe rcise in
work. In one case, the developm ent s are them sel ves? cultural histori an , began publication in 1958 scholarship. It is no surprise, then, that such
dramatic. Even durin g their own lifetim e, In their day, they shared the theor etic al and eve ntually ran to some thirt y-fi ve vol- proj ect s take decades to compl ete, a pro-
Jacob and Wilh el m Grimm merge in the and cultural limelight as literary conduits for umes by the turn of the century. Tho se with longed process which can often end in stag -
popular con sciou sness to form an often mis- European and later world literature. How- an interest in Au gust Wil helm , however , nation as editorial board s chan ge and pub-
con strued amalga m: the Broth er s Grimm of ever, a brief examination of recent biblio- are faced with a pletho ra of sources , non e lishers' priorities shift with the vagar ies of
lore , knap sack s on back s, in sea rch of tales to graphica l listin gs shows Friedrich to be far of which offers a comprehen sive edition. economics . In the context of these particular
be faithfully reproduced for the edific ation ahead in term s of curr ent critical interest. His Bockin gs 1846 Werke is the most compl ete, rivalri es, let us hop e, for the sake of futur e
and entertainme nt of the bour geoisie , a interaction with philosoph ers and writers of but still lack s key texts such as the later scholarship, that love prevails.

--------------------------~,--------------------------

in personalitie s, rather than the fissures rent

Theory and the thug in individuals by social and historical cri ses.
Thi s lea ve s us w ith an un sati sfact or y se nse
of, for instance, why the young Mu ssolini
his engagi ng coll ection is written in RONAN M CDONALD moved from socialism to Fascism . Acad emic

T the fluent narrati ve style of the sea-

soned noveli st. Most of these ess ays
wer e first publi shed as reviews in the New
Tim P ark s
critici sm gets an occ asional acknow ledge-
ment , introduced with the mixture of trepid a-
tion and scepticism that novelists and journal-
York Review of Books, others to introduce T HE FI GH T ER ists customaril y depl oy: the word deconstruc-
new editions (M achiavelli's The Prince, Essays : Lawrence, Beckett, Hardy, Machiavelli , tion is held bet ween the tongs of quotation
Zola' s The Dream , D' Annunzi os The Vir- Dostoevsky, C iora n, Mussolini , Zo la, Gari baldi , mark s and so metimes misused. Man y of
Jelin ek, Bernhard , Jaeggy. D' Annunzio, Bassani these essays would have benefit ed from
gins) . Subj ects range from canonical writers,
295pp. Harvill Seeker. £ 17.99.
to less well-know n figure s. Park s' s adopted engage ment with the sort of questions that
978 1 84655 104 8
hom e of Italy featur es in articles on Silvio have been raised about reading and interpreta-
Berlu sconi and on World Cup football , and tion. For exam ple, in his essay on Lawrence,
in historic al essays from the 1848 siege of subjec ts, he places him self outside the melee. Park s point s out that the "most urgent scrim-
Ve nice to the heroic s of Garib aldi. There are Thi s can be see n in his ess ay on the inter- mage is bet ween author and reader" , but
also so me reflecti ve pieces on hypert ext necine nature of Italian footb all, "A Matt er readin g any author is inevitabl y conn ect ed to
narr ative and on translation , show ing Par ks's of Love and Hate". It is a reflection of the rela- the historical po sition of the read er.
cap acity for abstrac t thought and his supple ti ve newn e ss of th e Itali an state that local Eva luative c ritic ism is rar e in aca de mic
handling of inversion and parado x: "tra nsla- rivalri es threaten to ecl ipse loyalty to the Tim Parks, 2003 writing these days, and it is good to read a
tion, whil e at once a di sench antm ent , is also a nation al team. Though a fan of his home sensitive appreciation of Becketts descrip-
re-ench antm ent " . team , Veron a, Park s can make these obje ctive more in sadness than anger. He gives some tive powers. "Be ckett produced a sty le in
Despite its title, the colle ction has a non- observation s becau se he is also an outsider, credit to the power and intensity of Jelin ek ' s which , with all its developm ent over his long
combative qualit y. The title essay on D. H. an Englishman in Italy. Thi s simulta neous best-kno wn novel, The Piano Teacher car eer, lyricism and parod y, affirmation and
Lawrence highlight s Lawrenc e' s pugnacity, involvem ent and detachm ent , passion and (19 83), before demoli shin g Greed (2000): " I deni al, are always fused in such a way that
his need for confl ict as a spur to creati vity, dispassion , are key features of The Fight er. recall not a single moment of pleasure turnin g each inten sifies the other. " If Park s could
but Parks him self seems comp arati vely at Park s' s previou s coll ection of essa ys, Hell its pages, not a single insight that impre ssed". learn so mething from the aca demic study of
peace. "Any battl e can be seen from at least and Back (200 1), was noted for its critici sm Biographical critici sm is the domin ant the humanities, uni versity theori sts could
two sides" , he claim s, takin g on a role into of Salman Rushdie and Vikr am Seth , both of mode here, partl y becau se the essays are also learn much from Parks. Thi s fine coll ec-
which the liberal mind set comfortably fits: whom Park s accused of insubstanti al dazzle. often reviews of biographi es but also tion demonstrates that more conn ections
that of the hon est bro ker. In ord er to identify Here, it is the Nobe l Prize-w inning novelist because, as a novelist, Parks know s the power between academic and popul ar critici sm
the contradictions and anoma lies in his Elfriede Jelinek who is taken to task, though of stories . He sometimes sees contradictions would be to the enrichment of both.

TLS D E C EM B E R 2 1 & 28 200 7

 CLAS S rcs 31

ilbert Murray 's famil y was Catholic of establishing a style of scholarship which

G Irish-Au strali an; mine was Calvi nist

lowland Sc ottish. But in the liberal
1950s of my youth I grew up with three grea t
Greek for peace co nsisted essen tially in the percept ion of
beaut y, and to so me extent in the representa-
tion of it" .
intellectu al heroes: George Bernard Shaw , As a reapp raisal, apart from its general
Bertrand Russell and Gilbert Murray. I never O SWY N M URR A Y failur e to represe nt beauty in English style,
met any of them, though I once glimpsed the Gilbert Mu rray Reassessed suffers fro m
aged M urray across a schoo l play ing field at C h ris t o p her St r a y , e di t or one major defect: it calls on a success ion
an open-air perfor mance of a Greek play . of techni cal exper ts to investigate Murray' s
Mu rray was the earliest influ enc e. It was G I L BE RT MUR RAY REASSESSE D contribution to what they regard as a series of
Mu rray who made me wa nt to learn Gree k, as Helleni sm , theatre and international po litic s independ ent di sciplines. The mos t important
he did so many others - as far away as North 400pp. Oxford University Press. £65 (US $ t20). message of Murray for classical studies and
Korea, according to a story told in this book. 9780 t9 920879 t for public life was the unit y and relevance of
Later , one learned to look down on Murray Helleni sm. In 1900 he wrote to his mother-
as a scho lar and to share in T. S. Elio t's as an A ustralian Professor of Gree k (nick- in-law, Lady Carlisle,
passio nate denun ciation of his influ ence on named Euripides and a self-styled "collector Greece has a profo und and permanent me s sage
English poetic dram a; later still, one discov- of religion s" ) in love with a Salvation Army to mankind, a me ssage quite untouched by
ered his importance in international relations, daughter of a millionaire, who ends up as an "super-naturalness " and revealed relig ion: it is
hi s work for the League of Natio ns Union arma ments manufacturer, sayi ng humane and rationa l and progressi ve , and
and as pre sident of the Co mmittee of Intellec- I think all power is spiritual: the se ca nno ns will affects not Art only but the whole of life . .. . I
tual Cooperatio n, the forerunner of not go off by themselves. I have tried to make have got a faith and a me ssage . . . and I want to
UNE SCO. Hugh Lloyd-J ones' s ge nerous spiritual power by teaching Greek. But the speak them o ut ... . Greek literature co ntains
essay of 1980, the sensitive psychological world can never be really touched by a dead the germs o f almo st everything , so yo u can
study of Fra ncis West (1984) and Dunc an language and a dead civilization. The people treat of almost all tendencies in treating of it.
Wil son ' s full biography (1987) , brou ght the must have power ; and the peop le cannot have It was this faith that unifi ed his life in all its
man to life as a great Edwar dia n liberal. Greek. aspects, and it inform s all his activ ities. Eve n
Now he is almos t comp letely forgott en , and Murray was not too pleased with this acute in my we lfare -state generation it made him a
therefore need s to be reassessed . portrait of himself and his hum ourl ess wife , hero for his belief in the import ance of transla-
On the whole the co ntributors to this vol- the daughter of the Earl of Car lisle. But it tion and the spreading of Gree k ideas to the
ume are kinder to him than we we re in our was in this play that Shaw, the least religious whole of soc iety throu gh education and popu-
Youn g T urk days. His old antago nist (and of men, first began to und erstand the power larization. The consequence of this belief is
supporter for the chai r of Greek at Oxford) , of religiou s fervour through his relations hip Gilbert Murray, 1952 that Murray ' s life can only be dimin ished by
the pse udo-an thro pologis t L. R. Farne ll, with Mu rray, the rationalist explorer of Bac- bein g stuffed into little boxes and j udged by
when he was Vice-Ch ancellor of Oxford chic frenzies and psychi c pheno mena, and of the realist views of E. H. Carr on the use- techni cians. For he was neither a modern tech-
Un iversity, sugges ted to him in 1923 that the friend of the Ca mbridge ritualists, James lessness of the League (for mulated only in nocrat nor simp ly a privilege d me mber of an
he should give up his professor ship becau se Frazer, Jane Harrison and Fra ncis Co rnfor d. 1939, after it had been destroyed by the Japa- ancient rulin g class, and he found ed the
he was spen ding too much time on inter- Fro m them Mu rray had ado pted the idea of nese invasions of China , and the aggressions modern conce ption of Greek studies. Murray
nati onal affa irs. He refu sed , though being a the primiti ve ritu al of the Yea r Sp irit, and of Mussolini and Hitler) ignores the fact that was a who le man , trul y hum ane, the finest
highl y mora l person he did give up half his ada pted it to exp lain the origins and structure Carr him self ended as a forthri ght apologist Euro pea n since Eras mus to eme rge from the
salary. Now he eme rges as a better textual of Gree k tragedy and (later) comedy . We for Stalin's Soviet Union in ten turgid vol- discipline laughin gly called the Humanit ies.
critic than we thought. We used to be told used to laugh at these fant asies; but although umes. Murray' s mistake was to underesti- To und er stand the unit y and power of his
that he knew Gree k so well that he wo uld no one any longer believes his prec ise mate the crisis for the ances tral liberal leader- personality now, what we need is not a reas -
cove r ove r the probl em s by corr ectin g the theories, eve ryone now acce pts his basic ship caused by the massacre of the work ing sess men t but a new biograph y. And from
language of the authors he was suppose d to insight that Gree k tragedy began in ritual cla sses du ring the First World War: the the evi dence of this book the perso n mos t
be editing . But now it seems that it was part perform ance, and always retained elemen ts of peoples of Euro pe rebelled aga inst the old capabl e of pro vidin g it is an outsider, Mick
of a different concep tion of the editor 's task: its origins, whe ther the ritual is see n as regim e and hand ed powe r to demagogues Morri s, who con tributes a superb study of
he thought texts sho uld be readable, not tech- religious or politi cal. And it is not ju st a and tyrant s for the next seve nty yea rs. Like Gilb ert Murray' s BB C broadcasts, which
nical crossword puzzle s, and he edited them que stion of the interpretatio n o f Greek the re st o f his c o nte mpo raries Murray co uld ran almos t from the sta rt of the BBC Nationa l
at the same time as preparing translations of dram a: consciously or unconsciously, modern not full y und erstand this tectoni c shift, a fact Service in 1922 until 1956, less than a yea r
them for the Lond on stage . The arg ume nt is prac titioners and theorists of tragedy from exe mp lified by his mos t useless pastim e, the before his death aged ninety-on e. These
not who lly convincing, becau se it is con - Freud and T. S. Eliot to George Steiner and writing of pompous letter s to The Times; but reveal his hum anity and his importance as a
ducted like a modern assess ment proced ure , Tony Harrison are indebted to Murray' s ideas he did create the most success ful popul ar reve red public figur e. His fir st broadcast was
in statistical term s (the number of emenda- on Greek theatre. peace movem ent of the twenti eth cen tury, on May 13, 1926, the day after the collap se of
tions still on the citation index). When any- Similarly in his Four (later Five) Stages and so help ed save England from the contem - the Ge neral Strike; he had been chosen by
one gets down to the actual eme ndations sug- of Greek Religion (1912 , 1925), Mu rray porary Europe an cult of strong men. Tho ugh Lord Rei th to offer a hope of reconciliation,
ges ted by Murray, they see m pretty flabb y, destro yed forever the idea that there was such he did not live to see the fal se dawnin g and began by praising the leader s of the TUC
as Malcolm Davies point s out in his study of a thin g as an unch anging Gree k religion . If of a new age with the dismantling of the for their courage in ca lling off the strike.
the strained relations bet ween him and many of us would now rejec t the Victorian Soviet bloc, at leas t he kept faith with the Thirty years later , his last broadcast was on
another (and better) poet and textu al critic, notion of prog ress toward s ratio nalism and Gladstonian politi cs of his youth. Oc tober 8, 1956, a plea on behalf of the voice-
A . E. Housm an. the "failure of nerve" that explains Christian- Various contributors to this volume less refugees of Euro pe, who had once aga in
As a poet and a playwri ght Murray was ity, eve n the mo st convinced of the mode rn ex plore Murray 's friend ships - with Shaw, flooded in as a res ult of the Sov iet invasion of
very much ad mired in his day. Bertr and antiquarian ritualists admit the existence of Russe ll, Sir Alfred Zimmern, Lord Reith and Hun gary. It ends with an anecdo te: "I once
Russell was "almost ove rw helmed" when he cha nge in Gree k religion , whether or not they other grea t figur es of the first half of the had a talk with Ribbentrop, who said he was
heard hi m read exce rpts fro m hi s translation ca n exp lain it; and Mur ray was the fir st to twent ieth century. The mo st original of these puzz led about the real feelin g of England on
of Euripides ' Hipp olyt us in 1901 , and Rer- e mphas ize the im portance o f late antiqu e essays is Barbara McManu s' s di scu ssion of politi cal thin gs. I said: 'There is one thin g for
nard Shaw thought that it was onl y his trans- mystici sm. the bicyclin g friend ship between Murray and certain - that Eng land will not persecute, nor
lations that would survive from the great At hom e, Murray was a hopeless po liti- J. A. K. Thoms on, a classical scholar forgot- tolerate tho se who do persecut e" '. He was
reviv al of the contempor ary Lond on stage. A cian, always on the wrong side and always ten eve n by Murray 's biographers, who was indeed one of the grea test men of the twen-
few Swinburnian lyric s perhaps withstand losin g elections. But as a liberal acti vist in his devoted discipl e throughout his life and tieth century; as Morri s says, we should not
the moderni st sco rn, but it is hard to compre- intern ational affairs and chairm an of the his literar y exec utor. Mu rray wrote to him in wonder that the rationalist Mu rray was give n
hend the Edwardian enthusias m for these League of Nations Union from 1923 to 1938, 1921 , " If I felt more confide nce about the a publi c fun eral in Westmin ster Abbey with a
best-sellers. Fiona Mackintosh gets closest to he has been unfairl y jud ged through the ulti- futur e of educa tion in genera l, and classical rea ding from Eccles iasticus: "Men ren ow ned
explaining his importance in her fascin atin g mate failu re of the League to ma intain world edn in parti cular, I should say that a group of for their power, giving counse l by their
account of the influence of his translation of peace. Between the wars , he was at the head us - yo u and I and Livingstone and Z immern under standin g and decl aring pro phec ies:
Euripides ' Bacchae on Shaw 's Major Bar- of a popul ar movement with 300,000 mem- and Co rnford and J. E. H. [Jane Harri son] Leader s of the people by their coun sels,
bara (1905). Shaw was of cou rse full y con - bers, a far larger numb er than Bertrand Rus- and Robin son of Eton [prob abl y a mistak e and by their knowledge of learning meet for
scious of this, usin g lines fro m the translation sell's Campa ign for Nuclear Disarmam ent for C. E. Robin son of Win chester] and so me the peo ple: Rich men furni shed with ability,
in the play , and cas ting one of the characters eve r achieved; and the curre nt domin ation others in England - had a very goo d chance living peaceably in their habit ation s".

TL S DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 2007
32 POLITICS

ack Gold smith is a widely admired pro- has not so far been that the con stituti on
j fessor now at Har vard Law Scho ol who
spent ten month s in the Bush admini stra- Going it alone forbids much of what the executive propo ses
to do. After all, mo st of this pert ain s to non-
tion during 200 3-04 as the head of a special citizens detained out side the United States;
Justice Departm ent offic e respon sibl e for giv- and until the Bush administration's spec tacu-
ing authoritativ e interpretations of law to the K EN N ETH AND ERSO N ton "shared a commitment to expanding presi- larly ove rreaching legal theories blew up in its
exe cutive branch. It was the Offic e of Legal denti al power" that - although in their eyes face, no one thou ght the constitut ion applied
Counsel that, in 2002, produced the infam ous Jack G oldsmith was necessaril y co- exten sive with prevailin g to them at all. The message is, rather, that
"torture memos", and that, the foll owin g year in the wa r on terror - to out side obse rvers the administration should seek Congress ional
und er Goldsmith, took them back again . Now THE TE R R O R PRE SID E N C Y forced a choice at key moment s bet ween the assent for what it wa nts to do. The Court has
it is aga in in the news, as controver sial Justice and jud gment inside the Bush administration war on terror and the abstract prin cipl e of signalled pro visionally that it will accept at
me mos regarding harsh interro gation issued 256pp. Norton. $25.95 : distribut ed in the UK by exec utive power for its ow n sa ke. In this, least some extraordinary rules in the war on
Wiley. £ 15.99. terror - pro vided, however, that the politic al
by one of Gold smith' s OL C success ors sur- Lincoln and Roosevelt each cho se differ-
978 0 393 06550 3
face in the newspaper s. Gold smith' s part- ently, optin g not to go it alone, but instead to branches have together given tho se departur es
memoir, part-hi storical anal ysis, The Terror work with Co ngress toward s an agree ment democrati c legitim acy. The Co urt's limits, fol-
Presidency , ex amines not ju st the Bush committed to rollin g back what it saw as the that maximiz ed Presidential po wer because it lowing the ju st argued Boum ediene case, to
administration' s "war on terr or" , but the enor- dangerou s eros ion of Presidenti al power since would represent the two politic al branches what the politi cal branch es might do eve n
mou s pressur es and con str aint s on future the Vietn am wa r. After 91l 1, success in the of gove rn ment. The Bush administration together are not yet firml y drawn.
American Presidenci es confronting the threat wa r on terror was viewe d as identic al to the has adamantly refu sed to follo w this cour se, But there is no going it alone in a system
of terrori sm. Th e book is superb - decep- restorat ion of executive discreti on. Co mpar- for the fooli sh lawyerl y rea son that asking of divided constitutional powers. If not
tively casual and eminently readable, yet ing Lincoln and Roo sevelt to Bush is there- Co ngress to roll back its fetterin g laws would Co ngress , it will be the Court - or more
profoundl y con sid ered and argued. fore to say that they had far more discretion- impl y an acceptance that Co ngress had such exac tly, as Benjamin Witt es has noted, the
Gold smith is a con ser vative; "1 am not" , he ary power, and that this discretionar y power fettering powers in the first place. inconstant Justice Anth on y Kennedy , the
says unequivocally, "a ci vil libert arian." He needed to return to the Presidenc y. The grand iron y, Gold smith observe s, is Supr eme Co urt's swing vote - that endorses
expresses no discomfort with the Bush admin- policy. In pursuing unfettered exec utive
istration' s fund amental appro ach to 91ll - power to act alone, the administration has
he believes, that the United States is indeed made Justice Kennedy its five-star genera l, its
"at war with terrori sts". Looking for ward to very own Douglas MacArthur in the war on
futur e Presidenti al administrations, he sees a terror. On the infrequent occ asion s when the
need to reshape the strugg le against terrori sm admini stration has been forced by the Court
in ways that get beyond the permanent use of to go to it for authority, it has been denied
emerge ncy presidenti al power s; he ackn owl- practically nothin g. It has not so far mattered
edges that the terminology of "war on terror" that the Bush administration is a lame duck ,
ha s lost its utilit y, but he urges retainin g the or whether Co ngress is in Republican or
strateg ic und erstanding of a war again st trans- Democratic hand s.
nati onal terro rism eve n if its legal contours The administration seems not to have under-
shift. The difficulty faced by Gold smith , how- stood that what lives by exe cutive discretion
eve r, was that his role in go vern ment was to dies by executive discretion . If the Bush
give bindin g legal advice to an executive administration took counterterro rism as seri-
branch hem med in by a thicket of laws, com- ously as it took the abstraction of exe cutive
plic ated , vague and often impo sing personal power, it would have thought ahead to its own
criminal liabilit y on offici als. Golds mith departure from office. If it truly believed that
belie ves these laws, mostly datin g from the its approach to counterterror ism was correct,
1970s, are histori cally unpr ecedent ed, so me- then from the first day of its second term it
times con stituti onally dubious, and leave would have engage d with Co ngress to crea te
little room for man oeu vre to gove rnment offi- instituti ons to outlive any particul ar Presi-
cials who are und er enorm ous pressure s both dency. It would have thought about the exa m-
to keep the population sa fe fr om terrori sm The White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card informing President George Bush that a ple of the Co ld War and how a democracy
and to prot ect right s and liberti es by not second plane has crashed into the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001 deals with a genuine threat to a who le way of
actin g aggre ssively. The threat of criminal life. In retro spect , the democratic instituti ons
enforce ment natur all y disinclines lower-l evel Go ldsm ith's point is subtler, howe ver. It that although the Bush administra tion law- of the Co ld War did a remarkable job of bal-
officials - in particular, the ones who actu ally was not so much exec utive di scretion that yers sought "to lea ve the presidenc y stronger ancin g safety and libert y ove r decad es; pure
carry out polic y - to take the personal legal allowe d Lincoln and Roo sevelt to act deci- than they found it" , in fact they "seem to exec utive discretion cannot possibl y promi se
risks of criminal prosecuti on that the aggres- sive ly. It was, rather, that while each was have achi eved the oppos ite" . The rea son is the same. The admini stration having und er-
sive pur suit of count er-t errori sm might entail. politic ally attuned to Congress 's sensitivities, simply that the Am eric an constitutional sys- taken none of these things, US count erterror-
The Terror Presidency reach es beyond per- because they and their subordinates did not tem reall y does have three branch es of gov - ism polic y today flails without long-term
sonal mem oir to offe r a historic al comp arison face today' s Co ngress ional restrictions on ernment. Although the judiciary in prin cipl e strateg ic guidance or institutional stability.
of the legal power s ava ilable to Presid ent s in Presidenti al discretion, they thu s had a " less has little constituti onal ro le to play in matter s Yet any futur e instituti onal settleme nt for
time of war and emerge ncy , under Linc oln , pressin g need to asse rt presidenti al prero ga- of war or foreign polic y generally , the fact count ert errori sm inevitabl y bump s up aga inst
Roo sevelt and Bush. Lincoln and Roo sevelt tives vis-a-vis Co ngress" . Lincoln and that the war on terror has been conc ei ved by the cont radictory impul ses of gove rnme nt
ope rated, of course, und er imm en sely fewer Roosevelt were politi call y wary of discre- the admini stration as a globa l war - in which officia ls who confronted Go ldsmith on his
legal constraint s than the Bush administra- tion' s poss ible excesses; and they could the who le wo rld is the battleground, in which entry into the OL C and impelled his depar-
tion. Linc oln und ertook many legall y dubi- direct them sel ves who lly to the substantive eve n Am erican citiz en s on Am erican soil ture not many month s later. The Terror Pres i-
ou s actions, suspending habea s corpus, strugg les at hand. could be named as enemy combatants and dency says repeat edl y that gove rnment polic y
for exa mple, a nd impri soning large numher s l.incoln and Roo sevelt , unlik e the Rush indefinit ely detained sole ly on the say -so of after 9/11 was Rush's instruction to the then
of suspected South ern sympathizers without administration, anticipated the famou s dic- the exe cutive - ensures that the Supreme Attorn ey Ge nera l, John Ashcroft: " Don' t eve r
legal recour se; Roosevelt, und er the thinn est tum of Justice Jackson that the exe cutive Court cannot be left aside . let this happ en aga in". For Go ldsmith, every
cover of complaisant legal opinion s issued achieves its ma ximum power actin g in con- Th e administration's tunn el vision has thu s Presidency for the foreseeable futur e will be
by his Attorn ey Ge neral, Robert Jack son, junction with the other politic al branch of left it blind to the fact that, by see ming to go characterized by an "unremitting fear of dev-
ignor ed laws pa ssed by Congress explicitly gove rnment, Congress. Linc oln, eve r the law- it alone and refu sin g to go to Co ngress for astatin g attac k, an obsess ion with preventin g
aimed at keeping the United States out of wa r. yer, rem ained "anxious about his unpr ece- such thin gs as limit s, but also authority, to the attack, and a procli vity to act agg ress ive ly
He could not eve n plead the exigencies of war dented asse rtions of presidenti al power" and hold detain ees at Gu ant anam o, or spec ific and preempti vely to do so". No matter what
at that point , because war was preci sely what "almost always sought con gressional sup- rules on interro gation that confin e, but also might get said in the cour se of an election
Congress had legislated to avoid . But eve n port " . Roo sevelt on certa in crucial issues did legall y protect , interrogators, the admini stra- campai gn, a Democratic admini stration once
before 91l 1, the Bush administration - particu- not go to Co ngress, but still he did not use his tion has tied itself in marriage to a far more in office, "will be eve n more anxious than the
larly Vice President Dick Che ney, throu gh his prerogati ves as "part of an agg ressive pro- ex igent spouse - the Co urt. The message of curr ent President to thwart the attac k". In
mys terious counsel and chief of staff, the gram to expand presidenti al power for its success ive detainee cases from the Supre me ord er to act as agg ress ively as the spirit of the
ascetic , iron- willed Da vid Addin gton - was ow n sake". By contra st, Cheney and Addin g- Co urt - Hamdi and Hamd an , particul arl y - age dem ands, however , gove rnment offic ials

TLS D E C EM B E R 2 1 & 28 200 7

 POLITICS 33

in the CIA and elsewhere must have co nfi- exec ute" the laws; to do that, the exe cutive ble against crimin al liabilit y for anything. support of a preord ained position. Withdraw-
dence that apparently authorized aggressive must know what the laws are and what they Go lds mith says that he was not disturb ed by ing the torture memos also meant , as he well
actions that turn out to be mistaken , unn eces- mea n - a fun ction always delegated , however, the explora tion of the outermost limits of the knew, withdraw ing immunity upon which
sary , excess ive or cause co llatera l dam age to to the Attorney Ge neral, constitutionally law aga inst torture as such, but these memos mid-ti er gove rnment officials and agen ts had
innocent s will not be jud ged after the fact by obliged to give advice on "questions of law had a purpo se fundam ent ally different fro m relied in good faith . Go ldsmith's exit from
a different set of standar ds than those going when required by the President of the United simply setting out bou ndaries. They more or govern ment was not on acco unt of his bein g
in. The criminal laws now in place make it States". In practice, however , this might eas- less authorized anything short of Saddam's fired ; indeed, the Attorn ey General or the
very difficult, however, for opera tional offic- ily tempt lawyers in the OLe to write tenden- infamous mea t grinder, and then, for goo d President could have ove rruled him and did
ers of gove rnment, whether in detentio n, inter- tious briefs to ju stify what the executive measure, added that in any case the President not. No one stopped Jack Golds mith from
rogation , surve illance or other covert activi- already intend s to do, under circumstances in was not bou nd by any of this. The memos withdraw ing the tortu re memos; but having
ties, to have such confidence. The criminal which j udicial review may not be possible. we re disastrous because they left the under- "reversed or rescind ed more OL C op inions
laws use vague terms such as "inhumane", The OLC has so far insulated its lawyers standing that these hypotheticals at the outer that any of my pre decessors", he writes ,
"degrading" or "humiliating" that practically from pressure by the executive. In matters of orbits of law constitut ed a statement of the many people "lost faith in me . What else
invite after-the-fact revisioni sm, creating national security law, those OLC opini ons gove rnment's actual policy proposa ls. Go ld- might I withdraw and when?"
legal uncertainti es that become insurm ount a- operate as immunit y against crimin al prosecu- smith obse rves that although the charge is fre- Many people believe that the terror threat is
ble obstacles to action. Co ngress and the tion of officials who act in good faith even if, quentl y made that the Bush adm inistration is ove rrated, the probl em is to "manage" rather
administration, in the seem ingly perverse ultim ately, wrongly. It is almost impossible "lawless" , it is better understood as the mos t than defea t it. Goldsmith acknow ledges this
desire to have it both ways - enc ourage action for the Justice Department to prosecute an offi- over -Iawyered in US history. emerging view, and while rejecting it does not
but have the option to prosecute it afterwar ds cial when that same department ' s OL C has Go ldsm ith was pilloried in press articles see k to refute it. America will live the Te rror
- refuse to be spec ific as to what is actually blessed the conduct. The tortur e memos there- sugges ting that he had authore d the tortur e Presidency, Goldsmith says, with its dense
permitted and not. Operational officials there- fore purported to define tortur e for purposes of memos. Onl y later did it eme rge that he had moral ambiguities unfoldin g deep within a
fore respond ratio nally to the disincentives to guiding what the exec utive might lawfull y do. in fact withdraw n them . Thi s has ca used democracy' s many necessary bureaucracies
act created by legal uncert aint y. From the standpoint of CIA agents and other Go ldsmith to be treated in the medi a as a kind and institutions. The moral uncertainties, lest
Understanding the raison d 'etre of the tor- officials, these opinions offered immunity for of hero , a whistle -blowe r, thou gh Go ldsmith anyone mistake his mean ing, are captured
ture memo s issued by OLC in 2002, prior to their actions if they acted in reasonable him self feel s uncomfort able with "the Man- with brutal precision by Golds mith's ow n last
Go ldsmith's arrival, is nearly impossible with- reliance on them. The OL C in 2002 offered ichean tone . .. one sees so often when press words on the tortur e memos:
out understandin g their relationship to the opini ons on the definition of tortur e that cer - and intellectuals criticize the Bush admini stra- So me peopl e have praised my part in withdraw-
vagar ies of these criminal laws. The role of tainly fulfill ed this functi on; but they did so in tion' s attem pts to bal ance liberty and secu - ing and starting to fix the interrogatio n opin-
the OL C for some fifty years has been to ways that Goldsmith could not sustain, drafted rity" . His discomfort is ev ide nt fro m the fact ions. But it is very easy to imagine a diffe rent
give author itative advice to the exec utive as tendentiou s and conclusory briefs. that he is co ntributing his profit s from this wo rld in whic h my w ithdrawal of the op inio ns
bran ch on legalit y and constitut ionalit y. As Worse, they did so not within bound s of book to charity and that he has refrained fro m led to a cessat ion of interrogations that future
Gol ds mith notes, of necessity its opinions are what actu al administration interrogation wholesa le criticism of the Bush administra - inves tigations made clear co uld have stopped
often secret and not reviewable by any court. polic y might be - waterboar ding, for exa mple tion. As custodian of the OLC, Go lds mith an attack that killed thousands. In this possible
Thi s is not as strange as it sounds. It is a part - but instead within the maximal legal bounds believed he had a co nstitutional obliga tion to wo rld my actio ns wo uld have looked pusillani-
of the exec utive 's obligation to "faithfully offerin g the most iron-cl ad protect ion possi- offer opinions that we re not merely briefs in mous and stupid, not brave .

--------------------------~--------------------------
f all historical genres, one of the least People's Republic of China and set world poli-

O respected, at least among acade mics,

is Presidential history. Mixing the
unfashion able (with scholars) but generally
Broad brushes tics on a new and better cour se. They initiated
detente with the Sov iet Union, which for the
first time put nuclear arms control at the very
popular fields of politica l history and bio- centre of superpowe r relations. That they were
graphy, Presidential history is often a vehicle AN DREW PR E STON State. How else to exp lain Dallek ' s bizarre, able to achieve all this at a moment of relative
for national celebration and myth-m aking. irritatin g habit of frequentl y referring to American wea kness - when the United States
Presidential histori ans often tend to narrate Ro b e r t D all ek Kissinger, alone among the book' s figur es, was being challenged on all fro nts by allies as
heroic tales of an unfoldin g national drama by his first nam e? The book could ju st as well as adve rsaries, when the Sovie t Union
that sees the expansion of liberty and j ustice; N IXON AND KISS INGE R accurately be titled "Nixon and Henr y" . had achieved parity in nuclear arms, when the
wo rds like "courage" and "leadership" Partners in power But wh ile Dallek clearly reve res the Presi- natio n was suffe ring from domestic strife
abound. Nowhe re does "Great Man" history 740pp. Alien Lane. £30. dency as an institut ion - indeed, pro bably and economic turbul ence, and above all when
97807 13997965 because he reveres it - he is extremely criti-
become greater than in histories of the White the US military was humili atingly mired in
US:HarperCollins.$32.50. 978 0 06 072230 2
House. If patriotism is a kind of American cal both of Nixon and Kissinger and of their Vietnam - was no small feat.
civil religio n, then Michael Beschloss, Doris abuses of powe r. The criticism is not unfair. But, as Dallek rightl y observes, time and
Kearns Goodw in and Dav id McCullough are es t hour , Dallek spec ulates that the President It is now difficult to believe that a man of agai n Nixons and Kissinger ' s megalom ania,
its high priests. "might have reca lled Woodrow Wil son ' s Richard Nixon's bott oml ess insecurity and paranoia and ambition skewe d an otherwise
But while such di sdain contains an element obse rva tion that ' men of ordinary physique morose paranoia could eve r have become so sensible and imaginati ve foreign poli cy
of ju stification , there is nothin g inherentl y and discretion can not be Pres idents and live, success ful a politi cian. In Kissinger, a bril- agenda. Beca use of their own personal insecu-
inferior or dubi ous abo ut Presidenti al histor y. if the stra in be not somehow relieved " '. liant Harvard professor whose intellect and rities, they placed far too much emphasis
The ca reer of Rober t Dallek nicely pro ves the Surely not one of Wil son' s mos t famili ar charm were sometimes eclipsed by his insecu- on ma intaining credibility and toughn ess in
point. Dallek has written exce lle nt biogra- utteran ces. And like a medi eval monk rity and pettin ess, Nixon found his equal. situations where flexib ility and a tactical
phies of John Kennedy and Lynd on John son , fondlin g the shro ud of Turin, Dallek' s Such a relationship wo uld always be marked retreat were wiser option s - henc e the
a study of Ronald Reagan ' s politica l appea l, President ial fetish occas ionally runs to hagio- by profound ambivale nce . They we re in ove rthrow of Chile's harmless Soc ia list
and a shor t sy nthesis of what ma kes for an graphical excess. Do we really need a detailed some ways the perfect match , in others the Presiden t, Salvador Allende; or the useless
effec tive Pres ident. Dallek ' s book on the genealogy of Nixon's office desk - that it had very odd couple; their partnership could be as bom bings and invasions of Ca mbodia and
foreign polic y of Franklin D. Roosevelt , originally belonged to Willi am McKinl ey and ingeni ously effective as it was breatht akin gly Laos; or the devas tating 1972 Christmas
originall y publi shed in 1979, still sets was put in hasem ent storage hy Th eod or e dysfuncti onal. In the hook ' s suhtitle, Dallek bombin g of North Vietnam for littl e appa rent
the sta ndard. He is one of Americ a' s leadin g Roosevelt, only to be resc ued by Wilson 's aptly describ es them as "partners in power" - gain; or A merican suppor t for Paki stan in its
- and cert ainly amo ng its best-sellin g - wife and subsequently given to the Vice Pres- despit e all their bickerin g they were indeed 197 1 war with India . For all thei r brill iance,
Presidential historians. ident by Coo lidge? Moreover, the nat ionalist partn ers, yet the onl y thin g that truly, irrevo- at home and abroa d Nixon and Kissinger
Yet in Nixon and Kissinger, eve n Dallek pres umptions of popular Presidenti al history cabl y bound them together was a share d lust were prone to exaggerating the stakes, invent-
succ umbs to some of the worst habit s of occas ionally emerge, such as when Dallek for power. Ab ove all, Dallek illustr ates ju st ing threats where none existed, and going
pres idential hi story. Oft en his main point s of refers to Americans and/or the United States how ce ntral do mestic political considerations ove r the top in response. Their ca rdinal error
reference are other Presidents, whether their as "we", "us" and "our" (as in "Nixon als o were to Nixon' s foreign policy - even long was believing they were vulnera ble when
experie nce is relevant or not. Accor dingly, in urged Kissinger to wa rn Dobr ynin that if noth- before the Watergate sca ndal - and how sales- they we re actually at their stronges t. In an
addition to habitu al aphor isms fro m Thomas ing happened in Paris, we wo uld consult our mans hip was prized as much as substa nce. observation about Watergate that could also
Jefferson and Ab raham Linco ln, the text is self-interest"). Unfort unately for Kissinger, There were also triumph s, of course, and serve as a ge neral con clusion about much of
sprinkled with the otherwise unlikely wit Dallek' s respec t for the office of the President Dallek is careful to acknow ledge them . After the Nixo n-Kissinge r for eign policy, Robert
and wisdom of Warren Hardin g and Ca lvin does not see m to extend to that of the two decades of official silence and hostility, Dallek shrewdly observes that the burglary
Coo lidge . At one point durin g Nixon's dark- National Sec urity Adviser or Sec retary of Nixon and Kissinger ope ned relations with the "was not only illega l but also pointless" .

TL S DECEM BER 2 1 & 28 2007

34 HISTORY

n 1405, the Turkic-Mo ngol warlord, interests. This alone, however , wo uld not

I Ta merlane - Christopher Marl owe' s

"Tarnburlaine" - last heir of Geng his
Khan, and ruler of an empire which reached
End of the West have been suffic ient, had it not been for
the fact that, from the end of the Napoleonic
wars until 1914 , there ex isted an uneasy and
fro m Iran to Moscow, died on his way to frequ entl y unstable alliance between the great
conqu er China. With him, the great Euras ian AN T H ON Y PA GD EN over their Euro pea n rivals, and incr easingly imp erial powers: Brit ain, France and the rela-
empires, which had aspired to some kind of over their A sian ones as we ll. By the end of tive newcom ers, the United States , Ru ssia and
world dominance, perished for ever. A "long John D a r win the sixtee nth century , the territorial posses- Germany. A combination of indu strial wea lth
ph ase in global history", in John Darwin' s sions of the now unit ed Ca tho lic Mon arch y and techn ological prowess which could now
words , had come to an end. A new world of AF TER T A ME R LAN E of Spain and Portugal literall y encircle d the be projected outwa rds rather than squandered
comp etin g imperial powe rs now began to The globa l history of empire globe, fro m Manila to Acapulco. A ce ntury on the inter-imperial rival ry which had taken
emerge , one in which Asia, China, Jap an, the 592pp. Alien Lane. £25. later , however, Spain and Portugal had been up so much of the previou s 400 yea rs, allowe d
land s of the Ottom ans, Iran and India wo uld 978 07 13996678 ecl ipse d by the Dutch and the British, who these new empires to ex pand until by 1914 ,
US: Bl oomsbury. $34.95. 978 I 5969 1 3936
strugg le for supremacy with each other, and bet ween them were slow ly dividin g up not they had taken direct , or indir ect, control of
increasingly with a new breed of interlopers onl y what rem ain ed of the Am ericas, but some 84 per cent of the planet.
from Asia' s wes tern mos t fringe . From the end In the late fift eenth ce ntury the sma ll, fac- large areas of A sia as we ll. Europe, from the But if the rise of the new imp erial sys te m
of the fifte enth centu ry, the Europea n coloni al tiou s kin gdoms of Euro pe were by compari- bord er s of the Ott oman Empire to the Baltic , was fast and spectac ular, its fall was no less
powers, joined later by the United States, son with almos t any state in Asia, eco no mi- was now ex pa nding at an unpr ecedented rate. so. By the 1920s the Great Po wers, as they
would co nquer Am erica, encroac h on Asia ca lly feebl e, culturall y imp overi shed and Ho w had thi s com e about ? Darwin is now called them sel ves, we re alrea dy begin-
and devour Africa, until, by the last decades of hopelessly di vided. Few in Cordo ba, Damas- imp atient with the older answe rs, pro vid ed in nin g to show signs of stra in. By 1945 and the
the nineteenth centu ry, what Darwin calls the cus or Beijin g could have predi cted that any - large part by co ntempora ries, and refin ed end of what has aptly been called Europe's
"E uro-Arnerican" world had com e to domi- thin g very much would co me of them . Th eir later by M arx and Max We ber: the Wes t was second civil wa r - altho ug h Darwin rightly
nate, in one way or another, mos t of the planet. slow strugg le to world power, the "occidental progressive, mod ern: Asia was back ward , argues the peri od bet ween 191 8 and 1939
After Tamerlane is not, ho wever, as thi s break out " , as Darwin nicely call s it, began ca ught in the snares of literali st reli gion s had been merely a lull in hostiliti es - Euro-
might suggest, yet another atte mpt to ex plain with a shift from land power to sea power. By which feared chan ge (a nd co mpetiti on ), an d pean, as distinct from Ame rican, hegemony
- much less exp lain away - the rise and fall 1500, Spanish and Por tuguese fleets had hobbl ed ec onomica lly by what Weber ca lled was clearl y doom ed . Two decades later , the
of the West. It is, in the first instance, a partic- created regul ar sailing rout es down the wes t the "fetters of the kin gro up". Yet if these Euro pea n co lonial sys te m had, with the
ularl y brilli ant exa mple of what Sanjay Sub- coast of Afri ca, to the Am ericas, and into the old er certa inties now look a little sho pworn, exception of a few scatte red island s and
rahmanya m has calle d "connected histori es" , Indi an Oc ean . Th e Portu guese control of the so me version of thi s story is hard to avo id enclaves, vanished altoge ther. By the end
and it dem on strates that the eve ntual triumph Africa n slave trade (to which Darwin pays altog ether. China and Japan - which in any of the 1980 s the Sov iet "empire" - always,
of the occident al empires was the conse - perh aps too littl e atte ntion), of much of the case never full y succumbed to Western imp e- however , some thing of a mi snom er - had fol-
qu en ce of a complex interacti on of for ces - Europea n trad e with Indi a, and the unex- riali sm in any of its man y form s - we re never lowed it into oblivion. A ll that now rem ain s
ec onomic, political, cultura l and ideological pected discover y of hu ge depo sits of preciou s so "stagnant" as generations of Sinophobes - of the imp erial world of the late nin eteenth
- alw ays fragil e and never complete, whose met als in the Am ericas, gave the Iberian and Sin ophiles - from Leibni z to Lord century is the United States.
o utco me was by no means foreo rdained . nation s an imm en se eco no mic adva ntage M cCartn ey suppose d. The Mu gh al Empire, it Dar win is cert ain that the US is still an
is true, had beco me a cli ent state of the Brit- empire. It is "pointless to deb ate", he says dis-
ish after 175 7; but the other grea t Mu slim missive ly, "whether Am erica should be seen
ALBAN BOOKS emp ires, the Ott oman s and the Safa vid s and as an imp erial power". Proo f of this is not any
their success ors in Iran , although they supposed similarity with Victor ian Britain
had been on the defensive since the late (those who have mad e this co mpar ison, he
SEEMING KNOWLEOGE THE ALTRUISTIC SPECIES
Shakespeare and Skeptical Scientific. Philosophical and
seve ntee nth ce ntury, ex perience d period s of says, takin g a swipe at Nia ll Fergu son ,
Faith Religious Perspectives of reform and regeneration until , in the Ott oman "betray a stagge ring ignorance of the histor y
JOHN D COX Human Benevolence case, the eve of the First World War. of both " ); it is that the US' s und oubt ed mili-
A compelling accountwhich ANDREWMICHAEL FLESCHER
focuses on fa it h and AND DANIEL WORTH EN But if it was never quite, as Hegel confi- tary power allows it to "intervene forcibly in
scept icism in Shakespeare's Explores arguments for t he dentl y declared in 1822, "the necessary fate of alm ost any part of the wor ld". Eve n if this
writin g. Cox adopts an existe nce of genuine
alt ru ism. Chapters inclu de
the Asiatic Empires to be subjuga ted to the were true, and as recent American strategis ts
historica l perspecti ve t o
show Shakespeare as alt ru ism def ined, th e Europeans", it is also clear that the changes in have reluctantl y admitted, involvem ent in
representat ive of t he spirit perspecti ve of evolut ionary the Europea n understandin g of the wor ld, the only two parts of the current wor ld - Afgha n-
of his ageand explains why biology, philosophical
he remains relevant today. perspecti ves, religious eve ntual triumph of exper imental science ove r istan and Iraq - has already ove r-stretched US
Bay/or UP • 978 1 932792959. 355 pp • HB • perspecti ves and cult ivati ng our alt ruist ic identi ty. theology, and the technologies which this military capabilities, eve n if it we re also true
£22.99 Temp/eton Foundation Press. 978 1 59947 1228
• 288pp • P8 • £1 9.99
eve ntually delivered, gave the Europeans a dis- that the American eco nomy is "double the
LEVINAS AND THE WISDOM tinct adva ntage over their Asian competitors. size of thi s nearest co mpetitor" (the Euro pea n
OF LOVE LIBERTY Durin g this tim e, Europea n curi osity abo ut Union's is, in fact, only slightly sma ller than
COR EY BEALS
LEV INAS Rethinking anImperiled Idea
"NO THE
GLENN TINDER
the "Outer World " , as Dar win calls it, also that of the US), such a claim assum es that an
Examines tw enti eth -century W ISDOM
phi losopher Levinas' Considers li berty f rom a increased expo nentially. Europea ns avidly "empire" is merely a large state with an
concept of love and its OF LO V E Christian standpoint, where collected data abo ut the flor a, fauna and the unli mit ed capacity for coe rcion. But that
relat ion to wisdom and t he Chr ist ianit y is const rued as
appreciat ion of Ot herness. open and commu nic ativ e inhabitants of every corner of the globe, some- belies Darwin ' s own subtle, multil ayered
Inc ludes a consideratio n of rather than dogmatic. thin g which was unmatched in any par t of eva luations as to what may, or may not, count
th e im plicat ions of Levinas' Touches on t hemes of
vision . commu nic ation, hum an
Asia. Th e great Euro pea n ex peditions of the as an empire. Whil e it may be true that we
Bay /or UP · fa llenness, t he necessity of eightee nth centu ry, mo st famou sly tho se of have not yet seen the end of what the Marxists
978 1 93279259 1 • liberty, standing alone, and Bou gainville, Ulloa and Coo k to the Pacific, used to ca ll "imperialism" , empires , in any of
180pp • HB • £2 2.99 eschato logy.
Eerdmans • 978 0 8028 0392 4 • 384 pp • HB • were initi ally wholly scientific, yet they pro- the senses in which the wor d is applied to the
£1 4.99 vided the inform ation which wo uld make sub- long cycle of multi- ethni c states described in

l!J
. 'I~'.i .' Il."
NO TURNING BACK
My Summer with Daddy King seq uent imp erial expansion possible. Kno w- thi s rem arkabl e book , are no mor e.
GURDON BREWSTER • 10 · •• THE AGNOSTIC INQUIRER
Revelation fram a Philosophical ledge of the Oilier World led rapidl y, and inex- Rut thi s is a di sagr eem ent. Th e deh ate o ver
In 19 61 Brewster
volunteered to work at t he Standpoint orabl y, to an attempt to gain power ove r it. whether the United States is, or is not , an
Ebenezer Bapt ist Church in SANDRA MENSSEN AND
THOMAS D SULLlVAN But Europe's scientific revoluti on s would empire, and all that thi s impli es for whatever
At lanta, living in t he home
of Martin Luther King Sr. Is there a good God? Argues never have led to the stagge ring (if also short- future dir ection it might take , will sure ly rage
This is a f irst- hand accou nt
...... ........ philosophically that without lived ) triumphs of the nin eteenth century had for a long while yet. John Dar win has give n
of th e realiti es of racial ref lect ion on the content of
preju di ce at th e tim e. revelatory cl aim s, at heists it not been for something else . Thi s was what us a co ntext in which to make sense of it far
Orbis Books. 978 1 57 075 728 0. 160pp • HB • and agnost ics are mi ssing a Dar win calls "the inventi on of the West". mor e comp ellin g than any previou s histor y.
£9.99 large part of the debate.
Eeramsns »
Th e conc ept of the "West" - a term perhaps Learn ed , elega nt and powerfull y arg ued,
978 0 8028 03 94 8 • 336 pp first used in thi s sense by Co ndorce t in 1793 Af ter Tamerlane is a rema rka ble achieve -
• P8 • £ 19.99 - or "G reater Europe" as Darwin so metimes ment. It w ill chan ge much of not only the so-
Available fromyour local bookshop orin case of difficulty from: call s it, embra ced both the Europea ns them- called new imp erial history, and the rapidly
Alban Books Ltd. 14 Bellord Road. Edinburgh EH4 3BL. UK Web:www.albanbooks.com selves and their overseas settler popul ation s - ex panding field of world histor y; it will forc e
ALeAN in parti cular the North Am eric ans - in a loose us all to reassess the lingering tragedi es ofthe
eo 0 K S lel: +44(0)1312262217 Fax: +44(0)1 31 2255999 Email: [email protected]
alliance of values, religion , ambitions and pos t-im perial wo rlds in which we live.

TLS D E C EM B E R 2 1 & 28 2 0 07
 HISTORY 35

What's yours is mine

here is, almost always , a dark side to

T
AL EX B URGHAR T
the rule of "great" king s. Mo st kings
who got very rich did so because their H y w el Willia m s
peopl e got very poor , and most kings who
became very powerful did so becau se many S UN KI N G S
peopl e became very dead. These are easy A history of magn ificent kingship
thin gs to remember when con siderin g the 2SSpp. Quereus. £16.99.
excesses of recent rulers - it is easy to be 978 184724 198 6
repelled by Imelda Marcos' s shoe collection
or horrifi ed by the 2 million killed by Pol Pot' s of despotic history is not easy, but Willi ams
regim e - but the deeds of dictator s of the past sets about this task with pace, conci sion and
rarely cause the same revulsion. Yet because excellent illustrati on s, treatin g each of his
it mark s extremes of hum an ex perience, royal subjects with brief essay s that cover lives,
opul ence retains an understandabl e appea l: achieve ments and political systems. This is
conc entr ation s of might and cas h have led to not heavy acade mic history, but an accessible, A detail from th e Co lossus of Ramses 11,M emphis, Egypt
the stag ing of some magnific ent project s and wide-ranging and inform ative book .
parti es. Nor have they always been fin anced As we ll as the Rom an empero rs and the logical and geog raphica l breadth means that sudde n death last yea r, he was President of
by taxes unwillingly paid . Pre- and ear ly Eng lish and French kin gs we might ex pec t, many will find both a useful introduction to Turkmeni stan and had in thi s capac ity taken
modern subjects ofte n (but not always) we also have emperors of China, Byzantium, their subject and period , as well as a source of personal rule to new dept hs. In true dict ato rial
ex pec ted their leaders to dress, behave and Japan , Azt ec Mexico, and Indi a, kin gs of rich trivia: King Solom on' s wea lth may have form , he renamed citi es, mo nths of the yea r,
live mag nifice ntly because a ruler' s accom - Bab ylon , Lydi a, Persia, Sicily, Ca mbodia, been built on copper min ed in the Jord an Val- and da ys of the wee k, and developed a
plishm ent s were also those of his people. Java, Sweden and Pru ssia , caliphs of ley; the Holy Rom an Emperor Charles V paid substantial cult both of his own personality
In Sun Kings, Hywel Willi ams offers a Baghdad and Cordoba, a sultan of Egy pt, a nearly two ton s of pure go ld to secure his elect- and of that of his moth er (her name replac ed
roll call of more than fifty of history' s most tsar of Russia and a khan of the Mongols. ion as "King of the Romans". Of good value is the old words for "April" and "bread" , and
famou s kings and dictator s, rangin g from the Nor is Willi arnss study limit ed to kings . We a conclu din g chapter dedi cated to a numb er of a $ 100 million mosqu e was built to her
pharaoh Ram ses II (1279-121 3 BC) to the late- also have treatm ent s of Elea nor of Aquitaine, twenti eth-century dict ator s and grandees. mem ory). As for his ow n glor ification, in his
twenti eth-c entury tyrant Jean-B edel Bokassa, Elizabeth I, Ca therine 11 of Ru ssia , and Pop e Boo ks that cove r mor e than three millenni a capital , Asgabat , on top of the bizarrely
self-procla imed Emperor of the Ce ntral Urba n VIll, included for his patron age of mu st inevitably have omissions, but it is named Ne utrality Arch , the city' s tallest
African Republic, whose 1977 coron ation cost Gian Lorenzo Bernini, throu gh whom he unfortunate that one of these is Saparmurat structure , he erected a go ld-plated statue of
some $20 million (around one-third of his bestowed on posterity some of the most mag- Niya zov Turkmenbashi, who would have him self which rotat es throughout the day to
nation ' s annual bud get). Takin g on the whole nificent of Rome' s monu ments. Thi s chron o- made a useful clo sing charac ter. Until his ensure that his face is alway s in the sun.

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TLS DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 200 7

36 HISTORY

he long deb ate ove r the contribution rising up agai nst their Turkis h rulers, and

T made by Briti sh Intelligence in

general, and of T. E. Lawrence in
part icul ar, to the cour se of the Arab Revolt
Wisdom's source Moh s is at pains to ack now ledge the crucial
roles pl ayed in the Hej az by Sherif Hussein
ibn Ali, the Emi r of Mecca and Guardian of
of 19 I6-1 8 is now in serious dange r of AN D RE W RO B ER TS Of course , no amou nt of intelligence is of Mecca and Me dina , as well as his sons the
comin g to an end. L awrence' s ow n account, any use if not effic iently used , and T . E. Pri nces Feisal , Abdullah, Ali and Ze id; and
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (co ntinuously Poll y A. M oh s Lawrence, a rather weedy -looking twenty- in Aqaba the contributio ns of Aud a abu
in print for the eighty-five yea rs since its six-yea r-old juni or subaltern in 1914, might Tayyi, Chief of the Eas tern Hu weitat, and Ibn
publication ) established his ep icen tral role, M I LITA RY I N T ELLI G E N C E AN D have see med a strange person for the Briti sh Jazi, Chie f of Ce ntral Huweit at, as well as a
which was then burnished by Basil Lidd ell THE A RAB REV O LT Empire to tru st with the delicate task of vast array of othe r Ara b figur es from Hail,
Hart in 1937, massively dow ngraded in The fi rst modern intelligence war raising the Hejaz only two years later. Yet Jauf and Medin a.
238p p. Routledge. £70 (US $ 140).
Rich ard Aldington's revisioni st biograph y with the kind of intelli gence that Mohs Tra ditiona l Ara b guerrilla tactics we re
9780 4 15372800
in 1955, rebu rnished by David Lean ' s 1962 ex plains that he and his fellow age nts we re co mbined with the coordin ated, clear,
blockbu ster movie Lawrence of A rabia, co nstantly receiving from the Ar ab Bureau , digested, rea l-time and, above all, acc urate
judiciou sly reappraised by John E. Mack' s Ottom an Emp ire. Their arriva l, and the out- his astonishing achieve me nts are now wholly intelli gence with whic h the Bureau furni shed
Pulit zer Prizew inning A Prince of Our Disor- break of wa r aga inst Turkey in November ex plica ble. them - prima rily Sigint (signals intelli gence),
der in 1976, slightly dow ngraded once agai n 1914, co inci ded with huge techn ological After the Arab Revolt broke out in Jun e Humint (agen t-base d intelligence) and Imint
by Lawrence James' s exce llent but overall breakth roughs in intelli gence techniques 19 16, Moh s argues, it was the Arab Bureau, (photographic intelli gence).
critica l The Golden Warrior in 1990 ; and which enor mo usly aided their efforts. often wor king separately from their politica l As Christopher Andrew point s out in his
there have been three other biograph ies since Mohs emphasizes how advances in wire- masters in Londo n, Egy pt and India, that introduction , although it took nearly thirt y
then . Law rence has been argued ove r as a less telegraph y allied to developments in "pushed throu gh the most imp ortant policy years for the trut h about ULTR A to be told,
cultural, political, impe rial and even sex ual aerona utics and improvement s in photo- init iati ve for the theatre". No t fo r nothin g did "Even more re marka bly, it has taken another
phenome non, with a well-curated recent graphic techn iques meant that the move men t the Bur eau adop t the word "Intrusive" as its thirty yea rs for the importance of Sigint in the
major exhi bition at the Imper ial War of Ottoman forces could be imm ediat ely telegraphi c address . Arab Rev olt to be demonstrated for the first
M useum see ming to return towar ds the tran smitted to the Anglo-Arab forces fightin g In the cour se of its activities, it occas ion- time by Dr Mohs". Mohs arg ues , in effect,
adm iring attitude of the 1930s. in the desert. Seapl anes based in the Red Seaally deepl y em barrasse d the Fore ign Office . that in his eightee n-mo nth desert war,
Now , Poll y A. Mo hs of the Univers ity could photograph enemy positions with a Lawrence' s ca pture of Aqa ba in Jul y 1917 Lawrence of Ara bia was the fully-sighted
of Ca mbridge has publi shed a meticulou sly clarit y never before achieve d technologi- was unpopul ar with the Fre nch, for example, man in the kingdom of the blin d.
researched, highl y scho larly and very well ca lly. When combined with near -perfec t and Brit ain' s allia nce with the Hashem ite Many famous people stalk the pages of
written ac ade mic study whic h will end spec u- atmospherics and total contro l of the airs pace dynasty in Mecca and the later north ern push this fascinating book - Lord Lloyd, Ge neral
lation ove r the key historical questions: to - there was no Turkish air for ce worthy of the into Syr ia and Palestine had an elemen t of Allenby, Sir Ronald Storrs, Lord Kitchener,
what extent was the Ara b Revolt agai nst name in the Hej az in 19 I6 - this meant that shoo t-first-ask -ques tions-Iater about them. as well as Lawrence himself - but its true
Ottoman T urkey durin g the First Wo rld War Lawrence of Ar abia knew long in adva nce Wh at Mohs describ es as "the cos tly denoue- heroes are the hitherto unsung Ara b Bureau
foment ed, guided and ultim ately directed prec isely where his ene mies were, whereas me nt of the Anglo-Ara b allia nce after 1919" spoo ks such as Gilbert Clay ton, David
by British Intelli genc e, and what part did they were largely ignorant about his where- is not covered by this book, but would make Hogarth (Keepe r of the Ashmolean Mu seum),
Lawrence reall y play in it? As her book' s abouts and intenti ons. Once the Turkish and a fascin ating sequel for her, as would a his- Brigadier Wy ndham H. Deedes, and Major
subtitle, The firs t modem intelligence war, Ge rman codes we re cracked by the gen ius tor y of the Arab Burea u itself. Kinaha n Cornwa llis, who worke d unceasingly
impli es, Dr Mohs has not split the difference cryp tologists in Cairo, he had a furth er invalu- The sma ll, elite band of Bureau age nts and largely unthanked in their top-secret
in the hi storical debate, but instead has come able advantage. Th is is in effect the ULTRA co uld have ach ieved nothin g, of co urse, with- Cairo HQ, in order to bring to an end the
down very heavily on the side of those who story tra nsposed to the First World War. out the cou rage of the Ara bs themselves in centuries-old Ottoma n domin atio n of Arabia.
argue that the Revo lt was the brainchild of
the shadowy Ara b Bureau. -----------------~ ,-----------------

If the Bietchl ey Park of the Seco nd World Wadswo rth, and dispatched them to the com-
War had been transported to Cairo and give n
an exec utive arm akin to the Spec ial Opera- Brown and black mand headqu arters of the theatres of war. It is
here that Goodden comes into her ow n, giving
tions Exec utive, it wo uld have approx ima ted a vivid acco unt of their activ ities. In the dese rt,
to the Ara b Bureau, whic h was made up of G UY H AR T C UP

F
emale appa re l has long been influenced deception had priority. At the Battle of El Ala-
intellectu als and cryp togra phers as we ll as by mi litary uniform s. To day, male and mein a dummy railhead was co nstructed, far
intrepid age nts in the field. As soo n as war female civilia n clothi ng and accesso- H enri e t ta Goo d den from where the 8th Army launched their
looked inevitable in 19 14, Briga dier-Ge nera l ries have des igns influ enced by camouflage. attack. Deception was eve n more vital when
G ilbe rt Clay ton brou ght togeth er an unlikely Who better , then, than the Se nior Tutor in CA M OUF LAGE AN D AR T preparing for the landi ngs in Norma ndy, when
hotchpot ch of Ar abists with wide ly varyi ng Fashio n at the Royal Co llege of Art, Design for deception in World War Two it was necessary to confuse the enemy as to
backgrounds in the Levant consular service, Henri etta Goo dden - whose father, Professor 193pp. Unicorn Press. £30 (US $55). where the landings were to take place .
Turkish gen darmerie, House of Co mmons, Robert Good den, an architect and Pro -Rector 9780906290 87 3 As in 19 I7- 18, however , camouflage was
Brit ish j ourn alism, bank ing, Oxbridge, of the Royal College of Art, togeth er with most effective at sea, in the Battle of the
archaeo logy, the col onial service and anyo ne other mem bers of the Royal Co llege staff, stage designers to concea l equipment with Atlantic. Much thought was ex pended on
else who see med to fit the bill . made impo rtant co ntributions to the art of paint and netti ng in the battlefield . Similar altering the shape of vesse ls and concealing
They co ngrega ted in Cairo with a brief to ca mouflage in the Seco nd World War - to team s were orga nized by the British. Their the direct ion in whic h they were travelling.
find out every thing that could be discovered have written this author itative book, full of work became all the more important with the At the same time new meth ods of detect ion -
about how to intercept Ger man and Turkish illustration s by wa r arti sts, and letters and innova tion of aerial reco nnaissa nce and the radar and infrared - we re evo lving . Goo dden
communications and crack their codes, track mem orand a from official recor ds? airborne camera. In the war at sea, nava l and explains how her father proposed that a scien-
enemy move men ts (es pec ially by air), "turn" Camouflage and deception, fro m the Tro - merchant vesse ls we re dazzle-p aint ed aga inst tist should be attache d to the Design Sec tion
desert ing Otto man officers, interrogate j an Horse and Birnam Wood onwards, have attack by submarines . at Leamington. The arr iva l of Bill Schuil, an
POW s, and infiltrate age nts throu ghout the always been an adjunct to war fare. The intro- In betwee n the two Wor ld Wars, the British expert in pho totelemetry , confirmed that the
ductio n of long-range, quick-firing weapons military neglected the development of cam ou- artists' approximation of particular tonal
in the late nineteenth ce ntury forced armies flage, but the threat from the strategic bombers values often turn ed out to match his scientific

• FOUR COURTS PRESS

Lord ship in Medieval Ireland

to dig them sel ves in. In the Afgha n War of of a resurgent Germa n Air Force exposed air- measurements.
1880, Briti sh troo ps we re the first to adop t craft and munition factories, power stations After the war, the artists returned to their
perso nal camouflage, boil ing their white and airfields to attack. The need for their con- studios or to teaching. Hencefo rward science
LI NDA DORAN & J AM ES LYTTLE TO N summe r tunics with tea leaves to turn them cea lment was first appreciated by artists influ- and technology had to devise countermeas ures
ED ITOR S
khaki (Urd u for dust). Thi s subse quently enced by the Spanish Civi l War. Whereas in again st infr ared photography, stea lth aircraft,
This volume from the Srudy in Irish Historic Settlement became the sta ndard sortie uniform . Before the First World War des igns were to some or satellites. Ca mouflage co ntinues to be an
Series offers insights into the developmen t and
long, modern wea pons required military para- extent influenced by Cubism, artists were now integral part of the changed methods of war -
consolidation of lordship in medi eval Ireland.
pherna lia behind the front line to be co n- inspired by Surrea lism. British civil defence fare. The prese nt tend ency is to mask the indi-
ISBN 978-1 -8468 2-041 -0 28Spp ills. £45
Published: ZI December cea led. Curiously, it was the Frenc h - who authorities soon apprec iated their work, form- vidual soldier and his vehicle. In her acco unt
had retained their blu e tunics and red trousers ing a resea rch cen tre at Leamington Spa. The of the progress of ca mouflage in the twen-
7 Malpas Street, Dublin 8, Ireland
Tel. (Dublin) 453 4668 www.fourcourtspress.ie • until 1915 - who we re the first in the First Army trained artists such as JuIian Trevelyan, tieth century, Goo dden has made a valuable
Wor ld War to send artists, arch itec ts and Roland Penrose, Frederick Gore and Edwa rd addition to the sparse literature on this subject.

TL S D E C E M B E R 2 1 & 28 2007
 SOCIAL STUDIES 37

hy do some peopl e who mak e a lot much studied in the mathem atics, soc iology

W of money ve ry fast so fer ventl y

need to persuade the rest of us that
they are grea t phil osoph ers as we ll? Geo rge
In a million and ec ono mics of network s, thou gh yo u
wo uld not guess thi s from the cont empt with
which mathemati cians, soci olog ists and eco n-
Soro s suffers fro m thi s compulsion , as does omists are dismisse d in The Black Swan.
Conra d Black. Wh y should Nassim N icho las PA UL S EA BRIGH T nontheoretical unfoldin g of History and I was Cha nce even ts that ca n have massive imp act
Ta leb, who invested in risky deri vatives on reading about someo ne appare ntly experienc- have also been give n much atte ntion recen tly
Wall Stree t and was o n the luck y side, wa nt ing history as it went along. I made efforts to by math em aticians under the title of "fat
Nassi m N ic h o las T al eb
us also to think that he is wise, wi th an mentally produce a movielike represe ntation of tail s" . Thi s is a prop erty of statistica l distribu-
insight into histor y and the functi onin g of the TH E BL A C K S WAN the future and realized it was not so obvious. I tion s whose ex treme values happen ofte n
unive rse deni ed to the rest of us? 400pp. Alien Lane The Penguin Press. £20. realized that if I were to start writing about the enoug h to have a massive imp act on the aver -
All boo ks in thi s ge nre indu lge in some 978 0 71399995 2 events later they would seem more .. . histori- age of the who le distribution.
aut obi ogr aphy , but Ta leb gives us the wor ks . US: Random House.978 I 4000 6351 2. $26.95. cal. There was a di fference between the before Wh at ab out Tal eb' s ow n luck ? Defyin g
Th ere is his politi cal awa kening in Lebanon : and the after. his ma xim that "no one in parti cul ar is a goo d
My ethos was shaped when, at fifteen, I was describ es as "s ta nding up for his beli efs" Th e big idea is that histor y is full of unp re- predictor of anythin g" , he lets us in on
put in jail for (allegedly) attacking a policeman with "bo th eleg ance and dignit y" . Eve n in his dictable eve nts; they are the " Black Sw ans" the sec rets of his investm ent strategy, which
with a slab of concrete during a student riot - ow n person a he rail s aga inst the fool s and of the title. Th ey are unpredi ctable, they have he realizes is why lot s of peopl e will bu y
an incident with strange ramifications since my med iocriti es with who m he is forced to massive imp act, and after they have hap- thi s book: "Instead of putting yo ur mon ey
gra ndfather was then the minister of the inte- co habit the planet. pened we have a stro ng desire to mak e them in ' medium-risk' investm ent s", he adv ises,
rior, and the person who signed the orde r to To show us his char ming side he con cedes see m less rand om and unpredi ct able than "you need to put a portion, say 85 to 90 per
crus h our revo lt. I reca ll being at the center of that he can deri ve some enjoyment from thi s they reall y are, usuall y by tellin g a narr ati ve cent , in ex treme ly safe instrument s, like
the riot, and feeling a huge satisfac tion upon unequal co ntes t of wits. He affec ts a chum my in which they retrospecti vely make se nse . Treasur y bill s - as safe a class of instrument s
my capture while my frie nds were scared of partn ership of equals with Be no it M andelb rot Black Swans have a big imp act partly as yo u can ma nage to fin d on thi s planet. Th e
both priso n and their parents . . .. There were (it mig ht be interestin g to hear M and elbrot' s because we humans live in a physical environ- remaining 10 to 15 per cent you put in
some obvio us benefits in show ing one's ability side of the story) , and hand s out plaudit s once ment that ca n change in rapid and unpr edict- ex tremely speculative bets, as leveraged as
to act on one' s opinions. and not co mpromis- in a while to the likes of Cicero, who "puts to able ways, as the study of glo bal warm ing is possible (like options), preferably venture
ing an inch to avoid "offen ding" or botherin g sha me almost all emp irica l think ers who beginning to remin d us. Partl y it is becau se capital-style portfolio s". He adds, "Make sure
others. ca me after him , until very recentl y" . He also our soci al env iro nme nt ex hibits a ph enom e- yo u have plent y of these small bets; avo id
Th ere is his reacti on to the stock-ex change records var io us attac ks o n him by pompou s non called by Sher win Rosen "the econo mics bein g blinded by the vividness of one single
cras h of 1987, and spec ifica lly to the news figur es whose di smi ssal s of him and hi s ideas of supers tars" ; in so me dom ain s a sma ll pro- Black Swan. Have as many of these sma ll
that a friend ' s neighbo ur had com mitted serve o nly to show how ori ginal he is. port ion of the talented or luck y can earn a bets as you can co nceivably have" . It seems
suicide as a result: So what then is Taleb ' s big, big idea? It huge pro por tion of the rewards , whether they that he has also discovered portfolio diver sifi-
I feared a Pyrrhic victory. I had been vindi- was during the civil wa r in Lebanon, shelter- are opera singers , options traders, or bestsell- cation. Other insights include " make a
cated intellectually, but I was afraid of being ing from bomb s in a basem ent and readin g ing authors (or eva nge lists, or politicians, or distin cti on between positi ve contingen cies
too right and see ing the syste m crum ble under Willi am L. Shirers Berlin Diary , that Taleb recruiters for globa l jih ad, for that matter ). and negati ve ones" ; "seize any opp ortu nity,
my feet. I did not really want to be that right ex perience d an ep iphany abo ut the true The fact that it can be luck rather than talent or anything that look s like opportunity";
. . But I realized then and there that I did not natur e of histor y: is d ue to herdin g, which makes later buyers "beware of preci se plans by gove rnme nts" ;
give a hoot about the money. I exper ienced the [ was in a basement with history audibly unfold- or investor s flock to em pty their wa llets in and "If you hear a 'prominent' eco nomis t
strangest feeling I have ever had in my life, this ing above me (the sound of mortar shells kept the laps of those who strike it luck y early in using the wor d equilibrium or norm al distri-
deafen ing trumpet signaling to me that I was me up all night). I was a teenager attending the the process. Herding creates eve rything from buti on , do not argue with him ; ju st ignore
right, so loudly that it made my bones vibrate. funera ls of classmates. I was experiencing a fashion to the structure of citi es, and has been him , or try to put a rat down his shirt" . "We
Th ere is the revelati on that he likes say ing ca nno t trul y plan , bec ause we do not under-
"fuck yo u" on the telephone to peopl e who stand the futur e - but thi s is not necessaril y
irrit ate him , the repetition of re marks he has bad news. We co uld plan while bearin g in
mind such limit ation s. It ju st takes guts." " In
made to assor ted listeners, from his prim ary-
schoo l teacher to fell ow airline trav ell ers,
The Last of England the en d", he tell s us, sum ming up the wisdo m
and regrets that no one else was around to of a lifetim e, "we are being driven by histor y,
hear - and there is the follo win g thou ght all the while thin king that we are do ing the
ex periment: No old-co untry nerves, dri vin g."
Imagine someone of authority and rank, operat- no moth erin g ton gue M any of Ta leb's messages are deli vered
ing in a place where rank matters. He co uld be Gorgo n nation , as steady for ward, with the co nfide ntial mateyn ess of the ma n
a verbose political co mmenta tor .. . the chair- homunculu s reachin g out in the pub who has a hot rac ing tip: " Now,
man of a com pany .. . or a Harvard Business of midriff, a ge ntle grip, if yo u think that science is an abstract subje ct
School professor who does not laugh at your hand clasp to cloy co ld copy , free of sensationalism and distortions, I have
j okes. Say that a pra nkster surprises him one facsimil e ex pectation, some sobering news" . But , like the ma n in the
day by surreptitiously sliding a thin feather up longer than cabbage will supply. pub who doesn 't wa nt his success at the races
his nose durin g a mo ment of relaxation . How to blind yo u to eve rything else he knows , he
would his digni fied pompou sness fare after the Husband paws packages it with a lot more: "The Soviets
surprise? the palett e, brinmming may have flatt ened the eco no mic struc ture,
In case the reader has not guessed by now, El Dorad o, to soil the sea, cliff' s but they enco urage d their own brand of iiber-
Taleb confides, " I co nfess havin g developed epipha ny - bleached, passe, mensc h"; "I' d rather degrade us hum ans to a
an incorrigi ble taste for thi s kind of prank " . stag nant geology . Warp ed level certainl y above other known anima ls
An y readers who start to feel Ta leb ge tting up as sa ilors, rosy -cheeke d - but not quit e on a par with the ideal Olym pian
their nose ca n hardl y say they weren' t a M adonna' s chilly natu re ; man who can absorb philo sophi cal state-
wa rne d. " Pra nks ca n he c om passio na te " , he and so the ava nt-garde: Na po leo nic ment s and act acc ording ly". With a ghas tly
continues. "I rem emb er in my early tradin g sense of inevitabilit y yo u kno w that, four
da ys, at age twent y-fi ve or so, whe n mon ey shoc k troop s, hour s and many drinks later , yo ur wa tch will
was starting to become easy, I wo uld take Malory' s knights still have advanced only twent y minut es and
ta xis, and if the dri ver spo ke skeletal English in heavy armo ur. Blitzkri eg. he is go ing to start tellin g yo u about chaos
and look ed particularly depr essed , I'd give Virtu e fleein g Egy pt - white theory. But he wa nts you to kno w that all thi s
him a $ 100 bill as a tip, j ust to give him a lit- hor ses, gold ga thered, the Brit ish Mu seum - erudition hasn 't spoiled him : "it is usually a
tle jolt and ge t a kick out of his surpr ise ." what have we left , to flee ce nsus, humbling proc ess, particularly to someone
Ta leb gives us in parenth eses the ex ploits creditors , antiphonal lash aware of the narr ati ve fall acy, to discover that
of a fiction al alter ego ca lled "Ne ro" (I' m not of caricature, blast of north ern airs. histor y run s for ward , not back ward". Of the
making thi s up) who seduces the wives of many words I might have used to describ e
less flamb oyant phil osoph ers than he is, the pro cess that thi s insight has wor ked on
and o nce tears up the eva luation form give n JOH N KI NS ELLA Nass im Nicho las Tal eb , "humbling" was not
hi m by an employe r, in an act that he the first to spring to mind.

TLS DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 2007

38 PHILOSOPHY

kno wn philosoph ers. (Bes ides Straws on him-

A set of accidents self, David Arm stron g, Geor ge Bealer , Bob

Hale, Wolfgan g Kunn e and Richard Sor abj i
certainl y fall in this category.) All the contrib-
utor s are ex treme ly able phil osoph ers who
nalytical philosoph y may be thou ght one another is not easy to describ e. They have valuable thin gs to say about various

A
P ET ER VA N I NWAG E N
of as a particular or as a uni versal. As may be divid ed into two main classes: those aspect s of the probl em of uni versals. Indeed ,
a particular, it is a contl uence of that have something to do with Stra wson' s eve ry aspect of the probl em of which I am
strea ms of thou ght whose springs were in P . F . Strawson a n d A rind am work on uni ver sal s (two of them are by aware is discu ssed by at least one of the
Brit ain , Au str ia, Po land and the United Chakrab arti , e d i t o rs Str awson ), and those that don 't. (The subtitle authors.
States. It has an early cla ssical , or "Cam- UN IVE R S A L S , C ONCE PT S AN D of the book , " New essays on the meaning Th e most interestin g parts of the book
brid ge" , peri od (the period of Ru ssell , Moore Q U ALITI ES of predic ates" , reflec ts Str awson' s ori ginal conc ern what Strawso n ca lled "property
and Witt gen stein ); a middl e cla ssic al , or New essays on the meaning of predicates app roach to the probl em of uni ver sal s. instanc es" and the medieva ls called
"Viennese" , period (Carnap and the logical 324pp. Aldershot: Ashgate. £55 (US $99.95). Individuals was a book about metaphysic s, "accidents" and man y philosoph ers now ca ll
po siti vists) ; a late cla ssic al, or "Oxford", 978 0754650324 but the Strawson of 1959 was neverth eless a "tropes " (a biz arr e use of the word that
period (Austin and the "philosophers of "linguistic philosoph er" and it was natural Stra wson rightl y deplores). A uni versal is sup-
ordinar y lan gua ge" ); and a post-classic al or One could prop ose man y plau sible explana- for him to approa ch the topic of uni versal s by posed to be a thin g that has "instances" , and a
"American" peri od (Quin e, Kripk e and tion s for "the return of metaph ysics" , but a a det ailed analys is of words and phr ases that prop ert y - redn ess, say - is a species of uni-
David Lewis). Thought of as a uni versal , factor that was cert ainl y as important as any ex press uni ver sals, the most important of versa l. One might suppose that "instances" of
anal ytical phil osoph y is something that other was the publication in 1959 of P. F. these bein g predi cat es like " is a hor se", "is the propert y redn ess would be thin gs like red
recu rs periodically in the histor y of philoso- Strawso n's Individuals - tellin gly subtitled wise" , "is to the north of'. He is rather less appl es. Acc ordin g to those who beli eve in
ph y. Aristotl e was an analytical phil osoph er "An essay in descripti ve metaph ysics" . a lingui stic philosoph er and rather mor e a "property instances" , however, thi s red apple
by any reasonable definition of "analytical" , (Stra wson , one of the co-editors of Univer - traditi onal metaph ysici an in the two recent and that red apple are not two instanc es of the
as were most of the medieval philo soph ers sals, Concepts and Qualities, died in 200 6.) ess ays included in thi s book. ) property redn ess; there are, neverth eless, two
(both Christian and Mu slim ), and the so- True , Strawson compared his met aph ysical The first essay in the book (afte r the intro- instanc es of redn ess in the vicinity (so to
ca lled Briti sh Empiricists and Co ntinental proj ect to Kant ' s, Tru e, he describ ed his style ductory ess ay by Strawso n's co-editor, spe ak) of the two app les . Tho se who beli eve
Rati on ali sts. And , as seve ra l of the essays in of metaphysics as "descriptive" rather than Arindam Chakra barti) is a len gth y commen- in these item s ca ll them "the redn ess of thi s
thi s bo ok demonstrat e, man y of the classical "rev isionary" (he did not prop ose to defend tary on, and recon stru ction or revision of, appl e" and "the redn ess of that apple" . Th ese
philosoph ers of India we re analytica l philo s- item s, th ese " particu lar redn esses", are sup-
ophers. When I, a fairl y typi cal post-cl assical posed to be two distin ct thin gs eve n if the two
anal ytical philosoph er, read text s from any of appl es are of exac tly the sa me shade of red .
these sources , I kno w that their auth or s and I Beli ef in "pro perty instanc es" mu st repr e-
are "up to the same sort of thin g" - so me- sent so me perenni al ten denc y of the human
thin g I cannot say of the work of Hegel, or mind , since it has ari sen ind epend entl y in
Heid egger, or even Kant. Th ey are philo so- several philosophical traditi on s. I can find no
ph ers of oth er tim es and oth er cultures, but I trace of it in my ow n mind , however. (Con-
neverth eless reco gni ze them as colleagu es, side r two apples that are exac tly alik e in
"fellows of another college" , as Littlewood eve ry respect. To my mind, say ing that "the
sa id of the Greek mathematici ans. redn ess of thi s apple" and "the red ness of that
Metaph ysic s has alm ost always been cen- appl e" are names of two distinct thin gs
tral to analytical phil osoph y (the uni versal) . makes about as much sense as say ing that
(Hume was as much a metaph ysician as had "the diameter of thi s appl e" and "the diame-
been Leibni z - albeit a rath er less extravagant ter of that apple" are names of two di stinct
on e.) Analytical philo sophy (the particular) thin gs.) Th e perennial tend enc y of philo so-
has at times been hostile to metaphysics, has ph ers to beli eve in prop ert y instances has nat-
eve n see n the elimination of metaphy sic s as urally led to the formul ation of arg ume nts for
its ma in task. This attitud e toward s metaphys - their ex iste nce (rep rese ntatives of histor ica lly
ic s was central to it in its Vi ennese period , unrelated phil osophi cal tradit ions have formu-
and hardl y less important in its Oxford lated remark abl y similar arg ume nts for their
period. But post-cl assical analytica l philoso - ex istence) . Several of the essays in thi s book ,
phy is as resolut ely metaphysical as was medi- including those of Strawson and Sen , co nta in
eva l phil osoph y. One might cont end that thi s very nice present ation s of these traditional
development was simply a reversion to the argum ent s. I did not find these present ation s
norm , since early-class ical analytica l phil oso- of the argum ent s con vin cin g, but it oft en hap-
ph y was no less resolut ely metaph ysical than "Still Life with Basket of Apples" (1887-8) by Vincent Van Gogh ; from The Treasures of pens that when phil osoph er s con sider arg u-
current analytical philo soph y. But some ana- Vincent Van Gogh by Cornelia Homburg (npp. Deutsch. £30. 978 0 233 00217 0) ment s for theses they find unc on geni al , they
lytic al philosoph er s now writing are as hostil e com e to und erstand mor e clearl y - and
to metaph ysic s as any Vienn ese positi vist theses like "time is unreal" or " nothing ex ists Strawson' s theory of uni versals by the late becom e able mor e clearl y to articulate - their
eve r was , and view present-day analytical met- but the mind and its ideas") . Neve rtheless, it Pranab Kum ar Sen. It is follo wed by a brief reaso ns for rej ectin g tho se theses. This was
aph ysics as the betrayal of a nobl e traditi on. was undeniably a wor k of metaph ysics, and respon se by Strawson , and two essays by exac tly my experience .
Bas van Fraassen , perh aps the most promi- its author was uni versall y recogniz ed as one other authors that comm ent on Sen ' s comm en- Thi s exce lle nt coll ection of essays dem on-
nent ex po nent of thi s attitude, has recentl y of the cent ral figur es in analytical phil osoph y. tary on Strawson . It wo uld not be too wide of stra tes by exa mple that analytica l metaph ys-
writte n, "As I see it, analytic philo soph y . . . If, mor eo ver , the " individuals" of its title the mark to describe these four essays (and ics is very far from dead. (Va n Fraassen and
began with a revoluti on that was subve rted by we re the centrepiece of the book , the thin gs to much of Chakrabarti's introductory ess ay) as the oth er enemies of analytic al metaphysic s
reactionary for ces. T a m spea king her e of a which indi vidu als are oppo sed figured promi- devoted to a theme called "the Str awson-S en will no doubt insi st - thi s is on e of th eir
reversion to a seve ntee nth-century style of nentl y in it too. That is to say, one of its topic s Proje ct". The two fin al essays in the book favourite metaphors - that I have mis take n an
metaph ysic s lie, metaph ysics in the style of was the ancient "problem of uni versals", the (one by Stra wson and one by Chakrabarti) anim ated corp se for a livin g thin g.) The
Descartes and Leibniz]". I wo uld disput e van probl em of the reality and natur e of "general also conc ern the Straws on-Se n Proj ect main , in fact the onl y, defect of Unive rsals,
Fraasse n's cont ention that current analytical thin gs", thin gs other than indi vidu als or parti- (Chakrabarti's only in part). Essays on the Concepts and Qualities is that it is very mu ch
met aph ysic s repr esent s a rever sion to the sev - culars - this hor se, So crates , those two moun- Proje ct mak e up about a third of the book . The a miscell an y, a bo ok whose onl y prin cipl e of
entee nth ce ntury (in my view, "a rever sion to tains - things like "the hor se" and "wisdom" other two-thirds comprise essays by nine unit y is the very abs tract descripti on "essays
the thirte enth centu ry" or "a reversion to the and "being to the north of '. philosophers that conc ern , or are at any rate o n the meanin g of predic ates" . Arindam
first qu arter of the twenti eth century" would Th at ancient probl em - actua lly, a large relevant to, various aspect s of the probl em of Chakra bar ti has done what can be done to
both be mor e accura te descriptions). But it' s famil y of interr el ated probl em s - is, in on e uni versals. But , if their authors have much ameliorate thi s defect in his lon g introductory
undeniable that, in the 1960 s, metaph ysic s way or another, the topi c of the sixtee n interest in, or indeed kno wledg e of, what essay, which summarizes the essays clearl y
return ed to analytica l philosophy after thirt y original essays that make up Universa l." Strawson has had to say on the topic , they and accurately, and, with admirable insight,
yea rs in forc ed exi le and , as the decades Concepts and Qualities. These essays give no ev idence of it in their essays . Man y of dr aws out the not-always -obv io us co nnec-
passe d, bec ame mor e and more respect able. are ex tremely diver se, and their relation to the contributors to the book are very well- tion s between their them es.

TLS D E C EM B E R 2 1 & 28 2 0 07
 ORNITHOLO GY 39

Flight paths
he Atlas of Bird Migration, ed ited by C H R IST O P HE R P ERRI N S

T Jonath an Elph ick, starts by desc ribing

the phe nomenon of migration, the
geog raph ic patterns and the rou tes , the tim-
Jon a t ha n E l p h ic k, e d itor
ing, the heights at which they occ ur, and THE A T LAS O F B IRD M IGRA T ION
the ways in which birds lay dow n the large 176pp. Natural History Museum. £ 19.99.
fat rese rves that they need for such long 9780565 092 184
jo urneys . There is also a brief descripti on of US: Firefly. $35. 978 I 55407 248 4
how they find their way, using a sun com pass Bar-headed geese
and magnetic clues - still areas ripe for follo wed by exa mples of the range of migra-
imp roved und erstanding. Birds are continu- tory patterns observed in the reg ion, treating hemi sphere; many southern spec ies migrate anything on the subjec t is out of date before it
ally adapting routes that have only ex isted in these largely on a fam ily-b y-fam ily basis. towards the tropics in the southern winter; for is printed . However , many Antarc tic spec ies,
their curre nt form for a few thousand years . Because space permit s only a few spec ies to exa mple, the Swift Parrot breed s in Tasma- especially the larger albatrosses , have been
Habit at changes since the last ice age have be cove red in any detail, there is some rather nia, but winters in South Austra lia. Some sea- tracked throughout their annu al movement s,
mea nt that, in the case of our European birds, patchy cove rage. The text is richly acc ompa- birds breed in one hemisphere and spend the and last yea r geo locators (which fix their
breeding areas are now very differe nt from nied by photograph s and paintings of the other half of the year in the other hem isphere. position from the accurate meas ureme nt of
wha t they were . The ability of birds to birds, and det ailed maps. These last are draw n Far less well kno wn are the birds fro m sunrise and sunse t) were used to determine
modify their routes - some times quite to a set of rules, whic h, though a bit complex, warmer cli mes such as the Penn ant- winged the complex movement s of Sooty Shea r-
qui ckly - may prove esse ntial to their sur- once mastered make for easy reading. Nightjar which und ert ake trans-equ atorial waters aro und the Pacifi c. This spring, a set
viva l as the cli mate changes . So me such Some birds und ert ake trul y rem arkable migrations within the tropic s to take advan- of flight s by individual Go dw its migratin g
changes have already been obse rved, mostly j ourn eys. The Bar-headed Goose breeds in tage of local increases in their food supplies. from their wintering grounds in New Zea land
where birds migrate less far to the south, north ern Russia and spen ds the winter in Curre ntly, many of the mos t exc iting find- to breed in Alaska or Siberia have surpassed
because the winters nearer to their breeding Indi a, flying at an altitude of 9,000 metres or ings about migration are co ming from break- all flying recor ds . It has been kno wn for
gro unds are now less cold. more across the Hi malayas in order to do so. through s in techn ology; eve r sma ller trackin g some time that Go dw its leaving Alaska for
The main part of this book is devoted to Give n that this is about level with the top of devices can be fitted to migratin g birds whic h New Zea land prob abl y fly there non- stop, if
looki ng at exa mples of migrant s. This section Everes t, the respirator y physiology of bird s is tell us so much more about the rout es whic h only on the basis that there isn't anyw here
is divided into geographic areas : Nor th A mer- clearly so mew hat superior to that of humans. individuals take than ringin g can eve r do - much to stop. But last winter, so me birds
ica, Euras ia, winter visitors from the far Even so me of the tiny (3g) Rub y-th roated while still not revealin g how they do it. There were fitt ed with satellite tags in New Ze aland
north , southern hemi sphere, and migra tory Hum mingbird s which breed in the eas tern is some descript ion of such findin gs in and in the spring their north ward jo urneys
sea birds . For eac h of these there is an intro- United States fly at least 50 0 miles across The Atlas ofBird Migration, and it is perh aps were tracked. One bird flew 10,200 kilo-
duction giving the general patterns of migra- the Gulf of Mexi co to the Yucata n peni nsul a. unfair to criti cize it for there not bein g more; metres in a nine-day non- stop flight. And still
tion obse rved in the region. This is then Migrati on is not confined to the north ern the subjec t is deve loping so fast that almos t we do not know how they do it.

-----------------------~,-----------------------

It isn't easy to find fault with such a goo d

Up with the lark read, but dippin g in and out I was remind ed
that Classic FM listeners voted Vaughan
Williams's "The Lark Ascendin g" to top
eter Tates slender Flights of Fancy is a JOH N FAN S HA WE the crossbill' s attemp t to release Jesus was cel- their Hall of Fame earlier this yea r. What per-

P samp ler of the stories that have grown

out of man's love affair with birds. It is
his first book for almos t twenty years, follow-
P e t e r T at e
ebrated by Longfellow in verse : "At the ruth-
less nail of iron / a little bird is striving there" .
Indeed, spec ies with part- red plum ages, like
cent age of the 70,000 polled had hear d an
actual sky lark? I fear Ta re's title Flights of
Fancy runs some risk of undervalui ng our
ing , among others, two on the literature of orni- FLI G H T S OF FANCY the cross b ill, robin and swallow , are all asso- deep c ultural assoc iations wi th birds , render-
tholo gy, A Century of Bird Books (1979) and Birds in myth, legend and superstition ciated with strugg ling to remove Christ's ing them curious and qua int, and not roo ting
Birds, Men and Books (1986) . Over the past 180pp. Random House. £ I O. crown of thorn s. Almost half the birds have them in realit y: a fear that see ms to resonat e
centur y, the arrival of ornithology as a science 978 I 9052 1161 6 Christian links, not least the famili ar cock- with the listeners who so love Williams 's
and the rapid grow th in affordable optics have ere l's assoc iation with Peter' s betrayal. idyllic music.
seen avicentric publishing become a cottage in Fahle, Legend, and Folklore (1923).
indu stry. While birdin g is now recreation al for The pro verbi al, "a bird in the hand is wor th
many people - travellin g, listing, chas ing - we two in the bush" is tackled , and Tate has
no longer rely on the arriva l of the first swal-
lows to confirm or celebrate a seaso n of plenty
ahead, or mou rn its loss with their departure;
nor are we up at first light to hear the volume
Czec h, Finnish, Itali an , Indonesian and
Russia n "Don' t promi se the crane in the sky,
but give the titmouse in our hand" vers ions.
Many of the stories included are famili ar:
Have you
of bird song that greets the sun. Alarm clocks,
offices, urban life have all conspired to drive
simple bird enco unters out of most people' s
lives. Flights of Fancy is a welco me reminder
storks and babies, cuckoos and spring, ow ls
and dea th, nightin gales and love; but woven
into the text are a multitude of others, king-
fishers forecastin g the wea the r, for exa mple.
missed an issue?
To order past co pies please call 0207 740 02 17, ema il [email protected] or write to:
of how birds were once (and should remain) Suspended by a thread in a house, a dead bird TLS Back Issues, 1-11 Galleyw all Road, London, SE l6 3PB, enclosi ng a cheque made
nature ' s g reat indic ato rs. was s upposed to re vol v e to face the so urce of payable to OCS Worldwide. Cre dit/ de bi t card payments are also accep ted. Back issues cos t
Tate takes a species by species approach, the wind, a belief taken up by Kent in Sha ke- £3.50 per copy within the UK and £5.0 0 overse as (please note that not all issues are available).
cove ring thirty in total. Most are familiar, such spea re's King Lear, referrin g to those who: Please state the date of each issue required.
as the rook, blackbird and robin, but some exo t- "Re nege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks An index of all past issues is available at www.ocsmedia.net/tls
ics, hoopoe, peacock and pelican, appear, and / With eve ry ga le and vary of their mas ters".
a few, such as the swallow , cuckoo, eagle and "Halcyon", the Gree k word for "kingfisher"
ow l, have generated sufficient cultur al interest has, of course , found its way into regul ar
to run to long accounts. The selection is a little English usage for a spe ll of fine wea ther,
eclect ic. Many acculturated birds are missing, particularly in winter.
but Tate clearly did not intend a comprehen- Stories re-emerge under a numb er of spe-
sive review, and his selected bibliography cies: the crucifix ion and those birds reputedly
points to classic studies, like the redoubtable prese nt, for exa mple. The lapwing unwisely
Revd Edward (E. A.) Armstrong' s 1958 The cried out "Let him suffer, Let him suffer", and
Folklore of Birds, and Ernest Ingersoll's Birds was so "condemned for all eternity", while

TL S D E C E M B E R 2 1 & 28 2007
40 IN BRIEF

who had brou ght hi story to bear o n Ge rma n

foreign policy. It was Fisc her, for exa mple ,
who, in an atte mp t to convince his own part y
and his ow n ge neratio n - the so-called " 1968
ge neration" - of the necessit y of using mili-
tar y force aga inst Mil osevic, drew parallels
between ethnic clean sing in Kosovo and the
Holocaust, leadin g in turn to the inevitable
accu sation s that he had "instrurnentalized"
A uschwitz.
While Fisc her's stance on Kosovo divided
the German Left, it wo n him ma ny admire rs
abroad, particul arly in the United States.
Military History After 9111 - with which thi s first vo lume
Leo MeKinstry of Fisc her's mem oir s ends - that all ch anged
SP ITFI RE as Ge rma n " Bundnistreue" was tested
Portrait of a legend eve n furth er over Iraq than it had been ove r
435pp . John Murray. £20. Kosovo.
97807 19568749 H ANS KUND NAN I

Literary Criticism
A fter so many book s on the Sp itfire, it is a
pleasa nt surp rise to find a new one that
sheds light on some of the more intri guin g Joan Fitzpatrick
aspec ts of the history of that famou s aero- FO O D IN S HAKES PEA RE
plane. Leo Mc Kinstry exp lains we ll how, as Early modern dietaries and the plays
the visible spearhea d of Br itain's survival 176pp. Ashgate. £45.
aga inst Hitl er ' s invasion plans, the Spitfire 978 075465547 3
became an ico n of nati on al defi ance .
Mc Kinstry describ es how R. J. Mit chell' s
supe rb sea planes wo n the Schneide r Tro phy
for Great Brit ain in 1931. Hun dred s of thou-
S ixteenth-century dietaries leave Atkins
looki ng uni maginat ive: cucum bers abate
carnal lust, fenn el enco urages lactatio n, figs
san ds of spec tators wo uld turn up for the ca use lice . Joan Fitzpatrick's trawl of the
races . The obvious next step was an ear ly mode rn literatur e on eating reminds us
ad vanced fight er aero plane, but Mit chell' s that food is always more than food. Oft en, as
fir st attem pt was a "dog' s breakfast". Fa ilure any stude nt of Shakespea re knows, it is sex,
spurred him into radica lly imp ro vin g the but some times it is politics too. On e of Fitz-
design , an d the result was the Sp itfire, whic h patri ck' s most thou ght- pro vokin g chapters
fir st flew in M arch 1936. The Ai r Mini str y brings Sir Thomas More and Corio /anus
were deli ght ed , but we re outrage d by early togeth er to discu ss class, foreign vege tables
pro duction del ays. Th ey seriously contem - and fami ne. A study of "Celtic acquainta nce
plated cutting sho rt Spitfire production in and alterit y" in Henry V an d Macbeth look s
favour of the later Hawker To rnado and West- closely at the significa nce of Fluellen's
land W hir lwind. In the event, the Spitfire leek, while also noting the threatenin g
o utlive d these two aero planes in front-line T aken from The se Were Our Dogs, by Libby Hall (155pp. Bloomsbury. £18.99. 978 0 7475 famili arit y of much of the witches' cookin g
service by several yea rs. 88764). Libby Hall has been collecting pi ctures of dogs - r escu ing photographs from dust- to a Jacobean aud ience . The notori ou s
The first Spitfire reached the RAF squad- bins and bonfires, buying them from flea-markets and second-hand shops - since 1966. "double-double beer" , for example, had
ro ns as late as mid-1 938, and this delay wea k- ominous asso cia tions of its ow n.
ened Nev ille Cha mberlain's hand in his nego- ning a nd th e e ffec tive coord ina tio n of rad ar , which ran fro m 1998 to 200 5, di vides neatly There is, inevitabl y, the danger of over-
tiation s with Hitl er. Perh aps ironi call y, it was new fight er aircraft (of which the Sp itfire into two parts, co inciding ro ughly with the egg ing . "M uch has been wr itte n abo ut the
C hamberla in who made the successful was pre-emi nent), and a new fight er co ntro l gove rnmen t's two term s but separa ted also probable cause of Leont es' s sudde n and
defence of Great Brit ain possible by overrul- syste m. by 91l 1. Die Rot-Griin en Jahr e, the first ex treme jealou sy, but littl e has been mad e of
ing the RAF, who wanted to build up the Th e book exp lains the imp ort ant co ntribu- volume of the memoirs of Schrode r's Gree n the role of diet in its provocation" . But the
bomb er fleet at the expense of fight er s. The tion of Beaverbrook in ove rco ming obs tacles foreign mini ster, Joschk a Fisc her, covers importanc e of "profane con sumption " whe n
Spitfire was redeem ed by its effec tive ness in to pro duction and in "politicizing" the Sp it- the first period, which was dom inated by the Shakespeare wa nts to paint a deb ased hum an-
combat, first ove r Dunkirk and then in the fire, turn ing it into a nationa l icon. McKin- Kosovo war. ity is ev iden t. Fitzpa tric k devotes her fin al
Ba ttle of Brit ain. Fighter design im pro ved stry also tell s why Air Chief M arshal Sir Eve n before they had been officia lly swo rn cha pter to Ham/et, Timon ofAthens and Titus
grea tly und er the press ures of the Sec ond Hugh Do wdin g was sacked shortly after the in in the autumn of 1998, Schriide r and Andronicus, and it is a val uable reminder of
Wor ld War. The basic design of the Spitfire Battle of Britain victory of which he was the Fischer had decid ed they had to dem onstr ate the network s of bizarre, blood y and cannibal-
was so sound that it was able to mainta in its arc hitec t. As McKinstry shows , politicians, what the Germans ca ll " Bundnistreue" (loy- istic feedi ng that ex ten d throu gh out Shake-
lead as the best defe ns ive fight er , apar t from indu striali sts, pilots and eng inee rs worked alty to the Atl ant ic alliance) eve n if it meant speare's career.
a few relative ly brief occasions whe n the togeth er to keep the Sp itfire ahead of the sen ding German troo ps into co mbat for the Th ese eye -ope ning culina ry exc urs ions
Germans we re ahead . pac k. A lthoug h the enginee ring and opera- first tim e since the Second World War - and tend to return us to much the same place we
McKi nstry demoli shes seve ral myth s tion al histor ies are not desc ribed in detail , that witho ut a UN ma ndate. There foll owed started; of melanchol y in As You Like It: "our
about the Spitfire, such as the claim that it Spitfire provid es an exce llent perspec tive on an intense, almos t narcissistic deb ate that at know ledge of early mo de rn views of food
was a private ve nture project pro mo te d by an a fa scin atin g sto ry. tim es see me d mor e abo ut Ge rma n id entity a nd its e ffec t upon the humour s e nha nces th e
enterpr ising aircra ft indu stry aga inst the oppo- D. M . AS HF ORD after Au sch wit z than the fate of the Kosov o sense that Jacqu es is a hypocrite" . Sir John
sition of an Air Min istry locked into the Alb an ians, culminating in a dr amatic Gree n O ldcas tle (the original, Purit an name is signif-
party conference in Ap ril 1999 at which a pro - icant here) "remains a gloriously am biva lent
bipl ane age. The Spitfire was a national German Politi cs tester threw a pa int bomb at Fischer. rep rese ntative of hum an gree d" . But aga in,
achi evement and was in fact stro ng ly sup-
port ed by the Air Mi nistry. It was industry Josebka Fiseher Shor tly after the wa r ended, as Fisc her pre- the ex plora tions on the way - of mon astici sm
that ca used the pro blems , by seriously under- DIE ROT -G RON EN J AH RE pared to move into the form er Reichsbank, and abstinen ce, the sym bo lism of fish , veni-
es tima ting the difficulti es of mass pro du ction Deutsche AuBenpolitik vom Kosovo bis zum the Fore ign Minis try's new hom e in Berlin , son, eve n early mo de rn vege tarianism - are
and then by covering these up for as long as II Septe mber he says he wonde red whether the red- green side-roa ds that prove rewardin g in them-
they could. Anoth er myth was that the RAF 450pp . Kiepenheuer und Witsch. €22.90. gove rnmen t was havin g to deal with "a littl e selves. Joan Fitzpatrick is co nten t in not build-
was a bu nch of enthusias tic amateu rs. In fact , 978 3 46203 77 1 5 too much history, a few too many historical ing grand, theor etical cas tles on these founda-
Fighter Co mm and was a very pro fess ional waters heds in the first month s of its ex ist- tion s, and she reminds us of the value of a
organization, more so indeed than the Luft-
waffe . Its success owed mu ch to careful plan- G erman foreign po licy during Gerhard
Schrode r's "red-green" govern ment,
ence " . Perhaps. But for bett er or worse it was
Fischer, pro bably more than anyone else,
more thoro ugh , sober survey .
G UV ER H ARRI S

TL S DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 2007
 IN BRIEF 41

to form the basis of a book on the election of end, offse t by the authors ' feel for their sub- values"; his Vision Quest is comp ared to a
French Literature Leon Blum ' s left- wing adm inistratio n in ject, and the confidence and ca re with which twent y-first-centu ry adolescent taking apti-
Margaret Topping May 1936. It was never written because, they map the slippery terrain . tude tests and exploring caree r options with a
SU PE RNATURAL PROUST shortly after Blum's victory, the Spanish The ir fir st step is to break dow n the field guidance counsellor. The more closely the
Myth and metaphor in "A la Recherche Civil Wa r broke out and Malraux hurri ed to into manageable parcels. Blogs are orga nized acco unt approac hes the individu al life, the
du temps perdu" jo in up; in the month s that follo wed he co n- by subject into chapters ("Publishers' more conjec ture and weighing of co mpeting
223pp. University of Wales Press. £60. centrated on getting dow n on pape r his per- Blogs" , "Riot Lit" , "Fan Blogs, Obsess ives versions (espec ially by Sta nley Vestal and
978 0 7083 1866 9 sonal experience of the strugg le, L 'Espoi r. and the Extreme"); where necessary, these Robert Utley) acc umulate - how many wives
While it will be useful for specialists of are furth er ca rved into sub-categ ories Sitting Bull had, which battles he participated
twentieth-century Frenc h literature to have (horror, crim e, sci-fi and erotic literatur e in in, who killed him, where he is buri ed . The
M argaret Topping' s study sets out to
exp lore the ways in whic h mag ica l and
scientific thinking co -exist in Ma rce l
this Carnet (met iculously edi ted by Franco is the "Fan Blogs" chapter) within which G illi-
de Sai nt-C hero n and prefaced by Jean- Yves eron and Kilgarriff recommend the finest
lack of conse nsus of this historical reconstruc-
tion may be the boo k's most valua ble lesson
Prou st' s A la Recherche dll temps perdu. To Tadie), its publica tion pro mpts one to ques- exponents of the genre . Often, astutely, they for a young reader. More atten tion to Native
this end, she ca refully exam ines three distin ct tion Malraux' s sta nding today. Since his allow the qualit y of the source material to sources - in addition to Sitting Bull' s power-
areas: fairy tale, legend and the black arts death in 1976 posterity has not been kind to spea k for itself, quotin g substantially from ful pictographi c autobiogra phy - wo uld have
assoc iated with supers tition. The author is at him. His wor k - like that of two other inter- the posts of their favou rite bloggers - been instructive.
pains to tease out the distinctive cont ribution war wr iters with whom he had much in co m- Baroqu e in Hackney' s length y dissection of CH RISTINE B O LD
eac h of these makes to Proust's wor k. There mon, Month erl ant and Dri eu La Rochelle - Babar the Elepha nt's elega nt univer se, for
has not age d well. It exa lts rhetoric over sub- exa mple, or bookseller s Matth ew Crockatt
is also, however, a continua l awareness that
stance, the bon mot ove r the bien dit. and Ada m Powe ll's baffl ed reac tion to liter-
Gastronomy
Pro ust's aim is to produ ce what she terms a
grimoire, a book of mag ic spe lls : a wor k dis- What is considered stirring eloquence by ary produ ct place men t (" It makes you forget Kimberly Witberspoon and
cove ring an eclect ic unity in disorder, a some - one generation can, to a later audience, all too you we re readin g about a charac ter and start Andrew Friedman, editor s
times unco mfor table yok ing together of eas ily sound merely pompous, teetering on the thinking about tooth paste" ). The Bookahol- DON 'T TRY T HIS AT HO ME
magic and ratio nalist thought. brink of comedy . A case in point is Malraux' s ics ' Gu ide to Book Blogs also provides help- 271pp. Bloomsbury. Paperback, £7.99.
Topp ing shapes her research on popular, speech on the occasion of the transfer of Jean ful summ aries of the issues currentl y exe rcis- 978 0 7475 8543 5
Moulin ' s ashes to the Pantheo n in 1964. On ing the commu nity, paying parti cul ar atten-
highbro w and occ ult thinkin g into a doubl e
quest. The narrator in the story battles his way
throu gh his ow n neuroses, social hob-nob-
the grainy newsreel of the event the gra ndilo- tion to the bord er ski rmish between literary
quence of Ma lrauxs oration is undermin ed by critics and bloggers, which gets a whole chap -
"In my business failur e is not an option",
says the New York chef Daniel Bould.
bing, and ill-starred love affairs, and is dou- his squeaky voice and histrion ic delivery . ter to itself. This comprehensive, digestible "No matter how catastrophi c the circum-
bled by the narra tor of the story , searching for The troubl e with the j otti ngs in the Carnet handb ook will prove indispensable to anyo ne stances, you comp lete your jo b on time and
ways to become an artist. The arg umen t sug- is that they all too often banal, eve n silly. in need of a summary of the literary blogo- to your standards." In Don 't Try This at
ges ts that fairy tale enchan ts, legend offers Banal in the case of the obiter dic ta of wait- sphere as it currently sta nds. Home, a co llec tion of di saster stor ies from
moral fibre to, and supers tition threatens artis- ers or taxi drivers, and silly in the acco unt of SA RA H CROWN thirt y-th ree wo rld-renowned chefs, perfec-
tic processes . Each mode of thinking may be a visit to a broth el by the j ourn alist Rene tionists try to do the impossible. Up aga inst
plumbed for its uses, but must be abandone d G uetta, the model for the charac ter Clappique Biography the odds, big egos like Raymond Blanc and
in the production of the unifi ed work of art. in La Condition humaine. When one dips into Ant on y Wo rrall Thompson go to any length s
Along the way, we are taken to und er- the novel aga in, one rea lizes that much of Edw ard J. Rielly to get their food on the table; and the suffer-
exp lored intertexts in the novel: Perrault ' s that is silly too, a silliness masked by rhetori c S ITT ING BULL ing they undergo in doi ng so is und eni ably
fairy tale romances, Polich inelle or Punch of the kind "it is hard for the man who lives A biography pleasurable to the reader.
and Jud y, and La Fontaines anim al fables, as outside the world not to seek his ow n kind" . 157pp. Greenwood Press. £35. Whil e the prem ise of the book see ms obvi-
well as more familiar references to Wagner, Samu el Beckett had the right idea in 1938 97803 13338090 ous (culinary ca tastrophes invoked in pro-
the MUle et Une Nuits and Debu ssy. when he applied it to his charac ter Murph y, gra mme's such as Hell 's Kitchen) this only
The boo k somet imes unearth s useful nug-
gets. Co mments on puppetry, for exa mple,
who unlike the revoluti onary leader in Mal-
rauxs novel dies not a hero ' s dea th but is M
any peopl e know Sitting Bull only as a
war rior at the Battle of Little Big Horn
blown up when so meone in a WC pull s the and a performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
confir ms the fact that the best hum our is
simp le. " I don' t wa nt to spea k to any fuckin g
custome rs, they're all fuckin g idiots",
brin g out surpr ising long-range resonan ces.
The narrator initi ally sets himself up as a will- wro ng chain. Edward J. Riell ys Sitting Bull : A biography exp lodes the head waiter of Heston Blumen-
ing pupp et in the soc ial theatre of high J O H N FLETCHER introduc es high school studen ts to a more thaI' s res taura nt - in front of the custome rs.
soc iety. By the end of the novel, however, co mplex figu re co nfronting Euro-A mer ica n In scenes reca lling Fawlty To we rs , o ne top
invasion , treaty violations, military incur- chef spills food and drink ove r the same cus-
pupp etry serves as a damnin g met aphor for Reference sions, and inter-trib al conflic t over relation s tomer three times, a blind man is acci de ntally
the evac uation of self that is effec ted by reli-
ance on soc ial ritual. Rebecca Gillieron and Catberyn Kilgarriff, with the US governme nt. The acco unt traces hired as a coo k, and a van full of food to
Topping's wor k is also goo d at show ing editors the birth of Jumpi ng Badger into the Hunk- serve A-list celebriti es goes missing. (Less
how Prou st' s narrator grapples with the loss THE BOOKA HO LICS ' GU IDE TO papa tribe of the Lakota Sioux aro und 1831 funn y, however, are Jamie Oli vers contrived
of intellec tual control represent ed by the BO OK BLO GS in what is now So uth Dakota; his early years anecdo tes: " I' d drop my trousers, bend ove r,
obsess ive seques tration of Alb ert ine, and the 254pp. Marion Boyars. Paperbac k, £7.99. as the warr ior and hu nter Hunk esni (mea ning slap my back side . .. Now that ' s roc k and
hysteri cal mou rnin g after her death. Thi s loss 9780 7 1453 1519 slow, as in delibera te); and hi s eme rge nce as roll !" ) The violence that goes on beyond the
of co ntro l is mirrored in the falling away of the shama n Sitting Bull, leader of the north- dinin g room is a more surprising featur e of
referenc es to es tablished works , in favour of
the occ ult.
This is certainl y a well-researched and
T ime spe nt in the company of so many
book bloggers has clearly had an effect
on Rebecca Gillieron and Catheryn Kilgar-
ern Plains Indian "coalition of resistance"
which battled invaders through the nine-
teenth century and smas hed Custer's Seve nth
the book. Raym ond Blanc recei ves a smack
in the face with a frying pan for a cheeky
retort; one cook is literall y stabbed in the
doc umented book, although it occasionall y riff. Rather than a worthy but dull com pen - Cava lry in 1876 . Then follow his years of back by an appren tice after a minor dispute;
del ves too deeply into minor matters, dium of names and addr esses, their guide to exile in Ca nada, his strugg les with US pol iti- and anothe r is forced to peel fift y kilos of
and ends up too often res tating well-wo rn the literary blogosphere takes the form of a cians and reservation officials, his brief stint almonds with bleedin g fingers as puni shment
co ncl usions. meanderi ng, goss ipy tour , deli vered in the in show business, and his murd er by trib al for arriv ing two minutes late. The heat also
IN GRI D W ASS E N AA R cos ily partisan ton e s of th e writers they'r e ce l- police at the Standin g Rock age ncy in 1890 . rise s o uts ide the kitch en , w ith on e di sastrou s
ebrating. As with any blog, this will prove an The book follo ws the Greenwood Biogra- New Yea r's Eve dinner end ing in custome rs
addictive pleasure if yo u're on their wave - phies templ ate, developed for "famous per- choking waiters, boun cers punching custom-
Andre Malraux length and highl y irrit atin g if you are n' t. sonalities" such as Marth a Stewa rt, Elv is ers, and seve ral lawsuit s.
CA RNET DU FRO NT PO PUL AIR E, The occas ionally breathl ess enthusiasm Presley and Arnold Schwa rze negge r. The eccen tricity of the chef is brilli antly
1935-1 936 ('That the altruistic nature of the book blog- There are obvious probl em s in applying ca ptured in Antonio Carluccios entry : he
Edited by Francois de Saint-Cheron ger wa rrants co nsidera ble admiration may be the form at of a ce lebrity biograph y to a hardly menti ons co oking at all and instead
128pp. Gallimard. € 15. self-ev ide nt") smac ks of play ing to the gal- ninetee nth-ce ntury Hun kpapa milit ary, spirit- obsesses about his pet dog Jan. Wh at drives
978 2 07 077951 2 lery, and there are more than a few moments ual, and politi cal leader - espec ially one who these unu sual bein gs is abse nt from the book,
whe n artless ness crosses the line into clunki- fiercely resis ted the gove rnme nt's atte mpts to but their furi ous determin ation is eve r
nlike many French writers, A ndre Mal- ness (is it rea lly necessary to inform "booka- indi vidu alize and thereby era dica te Native present. None of the oddballs knows what it
U raux never kept a diary and certa inly
never publ ished one. So this is not a journ al
holie s" that A. S. Byatt is "a well-know n Brit-
ish writer and the sister of Margaret Drab-
culture. The fit is most aw kwar d when Riell y
tries to build em pathy through cultural tra ns-
means to give up ; true Beck etti ans, they "try
aga in, fail aga in, fail aga in better".
but a notebook of j ottin gs that were intended ble" ?). But any infelicities of style are , in the lation: Sitting Bull is pra ised for his "family CATHE RINE H U M BLE

TL S DE C EM B ER 2 1 & 28 2007
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 43

K enneth Anderson teaches law at Ame rica n 1980, and The Effect of Science on the Second Balli ol Co llege, Oxford . His mos t recent Th e Company of Strangers: A natural his tory
University, Wash ington DC, and is Resea rch World War, 2000. book s inclu de an editio n of Herodot us: of economic life, 2004.
Fellow of the Hoover Institution and a mem ber Christopher Hitch ens ' s latest book , God Is Books I-IV publis hed thi s summer. Clive SincIair is the author of five novel s.
of its Task Force on National Securi ty and Law. No t Grea t: The case against religion, appea red Robert Nye recei ved a Cho lmo ndeley His new book Clive Sinclair 's True Tales of
D. M. Ashford is the Ma nag ing Director of earlier this year. Award for Poe try this yea r. His Th e Rain and the Wild West wi ll be publi shed next spring .
Bristol Spaceplanes Limited and the author Catherine Humble is a free lance writer living the Glass : 99 poems, new and selected was Adam Smyth is a lectur er in Englis h at Rea d-
of Spaceflight Revolution, 2002. in Londo n. publi shed in 2005. ing Unive rsity. Profit and Deligh t: Printed
C h r istine Bold is the author of Writers, Peter van Inwagen teaches Philosoph y at the Joyce Carol Oates is Professor of miscellanies in Eng land, 164 0- 82 was pub-
Plumbers, and Anarchists: The WPA writers ' University of Notre Dame . His book The Prob- Hu manities at Prin ceton University and author, lished in 2004 .
project in Massachusetts which was publi shed lem of Ev il, 2006 , will be reissued in paper- most recentl y, of the nove l The Gravedigger's Jon St allworthy ' s biography of Lo uis
last year. back next yea r. Daughter. She was the 200 6 recipient of the Mac Neice was publi shed in 1995. He is cur-
Al ex Burghart is Pos tgraduate Research Sheena Joughin' s seco nd novel , Swimming Prix Femina for her novel The Falls . rent ly editing M acNeice' s lett ers to Nancy
Ass ista nt in the Department of Hi story, Underwater, was published in 200 5. Anthony Pagden is Prof essor of Hi story and Spende r and Mar y Wi mbush.
King ' s Co llege London . William P. K ell y is Pres iden t of the Politica l Sc ience at UC LA. His book s K athryn Sutherland is Professor of Tex tual
Matthew Cob b is Senior Lectu rer in Animal Gra duate Ce nter of the City University of inclu de The Idea of Europe from Antiquity to Cr itic ism at the Unive rsi ty of Oxford and a
Beh aviour at the University of Ma nchester. New York. the European Union, 2002 . Fellow of St Ann es Co llege .
His book, The Egg and Sperm Race: The John Kinsella' s new co llec tion Shades of the C hristo ph er Pe r rins is an Emeri tus Fellow Adrian Tahourdin wor ks at the TLS.
seven teent h-century scientists who unravelled Su blime and Beautiful wi ll be published in of Wolfson Co llege, Ox ford. He is the author Carol Tully is Senior Lectu rer in Ge rman at
the secrets of sex, life and growth, appeared in 20 08 . He is edi tor of the intern ation al literary of the Encyclopedia of Bird and Bi rd Mi gra- the Universi ty of Wa les Ba ngo r. Her book
paperback ear lier this yea r. j ourn al Sa lt. tion,2003 . Johann Ni kolas Boe hl von Faber: A German
Sa rah C ro wn is the editor of Guardian H ans Kundnani is work ing on a book abo ut Cla re Pettitt is a lectur er at King' s College Romantic in Spain was publi shed last mo nth.
Unlimited Books. the 1968 ge nera tio n in Germany. Lo ndo n. "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume? ": M is- Christoph Warrack' s mo st recent short
David Cowa r d is Emeritus Professor of Angela Lei ghton' s mos t recent boo k is On sionaries, journalists, empire appeared ea rlier film, One Wordfor Cinema , prem iered at the
Frenc h at the Univers ity of Leeds. Hi s Form: Poetry, aestheticism and the legacy of this yea r. EU Film Fes tiva l thi s year. He is developin g
translation of Pa ul Mo rand's Hecat e et ses a word, published earlier th is yea r. Andrew Porter is chief music critic of the TLS. a video archive of interviews with filmm ak-
chiens is due to appear next year. Fiona MacCarthy' s Last Cur tsey: The end Andrew Preston teaches histor y at Clare ers.
Lucy Dallas is the ed itor of the TLS we bs ite of the debutantes appeared in paperback Co llege , Cam bridge . He is co- editor of Nixon Ingrid W assenaar is the author of Proustian
and In Brief pages . ear lier thi s year. in the World, due nex t yea r. Passions, 2000 . She is curren tly writing a book
John Fanshawe works for the co nservation Renan McDonald is Senior Lecturer in Paul Quinn is a freelance wri ter and pro - on indifference.
charity BirdLife Intern ation al. He is co- Eng lish at the Unive rsi ty of Readin g. Hi s lat- gramme ma ker. Landeg White' s latest co llec tion of poem s,
author of B irds of Eas t Africa, 200 2. es t bo ok is Th e Death of the Crit ic, 2007. Robert B. Reich is Professor of Publi c Ara b Work, appea red in 200 6.
John Flet chers translation of Les Georgiques Peter M cDonald is a Tutor in Eng lish at Policy at the Unive rsity of Ca lifornia at Martin Wiggins is a Fe llow of the Shake-
by Cla ude Simo n, The Geo rgics, appeared in Christ Church, Oxfo rd. His ed ition of Lo uis Berk eley, a form er US Sec retary of Labor , spea re Institute, Strat ford-up on-Av on. He
1989. He is Honorary Sen ior Research Fellow MacNeice' s Collected Poems was published and the au thor of Supercapitalism; 200 8. was awarded the 2006 Ca lvin and Rose G .
at the University of Kent. last yea r. Andrew Roberts ' s A History of the Eng lis h- Hoffman Pri ze for distingui shed wor k on
Oliver Harris has recentl y com pleted an Benjamin M a rkovits' s novel A Quiet Adjust- Speaking Peop les Since 1900 was publi shed Christopher M arlowe .
MA at Universi ty Co llege London. ment, the seco nd book in his Byron tril ogy, is in 2006. Zinovy Zinik ' s co llec tion of com ic stories
Guy Hartcup is the author of Camouflage: A forth comi ng in 2008. Paul Sea b right teaches Economics at the and sketc hes on life outside Russ ia, At Home
history of concealment and deception in war , Oswyn Murray is Emeritus Fe llow of Univers ity of Toulouse. He is the author of Abroad, is soo n to be publis hed .

I
2
A B C 0 H K L

TLS WINTER ACROSTIC Solve the c1ues*, and write th e answers

3 CLUES 6 Story in verse by Yvor, perhaps? acros s the numbered rows of the top grid.
(7, 4) Wh en you hav e finish ed the name of a
4 1 Legendary king ge ts good trip in 7 Immatu re Co nrad wor k? Conrad is, writer will appear, r eading down the " A"
Nicholas Nick leby (6, 5) however , par tly an attrac tive sor t column. Now transfer all the letters from
5 2 King made shift wi th it. Meaty work 8 Mun ros love writer wi th withheld the top grid to th e cro ss-r eferenced squares
6 by Brigid Bro ph y infor mati on (4, 7) of th e lower grid, and you will be able to
3 Grant A llen cast his die. Fra ncis had 9 Ca usley pro vided club ' s free read a quotation from that writer.
7 it on hand en terta inment, say (5, 6)
8 4 Identify tru sty Keneall y charac ter in 10 New anti-sm oking gro up repr esent s *Six of the clues are in t"vo parts, separated
has te. Nymph 's city raze d by Ep igo ni artist. War d off fiction co ncl usion by full stops, and requiring separate ans}vers.
9 5 On the way out, like so me M ary 11 Halti ng line co uld sugges t Eliza beth
We bb in Gone to Eart h. Go udges wor k - if not , then G illian, The sender of the first correct solution opened
10 A hand for Sinclai r's ma te perhaps? (7 , 4) on January 18 will receive a cash prize of £40.
II Entries should be addressed to TLS Winter
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TLS D EC EM BE R 21 & 28 20 07
44

I t is our custom at this seaso n to offer an

invent or y of literary anniversa ries occu r-
ring in the yea r ahea d, for the benefit of asp ir-
forced to choose a favourit e, we wo uld go for
the bibli ophilically clutt ered Keith Faw kes in
Hamp stead (know n as "the Flask"), followed
ing scribes in search of a subjec t to tem pt a by Wald en and Any Am ount of Book s.
literary editor. Simone de Beau voir is per-
haps the most promin ent centenarian of
200 8. An assess me nt of her novels (not the
memoirs and diaries), uncolour ed by gender
A different view of books is offered by
Schott 's Almanac 2008, which contains
some pages on literary life, mainl y based on
age nda, wo uld be wor th readin g. Beau voir ' s prizes and poll s. From one angle, the Briti sh
friend Richard Wright was also born lOO
yea rs ago ; while sca rce ly unapp reciated , he
see ms to lack plain reader s. The novels
Plain readership reading pub lic ca n appea r a highminded lot.
For exa mple, "most popul ar 'classic' book " :
War and Peace. The nation ' s "favourite
Na tive Son and Lawd Today! and the mem oir books" ? Pride and Prej udice, Jane Eyre,
Black Boy are what used to be called "must fiction, Saturday Nig ht and Sunday Morn ing, fact that WaIter Sc otr's poem Man nion Nineteen Eighty-four. The top "turn-on"
readin g". Theo dore Roethk e is another cente- more a coll ection of sketc hes than a devel- appea red 200 yea rs ago, goo d luck to you. book on the Lond on Tub e? Romeo and Juliet.
narian wor th exa mination. Once spoken of in oped nove l. It is sandwic hed between super- From another angle, the same peopl e look
the sa me breath as Lowe ll and Berryman, he
is now hardl y read at all. If you could per-
suade us that he should be, we 'd be grateful.
ior books: Room at the Top by Joh n Braine
P
era mbulatory Christmas Boo ks, Part XII :
(1957) and Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse
summary and concl usion. The series was
(1959). Taken together with This Sport ing
begun in the autumn with the aim of recom-
different: Romeo and Juliet may be a turn-on ,
but have you eve r see n anyo ne readin g it in
publi c? War and Peace, Britain ' s most popu-
If, on the other hand , you have something to Life and Flight into Camde n by Da vid Stor ey
mendin g admirable but neglected books by lar classic, is high on the list of "boo ks that
say about lan Fleming (b 1908), perhaps you notable writers. In each case, the trea sure
(both 1960 ), they represent a major shift in reader s most often leave unfini shed". We are
could keep it to yourse lf. was unearthed in idle browsin g at one of
modern English literatur e. always willing to admit the possibility that it
The Wind in the Willows, one of the London' s bount eou s seco nd-hand boo k-
Yevgeny Yevtushenko turn s seve nty-five is we who are ignor ant. Of the ten bestsellin g
ea rlies t novels to featur e the motor car (see in 2008 . It is strange to recall that he was
shops. Eve rything was bought in ord er to be books of the year ended Au gust 2007 , listed
NB , last wee k), was publi shed in 1908 , as once rega rded as the brave face of Sovie t
rea d. The price limit was £5 . by Schott , we had heard of four:
was Ezra Pou nd' s fir st collect ion of verse, A Our first pera mbul atory choice was The
letters. Our Russian cor respond ent writes: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Lume Spento . Fifty yea rs later, another poet "The ea rly verse was often brilli ant but as he
Face of Eng land by Edmund Blu nden The Sound of Laughter, Peter Kay
appeared on the sce ne: The Carpe ntered Hen flitt ed bet ween East and West, act ing the role
(1932), for which we paid £ I at Any Am ount The Interpretation ofMurder, Jed Rubenfeld
and other tame creatu res was John Updike 's of dod gy cultural ambass ador while others
of Books in Charing Cross Road . The re fol- Why Don 't Pengu ins ' Feet Freeze
fir st book (his debut novel, The Poorhouse lowed Maup assanr' s little-read novel Mont
suffered, the talent got lost". Also ce lebrating The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weis-
Fair, ca me out in 1959) . a seve nty-fifth hirthday is Phi lip Roth.
O riol (dustjacket, 0.5 0; Keith Fawkes , herger
In Britain , the provi ncial movem ent in fic- Flask Walk); Sons of the Mistral by Roy
The yea rs 1858 and 1808 we re thin ones The Island by Victori a Hislop
tion was und erway. The not able contributi on Camp bell (first edition in dj, £5; Griffith &
not onl y for birt hs and death s but for publica- Cook with Jamie, Jamie Oliver
of 1958 was made by Alan Sillitoe's first Partner s, Great Orm ond Stree t); The Folded
tion s, too ; if you ca n make so mething of the The Dangerous Book for Boys
Leafb y Willi am Maxwell (first UK, £4; Peter Any body Out There ?, Marian Keyes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -----, Ellis, Cec il Court); Too Late the Phalarope Guinness World Records.
by Alan Paton (first in dj , £5 ; Skoob Books,
Brun swick Centre); Patr ick Leigh Fermor 's
only novel The Violins of Sain t-Jacques
(first Penguin , £4 ; Foster's, Chisw ick High
P revious winners of the Nicho las Mosley
Award for the year's mo st unappealin g
book title includ e Pox Americana by Eliza -
Road); The Savage Pilgrimage by Catherine beth Fenn, How To Shit in the Woods by Kath-
Carswell (first, £4 ; Wa lden Books, Harmood leen Meyer , and Old Filth by Jan e Ga rdam. A
Street); The Ginge r Man by J. P. Donl eavy (a special citation was made to Raymond Feder-
scar ce Ol ympi a Press edition in dj , £5; Henr y man, author of the novel Return to Manure.
Pordes, Charing Cross Road); Lars Porsena The shortlist for the 2008 Mo sley Award
by Robert Graves (fifth impress ion, £4.50; has j ust been announced. The bookies' front-
Archi ve Book store, Bell Street); Passwords runn er is Dirtbags by Teresa McWhirter,
by Al astai r Reid (firs t, £4 .50; Quinto, Char- publi shed by A nvil of Vanco uver. The cove r
ing Cross Road); finall y, we dipp ed grate- photograph of a distressed girl clutching a
full y into a box of giveaway book s, including beer bottl e while squatting on the lavatory
a 190 2 The Rape of the Lock illustr ated by gives it an edge ove r Random Deaths and
Aubrey Beard sley, left outsid e a hou se in the Custard by Catrin Dafydd (Go mer Press).
Oxford shire village of Pyrton . Quick to spot lack of appea l in eve ry form ,
Among the rewards of our endeavo urs was the j udges took into considera tion Ms
. wed \1"1 tile
\<s revle r a letter from the proprietor of Walden Books, Dafydd' s opening sentences : " It' s not that
All oo O
t-,
a m\lI\on ot, ,e to say that our copy of The Savage Pilgrimage I' m superstitious or noth ing. It' s j ust that
lLS and over ava\lable from "c ame from the Carswe ll famil y. I bou ght magpies really do give me the shits". Bog
, ·" t are I, hoP

tile ,.L
titles in pr", , S BOO",5 .
d prices wltll
at d\SCounte . tile UK.
books from them over the years". A reader
from Washington State who ordere d a copy of
The Face ofEngland from a bookshop found a
Child by Siobhan Dowd is also shortlisted
(David Fickling Books), as is Volu me 11 of
the "literary mem oir s" of John Metcalf , Shut
FREE deliVeCy In letter from Blunden tucked inside. Others Up He Explained (Biblioas is, Ontario) . Mr
have enjoye d trackin g our perambulations by Metcalf begins: "Friends have begged me
. bOO\<
d adVice, the grace of the online bookseller. not to entitle this book Shut Up He Explained
Assistance an .ft voucllers, The internet is a two-f aced friend, responsi- .. . . Their responses astonish me" . Whether
1 ble for the closure of ma ny book shops, in that is enough to sway the judges in Mr
catal09ues, 9 dat\on S and
en London and elsew here, and for an unwel- Metcalf s favour remains to be see n. The win-
reC omm est\onS frO m co me standardiza tion of pricing. However, ner will receive a cop y of The Uses of Slime
sU99 ble and fert ile hunti ng gro unds still remain. All the Mould by Nicholas Mosley.
wledgea
\<1"10 o\<se\\ers . shops listed above are pleasant to visit. If J .C .
lIelpful bO

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