An Anglo-

American affair
Clive James
Bernard Malamud
A Writer's Life
PHILIP DAVIS

'This should be the definitive account of a

poignant and now too often neglected writer
ILS
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of superb fictions. Davis writes with clarity, Ed itor P et er Stothard (e d ito r@ the- tls.co. uk )
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subtle and permanent American author: Deputy Editor Alan J en kins (deputy@the-tls.co.uk)
Harold Bloom
'A wonderful biography. infinitely tender M ar y Bea rd Classics. Aocieot History (mbI27@hermes.cam.ac.uk)
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LITERARY Mic k Iml ah

Roh ert Ir win
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FROM OXFORD J ohn Ryle.

EYE RH'I'MES
SYLVIA PLATH'S
ARTOFTH E: VI SUAL
Ezra Pound: Poet
Volume I: The Young Genius
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Contentious , colourful. precocious ,
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to make his way both as a poet and as a force
for civilization in England and America.
528 pages, 60 illustration s.
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25 October 20 07. £2 5 (and Roth ' s) career , Bhar at
Tandon find s that the dignity
of Roth ' s writing lies in its
"not sparing Zuckerman the
"A wonderful woman and indignity" of old age .
1885-1920 f i an extraordinary Zion - Wi th the Got eborg Book
ist" was how Ger shom Fair in full swing and the
Schol em describ ed Hannah Frankfurt Book Fair about to
Arendt in 1941. " In the Israel be, two review s, by Tom Ship-
J: of 2007", according to pey and Richa rd Crampton
r I Steven E. Aschhe im thi s respect ively, offer fascinating
week , Arendt is seen by some sidelights on the histor y of
A.DAVIDMODDY as "a species of Je wish self- P hili p R oth, 200 5 the old but self-regenerating
hater" . In his review of two continent of Europe . A. N.
~
~ / book s, Aschh eim teases out ing a ver y different, Am eri - Wilson wishes Hit ler had
the complex history and can-J ewi sh experience in his been employed to run the Bay-
(
-, the lasting significance of novel s for nearl y fift y years; reuth Festival, and "kindly"
Arend r' s engage ment with never more acute ly, in the Winifred Wagner become
"the mod ern Jewi sh exp eri- view of som e readers, than in Germa ny 's leader. And any-
ence", Jewish identity and tho se that featur e his alter one old enough to rem ember
Zioni sm . It was her Eich- ego Nathan Zuckerman. In the early day s of Cli ve

OXFORD mann in Jerusalem (1963)

that made Arendt internation -
the latest - and perh aps final
- instalment, Exit Ghost ,
l am es' s television career - as
the merci lessly funny film
UNIVERSITY PRES S ally famou s - and infamous; Zuckerman is bro ught back crit ic of Cinema- wi ll rejoice
John Sparrow review ed the from his reclu sive retirement in his (refr eshed ) memories
PUBLISHER & DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR 2 0 05, 2 0 06, mu! 2 0 0 7 book at length in the TLS on to New York, and a chance of the Great Briti sh Films that
Awarded by the Academic , Specialist , and Professional Group of th e l:K Booksellers Association
April 30, 1964, and an meeting with Am y Belle tte, hav e been fill ing some of our
ex cerpt from his reflect ion s first encountered in The rainy eve nings this summer,
Available from all good bookshops, or from OUP direct appear s in Then and Now. Ghost Writer (1969) . Look - thank s to the BBC.
lel: 01536 741727 I Email: bookorders.uk@oup.com Phi lip Roth has been explor- ing back over Zuckerman ' s AJ
www.oup.com/ukfor special offers, sample chapters, and news

TL S SEPT EMB ER 28 20 07

A people apart
The modern Jewish experience as seen by Hannah Arendt, whose 'instinctive
penchant was to go against the grain, to cause discomfort, even outrage'
he centenary of Hannah Arendt ' s
T birth in 2006 was marked by a
veritable orgy of celebrator y eve nts.
Co nferences in her honour were
held in Austra lia, France , Israel, Malta,
Portu gal, Slovaki a, So uth Korea, Spain,
Sweden and Turkey . There we re multi ple
such occas ions in Ge rmany and something
like a do zen in the United States. Despit e her
still many detractor s, these festivities merely
reinforced an already int act cult status (Brit-
ain see ms to be a notable exception in this
regard ). O ver the years, Arendt has been at
the centre of an ever grow ing aca demic indu s-
try, the subje ct of novels, pla ys, docudramas,
film s, exhibitions and iconographi c artworks.
A sta mp, a prize, a research institut e, an
express train from Karlsruh e to Han over and
eve n a stree t - located directl y ad jacent to the
new Berlin Holocaust memori al - bear her
name and ima ge.
A new genera tion, relati vely unencum-
bered by the ideological and emotional bag-
gage that so often ch aract eriz es Arendt scho l-
arship, has opened up various fresh exege ti-
cal and critica l perspecti ves on her thou ght.
The politic al conc ern s that animate much of
this fresh wave of scholarship are clearly
related to recent developm ent s. After the
demi se of the Soviet Union , the liberation of
Eas tern Europe and the coll apse of aparthe id,
scholars have ploughed Arendt ' s post-
totalitarian musings on revoluti on, plur alit y,
freedom and civil society for guidance and
inspir ation. The painful task of rebuilding
th ese soc ieties has endowed A re ndt's pr e vi-
ously neglected rumin ations on apology,
for giveness and promi ses, in politi cal life,
with a new freshness and relevance.
To be sure, not all these writings di splay
equa l distin ction . Too often, they have been
characteriz ed by a sanctifying aura in which
the Arendti an oeuvre has ass umed the status
of a kind of holy writ. This is painfully
evident in a fluff y work - apparently com-
missioned for the centennial celeb ration s -
by Arendt' s biographer, Elisa beth Youn g-
Bruehl. In a prim er entitled Why Arendt
Matters, Youn g-Bru ehl addresses herself
"pa rticularly to younger readers, students of
the age I was whe n I becam e Arendt' s stu-
dent in 1968 and she became for me and my
fello w students. . a light in dark times .... I
think of what I am doing now as a con ver sa-
tion with her, a continuation into the present
of the con ver sation I have been having
with her in my mind since 1968" . In an
increasin gly omin ous post-9/l1 environment,
Youn g-Bru ehl wond ers: "What would Arendt
have said? What would she think of the world
we live in, three decad es after her death ?".
And so she resurrect s Arendt to confront
some of the burnin g issues of our own -
darkened - cont empor ary world. To be sure,
many of Young-Brueh!' s observations in
this respect are quit e unobjecti onable. Yet,
PHILOSOPHY
ST EV E N E . AS CHH EIM
E l isa be t h Youn g-Bru ehl
WH Y A R EN D T M AT T E R S
240pp. Yale University Press. £ 14.99 (US $22 ).
978 0 300 12044 8
H ann ah A r endt
TH E JEWI SH WRITI NG S
Edited by Jerom e Kohn and Ran H. Fcldman
359pp. Schocken . $35.
978 080524238 6
the very exe rcise may violate a central tenet
of Arendt' s legacy: her insistenc e on inde-
pend ent thinking and fierce opp osition to
bein g classified, pinned down . She may well
have regarded some of Youn g-Bru eh!' s pro-
jection s of her position s into the present with
a posthum ously sceptica l, mockin g eye .
For Arendt positi vely revelled in ado pting
20.9.07: Manchester
When work began on building the John
Rylands Library, in one of Manchester's
more run-down districts, it was antici-
pated that the work would be complete
in three years' tim e. But as it turned out,
it would be ten years and £224,086 - the
estimated cost had been £78,000 - before
th e Library first opened its doors to the
public on January I, 1900. Its treasures
included thousands of incunabula, in
what remains an outstanding collection.
TLS SEP TE M BER 2 8 2 0 07
stances that we re at odd s with formulaic Left
or Right position s and with liberal pieties.
Where, for instanc e, do we plac e her 1959
"Reflections on Littl e Rock" which, in its
advo cacy of States ' right s, appea red to sup-
port the cause of Am eric an racial segregation-
ists? (She argued that schools and children
should not bear the burd en of enforced Fed-
eral integration .) Her instin cti ve pench ant
was to oppo se con venti onal sta nces , to go
against the grain, to ruffl e and cause discom-
fort, eve n outrage. To this day, admirers
regard this as refreshin g while criti cs view it
as well-ni gh demonic . Arendt , of cour se, was
quit e awar e of this characteristic and the
reactions it could evo ke. Writin g - the end-
lessly controversial - Eichmann in Jerusalem
(1963), she told Mary Mc Carth y, was "mor-
ally ex hilarating ... a paean of transcenden ce
.... You were the onl y reader to und erstand
what other wise I would never ha ve admitted
- namel y that I wrote this book in a curiou s
Now the John Rylands has the pitched
roof that its architect, Basil Champneys,
originally intended, but abandoned in
1893, as well as - th anks to three years'
work and £17 million from the Heritage
Lottery Fund and other sources -
cleaned shawk stonework, replacements
for more than 8,000 damaged glass
roundeis, and a modern extension. Its
official re-opening, after four unofficial
months, took place last week .
3
state of euphoria. And that eve r since I did
it, I feel ... light-h eart ed about the matter.
Don 't tell anybody; is it not proof po sitive
that I have no 'sou!' ?".
Her book on the Eichmann trial made
Arendt intern ationally fam ous - and in-
famou s. Inde ed, it is her Jewish writings in
general, perhap s bec ause they come so clo se
to the ex istential nub , that still ev oke the
most impa ssioned contro ver sy. In the Israel
of 200 7, Arendt - after years of cont emptu-
ous neglect - has becom e a highly ch arged ,
contested figur e, centr al to the intellectu al
battle between the so-called post-Zioni sts
(many of whom have rend ered her the grea t
prophet and advocate of their cause) and the
centri st Zionist establishment (which contin-
ues its effort s to delegitimi ze Arendt as a spe-
cies of Jewish self-hater, occasion all y hinting
at dubious conn ecti ons - and eve n concep-
tual similarities - to Nazis and Nazism) .
Certainly, her present fam e - as philo-
sopher and politic al theori st - goes we ll
beyond Jewish interests. Yet much of her
thou ght , biograph y and interlocutory polem-
ics were passion ately linked to cor e predic a-
ment s of the modern Jewish experience : the
distorting psychod ynamics of assimil ation,
and the fateful emergence of politi cal anti-
Semiti sm; the complex relation between Jew-
ish self-de finition and Europea n culture; the
infeliciti es of quieti st Jewish culti vation , and
the urgent need for an activist Jewi sh politi cs
(durin g the Second World War she repea t-
edly ca lled for the form ation of a Jewish
Arm y); the costs - and benefit s - of Z ionism;
the rise of Nazism and tot alitariani sm ; and
the nature of the Holoc aust and the evil that
rend ered it possibl e. Her wider philosophy
and reput ation are largely unint elligibl e
without these root s and ongoing conc ern s.
Inde ed , her insight that the most clear-sighted
intell ectu als (such as Franz Kafk a and WaIter
Benj amin ) we re led by their Jewish predic a-
ment "to a much more general and more radi-
cal probl em, namely to question the rele-
vance of the Western tradition as a whole",
sure ly applies equally to herself.
What is it about Ar endt' s Jewish writings
and person a that have rend ered them so pecu-
liarly di visive , and emotionally and ideol ogi-
call y charged ? This too is related to her predi-
lection to re si st e as y classification a nd sim ple
self-definition, to question ideolo gical plati-
tudes, to pro vok e and to hold contradictory
(som e would say, perverse) position s. She
inci sively dissect ed the rise of modern polit-
ical anti-Se mitism - yet seemed to hold the
Jew s partl y respon sibl e for its emerge nce and
success . She was ideologic ally and institu-
tion ally identifi ed with the Z ionist movem ent
(it may com e as a shock to rec all that, in
1941, her later bete noire, Gershom Schol em,
describ ed her as "a wo nderful woman and an
extraordinary Zionist") - and one of its most
Continued on page 4
4

Continued f rom page 3

PHILOSOPHY 3 Steven E. Aschheim Elisabeth Young-Bruehl Why Arendt Matt ers severe critics. She was one of the earlies t and
Hannah Arendt The Je wish Writings mo st conc ern ed analysts of the " Final Solu-
tion" - yet, for man y, her analys is of Adolf
LETT ERS TO TH E ED ITOR 6 Kapu scin ski and the secret polic e, An- aesthetic, 'God Is Not Gr eat' , etc Eichmanns banality and her indictment of
the complicity of the Jewish Councils in the
SO CIAL ST UDI ES 7 Raymond Tallis Allan M . Brandt The Cigarette Ce ntury ex termination proc ess rend ered her more of
an enem y than a friend of the Je wi sh people.
POE MS 8 Oliver Reynolds Tower
Th e same compl exity applied as much to
9 David Harsent The Wa x Mu seum
Arendt ' s personal life choic es as it did to her
25 Carol Rumens Poetr y
philo sophic al position s. If her committed Jew-
34 Stephen Romer Figment
ish identit y and politic s see med self-ev ide nt -
the last cha pter of her earl y work on Rach el
ART HISTORY 10 James Hall Kim W. Woods, editor M akin g Ren aissanc e Art
Varnh agen is entitled "One Does Not Escape
Carol M. Richardson, editor Loc atin g Renaissanc e Art
Jewishness" - Arendt always took care to
Kim W. Woods, editor Viewing Renai ssance Art
chall en ge the non-reflecti ve, self-celebratory
Patricia Lee Rubin Images and Identity in Fift eenth-Century Florence
nature of group affiliations. She took grea t
M USI C 12 A. N. Wilson Jonathan Carr The Wagn er Clan prid e in the compl ex and critic al, perhap s eve n
subversive, nature of her own intert wined com-
COMMENTAR Y 13 J ennifer Breen Death and refr eshments - Edwa rd Ardizzon e ' s desert wa r art mitm ents. Of her relationship to her seco nd
Zinovy Zinik In flight from the pri son - Sputnik fift y years on hu sband , the German radic al and non-J ew,
Michael Greenberg Freela nce Heinri ch Bliicher, she wrot e in 1946: " If I had
Then and Now TLS April 30, 1964 - 'Eichrnann in Jeru salem ' wanted to become respect able I wo uld either
have had to give up my interest in Je wish
ARTS 17 Clive James The Summer of Briti sh Film (BBC Te lev ision) affairs or not marr y a non-J ewi sh man , either
Andrew Porter Christoph Willibald Gluck Iphi geni e en Ta uride (Co vent Gard en) option equally inhuman and in a sense , craz y".
Georg Benda Rom eo and Juliet (St John' s, Smith Square) Her Je wish identification was strong and pas-
ShoH Stadlen Vanishing Point Sub wa y (Ly ric Hammersmith Studio) sionate - " I belon g to the Jew s", she declared,
Russell Goulbourne Carol Ann Duffy and Told By An Idiot Cas anova "beyond dispute or agreeme nt" - but was
(Wes t York shire Playhou se) never absolut e. It was mo st clear and deci sive
Lucy Carlyle Luke Sutherland Venu s as a Boy (Soho Th eatre) under condition s of persecut ion , where, as she
put it, one had to "resist only in term s of the
FICTION 21 Bharat Tandon Philip Roth Ex it Ghost identit y that is under attack". "Politica lly", she
Dipika Guha Deepak Chopra Buddha - A story of enlightenment stated in 1946, " 1 will speak onl y in the name
Heather O'Donoghue lan Rankin Ex it Mu sic of the Jew s" , but she imm edi ately qualifi ed
Lucy Dallas Ron Butlin No More Ang el s this by adding, "whenever circumstances
Sarah Curtis Ruth Rendell Not in the Fles h forc e me to give my nationality". It is pre-
cisely this deep yet ambiguous involv em ent in
CU LTU RAL ST UDI ES 24 Tom Shippey Joep Leerssen National Th ought in Europe
ex istentially cruci al Jewish matters , indeed,
Biancamaria Fontana Elisabeth Badinter Les Passion s Intell ectuelles, III her partial "insider" status that still endow her,
for man y, with a troubling, eve n threatenin g,
LIT ERARY CRIT ICISM 26 Victor Dixon Jonathan Thacker A Companion to Gold en Age Th eatre
releva nce . As a "connected critic " , a member
BIOGRAPHY 27 Caroline Franklin Janet Todd Death and the M aiden s of the famil y rath er than an out sider or enem y,
her arguments have standing and authority;
HIS TORY 28 T . H. Breen Peter C. Mancall Haklu yt' s Promi se they demand enga geme nt rath er than simple
Benjamin Woolley Savage Kingd om dismi ssal.
Karen Ordahl Kupperman Th e Jamesto wn Proj ect Th e publication of Jerome Kohn and Ron
Denis Judd T . G. OUe Th e C hina Question H. Feld man' s edition of The Jewish Writings
Lesley Abrams Peter Rex Edga r - King of the Eng lish 959-75 will certainly not resol ve the ongoing contro-
Donald Scragg Th e Return of the Vik ings vers ies - it may even fuel them onc e again -
but Kohn and Feldm an do pro vid e the materi-
NATU RAL SCIE NCE 30 Richard Ellis Scott D. Kraus and Rosalind M . Rolland, editors Th e Urba n Whal e als for ev aluating mor e seriously and respon-
sibly the traj ectory of Arendt' s thou ght and
POLITICS 31 Richard Crampton Elizabeth Pond Endgame in the Balk an s commitment s, and wh at she actually did
say . Spanning from the earl y 1930 s to the
IN BRIEF 32 Jonathan Swift Polite Conve rsa tion
mid 60 s, they cov er the wide spectrum of her
Anne E. Gorsuch and Diane P. Koenker, editors Turizm
writin gs on Jewi sh topic s. Some pieces -
Robert Crawford Scotl and ' s Book s
such as " We Refu gees", "The Jew as Pari ah" ,
Pat Shipman Femme Fatale
"Zionism Reconsidered" , her withering dis-
Simon Barnes The Me aning of Sport
section of Stefan Zweig ' s "cultured" but self-
D. S. Chambers Pope s, Ca rdinals and War
deceivin g "apolitical" attitudes, and her
John Patrick Diggins Eugene O' Neill' s America
repl y to Scholern's attack on her Eichm ann
Julija Sukys Silenc e is Death
in Jerusalem are we ll known. Oth er s
RELI GION 34 Peter Marshall Jane Shaw Miracles in Enlightenment Eng land (w hich were either previou sly unpubli shed or
app ear ed ori gin all y in German or French)
39 This week' s contributors, Crossword will be new to the English-spe aking reading
public.
NB 40 J. C. For gotten Maupassant , The art of aphorism, K erou acs It is so mething of a surp rise to see that
dra win gs, Metafiction IV Arendt - interested alw ays in secular Jewi sh
matter s and hardl y at all in Jud ai sm as such-
wro te an unch aracteri stic all y admiring 1935
French piece on the rom antic Jewi sh phil o-
sopher Martin Bub er. Th ere he is recom-
Cove r picture: Kim Hunter and David Nive n in A Matter of Life and Death (1946), written and directed by M ichael Powell and Emeric Pressbur ger, in which
Niven plays Peter Carter, an RAF pilot, and Hunt er an America n radio operator. The film was made durin g the Seco nd World War as part of an atte mpt to
mend ed as a "Guide to Youth ". But during
imp rove Anglo-A merica n relation s, but was not released until the year after the war. See Clive l ames' s review of The Summer of British Film on p l7 © Ronald the sa me period, and much mor e characteri sti-
Grant Archive; p2 © Assoc iated Press; p3 © MEN Syndica tion; p5 © Getty Images; p7 © Sca tt Hau ston/Sygma /Corbis; pl3 © Imp erial War Mu seum ; pl4 © cally , she cau stic ally di smi ssed Bub ers
Hulton -Deutsch Co llection/Cor bis; pl 5 © Detlev Van Ravenswaay/Science Photo Libr ary; p i? © Ronald Grant Archive; p l S © MGMffhe Kab al Co llec tion; pl 9 "attempts to expl ain Jewi sh ' substance ' by
© Donald Coo per; p24 © A KG Images: p26 © AK G tmages/Gerd Hartun g: p30 © Nationat Geog raphic/Ge Uy Images way of pseudophilosophical profundity".

TLS SE PTE M BER 28 2 0 07


Efforts to fix foreignness in something sub-
stantial, she wrote, result ed in "a mad urge to
defin e Jewry, Jew, Jewish , and so forth" . The
very effort to do so - as Arendt demon strated
in various other works - deri ved from the
torturou s, fragm ented nature of modern
Western Jewish identit y which, shorn of tradi-
tional objec tive charac teristics of identifi ca-
tion , becam e esse ntially "psy cholog ized",
resistant to tangibl e definiti on.
The most important piece in The Jewish
Writings is a previou sly unpubli shed manu-
script fro m the 1930s entitled "Anti-
se mitism" (a kind of draft analysis which
dec ades later inform ed the sec tion of the
sa me na me in The Origins ofTotalitarianism,
1951 ). The re, in typically iconocl astic fash-
ion, Arendt identifi ed the core assumptions
and strengths and wea knesses of the major
Jewish historic al and ideol ogical schools of
interpr etation - and sought to tran scend both :
Whereas nationalist historiography is based on
the uncritical ass um ption of a distance on prin-
ciple between Jews and their host nation, assim-
ilationi st historians opt for an equally uncriti-
cal ass umptio n of a 100 per cent correspond-
ence between Jews and their entire host
nations. The adva ntage of the nationalist hypo-
thesis over that of the assi milat ionists is a
purely practical one: it does not lead to illu-
sio ns that are quit e so abs urd. .. Bu t for Z ion-
ism - as for nationalist historio graphy - status
as a "nation of foreig ners" is ju st as undi fferen-
tiated as 100 per cent corres ponde nce is for the
assimilationists. Instead of one abstrac tion -
the Ger man people - we now have what are
more or less two oppos ing abs trac tions: the
German people and the Jews. This likewise
strips the relationship between the Jews and
their host nati on of its historicity and reduces it
to a play of forces (like those of attraction and
repulsio n) between two natural substa nces, an Yet the present volume also makes clear
interacti on that will be repeated everyw here that these nasty, but rather con venti onal , pre-
j udices hardl y ge lled with her wider politi cal
Jews live . .. . Ass imilationists were never able
to exp lain how things could ever have turned outlook and emotions. Arendt' s Jewish
out so badly, and for the Zionist there still national politi cs were consistently couc hed in
rema ins the unresolved fact that things might terms of the priority of popular need s, and a
have gone well.
Oth er unexpected emphases crop up in this
wide-ra nging essay. One of Arendt' s later,
more controvers ial positions held that the
spec ific ities of Ge rma n histor y and culture
were entirely unconn ect ed to the Naz i
exterminations. In this earl ier piece, how-
ever, Ge rma ny does indeed possess a rather
radical (both positively and negatively con-
ceived) Sonderweg, one clearly link ed to
later developm ent s:
From Lessings Nathan the Wise to Rosen-
berg' s Myth of the Twentieth Century, every
liberation and eve ry catastro phe that has
befallen the Jews of Europe has been able to
borrow its theoretical foundatio n and its pathos
from Germany - and always long before some
practical app licat ion came due in Germa ny
itself. A good hundred years lie between
Lessing and emancipa tion; it did not take even
sixty-five years to move fro m Marr, the
foun der of modern antisem itism as a political
movement , to Hitler's victory.
These pieces also soften the frequ ent claim
that, as a sec ular, cultivated Ge rma n-Jew ish
intellectu al, Arendt shared a virulent preju-
dice towards, or at best had no em pathy for ,
her more primiti ve Eas t Europea n Jewish and
"Oriental" cousin s. Her opponents have
made plentiful use of her caustic co mme nts -
in a 1961 letter to Karl Jasper s - regar ding
PHILOSOPHY
Hannah Arendt, New York, 1972
particip ant s in the Eichmann trial:
On top, the judges, the best of German Jewry.
Belo w them , the prosecuting attorneys , Ga ll-
cia ns, but still Euro pea ns. Every thing is orga n-
ized by a police force that gives me the creeps ,
speaks only Hebrew and looks Arabic. Some
downright brutal types among them. They
would follow any order. And . . . the oriental
mob, as if one were in Istan bul or some other
half-Asiatic country. In addition, and very
visible in Jeru salem, the peies and cafta n
Jews, who make life impossible for all
reasonable peop le here.
critique of se lf-serving a nd manipulative
el ites . Her withering comments on "notable" ,
"educated" and "exceptional" Jews and their
cont empt for Eas t Euro pea n Jews per vade
these pages. Moreover, she regarded with
wonder and admiration tho se national histori-
cal forces that "taught both Eas tern and West-
ern Jews to see their situation in identi cal
terms" and, in 1944 , showe red praise on the
Jewish und erground movem ent s for their
el imination of "any difference between West-
ern and Eas tern Jews, bet ween assimilated
and unassimilated . .." .
These pages are particul arly useful in
tracin g Arendt' s evo lving under standing
and critique of po litical Zionism. One dimen-
sion of her dissent flowed from her belief that
Jewish national right s and polit ics had to be
condu cted in worldwide rather than Palestino-
centric terms. But the rea l gist, and the con-
temporary relevance, of these essays lies in
the con victi on that the relati onship with the
Ar abs constitut ed "the onl y real politica l and
moral issue" of Z ionist and Israeli politi cs.
These pieces docum ent her various attemp ts
to think through options outside the con ven-
tional route. Writin g prior to the crea tion of a
Jewish-majority state in 1948, it see med still
possibl e and legitim ate to envisage futu re
alternative soc ial and politi cal orders that
would satisfy both Jewish nation al aspira-
TLS SEPTE MBER 28 2 007
5
Adelphi
Giorgio Colli
PLATONE POLITICO
The crux of Plato 's philosophy.
Giorgio Manganelli
MAMMIFERO ITALIANO
«A free Italian is merely an Italian who
has gone unpunished ».
Salvatore Niffoi
RITORNO A BARAULE
A novel of bitter and coruscating power.
Goffredo Parise
GUERRE POLlTICHE
«The main thing is always to give the
odour, the flavour of things ».
Manlio Sgalambro
LA CONOSCENZA
DEL PEGGIO
Pessimism as a «state of grace of
thought».
Tullio Pericoli
ROBINSON CRUSOE
tion s and Arab needs. Though the possibili-
01 DANIEL DEFOE
ties of agreeme nt and nego tiated peace
Tullio Pericoli's adventures in search of
appeare d in cr ea sin gl y unreali sti c (to so me, Robinson.
utopi an in the extreme) as the situation wors -
ened, Are ndt variously advoca ted a (not Leonardo Sciascia
always clear) ser ies of bin ational, federal and
IL CAVALlERE E LA MORTE
confederative solutions.
The murder of a powerful man heralds
These we re connected to her earlier cri- the spread of a new subversive society.
tiqu e of the modern sove reign nation state
and crucially infor med by what she called Alberto Arbasino
"the latest phenomenon of recent histor y":
LE PICCOLE VACANZE
the Europea n (and her ow n) experience of
The book that launched Arbasino and
mass stateless ness. The con venti onal identif i- blazed a new trail in Italian narrative fic-
cation of the State with a homogeneou s tion.
majorit y rendered minorities inherentl y vul-
nerable, eas ily depri ved even of "the right to Cristina Campo
have right s" . Her many blueprint s regardin g CARO BUL
the Jewish-Arab co nflict were designed in LETTERE A LEONE TRAVERSO
so me way to deal with this dilemm a on both Another eagerly awaited collection of
s ides. "A ge n ui ne fed erati on " , she w ro te in correspondence by the most secret and
1943, "is made up of different , clearly identi- «unforgivable» Italian writer.
fiable nationalities .. . that togeth er for m the
state. Natio nal co nflicts can be so lved within Massimo Cacciari
such a federation onl y because the unsolva- TRE ICONE
ble minority-majority problem has ceased to Rublev, Piero della Francesca, Van Eyck:
exist." As late as 194 8 she suppor ted a sug- three illuminatingexercises in the theolo-
ges tion - flo ated by Abb a Eban - of a federa- gy of vision.
tion con sistin g also of Tur key and Chr istian
Lebanon, an arra ngeme nt that "would co m- Rodolfo Sonego
pri se more than the two peoples .. . and thu s DIARIO AUSTRALIANO
eliminate Jewish fears of bein g outnumbered A recently rediscovered text by a master
by the Arabs" . of Italian comedy - Alberto Sordi 's prin-
Arendt thro ughout , it should be clear, cipal scriptwriter.
rem ained committed to Jewish nati onal aspi-
rations, but argued, perhaps counter- Mario Bortolotto
intuiti vely, that "a Jewish state can only be LA SERPE IN SENO
erected at the price of the Jewish homel and" . SAGGIOSU RICHARD STRAUSS
Her notions of an intact Jewish nationalism A great musician whose importance we
on a federati ve or a binationalist basis have have only now begun to understand.
thu s far pro ved illusory, given the ongoing
lack of political will on all sides for such an Alberto Savinio
arrangement. Yet her fear s about the inherent LA NASCITA 01 VENERE
problem s and consequences of the conven- The Magna Charta of metaphysical art.
tional nati onal route were realistic enough. In
The Origins of Totalitarianism, she sharply Andrej Longo
noted: DIECI
After the war, it turned out that the Jewish A novelist who portrays the underworld
question, which was considered the only of Naples as it really is.
inso luble one, was indeed solved - namely, by
Continued on page 7
6
Democracy at war
Sir, - Felipe Fema ndez-Armestos
review of my War in Human Civili -
zation (Augus t 10) is so breath tak-
ingly muddl ed and ignora nt as to
verge on the amusing. It ca lls for a
sente nce by sentence deco nstruc-
tion, but there is no space for this,
and why bother. So here are ju st a
few point s. To supp ort his cla im
that it is only cu lture, rather than the
intricate interface between our
biological make-u p and cultural
transfor mation and diver sity, that
determines deadly hum an fighting ,
Fermindez -Ar mes to asc ribes the
behaviou ral differe nces bet ween
two spec ies of chimp anzees, the
common chimpanzee and the
bonob o, the one violent and the
other pea ceful, to cultural differ-
ences between them . The stan dard
definit ion of wa r is large-scale
group fightin g, nor mall y assoc iated
with the state. So the question with
respect to pre-state soc ieties is not
whether or not they had wa r in that
sense but whether they experienced
extens ive fighting and killin g. This
obvi ously crucial question for the
under standin g of hum an develop-
men t has been hotly disp uted and
rem ained unresol ved for centuries,
with most anthro pologists since
the Rousseauit e 1960s answering in
the negati ve. But it now turn s out
that pre -state and pre -ag ricultura l
societies regularl y suffered aro und
25 per ce nt violent mortalit y among
their men, a far higher rate than that
experie nced by either premodern or
modern state soc ieties, except in
their most extreme ly devastatin g
wars. The idea that demo cracies are
uniqu e in their warlike beha viour ,
most notably that (eco nomica lly
developed , affluen t) democracies
do not fight each other, although
they continue to fight non-
demo cracies, was actu all y raised by
liberal scholars and picked up by
the Clinton adm inis tration befor e
it was belatedl y ado pted by
(neo-)conservatives. That Felip e
Fernandez -A rmes to sho uld misun-
derstand, misrepresent and dismi ss
th is highl y significa nt developm ent
is typical of his level of argu ment.
AZA R GAT
De partment of Politic al Science,
Tel A viv University, Te l Aviv 699 78 .
----~----
An-aesthetic
Sir, - I hope it is not ungracious of
me, in respon se to Clare Pettitt' s
eloquent review of Satyr Square
(August 24 & 3 1), if I make sure
reader s of the TLS know that cred it-
ing Alberti with a Narciss us is her
mistake and not mine. The painting
I was lookin g for in a shuttered
museum was Carav agg ios, not
Alberti's, as is mad e clear in the
book. On the other hand, Ms
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Kapuscinski and the secret police
Sir, - Edith Hall ' s review of
Ryszard Kapu scin ski ' s posthu mous
Travels with Herodotus (Septem ber
2 1) is radiant with adm iration and
criti cal apprec iatio n of Kapuscin-
ski's achieve ments. However, in
her thir d paragra ph, Professor Hall,
sure ly inadve rtently, doe s Kapu scin-
ski' s reput ation and memor y a gross
disservice. Having noted that Hero-
dotu s has long been considered "the
father of lies", she then allies this
to (her) co mment s on the spying
charges which have recentl y been
raised aga inst Kapusc inski by the
pseud o-hi storical state-run Polish
Institut e of Natio nal Remem brance,
a front orga nization for the witch-
hunt currently bein g infl amed
across Poland by the Prim e Mini s-
ter, Jaroslaw Kacynski, aided and
abetted by his Presidenti al twin ,
Lech , and by their Law and Justice
party. Hall states without qualifica-
tion that "it is now know n that
under Com munism, as foreign corre-
spo nden t for the Poli sh state news
agency PAP , Kapuscinski also
engage d in espionage . Yet none of
the retro specti ve dirt that became
attached to his name after 1989 can
alter the can dour and delicacy with
whic h he explores the effect of
Poli sh politi cal culture on the way
he con ducted ethnog raphy".
Whatever the "can alter . . "
sequence of that sentence may or
----------~----------
Pettit ts mistake is an interestin g
one : though Alberti never paint ed a
Narcissus, he did offer one of the
most intriguin g exegeses of that
mytholog ica l fig ure in On Painting:
"I used to tell my friends that the
invent or of paintin g, acc ording to
the poets, was Narcissus . .. . What
is paintin g but the act of embracing
by means of art the surface of the
pool ?". On the charge of bein g apo-
litic al, Pettitt has me dead to rights
(though one could say that my chap-
ter entitled "The Co mmunist Gour-
met Cl ub" finds a politics in being
apo litical); I ju st don't wan t anyo ne
to think that 1 am an-aes thetic.
LEO NAR D BA RKA N
Department of Co mparative
Lite rature , Princeton Univ e rsity,
Prin ceton, New Jersey 08544.
- - - - ~,----
'God Is Not Great'
Sir , - Robert A. Davis is a di stin-
guished theol ogian, so I am sur-
prised to discover that his entire ref-
utation of Christopher Hitchens' s
argume nt (Letters, Se pte mber 14)
boil s down to two ex cathedra pro-
nounc em ent s against his scho lar-
ship, and eve n these are given
Ietters @the-tls,co .uk
may not mea n, Professor Hall will
know, or should know, that the spy-
ing case aga inst Kapu scin ski , with
its obvious construction that he
thereby betrayed the principles for
which his work and life are ju stly
acclaimed, is entirely innocent of
substance , utterly devoid of proof.
The fact s: on May 2 1 this year ,
the Polish edition of Newsweek
reported that it had found in Co m-
muni st-era secret poli ce archives ,
now held by the Institut e of
Nationa l Remem brance , assorted
docum ents which showed that from
1967 to 1972, as a PAP for eign cor-
respond ent , Ryszard Kapuscinski,
using the code names "Poet" and,
later, " Vera Cruz", had provide d
material for Poli sh intelligence, his
"mission" to collec t and collate
information on Ame rican comp a-
nies and citi zen s as well as to sup-
without ju stification . It is not
eno ugh to say that the business of
New Tes tame nt use of pro phecy is
more co mplicated than its portrayal
in God Is Not Great. Any single
book will always have to simplify
matters, and this is a book written
for the popular mark et so the simpli-
fication is likely to be the grea ter.
The question that Davis needs to
ask himself is whether he believes
that Old Tes ta ment figur es had
visio ns of future eve nts, or not.
The re may be a more nuanced way
of putting this, but the crux of the
matter is to es tablish the ex istence
or otherw ise of an entity (or series
of entities) that lies outside the
phys ical laws of causation. If the
best arg ument that two professors
of theol ogy can produce co ncerning
this major question of their special-
ism (see Ge rard Lou ghlin ' s letter
in the sa me issue) is to make ad
homin em attacks on the religio us
knowledge of Hitchens or Ric hard
Dawkin s, perh aps it is time to
star t asking why the gove rnme nt
continues to fund degrees in these
subjec ts.
JAMES MAC KA Y
King 's College , Strand,
London WC2.
TLS SEPT E MB ER 28 2 007
ply data on the US, Israeli and Wes t
Ger man intelligence age ncies.
What, though, were the fruit s of
this mission? The secre t police docu-
ment s revea l that in 1970, as pro d-
ucts of his "spying" , Kapuscin ski
dispatched descripti ve reports on
the gene ral politi cal situation in
Latin A merica, with emphasis on
Cuba n forei gn policy and a report
on the politica l situation in Mexic o;
the "reporter-spy" also penn ed a
numb er of straightforward profil es
of various people he had met durin g
his journ alistic assignments. On his
return to Poland in 1972, Kapu scin-
ski' s file was closed , and a 1981
sec ret police docum ent , quoted by
New sweek, concl uded that he "did
not pas s on any esse ntial material
the secre t poli ce was interested in" .
It was co mmon practice during the
Co mmunist era for any Poli sh citi-
zen who tra velled abroa d on a regu-
lar basis to sig n an agree me nt with
the secre t poli ce, which for Kapu s-
cin ski allowe d him to work abroad
while at the sa me time maintaini ng
vital link s with his Poli sh homel and
and with his famil y. Spy ing?
Hardly ! Kapu scinski might ju st as
well have provi ded Warsaw with
blank pages.
BRUCE ROSS-SMITH
6 Bow ncss A venue, Headington,
Oxford.
'Girls of Riyadh'
Sir , - My name appears on the title
page of Girls of Riyadh by Raja a
Alsanea as eo-tra nslator , It might
seem odd, then , that 1 agree full y
with Stephen Henighan , in his
review of the novel (Jul y 27) , when
he says that "the sca nda l in the
English versio n lies in the trans-
lation". He is corr ect about the
English text' s shortcomings . But
there ' s a "scandal" here of which
M r Hen ighan is unaware. When I
submitted the tra nslation to Pen-
guin, comp lete exce pt for Sa udi
vernac ular terms with which the
author had promised to help me, I
was inform ed that the author
intended to rewrite it, and thereafter
I was kep t entire ly out of the pro-
cess. The res ulting text, with its cli-
ched language, eras ures of Arabic
idioms I had translated, and unneces-
sary footnotes, does not reflec t the
care that I took to produ ce a lively,
idiomatic tran slation con veying the
novel' s tone and language, which
are cruc ial to its cr itique of (glo-
bali zed) Sa udi society. Of course,
my deci sion to retain my name on
the title page (the only decision
abo ut the text ' s final shape that the
publi sher allowe d me! ) means that I
rem ain partl y responsible for a
wo rk that 1was give n no author ity,
ultim ately, to craft.
It is unfortun ate that a novel
which works partly through
humour , punnin g and multil ingual
wordplay has been "cleaned up" by
the Arabic text' s author. Perhaps
the larger scandal, though, is that
for some publi shers and writers, lit-
erary translators remain derivative
servitors rather than creative artists,
a notion fostered by a long tradition
within Euro-A merican letters of
the writer as solitary genius and
translation as a mechanical exe r-
cise (and now enhanced by the
"star system" of today' s publi shing
business). That the press and author
did not take my professionalism
seriously or listen to my warnings
that their choices would yield an
inferior and infelicitous result will
not be a surprise to translators.
MA R ILYN BOOTH
Program in So uth Asian and Midd le
Eastern Studies, University of
Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 6 180 1.
----~----
Ronald Reagan
Sir, - A number of correspondents
have written to correct the one-
sidedness of your reviews of recent
boo ks on Ro nald Reagan (mos t
recentl y, Septem ber 14), but none
has challenged the charac terization
of the President as "anti-racist" , as
docum ented by his diary entry:
"There is no place in this land for
the hate-m ongers and bigots".
Against that view stands the follow-
ing, from a recent New York Times
column by Paul Krugman, who
reports that Reagan, at Trent Lott's
urging, began his 1980 presidenti al
campaign "with a speec h support-
ing states' rights delivered ju st
outside Philadelphi a, Miss., where
three civil rights workers were
murd ered in 1964" .
TH EOD ORE K. RA BB
Department of History,
Princeton Univer sity , Prince ton,
New Jersey 08544.
----~---
Kit for Kat
Sir, - I am writing with referenc e
to the rev iew by James Sharpe of
my new edition of Daniel Defoes
Essay on the History and Reality
of Apparitions (August 24 & 3 1).
I wa nt to thank you for the
lovely review. I ju st have a sma ll
co rrection. I am a woma n, not a
ma n. The nickname " Kit" , in this
case , is short for Kathl een , not
Christopher.
KIT KINCA DE
Department of English, Indiana
State University, Terre Haute,
Indiana 4 7809 .

Continued from page 5
means of a co lo nize d and then co nquered terri-
tory - but this solved neither the problem of the
minorities no r the state less . On the con trary,
like virtually all other events of our ce ntury,
the so lution of the Jew ish question merel y pro-
duced a new category of refugees , the Arabs,
thereby increasing the number of the stateless
and rightless by another 700,000 to 800,000
people.
Th e seeds of that catas trophe lay, Are ndt
argued - in a provoc ati ve, rath er untestabl e
counterfactu al claim - in the paradoxical dis-
tincti ven ess of the Zionist proj ect. She
stressed that the "building of a Jewish national
hom e was not a coloni al enterprise in which
Europe ans came to ex ploit foreig n riches with
the help and at the ex pense of nati ve labor" .
Imperi ali st ex ploitatio n of the classical kind
was "either completely abse nt or played an
insignifi cant ro le". Th e Yishu v was con-
structed as a parallel, separate soc iety and
eco nomy. T here was so me thing gra nd in
thi s adve nture of indep end enc e and self-
creati on, she decl ared , but preci sely this
myopic separa tion from the local popul atio n
sowe d the see ds for futur e confli ct and
resentm ent. She sum med up its ironi c result s
in 1950 thu s:
What had been the pride of the Jewish home-
land, that it had not been based upon exploita-
tion , turned into a curse when the final tes t
came: the flight of the Arabs would not have
been po ssibl e and not have been we lcomed by
the Jews if they had lived in a common eco-
nom y. The reactionary Arabs of the Near East
and their Britis h protectors we re finally proved
right: [in the words of Chaim Weizmann] they
had always cons idered "the Je ws dangerous
not because they exploit the fellaheen, but
because they do not exp lo it them ".
Wh at eme rges from The Jewish Writings is
that any ideolo gi call y fi xat ed appro priation
of Are ndts wr itings on Z ionism will ru n into
trouble. Her refl ection s we re the product of a
tim e an d cont ext quite differ ent fro m our
ow n, and neith er a simplistic Zionist co nde m-
nation nor an undifferenti ated post- Zioni st
harn essin g bear s scru tiny : " Palestine and the
building of a Jewi sh hom eland " , she wrote in
194 5, "co nstitute tod ay the grea t hope and
the grea t prid e of Jews all over the wo rld.
Wh at wo uld happ en to Jews, indi vidu all y and
coll ecti vely, if thi s hop e and thi s prid e we re
to be ex ting uishe d in anothe r ca tas tro phe is
almos t beyond im agining . . . . T he re is no
Jew in the wor ld whose whole outloo k on life
and the wor ld wo uld not be radica lly cha nge d
by such a traged y."
Ultima te ly, Hann ah Are ndts ac hieve -
ments and biases, her cr eati vit y an d inner
confli cts mu st be see n as part of the quite
ex traor dinary history of po st-em ancipation
Ge rma n-Jew ish intell ectu als as they con-
fronted Ge rma n culture and its later break-
down , the ex perience of tot alit arianism , and
Jewi sh atte mpts at rec on stituti on . Her
invol vem ent with the Jewi sh wo rld was
always inten se and complex, but so too was
her simulta neo us engageme nt in othe r cul-
tu ral and polit ical spheres . Precisely bec au se
she ac ute ly and di stin cti vely em bod ied the
tension s and contradi ction s of these manifold
wo rlds , she was able - so metimes more,
some times less successfully - to gras p criti-
call y their int erc onn ection s and plu mb both
the desp air and the po ssibilities of her
fr actured tim e .
SOCIAL STUDIES
Unlucky strikes
n o ne of his funni est sketches , Bob
I New ha rt has Sir Wa Iter Raleigh , tele-
phoning fro m South Am erica, tryin g to
per su ade a hard-h eaded bu sin essm an
that tob acco is a marketabl e product. His
potenti al cli ent listen s with incr easin g
incredulity to "Walts" descripti on of wha t
smo king ac tua lly invol ves and co ncl udes that
"Walt" would ha ve " rather a tou gh time, sell-
ing peopl e on sticking burning lea ves in their
mouths". Well , it did take quite a while for
thi s, one of the stra nges t of the many stra nge
thin gs hum an bei ngs do with their head s,
rea lly to ca tch on . But catch on it did. T he
rise and rise of the ciga rette in the ea rly part
of the last century is one of the most ex traor-
din ary episodes in cultura l histor y. It is not
for nothing that Allan M. Brand ts absorbing
book is ca lled The Cigarette Century.
Everything abo ut cigarette smoking is
surprising: that so meo ne sho uld want to do it
in the fir st place; that so me thing as see m-
ingly ge ntle as inh aled smo ke sho uld ha ve
such dir e effects; that the exec utives who
push cigare ttes and thereb y co nde m n many
milli on s to awful dea ths sho uld look lik e
par agon s of upri ghtn ess and virtue; and that
the law sho uld for so lon g ha ve prot ected
those who peddl e cigarett es and not those at
risk from becoming addicted to them , with
dreadful co nse que nces .
T hose co nse que nces, thou gh we ll-known,
still ha ve the power to shoc k. Sm ok ers di e on
ave rage a dec ade yo unge r than no n-sm oker s,
an d the wee d kill s between a thir d and half of
those who tak e it up. Curre ntly, there are over
a billion smo ke rs wo rldw ide and 4 millio n
smo king-related death s annua lly . In the
United States , despit e a sha rp fall in the
number of cigarette add icts, tob acc o sti ll kill s
nearly half a milli on peopl e annua lly - mor e
than HIV, alco hol, illicit dru gs, suicide an d
homi cide combined - the equiva len t of thr ee
747s crashin g dail y, with no surv iv ors , for a
yea r. T he mo de of death is often protracted
an d horr ibl e. Living with advanced chro nic
bronchitis and emphyse ma mean s that eve ry
minute of waking co nsciousness is domi-
nated by the purs uit of oxygen: breathing is,
mor e than any thing else, the thin g you do;
otherw ise yo u are restri cted to those ac tiv i-
ties that are least likel y to put yo u into oxy -
ge n debt. Death s from lun g can cer , which
have match ed the rise in ciga rette smo king
w ith hideou s preci sion, are parti cul arl y vile.
A lthoug h clear ev ide nce linki ng smo king
an d ill health has been ava ilable for ove r fift y
years, cigare ttes have co ntinu ed to be pro-
mot ed , sold and con sum ed in bro ad dayli ght.
Br andr ' s ho ok - a monument of pe rceptive
scholarship, accessibly sy nthes izi ng informa-
tion from a vas t nu mber of so urces - ex plains
how and why, through a detail ed ex amina tion
of the traj ect ory of the ciga rette throu gh the
US in the twenti eth century.
Brandt ' s story begins with the emergen ce
of the cigarette as the pr eferr ed form of
tob acco co ns umption, displacing cigars,
pip es and the ubiquitou s plu g tob acco that,
ac cord ing to Dick ens, ma de Was hing ton " the
head-quart er s of tob acco-tin ctured saliva".
T his was in grea t part du e to ex ploitatio n of
technological adva nces , spearhea ded by the
TLS SEPTE MBER 28 2 007
7
R AYMO ND T ALLIS yo uthful reb ell ion , of mascul init y, and of
All an M. Br and!
T H E C IGARETT E CENTU RY
The rise, fall, and deadly persistence of the product
g lamo ur and the promise of sex ua l ava ilabil-
ity in wome n. Th e adve rtis ing industry
learn ed ho w to ex ploit the unc ert ainti es and
aspira tions of indi vidu als in an increasingl y
self-co nsc ious world, took on board the
that defi ned A merica insight s of the psyc hologists and so cio-
600pp. Basic Books. £ 16.99 (US $36). logists, and forged link s be twee n the cho ice
978 0465 070473
of ce rta in br and s and the projec tio n of a
desir abl e soc ial identity.
mi ght y figure of " Buck" (Ja mes Buchan an) The tob acc o indu str y hired so me of the
Duk e, who also crea ted the To bacc o Tru st most ene rge tic and inventi ve ad verti sin g
that ena bled him pr ett y we ll single-ha nde dly men , not abl y Edwa rd Bern ays, a neph ew of
to cont rol the indu stry. He was the first to Freud . Bern ays, who had honed his prop a-
appre ciate that markets co uld be crea ted : that ga nda sk ills on the C om mittee of Publi c
prom otion wo uld drive con sumption . Despite Inf orm atio n during the First Wo rld War,
his ex traordinary success, Duk e always pioneer ed many of those ploys, now familiar
feared that the fa shion for cigarett es wo uld to us, aimed at ma tching a product to eme rg -
pass. Th e First World War, ho wever, cam e to ing cultural norms. In a campa ign to recruit
the rescu e. It was a wa tershed "in establish- wo me n smo kers , he encouraged the 1920s
ing the ciga rette as a dominant pro duc t of fa shion for slim ness by send ing hundred s of
modern co ns ume r culture" . Inci pient health Pari sian haut e-couture photo gr aph s of slen-
conce rns were squashe d. O ur boys req uired der mod els to magazin es and newsp apers and
" tobacco as much as bull ets" ; the shar ing of then presented smo ki ng as a way of suppress-
cigare ttes was a key sy mbo l of the brother- ing the temptation to eat fatteni ng sweets.
hood of the front ; an d any put ati ve peril s of The sex iness of smo ki ng was underlin ed
tob acco smo ke hardl y figur ed in tren ch es by those who left their smoke on celluloid.
fill ed with the smo ke of battl e . A hand som e man light s a beautiful wo ma n's
In the ea rly decad es of the ce ntury , the ciga rette. It is evi de nt that oth er fires are
ciga re tte becam e an all-purpose sym bo l: of go ing to be lit soon. To smo ke was to
New from Transaction
RATS. LICE AND HISTORY
Hans Zinsssr withs nsw introduction by Gsrald N. Grob
Hans Zinsser's goalin Rats, LicaandHistorywas to bring science, philosophy,
and lit erature togetherto establish the importance ofdisease, and especially
epidemic infectious disease, as a major forcein human affairs. Zinsser cast
his workas the "biography" ofa disease. Inhisview.infectious disease
simply represented an attempt of a living organism to survive. From a human
perspective, an invading pathogen was abnormal; from the perspective ofthe
pathogen it was perfectly normal.
978-1-4128-0672-5 Paperback 332 pages $29.95/£19.95
ON UNDERSTANDING EMOTION
Norman K.Denzin with a newintroduction bytheauthor
How should emotions be studied? How canan understandingof
the innerfeelings of individuals illuminate important social
intera ctionsend human developments? Inhis book, Norman Denzin presentsa
systematic, in-depth analysisofemotion thet combines new theoreticaladvances
with practical epplications. Basedon an intensive, critical examinationof
classicaland modern theoretical research- and on revealing personal
interviews inwhich ordinarypeople express theiremotional lives - he buildsa
new frameworkforunderstanding ordinaryemotions and emotional distu rbances.
978-1-4128-0674-9 Paperback 339 pages $29.95/£19.95
THE NATURE OF SYMPATHY
MaxScheler
Translated by PeterHeath, with a new introduction byGraham McAleer
The Nature of Sympathy explores the social emotions of fellow-feeling. the sense
of identity, love and hatred, and tracestheirrelationshipto one anotherandto the
values with which they are asso ciated. Scheler criticizes otherwriters who have
argu edthatthe sympathetic emotions derive from self-interestedfeelings or
instincts. He reviews the evaluations of love and sympathy current in different
historical periods andin different socialand religiousenvironments, and
concludesby outlining a theoryoffellow-feeling as the prima rysource of our
knowledge ofone another.
978-1-4128-0687-9 Paperback 294pp $29.95/£19.95
TRANSACTION
Publisherof Record in International Social Science
Rutgers- TheState UniversityofNew Jersey
35Berrue Circle, Piscataway.NJ 08854-8042
Call toll free(in U.S.11-888-999-6778 orfax732-748-9801
www.transactionpub.com
8 S aCIAL STUDIES

Tower
Volubl e builder s from Akk a
in drom edar y-skin boot s
shoulder their hod s, bendin g ladder s
of larch and spruce

past the carrel where I labour

slow -parsing cuneifor m !
I like their noise. 1 like the fact
the buildin g continu es.

Citizens build the human hill

o n its own mine
and pro ve What we build with our hands
is everlasting praise.

The ancient motto sa nctifies

the tablets and vellum,
the rudd y brick and sta mped metal
ado rning each book-b ay.
A poster from th e Up in Smoke exhibition, New York, 2000, in which advertisements
My wor k is their s hallo wed by time. promoting and attacking smoking wer e juxtaposed
Keeper of the Record s!
My readin g finger swe lls and splits parti cip ate a little in the enviable sophistica-
like rott en papyru s. tion and sex iness of the stars. There could
only be one better endorse ment of cigare ttes:
* the medica l profession . An adve rt in the early
1930s had a Norman Rock well docto r inform-
Built zigg urat-style in massive cur ved steps, ing the publi c that 20,679 physici ans asse rted
the high struc ture genera tes its own cloud s. that "Luckies are less irrit atin g" . Anoth er ad
The top level s are strea ked by damp and moss. boasted that "More doctor s smoke Ca mels
Ce me nt is made from the silicious slime than any other cigarette!" . At the 1947 con-
Nubians bucket-dredge from the river vention of the Am erican Medi cal Asso-
and bricks from whateve r soil com es to hand . ciation, doctors form ed long lines to get free
The parts make up the whole : botch ed beginnin g, ciga rettes.
disheartened abandonment, and ruin . In short, the tob acco industry was prett y
well able to control the many meanin gs of its
* product. And then , in 1953, PR was faced
with its oldest enemy, the truth , and in a par-
A mason haul ed me to the top . ticul arly powerful form: scientific truth. Two
Thi ck cirru s curled round us major studies placed the relati onship between
and then the bright ball of the world smoking and lung cancer beyond reasonable
fell away to the ground. doubt. The paper by Bradford Hill and
Richard Doll was a classic, not only for its
All road s led to our feet: each spoke findin gs but for its sophisticated method o-
with its bull ock and cart. logy. It placed epide miologica lly-base d
Plumb sunlight caught a far river medi cal research into disease causation on a
like the flat of a swor d . par with labor ator y-based resear ch. Ciga-
rettes had dri ven adve rtising to new height s
The ma son was placin g his fist of ingenuity and inventi veness. Now they did
in a crack in the wall. the sa me for the science of popul ation-b ased
"Just settling. Just settling . .." he said. und erstandin g of disease.
But now he' s go ne. The indu stry did not pa nic. It, too, assumed
the mantle of science and adopted a "responsi-
All night , wind blu ster s and buffets ble" attitude to issues of public health. The
the creaky scaffolding; To bacco Indu stry Research Co mmittee
libr ary-scraps stuff my mattr ess (TIRC) was es tablished, complete with a
and chid e each move I make. Sc ientific Ad visory Board. Its professed aim
was to adva nce knowledge of the relation ship
The crack is wider. In moonli ght , bet ween tobacco and health. Its actual pur-
brick work and rock pose was to cas t doubt on the validity of the
dwindl e. What we build with our hand s science that brou ght bad news. To this end,
is everlasting praise. T IRC repea tedly procl aim ed that the jury
was out, and that more research was needed .
* Under the guise of assisting a tireless searc h
for truth, it dem and ed a standard of "proof '
All the architects kneel that could never be met, and worked clo sely
on trembling earth with a might y PR machin e to construct
to give thank s or beg for giveness. con troversy around the scientific findin gs.
As a diversionary tactic, it fund ed research
Thi s is what they wa nted unli kely to dem onstr ate any relationship
when young : to lea ve so mething bet ween cigare ttes and ca ncer. In 1955, Ed
on the hori zon . Done. Mu rrow devoted two consec utive broad casts
of his CBS news docum ent ary See It Now to
smoking . Both parti es to the "controversy"
OLIV ER R EY NOLDS we re invited to contribute.
The indu stry, which had lobbi ed Murrow
and his coll eagues and the programm e
sponsors beforeh and, got what it wa nted : an
ambiguous concl usion, which indicated the
need for more scientific ev idence to settle the
question , and the impression that the indu stry
was full y committed to this process. Murrow,
a chai n-smoker, died of lung ca ncer at fifty-
seven.
The scientific evidence continued to mount:
hardly an organ in the body see med immun e
fro m tobacco damage. Thi s prompt ed
President Kennedy' s Surgeon- General,
Luther Terry, to establish a committee to
investigate in full the impact of smoking on
health . The resultin g 1962 report was a
landm ark in many respects, not least for the
way the committ ee worked (ensuring robust
conclu sions that all members fro m diverse
constituencies would sign up to), and the
sophisticated analysis of the notion of disease
causation. As Brandt puts it, after the Terry
report, the sce ptics "were marginalised and
delegitim ated" . They were also almost
exclusively in the pay of the industry.
The indu stry continued its strategy of
constructing controve rsy and whee ling out its
" scientific" mouthpi eces. The co mpa nies
also fend ed off atte mpts to tran slate the
recommendations of the Surgeon- Genera!' s
Report into legislation. It was arg ued that
reg ulatio n of the pro motion and sale of ciga -
rettes was neither necessary (since everyo ne
knew of the "alleged" harm s of smoking) nor
appropriate, since it was patern alistic, at odd s
with the respect owin g to adult s able to make
their ow n inform ed decisions. There was a
nod to the noti on of harm - though the indus-
try refu sed to acknow ledge the harm , arg uing
that they were simply respec ting their custom-
ers' concerns, howe ver irrational the fears on
which they we re based - in the development
of filt er cigare ttes , suppose dly makin g smo k-
ing safer. The best filt er, so far as the compa-
nies we re concerne d, was the US Congress ,
where there were suffic ient specia l-interes t
gro ups, espec ially amo ng Republican s, to
block effective legislati on. In futur e, Brandt
obse rves , "many corp orations wo uld look to
the tobacco indu stry with awe and admiration
as a model for how best to utili ze legislati on
and regulation in their ow n interests".
Early attempts to hold tobacco co mpa nies

TLS SEPTE M BER 28 2 0 07

 SOCIAL STUDIES 9

to acco unt for the damage they had cause d to num ber of law fir ms. One such action, in
COLU M BIA
ind ividual health we re ruinou sly unsuccess- 1999, on behalf of 700,000 sick Florida Read book excerpts at www.columbia.edu/cu/cup
ful for tho se who were brave enoug h to act on smo kers and their heir s, result ed in an awa rd
beh alf of dyin g or bereaved cli ent s. The very of $ 145 billi on dam ages.
wa rnings o n ciga rette packs, and the wi de Unfor tunately, in 2006, the Flor ida
ava ilability of knowl ed ge that the indu stry Supre me Co urt ove rturne d the dam ages and The Forms of Youth
had deni ed for so lon g, was invok ed in dece rtified the cl ass. The ori ginal verdict, Twentieth-Century Poetry and Adolescence
defenc e. "You were wa rned and so we are however, cleared the way for indi vidual suits.
not liabl e" was the recurrent cry. Some of these were success ful, but there Stephen Burt
And then it looked as if every thing wo uld was no snow ba ll effect. Secret nego tiations "A ma jor achievement by one of the most ardent
unravel. First, data dem onstrating the effec ts between lawyers from the State and from poet -critics ofthe moment ... Like its sub ject, the
of passive smo king - dismi ssed as "j unk the indu stry resulted in a Glob al Settleme nt, book is big, surprising, and wonderfully inevitable."
science" by tobacco spokes men - started to in which $365 billi on we re to be paid over - lames Longenbach, University of Rochester
come in. While smo kers may make an twen ty-fi ve years, partl y in co mpe nsa tion for
informed decision to inhale smoke, this hardly the cos t of publicly fund ed medic al care aris-
applies to the non- smokers around them . The ing out of smoking-related di sease. In return, Hitchcock's Romantic Irony
invo luntary expos ure of employees, such as the co mpan ies would be prot ected from litiga-
flight attenda nts and bar staff, tilted both the tion and puni tive dam ages. The regul ato ry Richard Alien
law and public op inion in favour of bannin g co nstraints that followed were very light- "Richard Allen is without doubt the only
smo king in closed publi c spaces. Smoking touch , and eve n legiti mized the indu stry. No t theoretician of the cinema today about whom one
was now established as a filth y, dangerou s surpr ising ly, thi s Global Settl em ent was see n
can say unequivocally that he kno ws Hitchcock 's
habit, and not at all sophisticated. It was mo st as a disaster for anti-tobacco forc es: defeat
prevalent among the lowe r socio-ec onomic snatched from the j aws of victory. film s as well as the creator himself. He has also
classes. The indu stry had finally lost co ntrol The fin al chapter of Brandt' s book is the found , with 'romantic irony: one of the best
ove r the meanin g of its product. mo st chilling. Whil e the prim ary canc er of possible terms for making Hitchcock 's singular
Sec ond, in 1988, the Surge on-Ge nera l the tob acco indu stry was so mewhat co n- genius shine. "
deter min ed that ciga rettes, and in particul ar tained - smoking in the USA fell fro m 46 per - Raymond Bellour, film critic and theoretician
the nicotin e in them, were addi cti ve. This had cen t in 1950 to 2 1 per cen t in 2004 - the
long been denied by the indu stry. It was oppo rtunities to metastasize el sewhere we re
esse ntial to their case that peo ple who took seized with bot h ha nds. Co mpa nies now The Analects of Confucius
up s mo king co uld m ak e an inform ed cho ice tar get co untries w he re re gul ati on s are weak
to give it up; in shor t, that a smo ker re mained or non-ex iste nt. Invoki ng free trad e and
Burton Watson
a free age nt, so that to regul ate smoking was und er minin g intern ational tob acco-c ontrol "Bur ton Watson's translation is clear, crisp, terse ,
to interfere with their freedom. Th e seve n initi ati ves, espec ially that dri ven by the less predigested, and much more elegant than its
chief exec utives of the major toba cco com - WH O, they achi eved fanta stic success in contemporaries. [It] shall remain a standard for
panies testifi ed und er oa th at a 1994 Co n- rec ruiting smo kers in the developin g wo rld , many years."
gress ional subcommittee that they did not where, as one exec utive argued , the high
- Philip I. Ivanhoe, City University of Hong Kong
believe either that cigarettes ca used cancer or prevalence of prem atur e death from infec-
that they we re addi cti ve. This was at a tim e tion s and violence made the long-t erm con se-
whe n lorry-loads of intern al indu stry doc u- quenc es of smoking irrelevant. If the indu stry New in Paper
me nts we re bein g leaked by several whistle- fulfil s its aims, the lOO-million death-t oll
blo wers (w ho often had to face death threats), from ciga rettes in the twentieth century will
revealin g the uni ver sal ass ump tion within the be dwarfed by approximately one billi on The Future of Religion
indu stry that nicotin e was addictive, and a death s in the twent y-fir st century. (This may Richard Rorty & Gianni Vattimo
co nsis tent poli cy of usin g thi s to the maxi- be a serious underestimate.) If this publi c-
Edited by Santiago Zabala
mum to keep smo kers hook ed. Oth er docu- health ca tas tro phe is ave rted, it will be due to
me nts revealed a strategy of plans promoting the co urage, ten acit y and clear thin king of the "Concise and cutting-edge, this book makes for
ciga rettes to childre n, who wo uld not be scientists, public-health phys icia ns, policy- exciting reading." - Nanc y Frankenberry,
ma ture eno ugh to make an infor med cho ice . makers and lawyer s cited in All an Brandt ' s Dartmouth College
The ficti on that the tob acco indu stry was boo k, ma ny of whose lives were wrecke d by
acting legitim ately to produ ce a legitim ate their bru sh with the power, deep pockets, ruth-
produ ct was now unsustain able. The re fol- lessness, guile and bottoml ess duplicit y of an
lowed a series of cl ass actio ns, in wh ich indu stry utterl y witho ut con science. The Ciga-
The Neutral
ma ny plaintiffs aggregated the ir claim s, and rette Century, which doc ument s thi s unequ al Lecture Course at the College de France
the fin ancial risks were shared by a large strugg le, is a mas terp iece of medi cal history. (1977-197 8)
Ro/and Barthes
Translated by Rosalind Krauss and Denis Hol lier
The Wax Museum "Rem arkable for the combination of intensely
personal and idiosyncratic preoccupations with
immensely wide literary and philosophical reference
(After Yannis Ritsos)
points ." - Times Literary Supplement
In that dim light , the nak ed , pa inted dummies
deli vered a soft ero tic charge . Their bodi es The Columbia History
were perfect , as if they'd com e
from a single mould . . . but when he looked mor e closely of Twentieth-Century
he seemed to see his face amo ng their faces. French Thought
There we re footsteps in the hallway. He stripped off Edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman
and took his place, stone-still, with all the others "This splendid collection of essays on virtually
as the visitors tour ed the room. A wo ma n said, every facet of twentieth-century French culture is
"They made a botch of this one," then she lau ghed.
a three-star feast."- Martin lay, author of Songsof
His eye lashes rustled as he closed his eyes.
Experience
"A wonderfully eclectic and astoni shingly compre-
DA VID H ARS E NT hensive volume ." - Peter Brooks, author of Realist
Vision

ORDER VIA W I LEY DISTRIBUTION SERVICES LTD . • (1243)84329 1 • CUSTO MER @WILEY .CO .UK

TLS SEPTEM BER 28 20 07

10
he days are long gone when a Briti sh
T art critic or histori an could dismi ss
Diirer for his "perverted technic al inge-
nuit y" , and ruefull y observe that hi s gre atest
inspirati on was the them e of death . This was
Roger Fry writing on "D urer and His Contem -
poraries" , an essay publi shed in 1913 on the
eve of the First Wo rld War. Fry 's Diirer was
not so much a Renaissance man as the ances -
tor of those brilli ant yet dem onic profess ors
whose "perverted tech nical ingenuit y" was
pro pelling the Kaiser' s war mach ine. Nea rly
a century on, Briti sh art histori ans are no less
influ enc ed by politica l eve nts. They prefer to
think of them selves as good Europea ns and-
in public at any rate - try not to be beastly
about Ger ma n art.
The Open Universi ty 's " Renaissance Art
Reconsidered", the umb rella title for a three-
vo lume series of twenty-one com missioned
essays , together with an anthology of relevant
prim ary sources, is art history for these EU
times. Twe lve years ago the OU publ ished a
two-volu me series on art in Florence, Siena
and Padua 1280-1400, but the subseq uent
period is a pan-European affair, with Ge rman
and Netherla ndish art the major winners,
treat ed with the same respect as the Flore n-
tines. The perip atetic Diirer cro ps up again
and aga in, now a produ cer of "archetypal"
Renaissance art. In the introducti on to the first
volume, Making Renaissance A rt, O U com-
missioner Kim W. Woods briskly inform s us:
"For all that some fifteenth- century Flore n-
tine art is indeed remarkable, innovative art
was produ ced not only in Florence or by
Flore ntines but in many other part s of Italy
and indeed in other parts of Euro pe . . . .
Florentine art is certainly not ignor ed , but it is
always considered alongside art produ ced
elsewhere in Italy and in north ern Euro pe".
Brussels is almos t inevitably given a key
ro le - for the first time in a genera l survey
about the Renaissan ce. Elizabeth Cleland's
informative essay on "Tapestries as a trans-
nati onal art istic commodity" revea ls that
Bru ssels "led the field" and was a famed
"ce ntre o f excellence" for the se vas tly ex pen -
sive wall cove rings . Just as in the Eurov ision
so ng cont est, there are some surprise winners
fro m the frin ges of Europe: two essays by
A ngeliki Lymb erop oulou are devoted to icon
painters from Crete.
Caro l M. Richardso n views this with evi-
dent glee: "Vasari would have been horrifi ed
that Greek [Byzantin e] art should be includ ed
in a volume on Renaissance art" . This eja cula-
tio n is of a piece with Rich ardsou' s earlier
assertion that the fifteenth century "was a time
of shifting boundaries - political, social and
cultural", and of "cross-fertilization" encour-
aged by travel. To prove this there is an attrac-
tive map of "Renaissa nce routes" taken by
peace -loving bank ers, traders and pilgrim s,
the journey line s curvy and in seven different
colours. Destinatio ns range from Lisbon in the
west to Kiev in the east, Bergen in the north
and Alexandria in the south. You might easily
mistake it for a map of budget airline routes.
But this is more than Vasari for the Ryanair
age. The anachronistic modi shness of some of
the framin g arguments should not detract from
the exce llence of many of the individual
essays , and the quality and quantity of the col-
our illustrations - which is ju st as well, as the
OU 's art history books are the most influential
and widely used in the world. Making Renais-
sance Art is particularly impressive and use-
ART HISTORY
Market forces
J AM E S H ALL
K im W . W ood s , e d i to r
MA K ING RENA ISSANCE A RT
352pp . 978 0 300 12189 6
Ca r o l M. R i ch a rd son , e d i t o r
L OCAT ING R E N AI S S A N CE A RT
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K im W . W o od s , e d i to r
V IEW ING RENA ISSANCE ART
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Yale University Press. £ 19.95 each
P at rici a L e e Rubi n
IM A G E S AN D IDEN TITY I N
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256pp. Yale Unive rsity Press. £35 (US $60).
978 0 300 12342 5
ful. Catherine King contributes an ingeniou sly
constructed essay on drawing, and an expertly
com prehensive essay on the literature of art;
there is also an admirably lucid and balanced
account of perspective by Richardson ; a metic-
ulous teasing out of the "medieval" and "ren-
aissance" elements in Brunelleschi ' s architec-
ture by Ti m Benton; and a sensi tive introduc-
tion to print-making by Charles Harrison.
Most art historians, and not ju st students, will
find somet hing of interest here.
Locating Renaissance Art is more uneven,
but there are useful essays on the rise of
Rome as an art ce ntre by Richardso n; on
"Netherlandish Networ ks" by Woods;
tradition and innovation in Sien a by Diana
Norman ; Cleland on tapestries; and Ti m
Benton on Bra mantes form ation in Urbino,
Mil an and Rome. In Viewing Renaissance
A rt, we have Jill Burke on Flore ntine "visual
poli tics"; A lixe Bo vey o n illuminated manu-
scripts; Thom as To lly on Frenc h royal patron-
age. The who le series ends, approp riately
eno ugh, with a dying fall. Richard son writes
about "Art and Death " , and Woods on
Holbei n and the Refo rma tion.
While it is undoubt edly true that grea t art
was produ ced outside Florence in the fifteenth
century, I' m still not convinced that it is Ren-
aissa nce art. There is no evidence that
the keen historic al self-co nsciousness of
Florentine artists, and of Florentine writing
about art, ex isted elsew here. It started with all
those fourt eenth-c entury eulogies to Giotto,
where he is celebrated for changing "the
profess ion of painting from Greek back into
Latin " (Ce nnini) - that is, for returnin g
to antiquity and to nature after the lon g
" Byzantine" dark ages . Like Dante' s, most of
Gio ttos major work was done far from
Florence, and it is a moot point how much
Floren tines had actua lly see n, but abse nce of
the grea test wo rks, such as the Ar ena Chapel
frescoes in Padua, prob abl y made Flore ntine
heart s grow fond er , and intensif ied the pro-
cess of mythologiza tion and periodization.
But it is not so much aes thet ics or art
theor y that bind s the O U' s pan- Europ ean
Renaissance together, as economics . Mu ch of
the art, whether it be tapestries or gold statu-
ettes, see ms to be discu ssed because it offers
TL S SEPTEMBER 28 2 0 07
ev idence of merca ntile rather than artistic
success - as if the art were merely a symp tom
of a "renaissance" of free trade du ring th is
peri od. Thus Angeliki Lyrnberopoul ous two
well-cra fted essays on Cretan icons are j usti-
fied because there was a market for them in
Venice (Crete 's col onial master) and in Italy
throu ghout the period, rather than becau se
of any artistic novelt y. Indeed , they we re
bou ght precisely becau se they we re tradi-
tional. Similarly, Paul Wood , in his tub-
thumping "Art in Fifteen th Ce ntury Venic e:
An aes thetic of diversity" , admires fifteenth-
cen tury Ve netian art because it is a "collage"
of outside influ ences, whether Byzantin e,
Islamic or Nor thern Europea n; and this col-
lage attests to the fact that Venice is a "cosmo-
politan entrep6 t for goo ds and idea s" . With
pse udo-Ruskinian moral outrage, Wood
"The Virgin and Child with Saint
Lawrence" (early sixteenth cent u r y);
from Viewing Renaissan ce Art, one of
th e books under r eview
di smisses the art of Giorg ione, Titian,
Ti ntoretto and Vero nese because they (like
Venetian traders) cease d to look eas t.
One of the probl em s with bald eco nomic
argumen ts of this sort is that they lack histori-
ca l speci ficity: virtually the same trad e routes
operated durin g the Rom an Empire (when
land routes we re far quicker) and the Middle
Ages. As such, the "free" move ment of
peop le, goods and ideas can not really explain
why Van Eyck, Donat ello , Bellini or Diirer
are fift eenth-centur y artists rather than first-
or th irteenth-c entury. A problem of a differ-
ent sort occurs in Rembrandt Duitss polemi-
ca l essay "Art, Class and Wealth " . Thi s is a
treasure chest stuffed with choice inform ation
about prices and wages, but eve ry work of art
or architecture, every piece of clothin g or jew-
ellery, and eve n eve ry wife, is invariabl y a
manifestatio n of "conspicuous co nsumption"
(Thorstein Veblen's term is used eight times).
Thi s would impl y that the Renaissance marks
the beginnin g of the age of consum erism, but
were any of these things actually consume d?
Duits's essay begins with an anecdote
about the fabulou sly rich papal banker Ag o-
stino Chigi. During a garden party held at his
Rom an villa in the summer of 1518, he had
the table silver used by the gues ts thro wn into
the Tiber. Unknow n to his gues ts, Chigi had
placed a net in the river, and retrieved the
silverw are the next day - a ruse that Duits
claims was a well-kept famil y sec ret only
revea led in the seve ntee nth cen tury (though
presumabl y those guests who were invited
back would have see n the same silverware).
For Duits, this is an exa mple of "conspicuous
waste" , but the extreme rarity of such ges -
tures, and the fact that Chigi did not "waste"
his silverware, sugges ts otherw ise. It is a long
way from the stoned rock star writing off his
brand new Rolls-Royce by driving it into his
swimming pool. "Conspicuous investm ent" is
a better way of describin g art ownership and
patronage in the Renaissance - and indeed the
Middl e Ages . Artefacts made from precious
metals were a convenient as well as a beauti-
ful way of storing wealth. At times of crisis,
they could be carted off or melted down, and
thu s turned into ready cas h. As for the buil d-
ing of chape ls and churches, and the commis-
sioning of frescoes and altarp ieces , this was a
sensible investment in the afterlife.
Patricia Lee Rubin is an unabashed spec ial-
ist in Floren tine art, the author of a major
book on Vasa ri (1995) and co-author (with
Aliso n Wright ) of the impressive catalog ue
for the National Gallery exhibition Renais-
sance Florence: The art of the 1470s (1999).
Images and Identity in Fifteenth-Cent ury
Florence is a series of det ailed case studies of
various aspec ts of art and patronage, and a
long explora tion of contemporary ideas con -
cernin g vision and the visible world; last but
certainly not least, there is an extensive bibli o-
graphical essay that allud es to man y topic s
not di scu ssed in the main text. Two of the
case studies will become standard works on
their chosen topic s: the discu ssion of Don-
atellos gift of a bron ze rou ndel of the
Mad onn a and Child, now in the V&A, to his
doctor Giovan ni Che llini, sheds light on the
status and as piratio ns of both the artist and
the patron; equally impr essive is the study of
the cir cum stances surrounding the commi s-
sion ing from Botti celli of a wed ding gift
consistin g of fou r panels ba sed on a grue -
some tale from Boccaccio. The bibl iographi-
ca l essay will be one of the most phot ocopied
sec tions of any book on Renaissance art.
Like so me of the authors of the Open
University series, Rubin is not always so con-
vincing when she generalizes . In her sec tion
on vision (a coda to Mic hae l Baxandall ' s
famou s section on the "period eye" in Paint-
ing and Expe rience in Fifteenth Century
Italy) she refer s to Lorenzo Gh iberti's discus-
sion of optics in his autobiog raphica l treatise,
and then concludes that the primacy of sight
was " unquestioned" in fift eenth-centur y
Florence. Yet one of Ghib erti' s most striking
remarks concerns the discovery of an antique
statue of a herm aph rodit e in a drain in Rome :
"In this statue were the grea test refi nem ent s.
The eye perceived nothi ng if the hand had not
found it by touch" . No doubt G iova nni Che ll-
ini and hi s descend ants would have thought
the sa me about Donatellos round el, and
would have passed their fingers ove r it both
to apprec iate the marvellou s var iations in
textur e - and to touch God. Art was cher-
ished and pored over, and not ju st glanced at
on the way to the market, bank or por t.
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12
--------------------------~.--------------------------
he newspapers love the idea of the
T Wagner family. All this summer's Die
Meistersinger at Bayreu th, the direc t-
ing deb ut of the beautiful twenty-nine-year-
old Katha rina Wag ner was gree ted by aud i-
ences with the traditi onal catcalls and booing
(when Hans von Biilow first cond ucted the
Tannhiiuser Overt ure, in Berlin in 1855, he
was hissed) and by claims that Katharina' s
aged father, Wolfgang (gra ndson of the com -
poser), was trying to make her the director
of the Festspie lhaus over the heads of more
experienced co usins , suc h as her co usin
Nike (sixty-one years old, but mysteriously
younger by the month) or some other vindic-
tive cousin or sibling. A grea t dynasty perpe tu-
ally at odds, whe ther their name is Churchill
or Kennedy or Wagner, will always make a
good story. This level-headed book, by a
British j ournalist resident in Germany, tells
you the story at a rattling spee d. Jonathan Carr
is also espec ially good at placing each ep isode
in the famil y story within the context of what
was happening in Germany at the time.
He starts with Richard and Cosima
Wag ner com ing to the North Bava rian town
of Bayreuth to rea lize the composer's long -
standing ambitio n to pro duce his music -
drama tetralogy, Der Ring des Nihelungen .
As innumer abl e biographi es have show n,
they are an eve rlastingly interesting pair, the
more so since Cos ima's wonderful diaries,
among the very best ever written, were eventu-
ally publi shed in 1976, after being locked
away in a Mu nich bank for years. The next
generation was no less bizarre in chara cter.
Wag ner 's son, a charming bisexual who com-
pose d operas which have their admire rs, was
more or less coe rced into marriage after a
ho mosex ual scan dal and married an
eighteen -year -old Welsh girl called Winifred
Williams, who had been rescued from an
orphanage in Eas t Gr instead by one of
MUSIC
April, 2007, Lingfield, Surrey; a four-yea r- old fox, photograph ed by G eoffrey Williams
Family tempests
A . N . WIL SO N
J on ath an Ca r r
THE W AGNER C LAN
409pp. Faber.£20.
9780 57 120785 5
Rich ard Wagner's disc iples. Siegfried 's
only sister, Eva, married Houston Stewa rt
Cham berlain, the pasty-faced semi-invalid
son of an Eng lish admiral. Cham berlai n's
bizarre theories of the racial superiority of the
Teuton to the Aryan foun d their passonate
adm irers in figures as diverse as the Kaiser
and Or Schwei tze r. Siegfried died suddenly
in 1930, and if it had not been for his thirt y-
three-year-old widow , the Fes tiva l would
almost cer tainly have folded for eve r. She it
was who, with the help of Heinz Tietjen ,
formerl y of the Berli n State Opera, engaged
some of the best cond uctors of the day,
notably Wilhelm Furtwa ngler and Artu ro
Toscanini, and a galaxy of grea t singers
who co uld he said to have made tho se years
Bay reuth's glory days. And then there were
all Siegfried and Winifred ' s childre n.
When the wa r had ended and the Festival
began aga in in 1951 , it was placed in the
hands of Wieland and Wo lfgang Wag ner,
Winifred's two sons. Wieland was see n as a
brill iant innovati ve director, and brother
Wolfgang as the plodder. The two brothers
made a deal that, in the even t of one dy ing,
the other should take ove r co mplete co ntrol
of the Fes tiva l. Wiela nd was a driven man,
with enor mous sex ual energy and aggression.
He died j ust three months before his fifti eth
TL S SEPTEMBER 28 2 007
birthd ay, in October 1966. With the death of
the hare, the tortoise plodded on. Wolfga ng
Wagner is still the director of the Festspiel-
haus in 2007, fort y yea rs on. You would
think that a man deser ved some pra ise who
had run a festival so well that there is a
ten- year wa iting list for seats at the operas.
But othe r Wagne rs want him to retire . Hence
the many compa riso ns to King Lear made by
the imp atient Nike. Whe n I spen t a happy
summer at Bayreuth , I never met anyo ne less
like King Lear. He is more like one of the old
codge rs in Dicken s, beni gn and jo lly. Until
you actu all y go there you ca n have no idea
of how much the theatre is still a family bu si-
ness, with Wolfgang check ing the tickets of
those who come for perform ances, and the
rather wonderful Katharin a, in her blue jeans,
bein g a dogsbody durin g rehea rsa ls and eat-
ing with the chorus me mbers in the cafeter ia.
The story of their family tempests has been
repeated many times in the various books, arti-
cles and interviews which the Wag ners like to
use as am munition aga inst one another. Carr
gathers it all together in a very readable fash-
ion, and he has done some learned research in
the National Archive of the Rich ard Wagner
Foundation. The Wagner Clan is much more
than j ust a wor k of fly-b y-night journ alism
and deserves its place on the groa ning shelf,
beside the various histories of Bayreuth, and
biographies of the Wagners.
Needless to say , the reason for the news -
papers' co ntinued interest in this fasci nating
cla n is not born out of a pure musicological
obsession. It is bec ause Winifr ed Wagner,
Wol fgang' s beautiful and kindl y moth er, was
besotted with that well-known Wag nerian
Ado lf Hitler. Far from keeping qui et about
this enthusias m after the wa r, old Winnie
wen t on television in order to be interviewed
by the new -wave film director Hans Ju rgen
Syberberg, to who m she adm itted, " If Hitler
were to wa lk in through the door here today,
for instanc e, I would be j ust as ... as glad ...
and as ... as happ y as eve r to see him here
and have him here".
In the light of the intense efforts everyone
at Bayre uth had been making, in the previous
thirty years , to behave as if the National
Soci ali st pas t did not ex ist, ther e was so me -
thing undeniably hilarious about gra nny let-
ting the cat out of the bag so stupendo usly.
Jonathan Car r is a tiny bit po-faced about it,
and if I had a criticism of his book, whic h I do
not really, it would be to say that he is unfair
to Winni e. The strange paradox, which per-
haps only a novel about her co uld convey ,
is that she was gen uinely good -hea rted,
deplored the violence of the Naz is and did
eve rything possible to save its victims among
her imm ediate entourage . Everything, that is,
exce pt cut loose from her hero. The only time
they had a major row was when Hitler
rea lized that she wa nted peace in 1939 and
was trying to get him to talk to the British
amb assador; she had no idea that he had been
gagg ing for a wa r ever since 1919. With her
practical gifts, common sense and kindliness ,
she wo uld have been a goo d national leader
for the Ge rmans, and Hitler, with his skills as
a stage designer and his gee kishly encyclope-
dic knowledge of prev ious Wagner produc-
tions, wo uld have been a good direc tor of the
Bayreuth Festival. Alas , the Noms, or the
Go ds, spun the rope of des tiny in a different
woof. If he had only got into the Vienna Acad -
emy of Art as a boy or wor ked und er his hero
Alfred Roller on the set designs for Ma hler's
great product ions of Wagne r in Vienn a, how
different every thing might have been.

Death and refreshments
n September 18, 1942 , Edward
O Ardizzone (190 0-79), then
em ployed by the British Arm y as
an Offici al War Art ist, sen t an
illu strated letter from his base at the Press
Ca mp in Ca iro to Ma deleine and Caroline
Drew, the two ado lescen t dau ght er s of an
acqu aintance. In his letter, he had draw n a pic-
ture of himself alone on a camp bed in the
Western Desert in Egy pt:
Here I am sitting in the middle of a "Howling"
desert and at the mome nt it is howlin g wor se
than ever as the wind is blow ing sand into
everything and the flies drop into my whisky
.. Here is a picture of it, or rather of me suck-
ing the end of my pen and wondering what to
write next, w ith lots of flies buzzing round.
The fuzzy looking thing on the horizon is a
bomb bursting amo ng some motor transport. I
have just "put it in for effect", while the thing
like a wa ter spo ut is ju st a sand spo ut or cir cu-
lar sand storm.
Aft er describi ng ho w he and his soldier-
dri ver take it in turn s to cook "bully beef
stew" ove r petrol-dowse d sand in an open
petrol can, and how he sleeps on his ca mp
bed in the open air, while his driver sleeps in
their Ar my truck, he adds, " In fact , it wo uld
be all rather like a camping holid ay if it
was n' t for a faded lett er in Itali an starting
'Carissimo Ugo ' and writte n in purpl e ink
which is sticking o ut of the sand at my feet
am on g a numb er of empty shell cases and in
the distance the so und of the guns and some
burnt out lorries to remind me of the War " .
His battl efield ob ser vation s here are imm edi-
ate and spec ific: his und erstated res po nse to
an Itali an soldier' s love letter am on g th e
"empty shell cases" and "burn t out lorr ies"
accompanied by the distant so und of g unfire
reveals his mixed feelin gs in the face of
dan ger or loss.
Ardi zzon e' s father, Au gu ste Ardi zzon e,
was born a French nati onal of Italian descent
in Bone, Al geri a. As an Offici al War Artist
for the Briti sh Army, Edw ard Ardi zzon e is
understand abl y reticent about his Italian ge ne-
alogy and Al geri an French ori gin s, yet these
ori gin s ev ide ntly inten sified his artistic
res ponse in 1942 to the Briti sh attempt to
reca pture , from the Axis armies, the Itali an-
and- French-ruled North Africa n territories,
where his father had grown up and worked.
In hi s Dia ry of a War A rtist ( 1974) , Ardiz-
zo ne not es hi s " arriva l in the desert in Jul y ,
1942" , where he was attached to "the 2nd Bat-
talion the Rifl e Brigade durin g the Al amein
battl e". The phr ase "Alamein battl e" , accord-
ing to B. H. Lid dell Hart , the war historian,
refers to not one but three milit ary enco unters
between Rommel' s arm ies and the Briti sh
and Commonwealth forc es - the first Battl e
of Al amein in Jul y 194 2, the Battl e of Alam
Halfa in Augu st 1942 , and the second Battl e
of Alam ein in October 1942, which led to the
retreat of Rommel' s Afrik a Co rps and his Ital-
ian Army forces to Buerat, a thou sand miles
wes t of A lame in. Thu s Ardiz zon e was give n
On the road from Alamein to Tunis: Ed ward Ardizzone' S
desert war art
J E NNI F ER BR E E N
the oppo rtunity not only to obse rve the eve ry-
day rea lities of the Briti sh Army 's milit ar y
ca mpaign but also to witness the beginning
of the end of an era for the Itali an, as we ll as
the Fre nch, presenc e in North Africa. Accord-
ing to Lidd ell Hart, Mont gom er y and his
Eighth Arm y did not continue their atte mpt
to drive Rommel and his Axis forc es from
North Afri ca until Janu ar y 194 3, when the
Briti sh had built up their forc es and supplies
in ord er to take ove r the Italian co lonial sea-
port and capit al , Tr ipo li, and then to j oin up
with the An glo-Americ an First Arm y from
the wes t in or der to capture Tunis, in what
had been Fre nch North Afri ca.
Earlier , in 1940 , o n his fir st assignment in
France as an Offi cial Wa r Artist, Ardi zzon e
had form ed the habit of takin g notes and mak-
in g rou gh ske tches of sce nes th at int er e st ed
---
"On the Road to Tripoli - Near Horns: The grav e-digger beside the road" (1943)
by Edward Ardizzone
him , in ord er to develop these into wa ter-
colour and, occasion ally, pen- and- wa sh dr aw-
ings, but he usuall y destro yed these loo se
notes and draft s. He co ntinued this method of
exec uting his co mmiss ion as an Official War
Arti st in North Africa , so that few of his writ-
ten record s of his journ ey from A lame in to
Tunis are ex tant. A s Nicholas Ardi zzon e, in
his PhD thesis on his father ' s wa r art,
Edward A rdizzone RA: Commissioned Works
of the Second World War (1997), obse rves:
"The tim e that EA spen t in the Middle Eas t
[in fact , Egy pt, Lib ya and Tuni sia], before he
started to keep diaries in M ay 194 3, is the
least document ed and the most imp enet rabl e
peri od of his whole war". His father ' s seco nd
lett er to the Drew sisters, dated Jun e 4 , 194 3,
thu s fill s in a few ga ps in ou r kno wled ge of
his Nor th African peri od , because in it he
TLS SEP TE M BER 28 2 007
gives some de tails of his jo urney (December
1942 to May 194 3) from El Alam ein to
Tunis:
I have travelled a long way since I last wrote to
you - all the way to Tunisia and back. I have
travelled by truck through the desert, through
the coa stal oa ses among the palm-trees and
olive groves, have travelled in a plane, and
been to sea in a corve tte and have bee n in a bat-
tle or two on the way . . . . The only parts I did
not really enjoy were the battles, as one was
usually bored and frightened at the same time -
a horrid mixture.
As in his first letter to them, Ardi zzon e
aga in see ms to be distancin g him self some-
what from actua l death s in battl e, unl ess he is
ass um ing a mask for his two yo uthful
acquaintances. As Madeleine Drew rec alled
much later (2005) , he had first met them in
their village , Coberly , Gl ouc ester shir e:
" W he n the homhing was had in London , va ri-
ous peopl e used to com e do wn for a few days
to escape". We cannot kno w whether Ardi z-
zo ne was see king refu ge in Coberly or tryin g
- in his role as "war ar tist" - to find opportu-
niti es to draw ci vili an life an d attitudes
durin g the wa r. He stayed somew here in the
village alon g with other art ists of various
kind s, including Bern ard Mil es, the actor and
dir ector. Madelein e an d Ca roline Drew ' s
fath er, a mu sici an who "was beyond ca ll up
age " , en co uraged his two dau ght ers to write
to Ardi zzon e "to boo st [his] moral e" after he
was assigned to Nor th Afric a in Jul y 194 2 by
the War Arti sts ' Ad visory Co mmittee .
In thi s seco nd repl y to one of their "mor ale
boo sters", Ardi zzon e gives a detailed descrip-
tion , with an acco mpa nying illu stration , of an
Itali an ' s farm "j ust o utside" Tripo li, where
the arti st "lived for some time". He describ es
13
the farm er' s orch ards of "almond, cherry ,
peach, aprico t, oli ve and oran ge trees", and
the "fine yar d with a grea t co ncrete reser voir
at one end and a wind pump which clacked
around all day pumping water into it, and cast-
ing at the same tim e a strange flick erin g
sha dow ove r the hou se and yard. In the yar d
were so me hens, a litter of puppi es and an
enormous wa tchdog . ..". Despit e the fact
that Ardi zzon e was still attach ed to the
Briti sh Arm y which was then makin g its way
throu gh Lib ya in pur suit of Rommel' s Afrik a
Corps and its Itali an cohorts, and that the
Arm y had commandeered the farmhou se in
which he and some of the Special Air Ser vice
corps were bill eted , he and the Italian farm er
bec ame friendl y:
The farmer was a nice fellow and would ask us
to dinner occasionally whe n he would give us
an enor mo us feast of spaghetti with lots of
wine from his own vineyard to drink with it.
Jolly good wine too. Of course we couldn' t
speak Italian & he couldn' t speak English, but
we seemed to get on in spite of it. Here is a
picture of the farm yard.
Ardi zzon e' s accompan yin g illu stration is a
ske tch of a pen- and- wat ercolou r picture,
"The Yard of Our Farm Hou se at Tripo li", a
work that he later submitted to the Wa r
Arti sts ' Ad visor y Com mittee, and which is
no w at the Imp eri al War Muse um . Nicho las
Ardi zzon e dates the co mpleted " Yard of Our
Farm Hou se at Tripoli " 1943, and, since it is
not likel y that his fath er illu strated his letter
with a copy of a wor k that he had already
co mpleted, "The Yard of Our Farm Hou se at
Tripo li" was probably don e soo n after he had
writte n that illu strated letter. In Jun e 194 3,
when he wrote his seco nd letter to the Drew
sisters, Edward Ardizzo ne was stay ing at the
Hotel Cecil in Al exand ria. It is thu s feasibl e -
as he notes in the diary he had ju st begun to
keep - that when he rea d E. M. Fors ter's "eru-
dite & deli ghtful guide" to Alexandri a, he
was also wor king on - as was his usual habit
when he return ed to any base - items to be
sent to the War Artists' Ad visory Co mmittee ,
which ow ned the cop yright in these wor ks ,
and occas ionally ex hibited selec ted ones in
displ ays of war art. Onl y the day before, he
had co nfided to his diar y, "Comforting to
hear that Co mmittee approves [of earlier
works sent to them]".
So me of the works that he exec uted from
ske tches and notes whe n he was bac k at the
Hotel Ce cil in A lexa ndria can be plac ed pre-
cise ly, markin g out the rout e Ardizzo ne fol-
lowed along the coa st roa d with the Eighth
Arm y: "On the Road to Tripoli - A Detour " ;
"Outside an Armoured Com ma nd Vehicle
nea r Mersa Matru h" ; "On the Road to
Fuka : Lootin g from a Di sabl ed Tru ck" ; "The
Officer s' Mess at the Transit Camp, Ben g-
hazi" ; "Arabs Barterin g Eggs for Te a near
Sirte" ; "A n Adva nced Post near Buerat" ;
"An Adva nced Dressin g Station near Horns";
"Prisoners besid e the Road near Horns"; "O n
the Road to Tripoli near Horns: the Grave-di g-
14 CO M ME N T A R Y

ger besid e the Road"; "On the Road to Magna aga inst fourth-century Sah ara Desert
T ripo li: A C up of Tea for the Buri al Part y" ;
and "T roops Entering Tripo li in the Ea rly
Morning 23 Jan uary 194 3". Oth er
trib es or fifth-century Ger man ic Va nda ls.
T he Highl and ers, acco mpa nied by their O ffi-
cia l W ar Arti st , Ar di zzon e, had tim e to visit
In flight
from the
paint ings, such as 'T roops Du ckin g To the M useu m becau se, for seve ra l wee ks,
Avoid an Air Bu rst" and " Sold iers Besi de a Mo ntgo mery remain ed in T ripo li in orde r to
Va n" , for exa mple, are not dated, an d might repair the port in the wa ke of Rom me l's
also re late to his tour wi th the Army along the destru ction of shipp ing install ation s prior to
•
coas t road from Al am ein to T unis, or he
could have ob served so me of these incid ents
in pri or battl es aro un d Alame in fro m Jul y to
Decembe r 1942 .
his retreat.
Critics have tend ed to di smi ss or igno re the
art that Ar di zzon e crea ted in Nor th Africa
from Jul y 1942 to May 194 3. Bri an Foss , for
pnson
The probl ems of datin g these wor ks aside, exa mple , in ''' It' s No t a Bad Lif e So me - ZI NOVY ZI NIK
the wa terco lour pa intings that or iginated in tim es" (Imperial War Museum Review,
Ge nera l Mont gom ery ' s succe ssful Nor th putnik in Ru ssian mea ns a com pani on,

S
1987), states that Ardi zzon e' s drawin gs and
Afri can cam paig n, which ended with most of paintings of the Second Worl d W ar ge ne rally a fello w-t ravell er. Th e probl em was to
the Ax is forc es surre nde ring to the First an d fail "to rise to the gra nde ur of W ar as a locate thi s fell ow in space. I rem emb er
Eighth Arm ies in Tuni sia, show Ard izzo ne 's subjec t" . Yet arti stic insight in war art is not myself, a ten- year- old boy, stan ding in our
interes t not only in the effec ts of battl e o n the necessaril y associated with depi ction of courtyard with my fri end s, star ing int o the
High Co mman d, officers , and so ld iers, but "grandeur" in warfa re. Ardi zzone focu sed on Sov iet night sky . T he re was always a clever
also the imp act of war fa re on civili an s as we ll spec ific incid ent s whe ther on the battl efi eld little comrade aro und who would tell you that
as prisoners of war. Eve n ge nerals had their or not , revealin g both the macabr e and the that mo vin g dot , which was blinking, was not
off- dut y moment s, as Ard izzo ne 's gen tly co mic in life and in death. Moreover , the Sputnik but the lights of an aero plane, and
satirical wa terco lour, "T he General of an effec ts and co nco mitants of wa rfare, drawn that that light belonged to a falling star or
Ar mo ured Divisio n sitting besid e his Ta nk", with an eye for both the incon gru ou s and the meteorit e. Eve ntua lly, we succee de d in ide nti-
shows . The genera l, dressed in muft i and ac tua l, such as the bu rial of the war dead , the fyin g one of the hardl y not iceabl e lines
ber et , sits in a cha ir with arm res ts; his left leg di spl acem ent of peopl es, or the treatm ent of across the night sky as that of Sputnik (w hich
and foot are poised - as if he suffers from pri son er s of wa r, and so on, can carry as mad e its fir st orbit around Ea rth o n Octo be r
gou t - on a petrol ca n. He has his nose in the Edward Ardizzone (c 1950) m uch sig nifica nce as large- scale battle 4, 1957 ). But Sputnik itself was in visibl e . We
air, as if pontificatin g about some aspec t of scenes . Ardi zzon e paint s successfully wha t were told abo ut Sputnik at home and in
wa rfa re to the atte ntive office r sea ted o n the asp ira tio ns toward s the und er stan din g of cul- critics such as Foss regard as min or aspect s schoo l. Yes, we saw ph otogr aph s of it in
sa nd on his left and the pri vate sold ier tu ral artefacts , and points a co ntras t that is of war fare : " Wealthy Refu gees in a Farm- Pravda . It looked tot all y unr eal but quit e
stan ding , hand s in pock et s, to his right. Th e not co m plime ntary to the Highl ander s. In hou se Stable" , for exa mple, or " A Stree t cute: a metalli c basketb all , ado rne d with a
ge nera l is a co mica l fig ure, and see ms so me - both pieces, the milit ary visitors stand in Sce ne in Tripoli with Jewish Wom en in their few needl es lik e a baldi ng por cupine. I still
what of a poseur, far re moved fro m rec ei ved awe, or perh ap s puzzlem ent , before Ro ma n W hite Silk Robes", or "T roops Restin g remember the sig na l that our Sputnik was
noti on s of stoica l military leader sh ip. Th e statues of mal e nud es that have been exc a- among the Wild Flowers in So uthern broadc astin g: bee-beep, bee -beep, bee -beep.
possibility of the thr ee bein g attac ke d at any vated from the sa nd dun es and preser ved, T unisia ". Or perh ap s it was beep-beep-beep. With simi-
mom ent is suggested by the British tank between 192 0 an d 19 39, by Italian colonists Neverthe less, some of Ard izzone's sma ll- lar enth usias m and di sbelief , decades later , I
imm edi ately to their side , which is mann ed in T ripo lita nia, now Lib ya. Ard izzo ne thu s sca le wa terc olo urs also portray sce nes of mili- wo uld hear in my tran sistor radio the mys ter i-
by a sold ier keepi ng wa tch on the surround- subtly reminds us of the history of Lib ya - tary vio lence, wi th the impli cation that death ou s BB C Russian Service' s beep s. Wh y
ing desert. An oth er tank ca n be see n squat- thi s North African territ or y was fou ght ove r in war is possibl e at any tim e. In " A Bomb shou ld I beli eve that this or that so und was
tin g on a mo und of sand nearb y. in ea rlier in vasion s, which brou ght about the Bur stin g" (1942 ), for exa mple, one so ldier real ? How could I know for ce rta in that Sp ut-
An oth er Ardi zzon e painting from this presen ce, foll owed some ce nturies later by responds to the blast by thro win g hi mself on nik did in fact ex ist?
peri od , "On the Road to Tripoli : A C up of the withdrawal, of the Rom an s. In the con- the san d, while anothe r, from the rear of a We we re born and lived in the wor ld of
Tea for the Burial Part y" , also strikes a trast betweeen the mu scul ar phys iques of the tru ck , ge ts ready to take cove r. In " Dust" mak e-b eli eve: that is, we we re ma de to
hum orou s not e, but in a mor e macabre if rea l- larger-th an-life Rom an s and the pun y Sco ts, (19 42), an offi cer and pri vate so ldier study a beli eve in what we were told , eve n if we
istic setting, whe re thr ee yo ung so ldie rs take Ardi zzon e seems to be awarding the prize for ma p o n the sand dun es near a passin g tank , sus pec ted that not all we we re told co uld be
te a j us t after placi ng thr ee uni for med c orpses manline ss to hi s Itali an for eb e ar s. which engu lfs them in a cloud of du st - the entirely true . To beli eve in made -up fact s was
in graves that they have du g. A spade is Th e somewha t co mica l poses of the mili- du st that they and the troop s might so on part of our life. T he re was no way of chec k-
thru st int o sand nearb y ready for their shove l- tary figur es in these two wa terco lo urs also become. T his image reca lls Isaac Rosen- ing these facts by ex pe rience; there was no
lin g of ea rth on top of the remains, and thr ee appea r to impl y that - eve n thou gh the British berg ' s First World W ar poem, " Break of Day way to pro ve that a wo rld ex isted behind the
Christia n crosses lie on the gro und nea r the have ju st dri ven Rommel' s Afrika Corps and in the Trenc hes" (1917 ), the fin al lin e of iron curtain of our Sov iet illu sion s. But eve n
spa de . In the mid st of death, so ld iers are still the Itali an Ar my from T ripo li - neith er offi c- which, "Just a little white with the dust" , if Sputnik di d not ex ist, we had to im agin e it.
in need of their refr esh ment s. In "Jocks in the ers nor men ha ve any sense that the presence alludes to the fact that a sentry he has I re membe r my tear s of joy whe n I fir st heard
Mu seum at Lepti s Magn a" and "Officers of of both the Alli ed and Axis forc es in North describ ed faces po ssibl e death at every about Sputnik in the sky. With millions of
the Highl and Divisio n in the Mu seu m at Africa might be as tran sient as the wars mome nt. Ard izzone's und er stated im ages of Soviet citizens I thou ght : " We made it
Lepti s Magn a", Ardizzon e satirizes so ld ierly fought by the Roman Legi on s in Lepti s the so ld ier's co nstant fear of death are sim ilar there!". Imp rob abl e as it so unded at the tim e,
in their allusive qu ality, but he also uses the leap outs ide was poss ible; we were not
eleme nts of hu mour in orde r to con vey cha ine d to our ea rthly ex istence .
TheJournalof Irish and Scottish Studies the bizarre in so me of the beh aviour of these Only now I feel that my tears of joy were
NEW from the military men. partly psy choti c - lik e those of a pr iso ner at
AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies T hus Ard izzo ne in his 1942- 3 wa terco l- the sig ht of a bir d in his pri son ce ll 's window.
University of Ab erd een If yo ur hou se bec om es a prison offer ing little
ours depi cts many aspect s of the wa r in the
Volume 1, Issue 1 (Autumn 2007): CulturalE x change: Mediel,,'alto desert s of North Africa that con ser vati ve oppor tun ity of co mmunicating soc ially or
Modern critics of wa r ar t mig ht ex pec t - bur stin g ve rha lly with yo ur neighhour, yo u tend to
Volume 1, Issue 2 (Spring 2008): The Irish and SeO/I in France she lls; gunfire; ge ne rals, office rs and men - occupy yo urse lf with so me thing co ntem pla-
For subs cription visit www.abdn.a c.uk/ riiss/publicatio ns as we ll as unexpected subjec ts suc h as an tive, suitable for solitary confinem ent -
Itali an far mstead during its last days, in suc h as math em atic s or ch ess: two voca tions
T ripo litania, or Sco ttish Highl and er s Russians are fam ou s for. For the same
measur ing them sel ves agai nst full-front al reason , space research and nucl ear physics
JamesBosll'ell nud e statuary fro m Cl assical Roma n times. had bec om e the most desirabl e prof ession s
Murray Pirtock His swee ping, rounded lines an d use of the in the US SR .
m uted col our s of brown s, kh aki , ye llows, Wh en I think about Sputnik with the
olive gree ns and blu es evo ke the ex tra - benefit of hind sight , I see a gro up of Sov iet
ord ina ry desert setting ove r which Edward gen iuses - scie ntists and eng ineers - brou ght
For forthcoming conferences and events , and information on Ardi zzon e and the Eig hth Army found togeth er by a decree from the Kreml in in
funded PhD places visit our website at: so me poorl y equi pped laboratory in a remote
them sel ves trekking in a relentless purs ui t of
wwabdn.ac.uk/riiss
their enemy . part of the Sov iet Union, in order to stun

TL S SEP TE MBER 28 2 007


An artist 's r endition of Sputnik 1
the wor ld with yet another Revo lutionary
achievement of the proletar ian State . Such
laboratori es were described by Solzhen itsyn
in his books about the Gulag . The scientists
ass igned to such a project we re in ma ny cases
politica l pri soners who were transferred from
labour ca mps to j oin the team. It is also a
well-established fact that space projec ts in
the USS R we re made possibl e because of the
deport ation to Russia, after the Ger man
defeat, of a number of leadin g Ger ma n scien-
tists, together with the research laborat ories
and equipment with which they were develop-
ing military-missile technology duri ng the
Seco nd Wor ld Wa r.
Decades later , I read a commen tary on
Sp utni k's launch by Hannah Arendt, her self
an ex ile from Naz i Ge rma ny . In her boo k The
Human Condition she quotes a newspaper' s
description of the eve nt as a "step towar d
esca pe from men's impri sonm ent on ea rth".
The "banality of the stateme nt", Arendt says ,
"should not make us over look how ex trao rdi-
nary in fact it was ; for although Ch ristians
have spo ken of the earth as a vale of tears and
philosophers have look ed upon their body as
a prison of the mind or so ul, nobod y in the
histor y of mankind has eve r concei ved of the
ea rth as a prison for men's bodies or show n
such eage rness to go literally from here to the
moo n" . Hannah Arendt should have been per-
fectl y awa re that in the Soviet context the ref-
erence to the ear th as a priso n was not simply
a metaphor.
Of course, 1 was not aware of all that at the
time. I was not awa re of So lzhen itsyn 's
Gulag Archipelago . Ne ither did I have a clu e
about Khru shchev' s spee ch a yea r before
Sputni k was launched. (At the Twe ntieth
Co ngress of the Com munist Party he let it be
known to the people that Stalin was not our
beloved leader but a leadin g criminal of the
ce ntury.) Nor could I co mprehend why, a
year after the laun ch of Sputnik, a crowd of
14,000 peop le gathered at Luzhniki Stadiu m
in Mos cow to cond emn Bori s Pas ternak, the
pride of Russ ian poe try, as an enemy of the
pe ople for the publicatio n abroa d of his
COMMENTARY 15
peep into the wilderness outside. But the acco mpan ies her bruti sh ow ner, a carpe nter,
desire to leave the country was rega rded as on one of his drinking binges and gets lost in
sinful if not crimina l. The wo rld ended where the hustle and bustle of the stree t. She is
the Soviet bord er did. Beyond it, there lay the picked up by a circ us perfor mer who
dark ness - without form and void, an alien beco mes her benefactor, adopts her and
capitalist jun gle craw ling with Co ld Warri ors teaches her some tricks, so she starts a crea-
and Imperialists, corrupted by the exploita- tive life of her ow n as a circus artist. But on
tion of the masses and the depravity of the the day of her perform ance, she suddenly
upper classes, from which we we re defended hears the drunken voice of her form er owner
in our soc ia list paradise by our glorious ca lling out her name, loses her head and leaps
Soviet Arm y. Therefore , the onl y way out out of the arena to run madl y after this dear
was up, vertica lly. Sputnik was for us like a voice, returning to the familiar depravity of
bottl e thrown into the sea , with a message for home. Laika' s time in the circ us of Sovie t cos -
the outside world - the message that we did monauts was also very brief. This is why Sput-
ex ist, inside. nik for me represent s not only triumphant
In the Soviet Union, it was much eas ier to flight but also tragic landi ng - the impossibil-
become a cosmonaut than to get an ex it visa ity of escape from your past. To quote a
to travel abroad. Thi s is why we , Soviet Soviet patrioti c song on space travel: "The
ado lesce nt boys, all wa nted to fly. Ou r motherl and hears, the motherland knows
cosmi c am bitions we re hardl y und ermin ed exac tly where her son flies in the cloud s".
a year later by the tragic fate of the first live Unless , that is, you are prepared to limit
creatu re in space : a dog ca lled Laika. Laika your flight s to the do main of your dreams, as
died of suffoca tion in her over hea ted caps ule I did in my adolesce nt years. The n, two
in Sputnik No 2, and was burnt in space. To decades after the laun ch of the first Sp utnik, I
comm em orate this hero ic sac rifice, the mana ged to get an exit visa, flew away from
Soviet tobacco indu stry produ ced a new the Soviet Union and success fully land ed in
brand of cigarettes ca lled "L aika": as if the Great Brit ain. The country I em igrated from
burning end of eve ry cigare tte was a does not ex ist any more . I do. Perh aps a new
re minder of Laik a' s fate. generation of Sputni ks should be mod elled
Before Laika became a cosmonaut , she after us, the dream-fl yers.
Doctor Zhivago. I didn' t know that the was a stray wa ndering the streets of Mosco w,
Western liter ary world was at the same time and that is why she reminded every Soviet This is an edited version of a text to be
in turm oil ove r the publica tion of Vladimir child of a beloved can ine charac ter from broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on October 2, two
Nabokov's Lolita. These facts, personalities, Chek hov's melancholic story "Kashtanka": days before the fiftie th anniversary of the
boo ks, historical dates relati ng to the wider the tale of a femal e mongrel, like Laika , who launch of Sputnik.
wor ld simp ly did not exist for a Soviet child.
We spe nt our childhood in a huge square
courtya rd, surro unded on four sides by apa rt-
ment block s. There we re eve n gates to be
shut for the nigh t. The yard was a uni verse
of its ow n. There was a playground in the
middle. But we preferred places that were
raised high above the ground, such as the
roofs of big industrial garages - we imit ated
the laun ch of Sputnik by jumping off these
height s into the snow . We also spent many
hours insid e the grea t loft s und er the roofs of
our apartme nt blocks. You cou ld eas ily cl imb
out on the roof itself - a dangerou s place to
be sta nding, but closer to the night sky than
any other place in the vicinity.
The who le country resembl ed that
courtyard. People' s movements were closely
mon itored in capital cities. It is difficult to
comprehend, now, how meticulously the geo-
grap hy of life was regime nted, how travelling
even inside the country was strictly regulated.
Entire region s in Northern Russia and, of
course, in Siberia were firml y closed to outsid-
ers. There were so-called "zones", tightly con-
trolled by the security forces, because they
were locations either of corrective-labour
camps , or military installations, or gold mines.
Eve n in Mos cow such no-go areas ex isted .
Each Soviet c itizen had an internal passpo rt,
a kind of ID card which also served as your
residenc e permit. If you we re born in one
place you could not freely move and settle
down in another. A nd it was practica lly
imp ossibl e for an ordinary Sov iet citizen
from the provinces to acquire a residenc e per-
mit for Mosco w without a little help from a Events take place in the historic town of Wood stock
Party boss or a powerful State institution. To and Blenheim Palace - only 8 miles north of Oxford,
be born and live in Moscow was perc eived as
one step closer to the skies. The distant stars
To receive a programme please contact: telephone 01993 810851
above us were mere twins of the red stars of
the Kremlin tower s.
woodstock.celebrates.books@ hotmai I.CO.U k
Perh aps, subco nsciously, we wa nted to
TLS SEPTE M BER 28 2 0 07
16
ome fall , my fantasies of su burban
C life are revived . They began when I
was a boy, and I've held on to them, I
thi nk, out of a deviant nostalgia for a way of
life that remain s almos t as alien to me as that
of a far mer. It was the term "bedroom co m-
muni ty" that first cap tured my imagination .
I thou ght it refer red to so me drea mland to
which one crep t away in the eve ning after
work . Later, I under stood the sex ual pressur e
ofthat "bedroom" , its injunction to reprodu ce
and send the chil dren to the suburban schoo l,
whose reput ation was a major reason for mov-
ing to the suburbs in the fir st place. In some
neighbourhood s the childless coup le falls
und er suspicion of subvers ion. A ma n living
alone will automatica lly appea r on the local
policem en ' s wa tch list.
My own suburban fanta sy involved a
hou se on the side of a hill surro unded by a
sca tter ing of seco nd-grow th map les, with the
Hud son Ri ver visible in the distance, and the
horn of the co mmuter train within ears hot,
but no t too loud . The perso n who lives in thi s
hou se is a vers ion of myself, but mor e intense
and exo tic. The hou se has we ighed him do wn
with a burd en of pri vacy that people in the
city are spare d . He is mor e spiritual than I
am , more co ntemplative, mor e neurotic and
lonely. He exis ts in a brave ago ny of co nform -
ism and bored om. Those who lived throu gh
the mass mig ratio n to the suburbs in the
1950 s and 60s reme mber its messian ic
natu re: bett er cars, bett er health , better
chu rches, and the wa rm patrioti sm of ow ner -
ship. By comp arison , New York Ci ty was a
parade of Old Wor ld hustlers , dope addicts
and we lfare moocher s - all of them ren ters,
and o n the way out, we we re ass ure d .
IN NEXT WEEK 'S
IS
James Davidson
Lady- gods and
lady priests
Brian Vickers
Modern classics of
classical lit crit
Kart Miller
Malice and
V. S. Naipaul
Lindsay Duguid
Black holes in
Agatha Christie
COMMENTARY
FREELANCE
MI CH A EL GR E E NB ERG
Wh en I was in my late teens, I told myself
that I was go ing to ge t und er the surface of
thi s wor ld, thou gh there was littl e real pro-
spect of my doin g so. It was part of my
projec t to "understand Amer ica" . My compul-
sion to see k out writing material in what I
knew least abo ut was at full force. I wo uld
barrel throu gh the suburbs of Westchester
in a borro wed ca r, takin g notes on lawn
sprinklers, shopp ing ce ntres, pos t-office chit
chat. I scratched out a story abo ut a yo ung
Vietnamese wo man who wor ked in the hom e
of an elec trical engi neer and his wife . I tried
to thi nk how the Day M art at the shopp ing
mall looked to her: eig hteen aisles of pain kill-
ers, cleanin g products, odo ur cover-ups and
other uncl assifiable prettifiers, cos metics and
masks. I imag ined her pond erin g the tooth-
pas te sect ion, tryin g to decid e between regu-
lar or mint, tart ar co ntrol for mula or yo ur
norm al do se of flu orid e , natu ral pas te with
myrrh esse nce or no-frills bakin g soda, pu mp
or sq ueeze tub e, medium size or j umbo. I
was wor king o ut through her the uneasy
feelin g that those Westchester town s inva ria-
bly produc ed in me . The proj ect eve ntually
proved to be hopeless. I had no way in.
Peeri ng throu gh the picture window of a
Dutch Colo nial split-leve l revealed less to me
than a glimpse throu gh the parti all y lifted
shade of a Lower Eas t Side apar tme nt.
In the mid-1 970 s my old er broth er and his
wife bou ght a hou se in Irvington- on-th e-
THEN AND NOW
TLS April 30, 1964
' Eichm a nn in Jerusalem'
Followi ng Steven E. Aschheim 's discussio n
of Hannah Arendt (pp 3-7), we look back to
the review by John Sparrow of her book on
the Eichman n trial, which appeared in the
TLS ofApril St), 1964. This major article can
be read in f ull at www.the-tls.co.uk
r. Arendt is well awa re of the diffi-
D denc e that sho uld atten d a mora l
judgm ent on any issue, and in parti-
cular o n the issues und erl yin g the case
before he r; she does not ind eed defend
Eich mann, but she is meas ured in her con -
demn ation of him ; she does no t see him as
the personification of "the for ces of dark-
ness" or, in th e pr osecuti on ' s ph ra se , "3
per verted sadist" ; she beli eves him to have
been not a mon ster but .. . an ordinary
man. She goes carefully into the juridical
foun dations of the proceedings . .. and she
dep lores in particul ar the politi call y directed
attem pt to combi ne with the prosecut ion of
an indi vidu al a demon stration of what the
Jewish race suffered at the hand s of Hitler
an d his followers - an atte mpt that involved
prod ucing a hu ge volume of evi de nce co n-
cerning eve nts with which the prisoner him-
self had littl e or nothing to do.
The most important juridical objection to
TL S SEPTEMBER 28 2007
Hud son, the fin al step, it see med , in my
family ' s sixty-year march toward s total
Americani zation. I relished riding the train
from Grand Ce ntra l to visit them , climbing
the steep hill fro m the station to their hou se.
The street was called Fields tone Te rrace , a
series of co nnec ting lawn s with no sidewalk;
a pedestri an became a trespasser ju st by
av oiding an ap pro aching car. M y visits
almos t always included some subtle, mo stly
since re, flattery of their lives.
In the subur bs, there is a spec ial onu s on
one to be happy. And I did mar vel at the
pl anted qu ality of their ex istence in that
hou se, the se lf-co nfide nce of my brother ' s
da ughters, the splendid oak tree in his yar d .
In vai n I studied my broth er for signs of rebel-
lion . M y sis ter -in-law began se lling real
es tate in the area. " If the wi fe sits in the front
sea t with yo u when yo u drive a co uple to
view a hou se" , she told me, "then write the
husband off , because she's the one wea ring
the pant s." Wh at if sitting in the back was
merely a ges ture of polit eness on the hus-
band ' s part? "W hen it co mes to real es tate
there' s no such thi ng as polit eness" , she said.
It was n' t unt il I read John Cheever's Jour-
nals in 1991 that I got a sense of the way a
suburban hou se ca n opera te on its owner ' s
psyche. In his entries from the 1950s,
Cheever makes incantator y lists of his hom e-
owner ' s blessings. He rakes the leaves off the
flower bed , puts chemica l fertil izer on the
lawn , and gree ts his wife and chil dren when
they return from churc h, "still in their stiff
the proceedings , in Or. A rendr's opinion -
and she believes it to be a va lid one - is
that Eichma nn ought to have been tried by
an interna tional co urt, not because he did
not obtain ju stic e at the hands of his Israeli
ju dges, but because his participation in geno-
cide was a crime aga inst hum anit y and not
merely a crime (the crime of multiple
mu rder) aga inst the Jewish people: " In so
far as the victims we re Jews, it was right
and proper that a Jewish court sho uld sit in
judgm ent ; but in so far as the crime was a
crime agai nst hum anit y, it needed an inter-
national tribunal to do ju stice to it." Or.
Arendt adm its that the actual court achieve d
witho ut inju stice " its main pur pose" - "to
prosecute and to defend , to judge and to
punish Ado lf Eichma nn".
Or. Are ndt devotes something like half
her hook to a su rvey of the va rio us opera-
tion s conducted aga inst the Jewish peopl e
by the Na tional Socialist regime, analysing
in detail the process of deport ati on to the
eas tern kill ing ce ntres fro m the Re ich, from
the Balk ans, an d fro m wes tern and cen tra l
Europe. Her obje ct (in which she succee ds)
is to show that the part played by Eic hman n
in these operations was a less authori tative
one than that attributed to him by the pro se-
cution , and that his attitude towards the
whole process was very different from that
de picted in the portr ait paint ed by the
Att orn ey-G eneral in Jeru salem . Eichmann
cloth es" . He insists on his happin ess. The
mo rning is "brilliant and fresh" ; he wa kes
"on the verge of irrepr essibl e joy". His wife
takes him to the train in the con vertibl e . Th e
children an d the dog com e along . Their
arriva l at the station see ms "triumphal" .
Wh y, then , can ' t he brin g "calm and intelli-
ge nce to thi s old hou se, the cozy room, the
ge ntle rain ?" .
He is "homesick" for some thing oth er than
this place, and suspec ts that his ho use has
"depressing powers", that it rend ers him pas-
sive, that with his "autumn roses" and "win-
ter twili ght s" he is "not in the big leagues" as
a writer. He seems to interp ret his unh appi-
ness in the face of such bou nty as a per son al
mora l failur e. One is at least abso lved of the
pressure to be happ y in the city, where a goo d
tim e is enco urage d but lasting conte ntme nt
amidst the mise ry of oth ers wo uld seem
incon siderate and ca llo us.
Shortly after my brother bought the hou se,
I went into business selling firewood in Man-
hattan. The wood was acquired free of charge
from a suburban develop er upriver who was
glad to have it hauled off his land. I arra nged
with my broth er to store the logs in a shed at
the end of his driveway and, as I was stacking
a cord one night while he and his family were
on vacation, a neighb our called the pol ice. A
patrol car came roaring up the dri veway, its
lightb ar flashing. One cop pointed his gun at
my face while the other shone his flashl ight
into my eyes . Th e one with the flashl ight
looked anxiously at my van, as if expecting
my posse to materialize and open fire. Finally,
they allowe d me to slide my wallet over to
them , on the ground. After study ing my
identification, they esc orted me out of town .
never kill ed with his ow n hand s or gave
dir ect orde rs for killing; his author ity was
limit ed to making arrangements for the sup-
ply of victims (by rail) and coordina ting
these arrangements in close co ope ration
with those actually in charge of the slaugh-
ter- ho uses ; hi s des ire was to be "co rr ect" ,
to see that Jews were kill ed in an orderl y
and smoo th-runni ng fashion. Or. Arendt
also has no diffi culty in show ing that mu ch
of the ev ide nce was related to opera tions in
the eas t for which Eichmanns res po nsibil-
ity was, to say the least, dubious . .. .
Th ere is an other remark able thi ng abo ut
Or. Arendt's anxie ty to und erstand the
actor s in her tragic dram a: it is stra ngely
eclec tic; it does not ex tend, unfortu nately,
to all her fell ow-J ews. Survey ing the who le
vast pa nora ma of brut alit y an d suffer ing
that sprea d itself over Europe und er Nazi
domination , what is it that she, as a Jewish
obse rve r, finds "the da rkes t chap ter in the
who le dark story"? No t the mani acal ruth-
lessness of Hitl er aod Goehh els aod the
"racial" theori sts; not the bestialiti es of
Himmler and Streicher or the tyranni es of
Kaltenbrunner and Hans Fra nk; not eve n
the grisly business conducted by those who
operated the gas cha mbers and the rest of
the gho ulish appara tus of the ex termination
ce ntres. No ; for Or. Arendt the "darkest
chapt er" is the "collaboration" of the Jews
them selves wi th thei r destroyers . . .. It was
thi s aspe ct of the book that aroused such bit-
ter con trove rsy whe n Eichmann in Jeru-
salem was first published in the United
States . ...

C LIVE JA MES
THE SUMMER O F BR ITISH F ILM
BBC Television
ven as Ingmar Bergm an and
E Michelange lo An ton ioni came
to the end of their lives, the BBC,
to acco mpany a long summer
seaso n of Briti sh film s, gave birth to a multi-
part docume ntary round-up ca lled British
Film Forever. The first part was ca lled
"Gangsters Guns and Getaways": no comma,
no apologies for brashness. " Us Briti sh love
fil ms" , the commen tary began, gramma ti-
cally darin g from the first word. Had
Bergm an eve r spoken like that in Swe dish, or
Antonioni in Italian?
But the slapdas h exuberance of language,
one hop ed , might still leave room for a less
appro xim ate und erlying idea. Perhaps us
Briti sh - I was keen to includ e myself in this
possibility, having once, while still in short
pant s, see n The Sound Burrier two night s
runnin g at the Rockdal e Odeon in Sydney -
did love film s. On the level of handin g out
addicti ve free samples, the series had to be
count ed a success from the j ump.
Clips fro m much-l oved Briti sh film s
abou nded: Brief Encounter , In Which We
Serve, Gone with the Wind . . . . Wait a
second : Gone with the Wind was made in
Holl ywood . So why were we lookin g at
Clark Ga ble? Well , he was holdin g on to Viv-
ien Leigh , a star born and raised in Brit ain.
A nd why we re we lookin g at Wuthering
lleights, which was also made in lI olly-
woo d? Well, Laurenc e Oli vier was in it,
holdin g on to Oli via de Havilland . Follow the
Briti sh stars and yo u could often get to a
grea t big film that us Briti sh loved , alth ough
it might not always be a British film. In
Britain , Leigh and Oli vier, the nation' s
second mos t regal married cou ple, starred
togeth er in preci sely one film , That Hamilton
Woman, an Alexa nder Kord a misfire which
not eve n us Briti sh love any longer.
In Brit ain , Oli vier on his ow n made Henry
V, Hamlet and Richard Ill, each of them as
home-gro wn as his kipper breakfast on the
Brighton Belle: taken togeth er, they put him
at the apex of achieve ment in wo rld cinema
both as actor and direct or. But on the sca le of
intern ational box office , whic h effec tive ly
mea nt Hollywood , Oli vier never becam e
es tablished as a film star. He could say it
didn 't matter to him , but it still matters to
eve ryone who writes about him . It certa inly
mattered to Matth ew Sweet, who wro te the
comm ent ary for British Film Forever, and
might have done better to subtitle it " Despite
the Yanks" , before go ing on to face the sub-
ject of the Spec ial Relati onship squarely,
instead of findi ng a dozen different self-
decei ving ways of leaving it out.
The most glaring self-dece ption was a
persistent failure to follo w the money. The
Britishfilm andthe background in the background
Money into light
Diana Dors in Yield to the Night, 1956
director John Boorm an once said that fil m
turn s money into light. In cinema , money
might not be eve rything, but it is always the
first thin g. In the chapter devoted to
Romance ("Longing Lo vin g and Leg- a vers"
was the exci ting title), the co mme ntary, when
it dealt with Dr Zhivago , foll owed Juli e
Christie (Br itish star) into the arms of Omar
Sharif (not Briti sh star) without noti ng that
David Lea n (British direct or) was bank-
roll ed, for his big international fil ms, by Sam
Sp iege l (not Briti sh produ cer), the erstwhile
S. P. Eag le of Holl ywood. If Spiege l, in his
role as Lean' s bagman , had needed to rely on
Briti sh money, his yac ht wo uld have been
prop elled by a pair of oars . Spiege l put the
dou gh togeth er on the assurance that the
fini shed produ ct wo uld be readil y intelligibl e
to an American audience . There neve r was
then , and still isn 't , a reservoir of fin ance
within Britain to sustain a film indu stry with-
o ut a pipe line to the A mer ica n market.
Kord a' s produ ctive heyday lasted fo r a while,
and Michae l Balcon' s for a while longer , but
without one eye on America nobody can last
indefinit ely: the true wor ding of British Film
Forever should have been " British Film
Sporadica lly" . This was the biggest them e
demanding to be treat ed by a docum ent ary
survey of the history of Briti sh film. Its
almost compl ete absenc e guara nteed that the
commentary could not be serious; so we got
sprightliness instead.
It pain s me to say that the result s were
seldo m tolerable and all too often deadly. But
TLS SEP TE M BER 28 2 007
Jessica Hynes, the actress who was given the
task of speaking the words of Mr Sweet, is
yet young, and it wasn' t her fault that she
had to say, whe n evo king the directori al rig-
o ur o f David Lean , "A nd if it mea nt ge tting
the shot he wa nted, Lean could lean" . It prob-
ably was n' t eve n Swee t's fault that he had
to write such stuff. It is a tone, the tone
of docum ent ary television in its last inch es
of termin al declin e, and the tone was almos t
certainly imp osed on him by produ cer s who
no longer know any better. Leaden verve
used to be the occas iona l mistake made by
docum ent ary production teams who, when
the task dictat ed , thought that they could
achieve humour ju st by fiddlin g with their
dicti on. (Cue archive clo se-up of Kenn eth
Willi am s with mouth formin g a sma ll circle .)
They had seriousness to depart from , and
could always get back to it. But the British
Film Forever bunch think that an unswerving
facetiousness is the only way to talk.
Would-be livelin ess came stumbling from
the scree n. Every few minutes the strea m of
sem i-co nsc iousness unint enti onally revealed
that Holl ywoo d was bein g held as the meas -
ure of true success. Who was the author of
some of "the grea test thrill er s in the histor y
of Hollywood ?" Alfred Hitch cock. "Where
else could he come from but good old
Blight y?" Ala s, the vo ice-ove r narrati ve was
not alone in its capaci ty to irrit ate. Too large
a numb er of the numb erl ess gues t experts
talked the same way . Am ong those that
didn 't , some we ighty people had been inter-
17
viewe d for the usual half a day so that the
occa sional single short utterance could be
extrac ted. From the top of the heap, Harold
Pinter was intermittentl y present, and one
doesn 't doubt that his co mplete interview
would make an excellen t pro gram me about
Briti sh film on a serious channel in a serious
world: for one thin g, his jok es, eve n whe n
bitter, would be funn y. The sa me co uld be
said of Frederic Raphae l, who was called on
to say exac tly one line. Sir Rich ard Attenbo r-
ough , who has never talked for less than a
whole day about anything, was cut to a few
paragraph s. Ann a Ma ssey was briefly there
too, and many another es tablished actor,
although one doubt s that Mi scha Barton falls
into that ca tegory quit e yet. She was there
becau se she is a real live A merican.
After a clip show ing a fra gment of the
tremend ous perform ance by Diana Dors in
Yield 10 the Night, Paulin e Co llins spoke with
authority whe n she said she coul dn 't help
wonder ing why Dors was never rew arded
with "a reall y big Hollywood career". Thu s
was the game give n away com pletely, or
would have been if it hadn 't already been
give n away ten times in every episode.
Canvas -cha ir veterans from Jack Cardiff
through to Bryan Forb es were on hand for a
few seco nds eac h. Car diff, if aske d, could
have told us that the only thin g that might
have stopped him from being lightin g camera-
man on a Spiege l-global intern ational block-
buster such as The Afr ican Queen was a few
more all-British proj ects like Black Narc issus
and The Red Shoes, but they we re in short
supply, because not eve n Mich ael Powell and
Emeric Press burger put togeth er added up to
a British Film Indu stry. For bes, if as ked,
could have told them what he once told me,
that if his popul ar thriller The League of
Gentlemen had featured even one Ameri can
big nam e, it would have cleaned up.
These two and many other for mid able
peopl e of the Briti sh film wor ld deserved
better than to be given equal time, or eve n
less, with some standard television face-
workers whose qualific ations were not
always obvious. Daisy Goodwin, whose mem-
oir of her difficult upbringing has been well
received (see the TLS, September 7), might
also know something about poetry, a subjec t
she had previously been deput ed to make
approac hable for audiences who pres uma bly
knew nothin g about poetry at all. But speak -
ing about Briti sh fil m, she deployed an even
less analytical voca bulary. About the famous
sce ne in Tom Jones when Albert Finney and
his next female target eat them sel ves into bed,
Daisy had this to say : " It' s all very kind of,
you know, phwoar !". I don't remember her
spea king the same way about John Donn e. To
remind us that she was not j ust a hot numb er
but a highbro w as well, Daisy managed to
squeeze the word "quintessentially" into her
lightnin g discussion of Far From the Mad-
ding Crowd . In the language of the higher
journalism go ne wrong, "quintessentially" is
18
the only way to say "essentially" , ju st as
"implode" is the only way to say "explode" .
Ever more grandiose and less accurate, this
detestable meta-language is always in the
process of - to use one of its favourite wo rds
- "reinvention" , as in "re inve ntion very much
the name of the ga me".
Very much charac teristic of a se lf-ge nerat-
ing patois like thi s is its levellin g effec t, by
which nob ody ca n thi nk but everybody ca n
have an opi nion. Spea king of The Long Good
Friday, someone bill ed as a broadcaster said
that "Thatcherisrn, the IRA and the Mafia"
gave the film its edge . He might at least have
co nsi de red that Thatcherism gave the film
some of its fin ance . (Ha unted all over again
by the film' s savage visual imagery, I wo n-
dered if he wo uld have spo ken more to the
point, as it were , if he had been han gin g
upside down from a hook with Bob Hoskins
breathin g the aftermath of a hot curry into hi s
face.) Wh at nobod y said was that thi s deserv-
edly ce lebra ted nailbiter , for all its crackling
plo t and stellar perfor ma nces from Hoski ns
an d Helen M irren, was yet another Briti sh
film that gave the game away: the M afia were
in it because the loca l ga ng land sce ne was
thou ght to need beefi ng up a bit fo r inter-
natio nal distributi on.
Fro m ju st the same peren nial impul se,
Yield to the Nig ht had featur ed a Ford
Thunder bird in the stree ts of So ho. But Get
Carter stuck manfull y to a Sunbeam A lpine,
not to men tio n a G Reg Cortina . Against all
odd s, there have been Brit ish gangland films
that ha ve ma naged to snare a wo rld audience
while remainin g soc ially rea listic. It might
have had so mething to do with the unex-
pec ted success of Social Reali sm itself. Afte r
half a cen tury, the cha pter on Social Reali sm
("Ha rdsh ip Hum ou r and Hero es" ) was still
ge tting over the sho ck infli cted by a respecta-
ble number of British people ' s interest in
films conce rne d with their own unadorn ed
lives .
As the commentary told us in a rare
moment of pertinence, the dire ctors, most
co nspic uo us ly Lin dsay A nde rs on, we re, in
the ma in, distinctl y upstair s. W hether their
view of down stairs was in service to a polit-
ica l progr amm e was not question ed here, but
their darin g was made plain: reali sm sho uld
have been a for mul a for bankruptcy. (T he
culminating exa mple was Ken Le ach ' s Kes,
which, thou gh it looked goo d, sounded as if
designed to go broke, with dialogu e that
wou ld have benefited from bein g subtitled
eve n in Brit ain.) My ow n me mories , how-
ever, tell me that Saturday Nig ht and Sunday
Mornin g, one of the movement' s first inter-
nati o nal hit s, wor ked not so much becau se of
its cutaway view of the decaying cl ass sys -
tem as because of its view of Alb ert Finney's
face. Out there in Sydn ey, I cop ied Finney 's
libid inou s smirk the samc way that I had
previou sly cop ied Ma rlo n Brandos snee r.
It was a port ent : there was as much
gla mo ur in the muck as in the brass. But
unl ess they em ploye d star powe r, the
co nsc iously subversive Briti sh film s nea rly
always tank ed : whateve r the co mm entary to
these progr ammes thou ght , A Taste of Honey
will rema in obdura te ly un-forever, and Scum,
which the BBC refused to transmit in its
ori ginal for m as a television dr ama , surv ives
as a film no w only because Ray Win ston e
became we ll known later. (See him in the
wonde rful Sexy Beast, featu rin g Sir Ben
ARTS
Kingsley as a psychopath with an unsettling
resemblance to Gan dhi.) But wi th the right
cast, Briti sh Social Reali st fil ms coul d, and
did, give the makers of ga ngland and action
movies the idea that the who le thin g could
stay Briti sh and still interest the world . If the
story was goo d eno ugh, even the A merica ns
wo uld sit still for the preposterou s idea that
there might be another country that spoke
their langu age but looked different , with tiny
cars and plates with hardly any food on them.
So mew here out of that idea ca me Get Carter,
whose perm anen t status was o nly mom entar-
ily co mpro mise d whe n it was rem ade with
Sy lves ter Stallo ne in the lead ing role.
hat role, as we all know, belon gs
T alw ays (British Film Forever!) to
our (all rig ht, yo ur) very own
Mi chael Ca ine, lips pur sed wit h co n-
tempt ove r teeth bared in ange r - the grea tes t
thespi an feat of his life, an d a livin g de mon-
stration of the eterna l trut h that all a star has
to do is be. (A n actor has to do more , but
even Olivier, with thou sand s of lines of
Shakespeare in his head, wo uld have give n a
lot for eve n one ro le in which he on ly had to
stand there in a smart blu e ra incoat while the
surro unding acti on mad e a hero of him .)
Wh en Get Carter came out, I saw it several
tim es on the trot , dazzled by the nea tness
with which it was put togeth er. In The Ipcress
File, wh ich I had also memorized shot by
shot, Michael Ca ine had worn glasses . In Get
Carter he didn 't. Wh at a ran ge ! And once
aga in, the leading man had a superbly suave,
imp eccabl y British heavy to outw it. In The
Ipcress File, it had been the grea t Nigel
Greene, he who had mu rmur ed "Look to your
front " in Zulu and died too yo ung . In Get
Carter it was non e other than John Os bo rne,
unforgett abl y pro vin g that he co uld have had
an author itative scree n ca reer had he wis hed,
altho ugh he might have needed a full y fun c-
tionin g Briti sh fil m indu stry to hold his mag -
netica lly petu lant face aloft, up there where
the mo ney turn s to light.
T here for a triu m ph ant moment an d th en
gone aga in, ex ulta nt at the black-ti e awards
cere mony and then bac k scra mbling for a pit-
tance, the British Film Industry has always
been a crea ture in osc illating transit , some -
where bet ween a ph oeni x and a dead duck.
Eve n in the glory years of J. Arthur Rank , the
man beati ng the go ng was the only reli able
element in the pictu re . As the A merica ns
discovered in the ea rliest days of their studio
sys tem , a fil m indu str y mu st have two tier s,
in which the seco nd-ra te output is go od
enoug h to pay the ove rhea ds: rely on the
fir st-rate and yo u' re dead. But who wo uld
be allowed to say so? At one of the serialized
co mme ntary 's many mo ment s of co nce n-
trated fa tuousness - Ruth Ellis was bein g
descr ib ed as havin g been " hung for a crime
of passio n" when, unl ess I have always been
misinforme d abo ut her sex, "hanged" mu st
be what was mea nt - I started to co ncoct my
ow n ideal version of the script in my mind.
Pinter wo uld say mor e than j ust a few
wor ds about how he and Joseph Losey and
Dirk Bogard e put The Serva nt togeth er , and
then , after the clip of Muri el Pavlow say ing
that in Doctor in the House she and Bogarde
we re ju st havin g " innocent fun ", there wo uld
be someone else to say that Dirk Bogard e
was a brilli antl y complex one-off whose idea
of inn ocent fun was to do n full leather and
TLS SEPTE M BER 28 2 0 07
rev his mo torbike in the attic, and then Sir
David Puttnam wo uld give a twenty-minute
lecture on j ust why, in Char iots of Fire, the
two lovers had to look out of the wi ndow of
their hotel in Pari s and di scu ss an Ol ym pic
stad ium that the audie nce couldn 't see .
(The bud get barel y ran to three pair s of lon g
white shor ts.) A nd then there wo uld have
been se lected readin gs, perhaps by Sir lan
McK ellen and Dame Judi Dench, fro m the
best book eve r writte n abo ut the British Film
Indu str y, My Indecision Is Final, by Jake
Eberts and Terr y Hott , where in it is exp lained
ho w Go ldc res t, eve n after Gandhi bec ame
a sac red cash cow worldw ide , still managed
to go bust because there was nothin g else on
the pro duction slate that mad e money ex cep t
a television serial abo ut Robin Hood. A nd
then .. ..
Micha el Ca ine in Get Carter, 1971
noticed, ho wever, that my ideal script
was leavin g less and less room for the clip s.
The far from ideal script on the scree n still
had the only right idea, which was to intro-
duc e the histor y of Brit ish movies to an audi-
ence that knew littl e about the movies and
nothing at all about history. That, yo u had to
remind yo urse lf, was the purp ose. For a few
luck y young peo ple out there , ha lf a minut e
of Ce lia John son and Trevor Howard
strugg ling to make their clipped acce nts
he ard above Rac hmaninov 's Second Pi an o
Co nce rto ("You kn ow what's hepp enin g,
don't yo u?") would introduce them to Brief
Encounter, not to mention Rachm anin ov.
They might even be introduced to the
bewil derin g co ncep t that there was once an
almighty wa r in which the Am ericans, whe n
they fin all y came to the aid of us Briti sh ,
save d us from tyrann y, but the sa lva tion led
to the disso lution of our emp ire, and then to
slow ly dying dream s of power, and then ,
fin all y, to a new assessment of realit y - a
process in which Brit ish film has pl ayed a
vita l part, if on ly by pro vid ing us with a store
of visual and ver ba l markers we ca n
exc ha nge when we meet. In that regard, eve n
the piti able epigrams supplied to Ja mes Bon d
com e in handy, to remind us that Fel ix Leit er
and all the other Ame ricans reall y do regard
Brit ain as a source of sophistication.
A nd they're rig ht. On e of the clu eless
viewers who needed inform ing was myse lf,
because I had not yet got round to see ing
Steve Coogan in A Cock and Bull Story, the
film based on Tristram Shandy . The qu oted
clip made me de term ined to tune in when the
complete film took its allo tted place in the
seaso n. I did so, and I was bowl ed ove r.
Coogan is so adve nturo us that other peo ple
catch origin alit y from him : whe n I reali zed
that the voice his side kick Rob Bryd on was
using to im press Gi llian And erson had been
borro wed from Roger Moor e, I fell out of
the co uch. The Am ericans ca n do some we ird
and wo nde rful stuff, but they ca n' t do
anything as bent as that. Us British have go t
Laur ence Sterne in the back ground. Us
Briti sh have go t Jane Au sten in the
back grou nd. Let' s face it: us Briti sh have go t
back grou nd in the back grou nd.
Administrative talent - the talent to handl e
talent - might always be hard to find, but
creative talent has been omn ipresen t since
Shakes pea re wrote his first O scar- winning
or iginal scree np lays for Larry . Som e of it has
eve n been creati ve eno ug h to do the who le
th ing in Britain, with no co ncess ions to the
America ns at all. That's wha t Co oga n says
he wants to do, altho ug h the Briti sh press,
incur abl y servile in thi s respect, finds it
impo ssibl e to acce pt that a Briti sh film-
maker has dream s of anything ex cept Holl y-
woo d. Joe Wri ght , the dir ector of Atonement,
has announced that he wa nts to make mor e
films in thi s co untry. The press will no doubt
remin d him that his wife, Ro samund Pike,
wa nts to make film s in Amer ica , and she is
too lovely and gifted not to. Half a century
ago, the eq ually lovely Patri ci a Roe was
lashed by her co ntract to a sma ll island , wait-
ing for the British fil m indu stry to materi ali ze
and save her. It never did.
By now, thou gh , the penny has irretri eva-
bly dro pp ed . Rosa mund Pike will appea r in
America n films , in that strange land where
men make love with their shirts on , eve n to
someo ne as beautiful as her. If she appea red
o nly in Briti sh film s, she wo uld har dl y ever
appea r. The du alit y is the realit y. But at least
we can now see the realit y for what it is.
Wh at mak es the post-i mp eri al era so much
mo re interestin g than the imp erial era is that
it nur ses fewer delu sions. Wh en I first saw
The Sound Barrier I fell so hard for Ann
Todd that I believed the script, and co ncluded
that the Briti sh reall y had been the first to go
supersonic.
But it was the Am ericans. Eve n then , they
had the fin ancial power. Luckily they have
not always used it as crassly as it suits the rest
of us to suppose . For a mir acle, the fin al
script of British Film Forever didn 't end wi th
a phon e-in qui z. M y ideal script does. Wh o
insisted that The Third Man, perhaps the
grea tes t film us British ever made, sho uld
have a sce ne to convince the audience abo ut
the hid eou s effects of Har ry Lim e ' s dud pe ni-
cillin - the sce ne that gives the story its mora l
core ? Was it (a) Ca rol Reed , (b) Gra ham
Gree ne, or (c) the clum sily interferi ng Am er-
ican producer David O. Se lznick? But yo u
alrea dy knew.

Too sublime to be popular
he Royal Opera seas on began with a
T new produ ction of Glu ck ' s lp higenie
en Tauride, an opera much hon ou red,
but less often perform ed than its reput ation
wo uld see m to warra nt. The fifth of Glu ck' s
six big wor ks for the Opera (1779), it reached
Lond on in 1796, at the King' s Theatr e, tran s-
lated into Italian by Lorenzo da Pont e. The
M ornin g Chro nicle ca lled the mu sic
"sublime and eleva ted" but "perhaps too
recherc he to be popul ar". And Iphigeni e
returned to Lond on onl y in 1840 , played by
a German company at the Princ e ' s. Mozart ,
Beeth oven and Rossini pro vided London' s
cor e repertory in those days, and Bellini ,
Doni zetti and Meyerbeer the novelti es. After
a single Cove nt Ga rden perform ance in 1842 ,
by a visiting Ger man com pa ny, Iphigen ie
was abse nt from the Royal Opera House for
well ove r a century - until Georg Solti
conducted it there in 1961.
This is perpl exin g. Iphigeni e en Tauride is
a great opera : "often consid ered G luck 's
finest work, and the greatest tragedie lyrique
of the period " (New Gro ve), "the crow ning
achievement of Gluck' s career" (Opera
Gro ve). The preferenc e that comp anies give
to Orpheus - the earliest opera with an unbro-
ken perform ance history from its first produ c-
tion (1762) to the present day - is easy to
understand . In another great opera, the powe r
of music is in music-drama made manifest.
There ' s a man- woman love interest. And in
pos t-cas trato days there' s a protag onist role
for a great mezzo . In England, Clara Butt ,
Kathl een Ferrier and Jan et Baker have been
among those who embrace d it. Around
Iph igenie en Tauride there are puzzles and
paradoxes. Handel, comp osing Rinaldo for
his London debut, assembled hit numb ers
from his earlier works into a wonderfully
coherent dram a. Gluck, compos ing lphi genie,
did much the same; he recycled number after
numb er from his earlier Italian ope ras and
-----------------------~,-----------------------
magine a futur e where Big Broth er
I con trols access to Irn Bru . ... Bill ed
as a "dys topian musical adve nture" ,
Subway is the story of Scruggs and his return
home to Edinburg h on bein g urged by a
drunken sage to spend some qualit y time
with his father. But the Edinburg h Scru ggs
find s is very different from the one he left:
surve illa nce and ID chips are used aga inst
its citi zens by the state ; smoking and the
aforem enti oned soft drink are proscrib ed or
at least tightl y cont rolled; health care is
reserved for the rich ; and hi s fath er and
former be st friend are e mbro iled in leadin g
a fightb ack aga inst the state in the name of
Com munism.
As devised by Va nish ing Po int, however,
Subway is less about the story in itself and
more about the sty lized and offb eat way it is
told. One of many conte mporary companies
aimin g to attract new audiences to theatre
by rethinking meth ods of story telling,
Va nishing Point tries to marry strong stories
with a physical performance sty le, design and
music. Here Sandy Grierso n's Scruggs
introduces various shuffles on the spot to
represent walking in different moods, while
ARTS
A N DR EW PORT ER
C h r is to p h Willib ald G l u c k
I PHI G E NI E EN TAUR IDE
Covent Garde n
Ge o rg B end a
RO M EO AN D J ULI E T
St John's , S mith Square
from his ballet La Sem iram ide riconosc iuta
into a coherent , swift-moving drama.
As prim a donna , a lyric traged ienn e who
decl aim s the lines with passion and poign-
ancy is esse ntial. Rita Gorr and then Jos-
ephine Veasey filled the bill in Covent
Ga rden's ear lier production . (At its last
revival, in 1973, Sena Jurin ac tackl ed it too
late in her career.) In the new production, we
have Susa n Grah am. She was radiant when at
Cove nt Gard en in 1985 , she created Ariadn e
Susan Graham in lphigenie en Tauride
High road to hell
SHO EL ST ADL EN
V ani shin g Poin t
S U BW A Y
Lyric Hamm e rsmith Studio
Rosalind Sydn ey pla ys all the othe r charac-
ters, indicatin g a new one by a change in
speech pattern and po sture . And , most impor-
tantl y, the whole eve nt is colo ured by the
presence o n stage of seven musician s, who
occupy most of the studio set's sma ll space.
The musicians, a Kosovan group whom the
company met on tour, have several roles: they
pro vide a soundtrack for much of the action
(abo ve which the actors are amplified); they
play music between scenes; and they become
part of the action in seve ral "crowd" sce nes.
While they do have the odd line, for the most
part the musicians interact with Scruggs by
means of music, and their apparent refu sal to
respond in speec h when addresse d accentuates
TLS SE PTEMBER 28 2 0 07
in Alexander Goehr ' s A rianna (an opera
whose revival is ove rdue) . As Gluck's
Iphigenia she was disappointing: bland , unin-
cisive. There was lovely tone but little anima-
tion of the text. Robert Carsen's stag ing of the
opera gave Iphigenia no support. Gra ham was
underlit , often lost am id the choru s in Tobias
Hoheisel' s mur ky decor of black costum es
aga inst black drop s. Simo n Keenlyside,
a vivid Orestes in the Wel sh Nationa l produ c-
tion of the opera in 1992, sang strongly but
was similarly dull ed. Paul Groves, the
Py lades, in his C-major third- act fin ale,
"Divinites des grandes ames ", sung before a
black drop curtain, drew the first applause of
the eve ning from an audience that had
thith ert o been sitting on its hand s. He sang
it ably, but in the beefed-u p tones by which
light lyric tenors now emulate Pavarotti' s
progress. Clive Bayley, the Thoas, was
a sound blu sterer. Am ong the bit part s there
was no one as rem arkable as Thomas Ali en,
the sense not only of Scruggs ' s isolation in the
piece, but also of the real-life cultural and
linguistic distance between the perform ers.
The interaction of music and action is
so metimes very satisfying. A band from Kos-
ovo might be expec ted to provide a mono-
lithi c sonic backdrop inspir ed by traditi onal
Kosovan music, and indeed this wo uld be
fine in other contexts. In this production, how-
ever, w he re the ju xtapo siti on of ac tors and
musicians seems to aim to achieve both incon-
gruity and integration , the band need s to be
able to alterna te bet ween standing out and
blendin g in. The result is a hybrid line-up ,
mixing traditi onal (tarbuks, oud), classical
(violin, ce llo) and pop (synth esiser , bass
guitar, drum s) instrum ent s, and varied sound-
worlds, ranging from Balk an tradit ional
mu sic tin ged with roc k, to plangent cla ssical
textures, to a soa ring, post- minim alist style
that is widely used by film composer s as their
tabul a rasa - think of Ya nn Tiersen ' s score to
Goodbye Lenin or any Michael Nyma n score.
19
the messenger in Cove nt Ga rde n's 1973 per-
form ance of the opera. Th e chorus , crucial
component of Gluck's drama, was banished
to the pit; onstage , twel ve actors and twent y-
four dan cers were entrus ted with enac tme nt
of their utterances. Ivor Bolton conducted the
Orch estra of the Age of Enlightenment:
decent tempi, little fire. One sighed for the
straightforward tru st in the work show n by
the English Bach Fes tiva l's lph igenie en Tau-
ride, at Cove nt Gard en in 1992- 3.
In 1776, the year of Gluck 's Paris Al ceste,
Georg Benda' s Shakespeare opera Romeo
und Juli e had its first perform ance, in Gotha .
It was perform ed in London this month by
Bampton Opera, in St John ' s, Smith Square.
Bend a is reme mbered because his melo-
drama M edea - spoken wo rds to orc hes tra l
accomp anim ent - moved Mozart to admira-
tion. His opera Romeo has a happy ending :
Ca pulet agrees to accept Romeo as a
son-in-law if Friar Laurenc e can res tore his
daughter to life. There are four princip als:
Juli et and her comp ani on Laur a are sopranos;
Romeo is a tenor , and Ca pulet a baritone.
Friar Laurence is a seco nd tenor with ju st
a few sung lines. Bend a ' s music is agreea ble,
but perh aps onl y one of the numb ers is trul y
memorable. For London' s rival Romeo
productions in 1750, John Rich ' s at Co vent
Garden and David Ga rrick 's at Drury Lane,
Arne and Boyce composed music for Juli et' s
fun eral ("Ah, hapless maid" and " Rise, heart-
breaking sighs" ). Bend a' s music for sce ne,
choru s and so loist, is evidently Glu ck-
influ enced, and rather fine.
Thom as Archer ' s church pro vides a space
that ca n be made resonant, but neith er the
Juliet, Joana Seara , nor the Ro meo, Mar k
Cha undy, chose to "use" it, preferring to sing
side-stage than to engage the audience in
the dram a. The spoken lines were feebl y
deli vered . From a comp any that boasts
among its patron s Felicity Lott , Charles
Mack err as, Roge r No rrington and David
Pountney one expec ts higher levels of
dramati c and musical achieve men t. Ma tthew
Halls conducted the Lond on M ozart Players,
statione d back stage.
The musical commentary on the action
does not go unnotic ed by the charact ers: as
his friend contemplat es suicide to the acco m-
panim ent of sombre strings, Scruggs notes
"you' re lettin g the music get to you - it' s nae
that bad" . Beyon d humour, the mu sic serves
as a means to allow Scru ggs - and the piece
as a whole - to escape his earthbound cy ni-
cism, and so me of the stronges t point s feature
the music and Scruggs' s high-intensity narra-
tion takin g turn s to draw out moment s of high
drama in slow motion.
The result is a piece that is ambitious, fun
and moderately fresh. But theatre that tries to
give mu sic an equal ro le is diffi cult to pull
off, and this production suffers from some
predictable problems. Whil e there are
mome nts in Subway when the music makes
perfect sense, the overall impr ession is that
the musicians are present as the result of a
whim rather than by artistic necessity. Mor e-
ove r, the paper-thin story line and "dysto-
pian" setting, somew hat lazil y relyin g as
they do on snippets and soundbites handed
down from George Orwell, Che Guevara et
aI, preve nt Subway fro m developin g any
depth with which to dra w in the audience .
20
A womanizing woman
he cheek y poster for thi s excelle nt
T production - a wo man in eightee nth-
century co stum e playing tenni s,
hitchin g up her skirt and scratching her bare
bott om - neatly captur es what is on offe r on
stage: polit e society with its ski rts up and
trou sers do wn , and the playfull y irreverent
treatm ent of the reassurin gly famili ar. For in
thi s new play, Caro l Ann Duffy rein vent s
the iconi c eightee nth-ce ntury woma nizer by
nimbl y chang ing his sex: thi s Cas anova is a
w oman.
Echoing her 1999 coll ecti on of poetr y The
World 's Wife, in which she retell s the stories
of fam ou s me n from a fem ale perspecti ve,
Duffy has writte n a burl esqu e vers ion of the
life of Casanova, a pic aresqu e heroine who
skips seductively fro m one adve nture to the
next. Thi s is perfect materi al for the remark-
ably versa tile Tol d By An Idiot co mpany,
dir ected by Paul Hunt er. Hayley Ca rmichae l
is faultl ess as the self-confide nt trickster who
seduces a lasciviou s monk , esc apes from her
Veneti an pri son with the help of a nau ght y
nun and then goes on the run across Euro pe,
hobnobbing alon g the way with the grea t and
the good of the mid- eight eenth century in thi s
cosmo po lita n and una shamedly anac hronis-
tic co medy. To an Eng lish Volt aire she
wistfully sugges ts that " If Go d didn 't ex ist, it
ARTS
R USS ELL GO ULBO UR N E
Caro l Ann Duff y a n d
To l d B y An Idiot
CASAN OVA
West Yorkshire Playhouse
wo uld be necessary to invent him " , an insight
which the phil osoph er eage rly writes do wn
on the very stockings that he has ju st slipped
off Cas anova's legs. And to a pomp ou s
Mozart (played by a wo man) she gives the
idea for an opera abo ut Don (or sho uld that
be Donn a?) G iova nni, a rave nous ma n-ea ter.
G irl power here becom es the stuff of shee r
fun. The cas t's impeccable ense mble perform-
anc e, played out on Na om i Wilkinsons
beaut ifull y austere set, thri ves on close
engageme nt with the aud ience, which is in
turn serve d by some deliciou sly piquant
com ed y. So me of the best lau gh s, perh aps
unsurprisin gly, were reser ved for the "fit
lass" from Leed s, played by a cross -dressed
man, who is determined to seduce Casanova
with the local delic acy: curry.
However , as Hunt er ob ser ves, Told By A n
Idiot sets out to "make theatre where the line
between com ed y and traged y is blurred" .
Duffy allows for thi s by havin g her Casanova
TLS SEPTE MBER 28 2 0 07
do the o ne thin g that the histori cal Casanova
never did: she gets pregn ant. For thi s is a play
that at once revel s in Cas anova 's self-
co nfide nt sex iness and shows the fault lines
in it. Casanova fall s in love with an Eng lish-
man (playe d by a wo man), and this see ms to
mark a turnin g po int in her trajector y, as sex
gives way to lon gin g, laughter to despair,
thou gh still with head y do ses of farcical
implausibility for go od measur e. Neve rthe-
less, havin g hand ed ove r her love child to
King Geo rge Ill , Casanov a soo n grows old
and becom es a figur e offun at the fickl e court
of a Boh emi an co untess . Is thi s the famili ar
tale of the trick ster tricked ? Or are we see ing
here the limits of femal e empowerment?
But if such limits there are, Casanova
kno ws how to overco me them. In the fir st
half of the play, she fleeces the age d Mr
Eve ry man by pro mising mag ica lly to turn
him into an attractive yo ung . . . woma n; and
at the end, she perfor ms her own magic,
snatching victory from the j aws of defeat as
she im agin es her triumphant return to Ven-
ice. What reign s supreme throu ghout is the
po wer of Casanova's ima gin ation . For a tea s-
ingly brief mom ent near the end, we see her
------------~-------------
Flight into Soho
he rout es of mos t theatric al tour s are
T based on festi val sched ules and the
locati on s of acco mmo da ting ve nues ;
not so Venus as a Boy. Its co urse , fro m
Or kn ey to So ho via Ull apo ol and Edinburgh,
refl ects the journey of its epo nymo us central
figur e. Based on Luke Suth erl and' s nove l - a
glitte ring, surrea l take on the Bildungsro man
- thi s one-ma n show allows Venus (played
by Ta m Dean Burn ) to relate his own short
histor y, describing ado red girlfriends and
violent bull yin g, flight throu gh Scotland
and fin ally pro stitution in the employ me nt of
an ex-Na zi pimp in So ho. Throughout, his
capac ity for love is show n to triumph ove r
repeat ed inju ry at the hand s of oth ers.
All this is retro spective, since the first scene
find s Venu s in his Soho room, turnin g slow ly
into go ld. Th e unlik ely nature of thi s illness
is undercut by a sugges tion that the story is a
true "memorial", written after the autho r met
Venus; episodes recounted from the hero ' s
past, both in Orkney and Londo n, also seem
to describe Sutherland from a distance. Th ese
stories, which cas t the author first as the
objec t of provincial racism and then as a
sexual ex hihirio nist, are rend er ed all the more
intri guin g since he is onstage throughout,
playin g the piece ' s soundtrack. Increasingly,
both the fant astical illness and the sugges tions
of "truth" appear to be conce its - but ev ide nce
rem ains that Venu s has the superna tural capa-
city to besto w ecs tasy throu gh sex ual co ntact,
and there is lingerin g confu sion abo ut the true
natur es of both hero and autho r.
The electric reverb eration s crea ted by
Sutherla nd 's mu sic besto w a sense of unr eal-
ity that is simultaneo usly hypnotic and disqui-
eting; a sense that is also en hanced by Lizzie
Powell ' s ingeni ou s lightin g designed aro und
sitting at her desk, quill in hand , as she writes
her story . And at thi s point the who le for m of
the play fall s into place. For this is a play
writte n in the third person: the character s talk
abo ut them selves, their wor ds passin g from
one to the other in a capti vatin g verbal ballet.
Th e technique in part lend s the dialogue a
kind of ironi c di stance, a sense of unrealit y
that is perfectly in tun e with the burl esqu e
fun of much of the action . But there is mor e
to it than that , for what the ending reveals is
that the third-p erson vo ice is actually
Casa nova's first-p erson vo ice in disgui se.
Recallin g the fact that much of what we
know of the histori cal Casanov a com es from
his ow n memoir s, the Histoire de ma vie,
Duffy' s pl ay is as much abo ut Casa nova's
tellin g of the story as the story itself. Wh eth er
what we have see n is fact or ficti on , and in
a sense whether Casanova is a man or a
wo man, is irrelevant. Ultimate ly, thi s is a
play abo ut theatre: the perfor mer Casanova,
for whom the whole world is a stage; the
Casa nova who strugg les at co urt preci sely
when she is for ced to become a mere spec ta-
tor, reduced to sho uting from the stalls whe n
a production of Don Giovanni dar es to cas t
the protagoni st as a man ; and ultimately the
Casa nova who ends the pla y born e aloft on a
huge baroqu e picture frame, happ y, presum a-
bly, with the self-portrait she hasjust paint ed
for us.
L U CY CA R L Y L E
Luk e S uth e rl and
V E N US AS A B O Y
So ho Theatre
a single vivid disc, and costume based on
club and feti sh gea r by Pamel a McB ain .
Ve nus 's fin al go lde n ensemble , acc essorized
by wing -like lur ex sleeves dripping in glint-
ing sequined threads, is breatht aki ng and
stra nge ly moving, hintin g at the di vine talent
that glints throu gh his sordid circums tances.
However, the play' s imp act is und ercut
by Tam Dean Burn ' s less than seductive per-
form ance. Burn supplies unfl aggin g energy
and passion , and bra vely states that, thou gh
he lack s the yo uth and beaut y of the lead
ch aracter, he will try to "be a Cupid" ; non e-
theless, he fail s to supp ly an appropriate
measur e of grace . His sex ually explicit co n-
fession s are deli vered with a disturbi ngly
infantile mawki shn ess, and he tends to rel ate
dra matic clim axes throu gh abrasive increases
in vo lume rather than vo ca l mo dulation -
thou gh thi s may refl ect a need to he heard
over the incid ental music.
Gi ven that Burn eo-directs the play with
Christine Devan ey, and that (according to
his prolo gue) it was he who first sought to
dram atize Suth erl and' s no vel , he deser ves
conside rable cred it for the success ful
elements of thi s production: its clever touring
struc ture , its powerful use of sound and
image and its abs orbing muddling of fact
with ficti on. But it is to be hoped that the
forth coming FilmFo ur ada ptation of Venus
as a Boy will cas t a leadin g actor who can be
a Cupid more co nv incing ly.
 21

Philip Roth and the consolations of denouement

Return of the exile from life

B HA RA T T AN DON

Phi l i p R o th
EXIT GHOST
292pp. Cape.£16.99.
9780 224081733

ne of the mos t famous passages

O in Ph ilip Roth's later fiction is

Nathan Zuckerman ' s meditatio n, in
American Pastoral (1997), on the fa llibilities
that ma ke us kin: "The fact rema ins that
getting people right is not what living is all
about anyway. It' s getting them wrong that is
living, getting them wro ng and wro ng and
wro ng and then, on care ful co nside ration,
getting them wro ng aga in. That's how we
know we're alive: we're wro ng". Te n yea rs
on, that awkward conviction still nags away
at th e ageing fi ctional w rite r 's co nsc io us ness,
eve n in its offstage peripheries; withi n the
fir st ten pages of Exit Ghos t, Zucker ma n is
reca lling the life and dea th of Larry Holli s,
one of his neighbo urs duri ng his self-
imposed exile up in the Berk shires:
An only child, Larry was sent to live with
relatives on the Naugat uck River southwest
of Hartford, just outside bleak, industrial
Wate rbury, Co nnecticu t, and , there , in a boy' s
diary of "Things to Do," he laid out a future for
himself that he followed to the letter for the
rest of his life; from then on, everyt hing under-
taken was delib erately causa l.
With that list of "Things to Do", Holli s not
only glances back (unwittingly) to James
Gatzs prog ram matic transfor mation into Jay
Gatsby in 1'. Sco tt Fitzgera lds novel, but
also j oins a series of figures with more per-
sonal resonances for Zuckerman, like Swe de
Levov in American Pastoral, and Co lema n
Silk in The Human Stain (2000) : men who
have tried to plot out and fashion a "deliber-
ately causal" life and identity for themselves
according to their ow n spec ifications. Holl is
goes further in "the utterly conventi onal struc-
ture he' d made of his life" , timin g his own
death to save his famil y the incon veni ence
of a long illness, eve n thinkin g to send
Zuckerma n a co nsolatory note before takin g
his over dose of sleeping pills.
However, despit e the narrator ' s claim that
"he had, amaz ingly, achieved every last goal
that he had imagin ed for himself', Holli s
belongs most trul y in the company of Levov
and Silk in his failur e co mpletely to co ntrol
his plot: for all his achieve men ts, there
rema ins one item on the list that he never
managed (" He had wa nted to be the father
of one boy and one girl, and only after the
fourth girl was born did Marylynne refuse
him"). In the light of Exit Ghost as a whole, it
is not an insignifi cant failur e, highli ghtin g
both the novel' s rec urrent concern with fore-
bears and fam ilies - notably, Zuckerma n's
abse nt literary father, E. l. Lonoff - and that
larger explora tion, which run s throu ghout
Roth's recent fiction , of what plots and narra-
" Untitled (Bolego)", 2006; part of a seri es of self-po rtraits made by tb e conceptual artist Rudolf Stin gel by r eworking in oil and ca nvas
existing pbotograpbic portrait s made by anotber artist. Her e Stingel is shown in solita ry contem plation of his own candle-laden
birthday cak e. It is r eproduced from RudolfStingel, edit ed by Fr an cesco Bonami
(246pp. Yal e Univer sity Press. £35. 978 0300124248).
tives can and can not do in the face of experi-
ence. At once a coda to and a retrospe ctive
deepening of the Zuckerman Bound and
America n Pastoral sequences, Exit Ghost also
brings into clear focus a painful fact that may
have passed unnoticed in the backgroun d of
the last three Zuckerma n novels: that if
Zuckerman has plotted his later life with a
noveli st ' s co ntro l, he has on ly succeeded in
his plan by plottin g him self out of active life
altoge ther. And how will that willed exile
survive re-entry into the wor ld he left behind,
the contingen cies of body and time, "the
present mome nt ... in it and of it" ?
It is precisely at this point of re-entry into
the spaces of the pas t that Exit Ghost beg ins:
it is 2004, eleve n yea rs after Zuckerma n
fled New York, its attendant traps of fame
and publ ic misund erstanding, and as Roth
punningly put it at the end of The Anatomy
Lesson (1983), "the cor pus that was his" . But
the agei ng of that "corpus" will not let him
stay away for goo d: the prostate opera tion
whic h rend ered him impotent (alluded to
frequ ently in The Human Stain) has also
m ad e him incontine nt, a nd he is back in th e
city for an operation he hopes might offer
him an escape from "the spec ial under-
garmen ts and changing the pads and deali ng
with the 'accidents '". He initi all y imagines
that his surg ical procedur e might be able to
be car ried out like a surgica l str ike - a quick
trip back to the sce nes of his old fame and
infam y (where schoolchildre n on buses once
confused him with his ow n fictional anti-hero
Carnovs ky), foll owed by an esca pe back
to the Berkshir es. Roth's narra tive has
other ideas, and Z uckerman soon discovers
how poro us his barriers aga inst the old life
in "the prese nt moment " trul y are:
In the cou ntry there was nothing tempting my
hope. I had made peace with my hope. But
when I came to New York, in only hour s
New York did what it does to people - awak-
ened the possibilities. Hope breaks out.
" Hope breaks out": Roth ' s ju xtapo sition of
blessing and contag ion is fittin g, give n the
spee d with which past mo ments break into
Zuckerman's life. First, a chance ove rheari ng
in hospital leads him to redi scover Amy
Bellette , the refugee from the Holocau st
whom he met, so briefl y and influ enti ally, at
Lonoff's house in his mid-1950 s youth, as
recorded in The Ghost Writer (1979), and
who is now dying in poverty in New Yor k.
Nex t, as he sits in one of his old haunt s
the night before he intend s to go home, an
adver tiseme nt prom pts the thought of a tem-
pora ry hou se-swap with Jamie Logan and
Bill y Davidoff , a young, liberal husband and
wife keen to get away from New York
because of Jam ies fear of terro rism. Fina lly,
with the inevitabil ity of the best (and wors t)
me lodramas, one of Jamie' s old college
boyfri ends turn s out to be Richard Kliman, a
biographer tryin g to make his name. Kliman
is as stre nuous in disco vering E. l. Lonoff's
repressed personal sec rets as Zuckerman is
pro tec tive of the long-d ead noveli st' s faded
literary repu tation. All very conve nient,
pe rhaps, on the surface, all too conve nient;
but , as Zucke rman noted in A merican
Pastora l, "history, in fact, is a very sudden
thin g" , and this novel sugges ts that the
cocoo n which surrou nded Z ucke rma n in the
stor ies of the I990s trilo gy might itself have
been a delicate thing, ju st wai ting to co llapse
on his return to his old territor y. Certainly,
in an alarm ingly shor t time, the relative
insul ation of a life lived at one rem ove from
life has given way to "the bitter helplessness
of a taunt ed old man dying to be whole
aga in" , as Zuckerman finds himself fallin g,
trul y hopelessly, for Jami e, while the mystery
of Lonoff''s biographi cal secre ts forces him
to re-evalu ate the roots of his own creative
life : " Prec ip ito usly stepp ing into a new
futu re, I had retreated unwittingly into the
past - a retrogra de trajector y not that uncom-
mon, but uncann y any how " .
No t that Zuckerman is the on ly one who
needs to reread and reco nsider: as its title
sugges ts, Exit Ghost lives in a strongly allu-
sive relationship with the Zuckerman Bound
seq uence, particul arly The Ghost Writer and
Zuckerman Unboun d - indeed, no Roth novel
since The Prague Orgy (198 5) has leant so
heavily on ear lier wor ks, by Roth and by his
predecessor s. While Zuckerma n revisits
the physical sce nes of his old New York
life, Roth' s narr ative repl ays sce nes from the
ear lier novels, notably those depi ctin g the
young Am y Bellette's disrupt ion of the
Lon offs ' m arri age ; and, as Z uckerman
once concocted the fant asy of Amy as
A nne Frank mirac ulously esca ping to an
incognit o life in America, he now distils his
ideal con versations with Jamie into a ser ies
of fiction al drama tic dialogues entitled He
and She:
HE What might that larger reason be?
SHE Escaping pain.
HE What pain?
SHE The pain of being present.
In the hands of a lesser wr iter, this might
work sim ply as creative recyclin g; but , as
befit s a novel about gene rations and succes -

TLS SE PTEMBER 28 2007

22
sions, Exit Ghost mak es mor e searching use
of the num erou s squarings-up of old and new
ve rsio ns that tak e plac e as the plot unfolds.
Indeed , that plot is itself an allusive sq uar-
ing-up : with its lon g-lo st literar y ma nuscript
in the hand s of a writ er ' s ageing lover , and its
disqui siti on s on the ethics and proprietie s
of literar y bio graph y, the novel's debt to
Henr y Jam es' s The Aspern Papers is pal-
pabl e, and it is the intrigue about the manu-
script of Lon off' s lost novel aro und which so
much of thi s story revolves. Th e reson anc es
of the idea of the "ghost writer" in the fir st
Zucke rma n novel were complex ones, in that
the phr ase could refer both to Z uckerman's
role as dream er of the non- existent , and to
Lon off' s per cei ved (or ima gin ed ) ability to
sublimate him self into the rigorous imp artial-
ity of his fiction . A s tim e we nt on , it would
have becom e clear to read er s of the American
Pastoral trilo gy that , in his self-impose d
ex ile to Lonoff' s territ ory, Zuckerma n's life
was likewise echo ing that retreat from ex peri-
ence into fictional creation . No w, ho wever , it
beco mes ominously clear to him that
Lon off' s bio gr aphic al elusive ness ma y ha ve
had altoge ther different sources, as Am y
fin all y admits to him :
So there was the subject of the novel he
couldn' t wri te and the reason he couldn' t write
it and why he said he could never publish it. So
long as he was married to Hope, Amy told me,
he ne ver me ntioned to anyone having had a
sis ter, let alo ne written a wo rd abo ut their ill ici t
adolescent lust. After they were discovered
together by a family friend and the scandal was
revea led to thei r Ro xbu ry neighb ors , Frieda
was spirited away by thei r parents to beg in life
anew with them in the mo rally pure atmos -
phere of pioneering Zionist Pale stine.
Not onl y does Zuckerman ha ve to rethink
his own literary "parentage" , but he has to
-----------------------~,-----------------------
Wake Up and be buddha
y achieving enlightenment, the histori-
B cal Buddha rend ered his ow n life a
parabl e for pos terity . "To see me" ,
De ep ak Chopra writes of Buddha in the
prologue to his bio graphi cal novel (echoing
the words of the Nirva na Sutra), "is to see the
teachin g." Yet, in Buddha, a retellin g of the
life story of Siddhartha, the ers twhile prince
of Kapilavastu , it is preci sel y thi s distinction
that Chopra urges us to see . He atte mpts to
dr aw our atte ntion to the ordinariness of his
prot agoni st by keepin g us closely alli ed to
the mind and sensibility of the young pri nce
and by inventin g new characters abse nt from
the traditional canon of stor ies about the
histori cal Buddha. Th e book is a spiritua l
Bildungsroman sew n togeth er through the
use of incid ent and eve nt to illuminate the
iconi c figur e whose name is synonymous
with the act of enlighte nment which, Cho pra
arg ues , is all too hum an .
In a prolo gu e the author reminds us that
the wor d "b uddha" does not refer pur ely to
the historical Buddha but means "one who is
awa ke". The wor ld of the yo ung prince
before he "wakes" is chara cterize d by the
pri vileges of a royal life and his entrapme nt
within the palace wa lls by his fer ventl y
milit aristic fath er Suddhodhana. Threa tened
FICTION
face the unp alatabl e fact that in hi s unshake-
able se lf-be lief and pighead ed determin ation
to find and publi sh Lonoff' s guilty secret,
Klim an resembl es a parodic yo unge r counter-
part to Zuckerman himself (" It was, unexpect-
edly, a passing rendition of me at abo ut that
stage, as thou gh Klim an were mimi ckin g (or,
as now see med more to the point, delib er-
ately mockin g) my mod e of for gin g ahea d
when 1 started out "). Both inside and out side
hi s fictional writing, Roth has made no secret
of his cont empt for redu cti vely biographical
rea dings of im agin ati ve fiction: for the Jake
Balok owskys of thi s wor ld, always see king
the root s of cre ati vity in some traum atic fact.
"You don 't create the aura of intim acy by
dropping yo ur pant s in publi c" , he rem ark ed
dril y in a 1981 inter view; "do that and most
peopl e will instin cti vely look away." For its
part, Exit Ghost featur es some of Roth ' s mo st
elega ntly barb ed depictions of, and broad-
sides against, bio graphi cal possessiveness,
from Am y' s imp assion ed lett er to the press
(" Witho ut the least idea of what is innately
transgressiv e about the literary imagin ation ,
cultural journali sm is eve r mindful of ph on y
ethica l issues") to Zuckerm an ' s complaint
to Jami e about Klim an ('There's the not- so
that reveals the so - that ' s ficti on; and then
there ' s the not- so that ju st isn 't so - that ' s
Klim an" ).
Styli stic ally , Exit Ghost is something of a
surprise : a reader accl imatized to the pro gres-
sive sidelining of Zuckerman's ow n life
du ring the Amer ican Pastoral tril ogy might
take some time to ge t used to his newly redis-
co vered ce ntra lity - almost as if Jo seph
Conra d had follo wed Chance with a pic a-
re squ e first-p er son narr ati ve entitled The
Adventures of Marlow. Nor is it a fla wless
wor k: for exa mple, Zuckerman's enco mium
on Geor ge Plimpton feel s like an insuffi-
DIPIKA G UHA
D e e p ak C h o pra
B UDDHA
A story of enlightenment
278pp. Hodder and Stoughton. Paperback, £10.99.
978 03 409 43854
by the multiple propheci es of imp ending
"u nta mea ble" spiritual yea rnings in his new-
born son, Suddhodh ana move d to shield his
son fro m the sight of suffering by ex pe lling
the age d, disabl ed and di sea sed from hi s
kin gdom. It is not until the disapp earanc e of
Siddharth a' s fir st love Sujata (w ho is an
authorial invention intend ed to eng age o ur
sympathies with his moti vation s) that the
princ e di sco vers an entirely different kind of
kin gdom ju st out side his own .
This kin gdom is distin gui shed by the
suffer ing of hum an fo rm s racked by disease
and malnutrition. Hi s di scover y paves the
way for his life as an ascetic; he abando ns
hi s wife and son to go and see k the truth.
Enlightenme nt, however , eva des him till he
is forc ed to acknow ledge that his emaciated
bod y hold s no answe rs. It is onl y throu gh a
mysti c communion with the mo on in the
TLS SEPTE M BER 28 20 07
ciently ficti on ali zed valedictor y address ; and
for all Roth ' s delib erate highli ghtin g of "the
theatrical emo tions that the horr or s of politics
inspir e" , Jami e and Bill y' s grow ing despair
as the 2004 presidenti al e lection result s
emerge ("The turn to the right in thi s country
is a mo vem ent to repl ace political institution s
with morality") is rather a stolid and und ram-
atized perform anc e compared to the rag e
of Merr y Levo v in Am erican Pastoral or
Herm an Roth in The Plot Against America
(2004). But thi s is not where the no vel' s
interest trul y lies; in fact , on e passage near
the beginning hint s at thi s:
I started to w ard the subway to take a train
do wnto wn to Gro und Ze ro. Begin there , where
the biggest thing of all occurred . . .. I never
made it to the subway .... Instead, after cros s-
ing the park, I found myself in the familiar
rooms of the Metropoli tan Mu seum .
On e might read that chan ge of dir ection
as Roth ' s resistanc e to the eas ier historical
ass ociations attend ant on a post-2001 New
York fictio n: Exit Ghos t's focu s is mor e on
the smaller ph ysical and emotional scarrings
that are part of the publicly brutalized land-
scape . And if much of the no vel plays old
aga inst new, with the present recapitulatin g
the past, Zuckerman's story highlights that
terrible form of self-refere nce aro und which
so much of Roth ' s recent work has circl ed :
the fact that ageing lampoon s us all, makes
us gro tesque bodil y parodi es of ourselves.
Wh ere the Zuckerman of the early novels
could be prodi gal with his seme n, now he
ju st leak s urin e, and the dignit y of Roth' s
writing, recalling the hard-headedn ess of his
memoir Patrimony (1991 ), lies in his not
sparing Z uckerma n the indi gnit y. Th e sound
of tim e in late Roth is not that of a winged
chariot but of a hospit al troll ey wi th badl y
grease d whee ls; and there are few American
fin al part of the book, that, sea ted und er
the pip al tree, he di sco vers the rea lity of his
etern al life.
Cho pra uses elements of the fan tastical, the
mythi cal and ex tended dream sequences to
characterize the sages, demons, di sciples and
kin gs who popul ate his work in an era when
the mystic was relati vely commonplace. Hi s
human characters read like inten sely charged
wi lls bereft of their bodi es, while dem on s
such as M ara , a con stant threat to the
introspecti ve boy princ e as he grows up, is a
black , fanged figur e resembl ing a cartoonish
figur e of ev il.
Tho ugh Chopra stays faithful to man y of
the stor ies abo ut the Buddha (w hich are
thou ght to have been passed do wn in writte n
form throu gh the Nidanakatha or the intro-
duction to the Jat aka folk tales), thi s is not a
pur ely bio graphical portr ait. Buddha cont ains
no bibli ography or source referenc es. There
is littl e me ntion of the geog raphy of the
wor ld out side the life of ritua l and luxur y
wi thin the palace wa lls. Thi s emphas izes
the young prince ' s isolation but it also dis-
tances the read er from histori cal contex t. By
detachin g the man from the teachin g and
both from a concrete sense of historical
tim e and plac e, the story is loo sened into a
writ er s who write with such power of the
loss of pow ers, with such com mand of the
chaos that haunt s and mock s eve ry attempt at
shape . Roth has one fin al indignit y in
store for Zucke rm an: Am y' s brain ca nce r is
killin g her , and a reader eve ntually find s out
that Zuckerma n's memory (the part into
which so much of his bein g retreated during
the American Pastoral tril ogy) has begun to
fail him , a revel ation which lend s a retrospec-
tive poi gn ancy to some of the no vel' s earlier
mom ent s (''1' d copi ed the phon e number o nto
a piece of scrap pap er on which I'd writte n
the name ' A my Bell ett e" ').
In these circum stanc es, it is perhaps
only fittin g that Exit Ghost sho uld end with
Zuckerman giving up New York as a bad
j ob and running back to the Berk shir es ("All
that happ ened is that things almos t happ ened,
yet I returned as thou gh from some massive
happenin g" ), altho ugh, give n that thi s is
presum abl y Zuckerma n's fin al testimony,
some readers might wis h for something a bit
more "consummate" . But Roth' s later ficti on
has often fou ght shy of the con solati on s of
denou ement , of resolvin g into major-key
fin ales: Am erican Pastoral ended with
an angry rhetorical qu estion (" W hat on earth
is less reprehensibl e than the life of the
Levo vs?") and the final four words of The
Plot Against America were " I was the
pro sthesis". If Roth is go ing to grant us these
co mforts, he wa nts us to know how pro s-
thetic they often are . "Gone for goo d" are
Zuckerman's last words here, but they ex ist
in the imagin ary space of He and She ; Roth
let s them stand, but what also stands is the
ghos tly testam ent of E . I. Lon off:
Then one morning he spoke. He had been
uncon sciou s all the day befo re . He said, "The
end is so im mense , it is its own poetry . It
requ ire s little rhe toric. Just state it plainly ."
wor ld of the rea de r's imagin ation, where the
Buddha becom es a sort of "everybuddha" ,
and the "seeker' s path" is ge nera lized into
the ex perience of what it mean s to di sco ver
the self.
Th e esse ntially secular self-help guide for
which Deepak C hop ra is best kno wn find s a
new form in a reli gion that places the
respon sibility of achiev ing happiness on the
indi vidu al (there is a section on the Four
Noble Truths and the Eightfo ld Path at the
end of thi s bo ok ). Unlike the figur e in
Herm ann Hesses cult classic Siddha rtha
(192 2), which is oft en see n as an exa mple
of se lf-indulge nt philosoph y, Cho pra 's
Buddha returns to his wife and son Rahul
in ord er to share his teachin g, and crea tes
the basis for a religion that insists that
absolut ely any one can choose to "wake up"
and be buddha.
Buddha' s am bitio us mi xtur e of myth ,
allegory, simulta neo us ly ordinary and
mystic al character s and hi storical allusion
makes the wor ld of the no vel unstable and its
boundaries difficult to see. In the end it fail s
to meet ex pectations that a mor e ex plica tory
se lf-help bo ok might fulfil , and Chopra 's
narrative does not sustain our interest as
fiction alone.

xit Music has been wide ly publi cized
E as the last of lan Rankin' s Inspector
Rebu s series; it open s in an appropri-
atey autumnal Edinburgh, onl y days befor e
Rebuss official retir em ent. T here are reflec -
tion s about this mom entou s eve nt on almost
eve ry page of the novel, for it is at the
forefront of everyone 's mind s: his superiors
cann ot wait to be rid of him ; his loyal protegee
OS Siobh an Cl arke, tipp ed for promotion
whe n Rebu s goes, is acu tely conscious of
how his influ enc e has hith erto guided her
eve ry move ; and Rebu s him self is still the
arch etypal lone wo lf, with his bare flat and
empty per sonal life. His limit ed cultu ral
interests - popul ar mu sic of the 1960 s and 70s
- are now a mark er of his isolati on from his
yo unge r colleag ues rath er than so me thing to
tid e him throu gh the emptiness of retir em ent.
In a tellin g sce ne, he and his o ld adve rsa ry Big
Ge r Ca fferty , a career crimina l, discu ss the
futu re. Ca fferty has big plans, invol ving
Atlantic o il, supercas inos and Russian
billi on aires. Rebu s has his poli ce pe nsion, and
Siobhan C larke has been give n ch arge of the
ca se they have been wor king o n togeth er.
Reb us dominates thi s no vel in spite of
the wea kness of his positi on . But one wo n-
ders if readers not alrea dy familiar with the
earlier novel s in the series wou ld ge t mu ch
sense of quite why the old , turbulent Rebu s
made Ra nkin's re putatio n and how he has
continued to have suc h a hold on reader s. In
Exit Music he is a m uch softer, mell ower
character.
T he self-des truc tive bin ge drinking is
almos t go ne - here, fallin g as lee p with a
-----------------------~,-----------------------
In small
Scottish
towns
L U CY D ALL AS
R on Butl in
NO MOR E ANGE LS
207pp. Serpent's Ta il. Paperback, £8.99 .
978 I 852429546
on Butlin 's wor k com es rec om-
R
mend ed by lan Ra nki n (w ho provides
the int rodu ction to No More Angels)
Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner. But while this
places him right at the hea rt of co ntem-porary
Sco ttish literature, and the stories in this boo k
are ce rtainly firml y ro oted in Sco tland, there
is a unive rsality to them that transcend s their
setting. Butlin' s charac ters live, or rathe r sur-
vive, in sma ll, hop eless to wn s whe re there are
no job s and everyone knows ea ch othe r, or in
anon ymo us cit y stree ts, whe re nobod y cares
who yo u are . Mo st of these charac ters inh abit
a hard wo rld, a bleak visio n of modern Sco t-
land in which moth er s die, fath er s break
down and almost everyone drinks too muc h.
Wh en there is a possibilit y of hope or rede mp-
tion , as in the opening story , "How the
Angels Fly In" , it is almos t too much to bear.
Th er e is hum our to be found, however, am id
the misery; "Taking Jazza' s Place" skewers
FICTION
Edinburgh underbelly
H EATH ER O 'DONOGH U E
l an R ankin
EX IT MUS IC
400pp. Orion. £ 18.99.
9780752868608
glass of whisky in his hand, he wa kes to find
his drink un spill ed ; in an ea rlier novel the
same proc edu re with a light ed ciga rette
nea rly burnt do wn his flat. He still doesn 't
ea t properl y, but the squa lor of the half-
empty takeaway carto ns litt eri ng the flat has
becom e less ob viou s. His shar pness toward s
Siobha n C lar ke is now littl e mor e than
fri endl y, eve n affec tionate , bant er (though
ther e is an ec ho of his old ways whe n he
kee ps the discover y of an important piece
of ev idence to hi mself). An d whe n he is
tentatively pro po siti oned by a reasonably
attractive professional wo ma n, he polit ely di s-
entang les him self and they part ami cabl y.
But the fight has not quite go ne out of Rebu s,
and in a classic encounter between hi mself
and the Chief Co nstable of Lothian and
Bord er s Poli ce, his natural inclination
towar ds insubordination is g ive n magnificent
free rein whe n his supe rior fooli shl y tries to
enlist his support in doin g a mildly corrupt
favou r for a person al fri end .
Of co urse , there is more to Exit Music than
the lonely eagerness of a new stude nt, and
" Not Dead Yet , Lil y?" features a pen sioner
sick of nice mann er s and go od beh aviour ,
swea ring to her self as she digs her ow n grave.
In a few sho rt pages, Butlin mak es eac h
per son a completely co nv inc ing, whe the r he
is spea king as a yo ung boy exci ted about a
part y, a wor ld-weary old lad y, or an out-
wa rdly succes sful busin essman ex plai ning
his life to a counse llo r.
The later stories incline toward s the
fant astic: the Del phi c Ora cle has an encoun-
ter with the Prime Mini ster , and Arn old
Sc hoe nbe rg (in a break fro m the usual
Sc ottish setting) tries to co nv ince so me
passer s-b y that his twel ve-t on e sys tem is
go od value for money. T hese are hardl y
stor ies, mor e like sketches or suggestions ,
but they crac kle with wit and life. Th e co llec -
tion ends with a longer story, "Alice Kerr
Went With Old er Men " , in which a school-
boy begin s to und erstand that he ca n take
co ntro l of his own life. It is beautifully done,
as Steve moves from crude schoo lboy lust
towar ds a reali zation that girls are peopl e
too , gaining flashes of insight into wo rlds
outside his ow n. T here are witty asides
("Most of his classmates knew wha t they
fanci ed signi ng o n as") and sha rp ly drawn
vig nettes - dru nke n toffs, a di sappointed
butl er - and the who le ends on a rare not e of
cautious optimism.
Ron Butlin' s ch aracter s may often be
mired in eve ryday disapp ointments or
tra gedi es, but hi s pitch-perfect ton e, co upled
wi th a minute obse rva tion of the acco mmo da -
tion s peopl e make in ord er to live wi th them-
selves and oth er s, ens ures that their stor ies
are always wor th hearin g.
TLS SEPTEMBER 28 2007
the charac ter dram a of Re bus, Clar ke , their
supe riors and tho se comi ng up throu gh the
ranks behind them - compe lling as all thi s is.
T he uncert ain postcolonial politi cs of present-
day Sc otland is cynically wove n togeth er with
the dod gy bu sin ess deali ngs of new Russian
billi onair es and old Sc ots ga ngs ters. Rankin ' s
Edinburgh is, as always, a completely
conv incing stage for high- flyin g whee ler-
dealin g as we ll as low-life veniality.
Ra nkin's ability to hold in balan ce the
elements of a co mplex plot has never been
bett er demonstrated than her e. Th e novel
ga the rs pa ce slow ly in an absorbing rath er
than page-turning narr ative, until , at len gth ,
eve nts and co nnec tions begin to pile up with
the right degree of spee d. Rankin ' s Ed in-
bur gh is a tightl y knit communit y, including
(among others, and in no parti cular order)
stude nts, bank er s, carp ark atte ndants, tourist
ghos t-to ur lead ers, memb ers of the Scotti sh
Parliament, dru g dealer s and so und-record-
ing enginee rs . Th e complexit y of the plot is
proportion al to the densit y of Ranki n' s dep ic-
tio n of the city 's social texture . He does no t
reach o ut for the wei rd, the co inc iden ta l, or
the sensatio nal; instead , he builds, with grea t
patienc e, a believabl e we b of rel ation ship s.
T ha t Exit Music opens with the brut al death
of a Ru ssian diss ide nt poet might suggest the
opp osit e: that Rankin is after novelt y, and
melod ram a. But truth is stra nge r than
The late Grimble
S AR AH CU R TIS
Ruth R end ell
N OT I N TH E F LES H
266pp. Hutchin son. £ 17.99.
978 0 09 192059 3
hose who have foll owed the career
T
of Ruth Rend ell' s Chief Insp ector
Wexford since his debut in 1964 will
be amused by the way he ha s age d appropri-
ately for hi s twent y-f irst appearance, in Not
in the Flesh. Unde r ord er s from his GP, he
tries to wa lk mor e, tak es tabl et s for high
cholestero l, is confined to a sing le g lass of
red w ine an d is re luctantly "cultivating a
likin g for salads " . He hesitates ove r me trica -
tio n and thinks the int ern et is often more
trouble than it is wor th, but man ages we ll, if
so mew ha t wry ly, the ch allen ges of political
correc toess present ed hy DS Hann ah
Golds mith, who ca lls him "g uv" rathe r than
"sir" . His boi sterou s gra ndc hildre n sign hi s
pla ster cas t whe n his wrist is brok en , and
it is through his daught er s that thi s hum ane
in vestigator becom es invol ved in the case of
the ge nital mutil ation of a yo ung Som ali girl.
New co me rs to Re nde ll's wor k will
appreciate the pre cisio n of her plotting. Th ere
is an easy flow of descripti on and anec do te,
hut no character, eve nt, or referenc e is otiose .
Tw o decayed cor pses are found in Flag ford:
one in a trench in O ld Gri rnbles Fie ld, the
other a wee k or two later in the ce lla r of the
23
Ranki n' s fictio n, as he dem on strates by
setting his ficti on al eve nts aga inst the bizarr e
actuality of the recent murder of Al exand er
Lit vinenk o, almos t darin g his read er to fi nd
the fic tion imp rob abl e.
It is becau se of his long service in the
polic e that Rebu s is so we ll placed to guide
(an d so me times cunningly misd irec t) the
reader th rou gh the alleyways of the o ld cit y,
or the corri dor s of the new pa rliame nt build-
ing. Ad mirers of thi s no vel wi ll natura lly be
inter ested to know wha t is go ing to happ en
next : whethe r Rebu s' s unri valled knowled ge
and ex pe rience of Ed inburg h's und erb ell y
will go to was te in a fu g of cig are tte smo ke
and Rory Gallaghe r reco rd s. Th er e are plenty
of tant alizin g - and, o ne sus pec ts, ca refully
calculated - trail er s here to make us wo nde r
how we ll Sio bhan Clarke will cope with her
imp endi ng prom oti on ; or how the pro mising
per son al dyn amics of her team of office rs
will play out.
Most of all, the relati onshi p bet ween
Rebu s and his nem esis, Ca fferty, is os ten-
sibly unresolv ed. In a fine ex ample of lan
Ranki n' s characteristic ability to confl ate
serious meaning and black co me dy , Rebu s
makes his way to Ca ffer ty 's hospit al bed sid e
by blithely posin g (if that is the right wor d)
as his brother. But , in Exit Music, as in
a number of its pred ecessor s, Re bus is
suspe nde d from dut y for a peri od , and one
cannot help obse rv ing that it is in thi s out-
side r's positi on that he see ms to feel most at
ease , and ind eed it is whe re he ha s do ne so me
of his best work. Retir em ent mi ght we ll be
the ideal place for thi s, and for hi m.
late Grimbles de relict bun galo w . On e man
met his death about eleve n yea rs prev iously,
the othe r about three yea rs afte r that. Who
we re they and we re they con nected?
Th e pa instaking resear ch of Wexford and
his team int roduc es us to old Grimble' s
racist so n, his wife and his curre nt or form er
neighbours. A ll are beli evabl y place d. So me
are credibly eccentric, lik e Iren e McNeil , a
path eti c elde rly widow who makes a sw ift
recover y whe n she emp loys a hand som e
yo ung carer. Wexford, not a literary ma n, has
to read the work of Owen T redow n, a popular
author who, now dy ing of canc er, lives with
his wife and bizarre ex -w ife in a hou se ove r-
looking the field. T he only uncon vincin g link
in thi s enterta ining tale is the serializa tio n in
a Sunday newsp ap er of a dau ght er ' s lo ng
search for her mi ssin g father. It is a stro ke of
luck for Wexford ' s team but may be too grea t
a coinc ide nce for the critica l read er.
Dr Huw Aled Lewis (University of Edinburgh)
A History and Anthology of the SpanIsh Folktale :
With Studies of Selected Texts
288pp £69 .95 Hardco ver
978-0-7734-5323-4 Pub. June 200 7
".. .presenting a shrewdly chosen anthology of Spanish
traditionaltales..." Dr N Round, University of Shef field
The Edwin Mellen PressLtd
T, t 01570 423356
Bmai l: cs@mell en.demon .co.uk
www .mellenpress.com
24 CULTURAL STUD IES
n 1848, the year of revoluti on s, a
I " National Assembl y" was co nve ned at
Fran kfurt, to discuss unific ation of the
German land s, civil right s and a co nstitution
So say the folk
for a futur e Reich, Th e stranges t thin g about
the assembly was its seating plan . Delegates TOM SHIPP EY
were placed in a se mi-circle facin g the
Speaker , but there was one sea t in the cent re J o ep L e er s s en
of the semi-circle, dir ectly opposite the
Speaker , set apar t from all the others . It was NA TI ONAL T H OUG HT I N E U RO P E
rese rve d for Jacob Grimm. Can one imagin e A cultural history
a Briti sh dur bar to decide the futur e of 3 12pp. A msterdam Univers ity Press. Paperback ,
the Em pire, delib erat ely and symbolica lly $32.5 0; distributed in the UK by Wiley. £ 19.50.
9789053569566
centred on a professor of lingui stic s, also
known as a collec tor of fair y tales? But
G rimm was not a mere lingui st, he was a his wor k corrobor ates we ll-know n book s like
Philolog, and by 1848 , as Joep Leerssen Eric Hob sbawm ' s collec tion The Invent ion of
point s out in his exce ptionally wide-ra ng ing Tradit ion (1983) and Benedict A nde rson' s
study, phil ology was a combin ation of lingui s- Imagin ed Comm unit ies (199 1). But unlik e
tics, literary histor y and cultura l an thropo l- the form er, he sees the pro cess in a Europea n
ogy with the pres tige of a hard sc ience and perspective, not piecemeal, and unlik e the lat-
the popul ar appea l of The Lord of the Rings. ter, he is alive to the imp act of the professors,
Grimm was there to speak, not for the nation , the libr arians an d folk-tale co llectors and Ut-
for there was no Ger ma n nation, but for an terateurs. The "fo lk" often did not kno w they
imagin ary Deutschland which he had very we re a folk till they were told so. Na tional
largely created in an unm atch ed though feelin g, which we have been taught to regard
repeatedly imitated feat of "cultural conscious- as a fact of life, was the result of a "non-stop
ness-raising". multi-medi a cult" promoted by a network of
Leerssen traces thi s Europe-wide pro cess scho lars.
fro m its beginnings to the present da y, show - In kee ping with thi s asse rtion of the vita l-
ing how Europea n politi cs change d from the ity of acade mic discussi on, Leer ssen locat es
medieval and early mod ern ga me of dyn astic one majo r stimulus for "national thou ght" in
monop oly to the present era of nation states the di sco very, in Rome in 1455 , of the sole
and EU liberal de mocracies - with its shadow - surviv ing manu script of T acitu ss Germania.
side of identity politi cs, disput ed lingui stic This pro ved to be "the single mo st influ enti al
bound aries, ethnic cleansing, whipped-up piece of Latin literatur e in post-m edi eval
nati on al hatreds and total war. In some ways, Europe" . It ge nerated a cult of rustic simplic-
Animal Subjects
An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World
Jodey Castricano, editor
£21.50 paper' 978-0-88920-5 12-3 • Cultural Studies series
With the goal of including the non-human animal
as part of the purview of Cultural Studies, these
essays call into question the boundaries that
isolate humanity from the rest of the animal
kingdom, focusing on the medical, biological,
cultural, philosophical, and ethical concerns
between non-human animals and ourselves.
Leaving Fundamentalism
Personal Stories
G. Elijah Dann, editor
£13.99 paper' 978-1-55458-026-2' Life Writing series
The contributors to this collection were at one time
deeply involved in the conservative Christian
church in North America. All have since left fun-
damentalism. These are their stories.
Harmony and Dissent
Film and Avant-garde Art Movements in
the Early TwentiethCentury
R. Bruce Elder
£46.50 cloth' 978-1-55458-028-6
Filmand Media Studies series
Elder offers a radical new look at the avant-garde
art movements of the 1910s and 1920s. The cin-
ema, he argues, became a pivotal artistic force
around which a remarkable variety and number
of aesthetic forms took shape in the early twenti-
eth century.
TLS SEPTEMBER 28 2 0 07
"Die Wacht am Rhein" (1873) by
Hermann Wislicenus
ity as opp ose d to aristocratic decad enc e ; it
provid ed a powerful image for republican s as
aga inst mon archi sts; it bolstered , or perh aps
created, the beli ef that Northern Europe ans
are mor e tru stworth y than the "Club Med" ;
and in Germ any it was res po nsible for the
cult of Arminiu s (or "Herrnann" as he was
soon ren amed ), the guarantor of Ge rma n lib-
erty by his destru ction of the legion s of Varu s
at Kalk riese in Lower Saxony in A D 9. So me
of the dafter phil ologists identified him wi th
Siegfr ied, and Varus with the great dragon
Fafnir, for, as Leer ssen point s o ut in co pious
de tail, when nation al feelin g began to spread,
one vital sign of it was felt to be the posses-
sion of an ancient epic which testifi ed to
the imm emo rial ex istence of the nation : for
Germ any, the Nibe lungenlied (republished
1807), for Fra nce, the Chanson de Roland
(1836 ), for the Ne therla nds, the Reinaert
beast epic (also 1836).
If no epic was ava ilable, collect ion s of
ancie nt ball ads wo uld do , or phil olo gists
could simply for ge epics to suit. The mo st
successful crea tion of them all was certa inly
Elias Lonnrot ' s Kalevala (1835), an ep ic put
together from ora l ball ads, its publi cati on
dat e still a natiooal holid ay in Finland. Fin-
land wo uld prob abl y never have developed
a nation al identity and wou ld not now ex ist
witho ut that book and the new prestige it
gave to what had been a back wood s dial ect
witho ut writte n form , in a territory rul ed by
Swedes and Ru ssian s. Historical novel s
sometimes had the sa me effec t. Flande rs cele-
brates its nation al day on the annive rsar y of
a battl e of 1302, but the battl e would have
been for gott en without Hendrik Co nsc ience 's
no vel , De Leeuw van Vlaenderen (The Lion
of Flanders, 1838). Conscience was imit atin g
Sco tt, whose novel s of nation al unific ati on
such as Ivanhoe (18 19) co ntinue to und erpin
the tott ery mythic al found ati on s of the Brit-
ish state. Opera also played its part , most
notori ou sly in the creation of Belgium foll ow-
ing the anti-Dutch riots that bro ke out in 1830
when D.-F.-E. Aub er ' s opera La Mu ette de
Po rtici reached the aria "Amour sac re de la
patri e" , and the audience go t carri ed awa y.
Th e opera re mains a potenti al flash point in
Flande rs, as five minutes ' intern et research
will show .
Th e ma in drive of nineteenth-century
public ceremonial, Leer ssen insists, was also
about conn ectin g with the recentl y discov-
ered pas t. It ca n be see n in politi cal archit ec-
ture, and it ca n be see n in national anthems,
of which the mo st da ngerous was of co urse
"De utsc hland uber alles ". Peopl e oft en point
out that thi s means "Germany above all" not
"Germany ove r all others" , but as com posed
by Hoffm ann vo n Fa llersleben it was quit e
sufficiently agg ressive. In 1796, Goethe had
asked , ironic all y, " Deutschland, where is it
thou gh ?" , and Hoffmann told him . It ran
(first stanza) from M aas to Me mel, from the
Etsc h to the Belt. Eve n in Hoffm ann ' s tim e
o nly the Mem el - now the Ri ver Ne ma n, o n
the bord ers of Lithu ani a and Kaliningrad -
was within a Ge rman state, in Eas t Pru ssia.
Th e Etsch, or Adige , is still in Italy. Th e
Ma as, or Meuse, is in Holland/Belgium, and
the Belt is the IWe bielt, we ll inside Denm ark
by almost anyo ne 's calculation. Unde rlying
the anthem was Grimm ' s phil olo gical asse r-
tion that a Volk meant peopl e who spoke
the same lan gu age, so that the territory of
Deut schl and was whereve r Deut sch was
spoke n: which would take in Al sace-
Lorraine, Schlesw ig-Holstein, Au stri a, the
Cze ch Sude ten land, and eve n Switzerland,
all exce pt the last to becom e sites of
A nschluss or of shoo ting wars .
Ju st as potentiall y dan gerou s was Grimm 's
stro ng tendency to defin e Deut sch as con ven-
ient. Sometimes he meant just "German",
that is, High Ge rma n, but sometimes he
mean t "Germanic" , and whe n he meant that
he sometimes included all bran ches of that
lan gu age famil y, inclu din g Sca ndinav ians,
while he often included Low Ge rma n,
namel y, Dut ch, Flemish and Nor th Ge rma n
Plattd eut sch . These wo uld mo stly have to be
re-ab sorbed , politi call y and lingui sti cally.
Som e of Grim rn' s lingui stic argu ment s we re
quit e as silly as see ing the drag on Fafnir as
Varus in disgui se, such as his claim that
Jutl and was reall y Ge rman, not Dani sh,
becau se (some) Juti sh dialect s prefi x the
definite article like German der Mann,
instead of suffix ing it like Danish manden .
Unde rlying such philological fant asies,
however , we re dead ly serious theses which
are still curren t. Irredenti sm: what had once
been " national" territory alw ays re mained
so, and mu st he taken hack , if necessary hy
"ethnic cleansin g". Lan guage/n ation identit y:
if peopl e speak your lan gu age in another
country, that pro ves it' s yours. Langu age
deni al: if co nve nient, yo u ca n relab el what its
speakers thin k is a langu age as a mere "dia-
lect" , thu s den yin g nati onal identity. The
underl yin g probl em, as Leerssen point s out ,
is that states have very clear bound aries,
dr awn on the ma p and marked by cu stom s
posts if nothing else. Lan guages, however,
do not. In many parts of Euro pe they
shade into eac h other, or ove rlap: Ca talanl
Cas tilian , Plattd eut sch/Dut ch, Se rb/Croat,

Czec h/Slova k, etc. Wherever a bound ary is
drawn , someone will always be anoma lous.
In long-established states the matter has been
largely cleared up by the delib erat e elimina-
tion of dialec ts, backed by national dictionar-
ies and state med ia. In 1794, it was rec koned
that only one French person in nine spo ke
standard French, and the National Asse mbly
recei ved a report on the need to "destroy the
dialects" , anean tir les patois . In Italy, almos t
a ce ntury later the proport ion of stan dard Ital-
ian spea kers was more like one in forty.
Lee rssen 's major achieve ment in Nationa l
Thought in Europe is to provide a schema for
co nsider ing this far-reachin g and still rele-
vant paradigm shift in self-definition, from
the Enlightenmen t onwa rds. Two question s,
however, stand out for contempora ry English-
spea kers. Where does the UK fit in all this?
And what is to be done now?
The answer to the first question is, it often
does n' t. Wh at Gordo n Brown means by
"B ritishness" remains obsc ure; while the
theor y that the people equa ls the language
has neve r wor ked for Englan d, since eve n in
the M iddle Ages it was obvious, because of
Scotland, that the English language and the
Eng lish state we re not coter minous. When it
comes to national epics, Beowulf (published
in Co pen hage n in 18 15 as apoema Danic um)
was a disaster all the way, since although it
was written in Old Eng lish it never once
me ntio ns Englan d. Several favou red Euro-
pea n strategies simply do not wor k on the
British archipelago. As for what is to be
do ne, Leerssen' s solution lies in what he ca lls
"heteronomy", the oppos ite of autonomy, or
(tho ugh he does not say this) of devoluti on. It
mea ns living togeth er instead of sepa rating
out. If you placa te a Catalan minor ity within
Spa in, you crea te a Cas tilia n minorit y within
Catalon ia. This ca n go on do wn the sca le to
the village neighb our level, and both the
Yugoslav and the Nor thern Ireland experi-
ences should have rem inded us that "inten-
sity of con flict does not di min ish at the
sma ller sca le". Yet in some plac es contend-
ing gro ups have learned to live togeth er
instead of backin g away. As a Limbur ger,
Leerssen is very aware of micro-tensions
with in Out re-M eu se, the Dut ch- French-
Ge rma n triangle between M aastricht , Liege
and Aac hen. Here, the language bou ndaries
have rem ained stable for ce nturies, but, eve n
in the Middle Ages, village courts were resist-
ing rationa lization and, in very modern style,
refu sing to repl y to any co mmunica tions not
dra fted in their ow n language. Neve rtheless
there was and is no urge towards autonomy :
the village rs ju st wa nted , as we all do,
recog nition of their customary rights, and
pro tec tion aga inst arbitrary government from
remo te centres.
This , perhaps, is a model of a kind. But
the real prohl em rem ain s the success of the
national "conscio usness-raisers" of the past
two centuri es, and the lack of any competing
European brand images now. It was the Pru s-
sian Chief of Staff Gneisenau, not an evide nt
sen timen talist, who said "The sec urity of the
throne is foun ded on poe try", while it was
Ernes t Renan who argued that natio nal ident-
ity depends on a plebiscite de tous les jours.
But the bureaucracies of Brusse ls and West-
min ster have little time for poetry, or history,
or seem ing irrelevancies like Jaco b Grimm ,
and as for a "daily referend um" . . . don' t
eve n think about it.
CULTURAL STUDIES
Before the deluge
ver 200 yea rs after the delu ge that
O swe pt away the ancien regime , the
simp lest, mos t import ant questions
about the Enlightenmen t remain the most
diffi cu lt to answer. One of these questions
has to do with its imp act as an intellectu al
move men t on politica l prac tices and institu-
tions, and its exp onents ' relations with polit-
ical powe r. Voltaire, for one, had a clear view
of the matter: "Opinion governs the world",
he wro te to d' Alemb ert in 1767, "a nd you
[the philosop hes ] must gove rn opinion" .
Since then a long interpr etative tradition has
exp lored the issue fro m all possible angles ,
expos ing the paradoxes and contradictions
associated with this project of indirect govern-
ance . The anti-author itarian leanings of the
phi losophes and their capacity to mob ilize
public opinion have been set agai nst their
eage rness to be recog nized and to enjoy privi-
leged relations with power ; their success in
exp loiting the subvers ive potential of sca n-
dals and ca uses ce lebres has been set aga inst
the persecuti ons and humili ation s they suf-
fered at the hands of the polit ical establish-
men t, as well as the feroci ous antago nisms
that deve loped within the "philosophical
party " itself.
In the concluding volume of her trilogy
Les Passions intellectue lles, aptly entitled
vo lonte de pouvo ir, Elisabeth Badint er
rema ins faithful to her choice of presentin g
the Enlightenmen t through a co llective por-
trait of its prot agon ists, draw ing both upon
the private correspondence of the majo r scien-
tists and writers, and the archives of publi c
instituti ons such as the Academ ic des sci-
ences . The merit of this app roac h is that it
offers the reader an access ible digest of archi-
val material, while avo iding easy genera liza-
tions or contrive d and dub ious interpret ative
schemes . The risk is that the issues the author
addresses occasio nally di ssol ve into a string
of enterta ining, but esse ntially disjoin ted,
anecdo tes about individual personalit ies. The
Poetry
La poesia e la fogna, due prob lemi mai disgi unti ...
Thi s river, no more disting uished than the large intestin e,
No less mysterious
With its bacterial pastoral
O nly the sac rileg ious attemp t
To catalog ue, its sump-poo l
Glitter ing with black reeds and a rusted swa n -
We did not give our lives to it:
We had no life without it.
CA R OL R UM E N S
TL S SEPTE MBER 28 2 007
B IANCA MA R IA F ONTANA
E l isa bet h B adi nt er
L E S PASSIONS I N T ELL E C T U E LL E S ,
III
Volonre de pouvoir (1762- 1778)
394pp. Fayard. €22.
9782 213 62643 7
sec tions that describe the relations of the
philosophes with fore ign mona rchs - in pa rti-
cular Frede rick II of Prussia and the Tsari na
Catherine II - show a strong tend ency to slide
into anecdo te. It is no do ubt of some signifi-
cance that major intellectu als such as Diderot
or d ' Alembert , ignored at hom e by Louis XV
and des pised and deni grat ed by the French
court, should have bee n adm ired, court ed and
offered lucrati ve and pres tigious positions in
Berli n or St Peters burg. But the acco unt of
how the edi tors of the Encyclopedic tried to
cas h in (at least morally) on such offers,
while avoi ding the dreadful prospect of actu-
ally leaving Paris for such barbarou s foreign
places, verges on the farcical. Weeks in
gloo my Pot sdam , with eve ry even ing spent in
philoso phica l tete-a-tete with Frederick , eat-
ing the drea dful loca l cuisine, led d' Alembert
to develop what he readil y mistook for a fatal
illness. Exp ressing his gratitude for the kind-
ness she had shown to his encyc lopediste
friends, Vol taire wro te effus ively to Cather-
ine: "All the gens de lettres of Euro pe sho uld
be at your feet!". At her feet maybe, but possi-
bly out of reac h, as the news that the last legit-
imate heir to the Russian crow n, Prince Ivan
VI, had been murde red in ja il by his guards,
sen t shivers dow n the spines of eve n the mos t
fervent admirers of the Tsa rina. "One must
take one's friends with their defects" , d' Alem-
bert co mmented airily; he neverth eless aban-
don ed all travel plans to the northern capi tal.
While the story of the phi losophes' ambiva-
lent rel ations with roya lty has been told
(Mo ntale)
25
before (by Badint er herself, am ong others),
the mos t interestin g aspec t of the book is her
attempt to document a shift towards politica l
co ncerns and ambitions that alleged ly charac -
terized the 1760s and 70s . To begin with, this
shift is described as the discovery of new,
more "political" fields of interes t that came
to replace the scie ntific concerns of prev ious
deca des . The mos t significa nt of these new
field s was unqu estionably crim inal ju stice: if
Cesa re Beccaria's lack of taste for metro -
politan society disappointed his Parisian
hosts, the publication of his treatise Dei del-
itti e delle pene in 1764 had a major imp act
on Frenc h opinio n. As his tra nslator the Abbe
Morellet obse rved many years later in his
Memo irs, the boo k "had so changed the spi rit
of the old crim inal courts in Fra nce, that ten
years before the Revo lutio n they were tra ns-
formed beyond recogn ition" .
Wh ile the idea of a grow ing interest on the
part of Enlightened opinion in matters re lat-
ing to gove rna nce and administra tion - such
as justice, taxation or trade - is co nvincing
enough, the subjec t of intellectu als' transi-
tion to a more direct, active role in politic s
rem ain s elusive and diffi cult to assess. Badin-
ter illustrates the issue by reca lling the short-
lived mi nisteria l careers of Turgo t and Ma le-
sherbes . It is true that on their appointme nt to
the King's Co unci l in 1774- 5 Mme du Def-
fand spoke ironically of a "government of phi-
losophes", though in fact both men belon ged
to the noblesse de robe, the class tradi tiona lly
in charge of administratio n. It could also be
argued that their personaliti es prove d, in dif-
ferent ways, unsuit ed to the slippery posi-
tions of serva nts of the crow n, and that thei r
views on refor m were bou nd to clash with
the intractabl e realit y of governance. But this
is about as far as one ca n go. It is uncl ear
whether Turgo t's effor ts to reorganize the
King' s Household, or to limit the power of
parliaments and cor pora tio ns, can be read as
part of a cohere nt po litical des ign ass ociated
with the "philosophical party ". Moreover, it
see ms likely that the state of paralysis
reac he d by Frenc h ins titutions was bo und to
preclude correc tive interventions from any
politica l side, as the unsuccessful careers of
ministers as unlike one another as Choiseul,
Maupeou and Necker clearly show.
We can interpret the Enlighten ment, fol-
lowing Koselleck ' s philosophica l approach,
as the unfoldin g of a dialectical strugg le
between di ssent and author ity; we can try to
es tablish a more detailed soc iological pedi-
gree for the actors in the movement or, aga in,
break down the issue into a chro nologica l
sequence, dividing the eightee nth ce ntury
into different intellectual or political "phases" :
we are still confronted with the asymmetry
between the comp lexity of the objec t we are
trying to grasp and the disconcerting simp lic-
ity and directness of the Revolution. In the
end, the most illum inating insight offered by
Badi nter is the vignette which con cludes the
volume , that of Voltaire maki ng a fleetin g
appearance in Par is after twent y-eight years
of exi le, in Fe brua ry 1778, shor tly befor e
his dea th, to find him self purs ued by
admiring crow ds : the whole town , record ed
the Correspondance litteraire, "threw itself
at the fee t of its idol". A n entire nation,
according to Diderot , had thu s accorded to
the grea t stra teg ist of the philoso phica l
move me nt the kind of hom age it had so
often deni ed to its sove reigns .
26
his book' s brief title we ll describ es
T its content. In Spain the period that
histori ans now call earl y mod ern has
lon g been known as the Gold en Age . Th e
sixtee nth century witn essed Spain's rapid
rise to dominanc e of both the Old World and
the New, and the seve ntee nth her fitful
declin e , but both saw too the fin est flo werin g
of her culture and art. Her paint ers in parti-
cul ar, among them El Greco, Velazqu ez and
Murillo, are uni ver sall y revered. But her writ-
ers, if we leave as ide Ce rvantes and possibl y
two mystics, St Teresa and St John of the
Cross, have yet to be full y acknow ledge d: the
inventors of the picaresqu e, poet s like Gar-
cilaso de la Vega , Lui s de Leon , Quevedo
and Go ngora, and above all the hundreds of
playwri ght s, including at least two of major
significa nce, who mad e their period ' s contri-
but ion to wor ld theatre as great as that of any
other. Rather than to adve rtise that contribu-
tion , however , A Compa nion to Golden Age
Theatre is intend ed in the main to provide stu-
dent s of Spani sh literatur e with "an up-t o-
dat e and reli able guide" , author itative and at
the same tim e refl ecti ve, as Jon ath an Thac ker
ca ndidly admits it mu st be, of his per son al
predil ecti on s.
Offer ing first an over view of the various
kind s of plays perform ed in sixtee nth-ce ntury
Sp ain (tho ugh say ing rather too littl e of the
popular reli giou s dram a fom ent ed by the
C hurc h), and setting a patt ern for later chap-
ters by dwellin g on a dozen repr esent ati ve
wor ks by seve n very different writers , he suc-
ceed s espec ially in sing ling out the featur es
of these which were to pro ve prophetic, and
in summarizing the overall trend s of develo p-
me nt.
In three chapters on the writers of the
" New Co medy" that then emerge d, Thacker
prop erly gives most prominence to the two
grea tes t, Felix Lope de Vega and Pedro Ca l-
deron , who (though their outputs overlapped
for over a decad e) can be see n to have domi-
nated successive generations. The first, a
ge nius both as dramatist and poet , was full y
c onsc io us of how to sa tis fy th e ve ry di ver se
spec tators who flocked to the corrales (open -
air theatres) that sprang up all ove r Spain in
the last qu arter of the sixtee nth cen tury , and
able thank s to an asto nishing facility to turn
o ut ove r fift y yea rs at lea st 600 comed ias . He
gave his nati on' s classic (thou gh anythin g
but Neo class ica l) dr ama its fixed yet flexibl e
for m - three acts, eac h of abo ut a thou sand
lines of polymetri c ve rse - but established,
too, its total freedo m of co ntent. Unusually,
Th acker devotes five pages to Lop e' s devel-
opme nt in his early works , discu ssing some
of the most rem arkable, and analyses at
length in later sections, alongside seven come -
dias regarded as canoni cal , seve ra l others
less frequ entl y studied, like Lo
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LITERARY CRITICISM
Corrales to court
VI CTOR DIXO N
lon ath an T ha c ke r
A C O MPAN ION T O G O L DEN AGE
THEAT RE
240pp. Ta mesis Books. £50 (US $68).
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fingido verdadero (perform ed in Eng lish as
The Great Pretenders) and El duque de
Viseo . Summing up, he sees welco me signs
that "a reh abilitation of Lope de Vega as a
major Euro pea n dramati st is under way" , add-
ing that "as a dram ati st he was a story -te ller
who und erstood and was able to depict con-
vincing ly an array of moti vation s for hum an
beha viou r".
Aft er j oinin g next , with plausible if to my
mind un per suasive arguments, those critics
and performers who have sought recentl y
to vindicate the idiosyn cratic comedias of
Ce rvantes, Tha cker turn s to oth er dram ati sts,
A sketc h by Gerd Hartung for a production of La vida es sueiio
by Calderen de la Barca in Berlin, 1980
five major and fourteen minor, also co ntem-
poraries of Lop e, but who by contrast " must
be see n as his disciples, alth ou gh not slavis h
imit ator s by any means" . Seve n works by the
mo st imp ort ant and most fertil e, known as
T irso de Molin a, are chose n for detailed di s-
cussion: these include the three best-known
of his many co medies; two mor al/th eological
dram as almo st ce rta inly his (El condenado
por desconfiado (Da mned for Despair) and
El hurlador de Sev illa (The Tri ckster of
Sev ille), in which he created the archetype
of Don Ju an); and one of his Old Testam ent
plays, La venganza de Tamar (Ta rnar's
Reven ge), which Thac ker rightly admires for
its subtle characterization. Ad visedl y, how-
eve r, thou gh less conventi on ally, he pays
•
almost eq ual atte ntion to Guillen de Cas tro,
Antonio Mi ra de Am escu a, Lui s Velez de
TLS SEPTEMBER 28 2 0 07
Guevara and Ju an Ruiz de Al arcon. In eve ry
case he look s closely at two or three of their
works, at least one of which has rarely been
studied before . But he ends thi s cha pter with
a furth er three pages on fem ale dram ati sts.
Although the theatre of seve ntee nth-ce ntury
Spa in is rem arkable for employ ing almos t
as ma ny actresses as actors, for ver y often
giving them dominant roles, and indeed for
so me prot o-feminism, we ca n name no more
than five wo men playw rights, and o nly a few
of their wor ks surv ive , with littl e clear record
of perform ance. No t surprisingly, however,
these plays have been edited and studied of
late, and Thacker comment s sugges tive ly on
ho w some were di stincti ve.
Alm ost the who le of a chapt er on the
seco nd ge nera tion is devoted to Ca lde ro n.
Reluct ant to see his co mic plays as simply
entertainme nt - "At its best, co medy asks
qu estion s as well as pro vokin g mirth" - and
pertinently contrasting his earlies t stage
works with dark er ones writte n a few years
later , Th ack er goes o n to analyse eight very
we ll-known dr amas (including his three dif-
ferent wife-m urde r plays, El alealde de Zala-
mea (The Mayor of Za la mea) and of co urse
La vida es sueiio (Life ' s a Dream ), but also
e ig ht not oft en di scu ssed , a nd then to co n-
sider less individu ally Cal de ron's myth ologi-
ca l plays and libretti for the court. Ove ra ll,
Th acker concludes, unexcepti on abl y, that the
difference between the creations of Lop e and
Ca lderon lay not in their subjec ts or them es
but in Caldero n' s mor e elaborate use of rheto-
ric, images and symbo ls, in his full er exploita-
tion of spec tacle and mu sic, and in his ca lcu-
latin g craftsmans hip, which ena bled him also
to turn nume ro us earlier comedias int o far
finer wor ks (as 1 wo uld maint ain he did
when reworking La venga nza de Tamar as
Los cahe llos de Absalon (A bsa lom 's Hair). A
fin al section deals, maybe too briefl y, with
the man y playwri ght s who collaborated with
or imit ated him, espec ially Francisco de
Roj as Zor rilla, Agu stin Mo reto, the rem ark-
able Mexic an nun Sor Ju ana Ines de la Cruz,
and the end-of-the-cen tury palace dramatist
Francisco Antonio Banc es Ca nda mo. All are
see n as havin g been crucially influ en ced by
the shift in Spa nish dra ma 's cen tre of grav ity
fro m the corra les to the co urt.
Th at move is one of the matter s discussed
in the fir st of three more innovati ve cha pters.
Entitled "Staging and Perform an ce" , thi s
admi rabl y cover s two topic s of which much
has been learnt of late: both the developm ent
and natu re of the spaces where Go lde n Age
dr ama was mounted, and its actors and their
actin g. Th acker goes on to desc ribe current
perform ance practi ce, with referen ce in parti-
cul ar to the Royal Sh akespeare Co mpany 's
major seas on of four plays in 2004 . Thac ker's
second chap ter, o utlining how and why ma ny
mo dern critics have divid ed comedias into a
plethora of sub-gen res , more sensibly catego -
rizes them (with limited sub-divisions) as
religiou s wor ks, serio us dramas and co mic
plays. Tha cker then proc eed s to describ e the
shorter theatri cal pieces inserted at every per-
form ance before these lon ger works and
between their acts, payin g speci al attenti on
to the exce ptiona l entremeses (interludes) by
Ce rva ntes, thou gh also to those by fo ur oth er
dr amatists. In a separate sec tion, Th acker
traces the developm ent of wor ks of a totally
different kind, the one-act autos sacramen-
tales (plays in hon our of the Eucharist) per-
formed at a series of open-air sites to celebra te
the Feas t of Corpus Christi, and co nverted by
the ge nius of Ca lder on into masterpieces of
allegory beside which Eng land 's much earlier
Mystery plays seem primiti ve and shallow.
Th e third of Thacker' s chapter s prov ides an
exce llen t "brief histor y" , from its ow n tim e
to the present, of the co nstan tly chan gin g
res po nses , espec ially by literary scho lars, to
Gold en Age theatre. Th ough stress ing that
the ori gin al texts have lacked a co ntinuous
traditi on of perf ormance, it e nds on an o pti-
mis tic note by pointi ng to a major increase in
prod uctions ove r the past two decades, and to
"the lon g-overdu e fin -de-siecle ex plos ion in
critica l editions of wor ks" (almo st ex clu-
sive ly, o ne ob ser ves with regret , at uni ver si-
ties in Spa in).
Ap art from an invalu able eig hteen -page
bibli ography, and a full eig ht-page index, A
Compa nion to Golden Age Theatre is co mple-
men ted by three appendices . Th e first, on the
range of different verse form s ava ilable from
moment to mom ent to Go lde n Age dram a-
tists, is very we lcome. No less useful is the
third, a we ll-c hose n se lection of sugges tions
for furth er reading. By co ntras t the seco nd, a
list of tran slation s into Englis h, seems o ut of
place in thi s hook . Stude nts should ow n and
rea d we ll-annotated editions of the or iginal
texts, and some adaptation s nam ed , though
very suitable for performa nce and for ge neral
reader s, are insufficientl y faithful ; one would
therefore not recommend their acqui siti on
by uni versity lib raries short of ca sh . My ow n,
on the other hand, will be orderin g seve ral
copi es of thi s Compa nion . Jon ath an Thac ker
is so ex per t, engaging and or igina l a cice rone
that it amp ly ach ieves its main aim, and
indeed will inspire oth er spec ialists to look
again at man y of the plays to which he draw s
attenti on .

A lark's descending flight
hy was there a seven ty-year
W hiatu s between the revoluti onary
tenets of Mary Wo llston ecr atts
Vindication of the Rights of Woman
( 1792) and the rise of Victorian rights-based
femini sm ? O ne possibl e reason was that a
conn ection was crea ted in the publi c mind
between Woll ston ecr aft' s asse rtion of
wo men's intellectu al equality and her scan-
dal ous life experience, by her husband
William Godw in's extraordinarily frank
memoi r, which appea red in 1798, the year
after her early death as a con sequ ence of
childbirth. Admirers of her book s we re afraid
to be taint ed by association with someone
who had given birth to an illegitim ate child
in Revo lutionary France , made two unsuc-
cessful attempts at suicide whe n deserted by
her Am eric an lover, and who married the
anarchi st philosopher only whe n she was
pregnant again.
But by 1816, Woll stonecr aft ' s moth erless
dau ghter s Fa nny and Mary had grow n up,
and the Napoleo nic wars we re ove r, so it
should have been an opportune moment for
the femini st legacy to be re-establi shed and
made res pec table. The younger genera tion
were cert ainl y aco lytes , readin g Woll-
stonecrafts wor ks while visiting her tomb .
But it was Woll stonecraft' s boh em iani sm in
her life, rather than her austere phil osoph y,
that cas t its spe ll and, instead of rescuin g fem-
inism, her dau ghter s inadvert entl y buri ed it
for another genera tion. At sixtee n Mary had
already decamped with her married lover, the
poet Percy Shelley, and stepsister Claire; and
now the trio return ed from anoth er trip to the
Co ntinent, having set the sea l on their infamy
by joining the mad, bad Lord Byro n in Sw it-
zer land in what was rumoured to be a sex u-
ally liberated comm une. Th at autumn the
fall- out began with the suicides of, fir st
Fa nny, Mary' s elder siste r, and then Harriet,
Autumn reading
KARNAKCAFE
r-:--- .- - - .. Nagufb Mahfoul
TranslatedbyRogerAlien
Apoliticallycharged
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200796pp
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BIOGRAPHY
CAROLIN E F R A N K LIN
J an et Todd
DEAT H AND THE M AID E N S
Fanny Wollstonccraft and the Shellcy circle
304pp. Profil e Books. £ 17.99.
978 I 86 197955 I
US: Co unterpoint. $26. 978 I 582433394
Shelley's abando ned, pregnant wife. Mar y
herself went on to lose two of her children in
1819 and then Percy in 1822 . She always felt
fate was puni shin g her for her thou ghtl ess-
ness toward s Harriet, and became prey to life-
long melancholia. Janet Todd's new book ,
Death of the Maidens carefull y unt wists the
thread s in the story of these young women:
Mary, Claire, Harriet, all of whom were infat-
uated with Shelley, to expose the scarlet
strand at the ce ntre , the enigma tic figu re of
Fann y.
Fann ys is not a cautionary tale, for
she brok e no sex ual cod es; rather, she
was the ugly duckling, the Cinderella
drudge and wo uld-be peacem aker in a
hou sehol d of geniuses and prim a donna s. Her
suicide note sugges ts that she felt she had
been slighted for her illegitim acy and
rep roached fo r bein g a burden , probably by
the histrionic second Mr s God win , and she
predi cts that her famil y will soon fo rget her
very existe nce. Shockingly, she was right.
No ne of these radica l intellectu als dar ed to
claim her bod y, which was buri ed at the
pari sh' s expense in Swa nsea , where she had
travelled by stage coach to accomplish the
deed . Her death was covered up, with eve n
close famil y memb er s bein g told lies that
she was on holid ay or had succumbed to ill-
ness. Fa nny's life and de ath reminds us of
the fam ous scene in Frankenste inw here
the creature look s longin gly in at the famil y
fr~~1
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gathering fro m which he is for ever excluded .
The atmos phere at the Godw ins' hou se in
Skinn er Street see ms to have been unpleasant
enough to drive away all the child ren , exce pt
Fa nny, as soon as they were able to lea ve.
Co leridge had been oppr essed by their
silence as children, and Godw in once admit-
ted : "When Fann y interrupts my readi ng
with a requ est to hold her on my knee and tell
her a fanciful tale, I confess I must curb my
temper" .
Todd brin gs out the heartbr eaki ng cont rast
betw een the constrain ed young wo man pro-
duced by this chill y upbrin ging and the "little
sprite" describ ed as "gay as a lark" by her
intrepid mother when they were travellin g
together throu gh Scandin avia, in sea rch of
Bourbon silver stolen durin g the Revoluti on .
Yet what mu st the young Fanny have thought
when she read , first in Letters fro m Swede n
and then in Woll ston ecr aft' s actual letter s to
lmlay, posthumously publi shed by Godw in,
of her father ' s abandonme nt of her , espe-
ciall y as he had apparently made no attempt
to recl aim the toddl er from God win on her
moth er ' s death ? Wor se, what we nt through
her mind when she reali zed that her beloved
moth er had plann ed to aba ndon her too, on
the two occa sion s she attempted suicide? Per-
haps few wo men have since conception been
so textualized, so publ icized , as Fann y. Fro m
the time she cou ld read she would have been
able to access her parent s' love story , her
mother' s privat e letters of passion and recrim-
ination , and eve n been directl y addresse d in
print in Wo llston ecr aft' s readin g prim er and
unfini shed feminist novel, The Wrongs of
Woman , whose prot agoni st writes for the
daughter she believes is dead . As she grew
up, she mu st have gradually realized the
impo ssibility of escaping her sca ndalous ori-
gins, except by embrac ing a bohe mi an way
of life her self .
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27
Thi s last piece of the ji gsaw is put into
place through Todd's pain stakin g recon struc-
tion , in slow moti on , of Fanny 's last journey.
Shelley ' s origin al sugges tion that Fanny
(who was as smitten by him as were the
other girls) j oin him and M ary in their un-
conv enti onal menage had been firmly
decl ined on her behalf by God win. By the
time she her self was ready to fly the nest, her
hint s failed to elicit a second invitation, for
her ignominious role as a gobetwee n since
then had made the young peopl e despi se her
con venti onalit y. Fann y mad e the moment ous
decision to travel to Bath to meet Mary and
Percy. Whatever happened next impelled her
to take her own life. Todd deduc es it was a
mee ting with Percy alone: from circum-
stantial evidence (Mary was displea sed with
Fanny and did not wa nt it known that Claire
was pregnant in case it was suspected that
Percy was the father), and from poetic frag-
ment s scribbled by Perc y after her death .
Whatever she asked or offered, his answer
was con stru ed as a rejection so final that
Fanny had no hop e. Her overdo se of laud a-
num in Swan sea was carefull y planned to
for estall any possib ility of rescue. Shelley
was almos t cert ainl y the person who tore
her name off the bottom of her suicide note
and failed to claim the bod y, in order to
prevent sca ndal. She would not be the last
ca sualt y of the chari smatic mixture of high-
minded idealism and aristocratic libertinism
that con stituted Percy Shelley' s version of
sexua l equa lity.
Jan et Todd' s book is pacil y plotted and
so carefull y research ed in all its details
that she is able to shed fascin atin g light
even on a re latively well-know n story . This is
a book which, while Accessible enough for
the gene ral reader, will also be welcome d by
specialists for a wealth of insight s into one of
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28
s birthday ce lebrations go, Virginia' s
A 400th see ms unpromi sing. The basic
facts of the foundation are well known.
On an April mornin g in 1607, ships ca rrying
about a hund red adventurers entered the
Chesa pea ke Bay, and for a brief moment , it
appeared that Engla nd's first perm anent
settlement in the New World was off to a
splendid start.
Within month s, however, the whole
enterprise ca me und one. The narrati ve of
Virginia's first two decad es includ es a peri od
of near-anarchy, widespread starvation, poss i-
ble ca nniba lism, the needless death of several
thousand new settlers, constant wa r with
Native Am eric ans, a regim e of marti al law,
gross malfeasanc e by the London directors of
the Virgini a Co mpa ny, and the ado ption of
racial slave ry .
Eve n in co lonial times, histori ans of
Virginia found this an em barrass ing record.
In 1705 a leading plant er, Robert Beverley,
blamed the failur es at Jamestown on the
found ers them sel ves, for , in his opinion, "the
chi ef Design of all Parti es concerned was to
fetch away the treasure from thence, aiming
more at sudden Ga in, than to form a regular
Colony" . No t much has changed. The eve nts
of tho se ea rly yea rs still spar k a troubl ed
res ponse. As Karen Ord ahl Kupp erman
confesses in The Jamestown Project, "This is
the creation story from hell".
Richard Haklu yt bore onl y indir ect respon-
sibility for what happened in Virgini a. A
scholar of rem ark able energy , he devoted
mos t of his prof essional life - which
coin cided with the reig n of Eli zabeth 1 - to
coll ectin g the accounts of sailors and explor-
ers who had visited distant and exo tic places .
In fact, as Peter C. Mancall argues in Hak-
luyt 's Promise, this man becam e obsessed
with masterin g the flood of inform ation that
travellers brou ght back from Am erica. A
vora cious reader of materials publi shed in
several languages, Haklu yt wove his encyclo-
ped ic knowledge of strange land s and cultures
into his own huge volumes, which often con-
tained no more than a lo o se assemblage of tes-
timon y from those who claim ed actually to
have seen what they describ ed. One report fol-
lowed closely upon another. Eve n in the six-
teenth centu ry so me tales of terrifyin g mon-
HISTORY
For sudden Gain
T . H . BR E E N
P et er C. M anc all
HA K LU YT'S P R OM IS E
An Eliza bethan's obse ss ion for an Engli sh America
400pp. Yale University Press. £25 (US $38).
978 0 300 I 1054 8
B enjamin W ooll e y
SAVAG E KI N G DO M
V irginia and the fo unding of English Am erica
480pp. HarperPress. £25.
978 0007 131693
US: HarperCollin s. $27.50. 978 0 06 00905 2
K a r en Ord ahl K upp er m an
THE J A ME S TOW N P R O JEC T
380pp. Belknap/Ha rvard University Press. £ 19.95
(US $29.95).
978 0674 024748
sters and bizarre cu stom s must have stra ined
credulity; others spoke per suasively of the
natural resources encountered in America.
However clum sy his editorial proc edur es
may see m to us, Haklu yt never lost sight of
the ultim ate goa l. Aga inst a choru s of sce p-
tics, he doggedl y promoted English coloni za-
tion. The time had com e, he repeat edl y
decl ared, for his ow n generation to share in
the rich es of the New World. Moreo ver,
Englishme n had an obli gation to cha mpion
the Prot estant faith agai nst its enemies
throughout the wor ld. Durin g the l5 70s and
l5 80 s, Haklu yt was haunt ed by the possibil-
ity that Catholic Spa in might achieve total
domin ance in America.
Ever an agg ress ive salesman for his
nation ' s interests, Haklu yt put for ward eve ry
conceivable arg ument for colonies . Such set-
tlem ent s, he promi sed , wo uld yield lucrati ve
comm oditi es, adva nce the Protestant cause,
annoy the Spanish, reduce English unempl oy-
ment , and eve n empty the prisons of able
men held for "small robb eries". O nly a fool
wo uld obje ct to sending these "superfluous
people into those temp erate and fertil e partes
TLS SE PTEMBER 28 2 0 07
of Am eric a, which bein g within sixe wee kes
say ling of England are yet unp ossessed by
any Christians" . Co nfronted by the und eni-
able force of such arguments, Haklu yt
dem and ed to kno w, "what nobl e man, what
gentlema n, what marchante, what citize n or
countryman will not offer him selfe to contrib-
ute and jo yne in the action?".
Alth ough Haklu yt collected scores of
tra vel accounts, he never left the co mforts
of England . Th roughout his long life, he
rem ained a booki sh person , happi er in his
own library than on a vesse l bound for Am er-
ica. Mancall lament s that Haklu yt preserved
so few personal papers. The abse nce of such
materials would in most ca ses make the biog-
rapher's job very diffi cult. But with Haklu yt
one senses that letters or a diary wo uld not
have grea tly altere d our impr ession of the
man. He lived in a world of text s. They
invited respect, verification and respon se.
Mancall uses Haklu yt' s scholarly turn of
mind to his advantage. He becom es Hak-
luyt' s student, readin g the titles that Haklu yt
read. What might have been a narro w work
thu s becomes an impressive intellectu al
histor y of how Eliza bethans attempted to
explain a new world.
Leaders of the Virgini a Co mpa ny turn ed to
Haklu yt for enco urage ment. Onc e again, he
listed all the wo nderful comm odit ies that the
region could produ ce if only Englishmen
would seize the opportunit y. Althou gh he con-
demn ed gree d, he he lped persuade ordinary
people that Jamestown offered quick and
easy wea lth. The possibility of sudden rich es
became an obsess ion, and it con vinced
Lond on investor s to purchase shares in the
company and adventurers to risk a journ ey
to a distant outp ost, where Haklu yt pro mised
they would find go ld, silver and pearl s.
The fou ndin g of Virgini a challenges Ben-
jamin Woolley in a differe nt way . In Savage
Kingdom he pro vid e s mo de rn reader s wi th a
lively, smoo thly written account of the initial
settleme nt. Woolley has tough competiti on,
however. Ca ptain John Smit h, Jam estown' s
most fam ous figure, also penned a narrati ve
of these eve nts . Over the yea rs various schol-
ars have accu sed Smith of gross exaggera-
tion , eve n to the point of outright untruth.
Oth ers have been put off by his boastful
claims about military pro wess and rom anti c
encounters. But , as we have learned from
recent scholars hip, eve n though Smith
stretched the truth, he did not invent tales.
Oth er docu ment s from the period sus tain his
genera l claim s; anthropologists wor king with
Native Am eri can materials have also found
his descriptions of Indian culture credibl e.
His basic reli ahilit y is im portant, since
much that we know about the earliest years of
the Jamestown settlement comes from Smith.
It was he who provided deep insight into the
debilit ating factionalism that reduc ed the
co lony's gove rnment to impotence. He under-
stood the settlers' horrific depression when
they discovered that almost nothin g about Vir-
ginia corresponded to what they had been told
in Lond on. And Smith left us marvellous
description s of the Native Americans who
claimed Virginia as their own. Woolley dra ws,
of course, on many other sources, but ulti-
mately he fails to rise above the details of
every day life. One misses Smith' s edgy tone.
He was a man who did not gracefully defer to
socia l superiors, especia lly when they clear ly
lacked the fundam ental qualities of leadership .
By contrast, Karen Kupp erm an adopts a
boldl y innovati ve perspecti ve on the Jam es-
town settleme nt. She shows onl y passing
interest in the scholar ly activities of Haklu yt
and his colleag ues , and she has no time for
high politi cs. Her s is an altoge ther different
interpretati ve path . For her, the foundin g of
Virginia was neither a particul arly English nor
a particularly American story. What draws her
attenti on are the many ordin ary people dur-
ing the early modern period who move d eas-
ily from culture to culture. They cro ssed polit-
ical and religiou s bound aries, some times
looking for the main chanc e, but ofte n find-
ing them sel ves swe pt up by forc es which
they did not quit e und er stand , but with which
they dea lt on their ow n terms.
Kupperm an' s analysis begins with acco unts
of travellers to the Middl e East. Some of these
writers found nothin g objec tionable about the
religion of the Mu slims. Oth ers kept moving,
all the time learnin g from per sonal exper i-
ence about how best to interact with peopl e
from very different back grounds. Smith was
such a person. Long before he sailed for Vir-
ginia, he had journ eyed through Eas tern
Euro pe, Turkey and Russia, and, like many
other Jamestown settlers, he had acquired a
well-deve loped und er standin g of how to
communicate with men and women of other
cultures. Without a doubt , Kupp erm ari' s
mos t striking accomplishment is placin g the
histor y of early Jamesto wn persuasively in a
global contex t.
When she finall y turn s to Jamesto wn itself ,
Kupp erm an find s that, like Woolley, she
does not have a lot to add to the reflecti ons of
Captain Smith. Although she ca ndidly relates
the failur es and bet rayals that plague the
strugg ling community, she con cludes her dis-
cu ssion of the Jamestown project on a curi-
ously optimistic note. Kupp erm an tells us
that "through a decade' s trial and error,
Jam e sto wn ' s o rdina ry se ttle rs and their back-
ers in England figur ed out what it would take
to make an English colony work. This was
an enormo us acco mplishment achieve d in a
very short time". If the argument is that the
colon y managed to survive , then in some min-
imal sense it was a success. But for the Afri-
cans, who in eve r grea ter numbers toiled as
slaves, and for the thousand s of indentured
serva nts who work ed hard for someo ne else 's
profit and usuall y died young into the bar-
ga in, announce ments of success might have
rung hollow. For at least another fift y years ,
the labour ers of Virginia prot ested aga inst
their oppr ession, often with force of arms .
What these three book s dramatically reveal
is how easy it was for those who dreamed of
g rea t wealth to transform oth er hum an hein g s
- prisoners, Indian s, Africa ns or poor people
- into co mmodities to be bought and sold,
used up in the dri ve for qui ck eco nomic
return s. Rece ntly, the Virginia Ge neral
Asse mbly voted unanimou sly to express "pro-
found regret" for the state's long support of
slavery . The lawm akers also apologized for
"the exploitation of Native Am eri cans" . The
fir st African slaves landed in Jamestown in
1619, and if, after nearly 400 yea rs, the
leaders of Virginia genuinely repudiate
that eve nt, then the state will indeed have
some thing to celebrate.

e live in a time when China is
W poised to cha llenge the globa l
hegemony of the United States ,
and perhaps to shape the futur e in ways that
are difficult to imagi ne. The apparen tly
unstoppable flood of Ch inese exports, ex-
ponen tial Chinese economic grow th, China's
impact on the wor ld's mo ney mar kets, eve n
the threatened po llution of the environme nt
as a by-p rodu ct of China's rapid indu strial
development , all demand our attention and
ensure a reassessment in Wes tern attitudes .
This is a far cry from the perce ived state of
China a cen tury ago , the subjec t of T. G.
Otte 's lucid, thoughtful and challeng ing book
The China Question: Great power rivalry
and British isolation. Then, the very exist-
ence of the country see med in doubt. Since
the early nineteenth cen tury, the pred atory
assa ults on China by European imperial pow-
ers, assa ults in which eve ntually the United
States and Japan enthusiastica lly participated,
had effectively ended Ch inese independence.
In addition, the increasing failur e of the Man-
chu dynasty to exe rcise effec tive intern al co n-
trol of the vas t Chinese popul ation and the
huge hinterl and seemed furth er ev idence that
China was near to implosion and collapse.
This fitt ed neatly into the preva iling
imperi al-D arwini an view of the rise and fall
of nations. Thu s, in a world where a clut ch
of ambitious imperial powers, the chief
artifice rs of a reconstru cted international
trade sys tem, and equipped with the latest
military technol ogy, were reshapin g global
relationsh ips, Ch ina appeared to be a failing
state, the "Sick Man of Asia", rather as T ur-
key had for nearly a cent ury been dismi ssed
as "the Sick Man of Euro pe" . This perception
was appa rently confirmed by Japan ' s almost
effor tless defeat of China in the brief wa r
of 1894-5 .
The wide ly expec ted disint egration of
China pose d urgent problems for the inter-
national co mm unity. This was espec ially true
for the world 's then superpowe r, Great Brit-
ain. Lord Sa lisbury, both Prim e Mini ster and
Fore ign Secre tary between 1895 and 1900 ,
articul ated th is way of thinkin g in his "dying
nati ons" speec h of 1898, when he pred icted
that "the living nation s will encro ach on the
territ ory of the dying and the seeds of conflict
among civilised nat ions will grad ually
appear". This astute assess me nt was packed
with portent. How wo uld the imperial powers
handle a situation that had hitherto been con-
tained by the tacit agree me nt not to partition
China into grea t co lonia l swa ths, as was cur-
ren tly happening in Afric a, Sout h-East Asia
and the Pacific? Would a co llapsing China
provoke the military confl ict bet ween the
G reat Power s that had so far been largely
avoided elsew here dur ing the nineteen th cen -
tury, as the world had been divided up into
Euro pean-do m ina ted imperial sys tems?
Indeed, Salisbury 's Unionist Ca binet con -
tained at least one leadi ng exp onent of the
notion of carry ing the fight to Britain's impe-
rial rivals - the Co lonia l Secret ary, Joseph
Chamberla in, dynamic and ruthl ess, and
increasin gly imp atient with the Prime Mi nis-
ter' s control of foreign poli cy.
The ins and outs of this fascin ating, and
hith ert o somewhat neglected, crisis in wor ld
hi story are very ably ana lysed by Otte. He
sets out to make us recon sider a goo d ma ny
of the diplomatic, polit ical and milit ary inter-
actions in a crucial period of globa l ch ange
HI S T ORY
Sick man of Asia
D E NIS J UDD
T. G . O t t e
T HE C HINA Q UESTI O N
GreatPower rivalry and British isolation,
1894-1 905
352pp.Oxford Uoiversity Press. £65 (US$117).
9780 199211098
and grow ing intern ational tension. His book
is clear-eyed in its objec tives and realistic in
its aims. It shows an exce lle nt gras p of the
exis ting work on the area and of the gaps in
the present coverage. Whil e it see ks to offer
an alternative view, it does so without gra ndil-
oquence or acade mic megalomani a. It is
deeply and impr essively researched , and
beautifully reference d.
Alth ough Dr Otte wr ites fro m a diplom atic
historical perspec tive, he is conf ident when
-----------------~,-----------------
Preserving a heroic failure
empus Publishing has in recent yea rs
T been respon sibl e for a torrent of titles
designed to appeal to those with an
interest in the Middl e Ages. These two book s
both address a gene ra l audience, but in quit e
different ways . The reign of Edgar, King of
England from 959 to 975, was a cru cial time
in the form ation of the A nglo-Saxon king-
dom , when a diver sity of regional identiti es
was j ust beginnin g to be knitt ed togeth er
under one centralized roya l author ity. " It is a
sign of the strength of his rule that his re ign
is so singular ly devoid of record ed incident ":
Peter Rex' s unattributed reph rasing of Frank
Stenron's judgem ent might not, you would
thin k, offer promising gro unds for a study of
King Edwa rd, but Rex is und eterred. He con-
tends that Edgars ep ithet pacificus (mea ning
"peacemaker" and not, as convention has had
it, "peaceable" ) shows that he was an "active
and energe tic ruler who pro moted peac e by
positive means". As Rex ad mits, because we
are debilit atin gly shor t of facts of the eve ry-
day kind that make a personal study possibl e
(tho ugh legal and ad ministrative evide nce is
relati vely plentiful), there are obstacles to
writing a biograph y of any individu al from
this period. What little story there is in
Rex ' s Edga r therefore sticks to the few facts
of political history or the evi dence for the
devel opm ent of instituti ons - hardly a
round ed picture of realit y, eve n for a king.
l lnfortunately, the considerahle vaga ries
of source creatio n and surviva l make it impos-
sible to say when some thing administrative
was introduc ed, as op pose d to fir st attested.
Hence the slig ht feeli ng of unease as Rex
attributes to Edgar so ma ny sign ifican t inno-
vations, such as the creation of the midland
shires or the sys tem of ship-so kes and five-
hide assessment. A co llec tion of articles on
Edga r and his reign, edited by Donald Scragg
and due out next yea r, should give tho se with
a scho larly interes t in these matters much to
think about. Rex, on the other hand, aim s for
the gene ral reader, but Tem pus has not done
TL S SEPTEMBER 28 2007
dealin g with other areas . Especially impres-
sive is his capaci ty to assess the ways in
which, for instance, the British po litical elite
had any number of other hum an contac ts
with the wor ld of business, the media, the mil-
itary establishment - an exte nsion, perh aps,
of the potent theor y of "gentlemanly capital-
ism". The book is also valuable for the skill
with which it exposes the esse ntial ineffi-
ciency of turn- of-th e-centur y British politi cal
prac tice and me thod. For example, the Brit-
ish gove rnme nt was , it see ms, unable to han-
dle both the Boer War of 1899-1 902 and the
1900 Boxer Rebellion simultane ously with
any degree of masterful ness or consis tent
self-co nfidence. As a consequence of these
uncertainties, Lord Sa lisbury as Prime Mi nis-
ter , had to be pri sed out of his dual role as
Fore ign Secre tary by a Ca binet increasingly
alarmed at his incapaciti es. In this co n-
nection, one might dispute Ottes case that
LES LE Y A B R AMS
P et e r R e x
E DGAR
King of the English 959-75
320pp.978 0 75244124 5
D o nald Sc ragg
TH E RETU RN OF TH E VIK INGS
The Battle of Maldon 991
I92pp.978 0 752428338
Tempus Publishing. Paperback, £17.99each.
its best with this book. It is repetit ive (pro per
editing wo uld have redu ced it to half its
length ), the footnot es are confu sing and
incom plete, and the bibliograph y is oddly
old- fashioned and significan tly out of date.
Don ald Scragg 's Return of the Vikings is
a different kettle of fish. The genera l reader
rem ains the target, but only the cover and the
paper qualit y (dow nmarket) sugges t that the
same publi sher is responsible. Scragg' s study
takes us to the early years of Edga r's seco nd
success or, King Ethelred, when Viking fleets
return ed to England after the long peace of
Edga r's reign . It centres on the disastrou s bat-
tle fought agai nst a Viking army at Maldon in
Essex, in 99 1, remembered and made famous
by an Old Eng lish poe m (which is provided
as an appen dix in modern English) . Scragg
se ts the scene w ith an im agin ative recon struc-
tion of the unexpected call to arms on a sunny
Sunday in August 99 1. He then briefly sur-
veys Viking activity in England from its
beginnin gs in the late eighth ce ntury, gives an
up-to-d ate acco unt of what is known from
archae ology about the ships they used, es tab-
lishes the context of the battle of 991, and fills
in so me background on the esca lating raids of
King Ethelred's reign and the English
response. His acco unt is splendidly spec ific,
es tima ting the number of men ava ilable to the
Viking and English armies at Ma ldo n and
describing the embroidere d tapestry that the
29
Cha mberlai n's activities on the wider diplo-
matic fro nt at the end of the ce ntury were
driven by the "China question" ; it is possible
that they were influ enc ed more by the need to
get a satisfactory solution to the deepenin g
and increasin gly urgent crisis in the Trans -
vaal, and South Afri ca in genera l.
The China crisis was resolved in the end,
at least temp oraril y, by Japan ' s resou ndin g
defeat of Tsa rist Russia du ring 1904 - 05.
Thereafter it was largel y "business as usual"
between the Great Powers, alth ough the pre-
cise role of Japan in China 's futur e was ope n
to much spec ulation. T. G. Otte believes that
"in term s of the conceptu alisation of
British foreign poli cy by British mini sters,
there was ' no end of isolation' :' . Narrow ly
defin ed , that may be true; but in practice, by
1905 Britain had acquired a new form al ally
in Japan, had negotiated the Entente with
France in 1904 and was busy cosying up to
the United States. In this process, however,
the China crisis was unqu estionabl y a signifi-
ca nt fac tor linkin g the diplomacy and polit-
ical imperati ves of Europe with those of
the Far Eas t.
widow of Ealdorman Byrhtn oth , the Anglo-
Saxon leader killed in the battle, comm is-
sioned to record his deed s. But the bigger his-
torical picture is always kept in play. The
defeat of 99 1, Scragg argues, did not in itself
endanger the English regime, but it did sow
the seed that grew to fruiti on in 1016, whe n
the Dane Cnut was crowned King of England.
The poem' s celebr ation of a glorious
defeat shows that the English taste for heroic
failur e is of long standing . Scragg explains
that the poem is not a versified histor y but a
type of epyllion, a descripti on of a single
heroic incident from the past, sim ilar to but
shorter than a conven tional epic. Historian s
have long va lued the poem as a goldm ine of
inform ation, rare ev idence of a time when
even ts are only known in broad-bru sh term s
and narrati ve det ail was usuall y unrecord ed .
But attitudes have change d . As historical nar-
ratives are no longer treated as record s of real
even ts, but rath er as literary construc tions, it
follows that quarrying historical poem s such
as this for facts is also a dubious exercise.
The details they "preserve" may simply
reflec t what writers wa nted their audiences to
imagine rather than what "really happened" .
Although Scragg und ercut s thi s und erstand-
ing by assess ing which bits of the poem are
mos t likel y to be "h istorica l" and whic h are
mos t probably literary embe llishme nts, he
also argues that because its purpose was to
glorify the English dead (many are named ),
the narra tive details of the poem need not cor-
res pond at all to the even ts of August 11, 991.
The many useful and engag ing illu strations
in The Return of the Vikings are of decent
qualit y, tho ugh ofte n on the sma ll side. There
are no footn otes, but a Further Readin g
sec tion is included at the end. Scraggs book
is the firs t in a new series to be published by
Te mpus (The A nglo-Saxons) . Ad verti sed as
"accessible histories of key aspec ts of Anglo-
Sax on England", they sho uld serve the
general reader well, if they match up to this
fir st contribution.
30
he Northern Right Wha le is one of
T three species of right whale, all of
which are big, fat, black whales with
no dorsal fin, broad flippers and flukes, and a
pattern of callosities on their heads. A fully-
grown right whale may be sixty feet long and
weigh more than as many tons. They are
called "rig ht" whales because whalers found
them most susceptible to killing and process-
ing: they swi m slowly , float when killed
(some other species sink) and have plentiful
blubber (which was boiled down for oil) and
long baleen plates , which were used in the
manufacture of skirt hoops, corset stays and
buggy whips. The three right wha le species
look very much alike, and are distinguished
main ly geographically. There is a Southern
Hemisphere species, known as Euhalaena
australis, and found off South Africa, eastern
South America, southern Austra lia and New
Zealand; the North Pacific population
(Euha laena japonica) which occurs sparse ly
around the Gulf of Alaska, but is more numer-
ous in the waters of Russia, Korea and Japan;
and finally, the primary subject of this book,
Euha laena glacialis. Because all right
whales breed and calve clo se to shore, they
were among the first whales hunted by early
whalers. The Basques of the Bay of Biscay
are believed to have originated "co mmercial"
whaling around 1000 AD , targeting right
whales that they spotted from stone tower s
erected on hilltops overlooking the bay. The
Pilgrims , New Eng land 's earliest European
settlers, landed where they did, in the early
seventeenth cen tury, beca use of the profu-
r--
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TlS
"": ,,,00"'''-''
EDear very sad after
Engin ... I wa: on Remember what
our last conversa ihe ;"ater wheel;
you to~d me ab~u~:iend, think back.
and th~nk ba~o'be moving slowly,
We may see~ t Ls - we ' r e moving .. ·
but the po~n . ,
James Baldwin's letters to! stanbul
James Campbell
NAT URAL SCIENCE
Whale wrongs
RI CH ARD E L LIS
Scott D . K r au s a nd
R o s al i nd M . R oll an d , e d i to rs
T H E U R B A N WHALE
North Atlantic right whales at the cro ssroads
576pp. Har vard University Press. £35.95 (US $55).
9780674023277
sion of right whales in Cape Cod Bay.
From then onward, right whales were
hunted wherever they were found. Only the
population located off Patagonia' s Peninsula
Valdes was spared: they bred in waters off a
piece of land that was sparsely occupie d by
humans . (Even today this right whale popula-
tion, which numbers around 750 animals, is
the healthiest of all.) Elsewhere , however ,
right whales were pursued so mercilessly that
the world populations were endangered
almost to the brink of extinction. To add insult
to this massive injury, people built urban
centres in the very areas where right whales
had traditiona lly fed and delivered their
calves: Tasmania; South Australia; Cape
Town; Tokyo ; Seoul; and the home waters
of the subject of The Urhan Whale, edited by
Scott D. Kraus and Rosalind M. Rolland, the
eastern seaboard of North America . Having
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their daily lives in some of the world 's busiest
shipping lanes; they ingest food contaminated
with everything from DDT to PCBs and
mercury ; sewage and fertilizer effluents cause
harmful algal blooms ("red tides") in their
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tic habitat" . Whales depend on sound for
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A Nor thern R ight Wh ale we ll understood and potentially solvable. If
ad ult right whale mor tality fro m fishing and
been sorely depleted by whalers, the North shipping can be managed, the n perhaps the
Atlantic right whales now face a multitude of pop ulation can reb uild. Pop ulat ion mode ls
other dangers. They become entang led in fish- have show n that preventing the deat h of j ust
ing nets and drown (as mammals , whales two fema les per year wo uld bring this pop ula-
unable to get to the surface to breathe will suf- tion back into pos itive grow th, which seem s
focate) ; they try - and often fail - to conduct like an achievable goa l.
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 POLITICS 31

Europe by osmosis
he purp ose of Elizabeth Pond' s RI CH ARD C R A M P T ON

T book is, she says, to try and es tablish

whether "the magnetic attr acti on of
EU me mbership [is] stro ng enough to pull
E l iza bet h P ond

the Balk ans throu gh the pain of reform to the EN DGA ME I N T HE B AL K A N S

dem ocr atic and mark et ' nor mality ' they lon g
for". By and large, she believes that the
eve ntual pleasur e will ju stif y the present
pain s.
Pond concentrates on the role of Euro pe ,
and above all the Europea n Union, thou gh
she also has interestin g and important thin gs
to say on the Intern ation al Criminal Tr ibunal
for the For mer Yugoslavia (ICT Y) in The
Hagu e. For the EU , she says , the Balkans
ha ve becom e "as much a domestic as a for-
eign polic y issue" . The defining mom ent for
Bru ssel s cam e in Jul y 1995 at Sre brenica,
when some 7,000 Mu sli m males di sapp eared
in what was Euro pe's wors t atrocity since the
Second World War ; thi s "moved the EU
beyond firewall conta inme nt to the premi se
that a penin sula an hour ' s flight from Vienn a
mu st be regard ed as part of Europe" . Bru ssel s
assum ed, corre ctly in most cases, that the
lure of "European" standa rds of livin g wo uld
ove rride the blood and so il nation alism s
which had don e so much dam age to So uth-
eas tern Europe in the 1990 s.
At one level, the thinking was simple:
whereve r possibl e the Balk an states sho uld
be enfo lded in Europe's soothing embrace.
Th e q ualifications for inclu sion we re eco -
nomic, politi cal and social. Th e states had to
be stable democracies, have "a func tionin g
mark et eco nomy" which cou ld withstand
competiti on with the rest of the EU, and there
had to be adeq uate guara ntees of indi vidual
and minority rights. Slove nia eas ily complied
with these "Copenhagen criteri a" , was admit-
ted to the EU in 2004 , and receives no sepa-
rate treatm ent in thi s book. Bul garia and
Ro m an ia we re put under cl o ser sc rutiny ,
more particu larly bec ause of fears over crime
and corruption , parti cularly as it affec ted the
jud iciary; but they , too, eve ntually passed the
tests and were admitted to the Union in Janu-
ary 2007 . For states with no imm edi ate hop e
of meetin g the co nditions for full memb er-
ship there is the incenti ve of a Stabiliza tion
and Association Agreement (SAA), a half-
way hou se to memb er ship. All entities in the
reg ion, wi th the exception of Kosovo, have
now signed or are negotiatin g for the signa-
ture of an SAA.
But Europeanization is not merely a matter
of form al agreement s. Th e pro cess itself in
Regime change, European style
300pp. Broo kings Instituti on . $29.95 : distr ibuted in
the UK by NBN. £ 17.99 .
978 08 1577 1609
reform ers. EU officials are co nstantly badger-
ing the Balkan states about corru ption - and
not witho ut du e cause - but they know that
the only long-t er m solution to thi s very seri-
ous problem is for the local adm inistration to
put its ow n hou se in ord er. Padd y Ashd own
summed thi s up succ inc tly by say ing that his
aim as High Represent ati ve in Bosnia was to
write himself out of a j ob. A telling ex ample
of the pro cess was see n in Kosovo. Wh en a
new customs control mech ani sm was to be
set up bet ween Serbia and Kosovo, the UN
and the American s wa nted to install a multi-
nation al for ce ; the EU de murred and insisted
instead on establishing a local forc e und er
intern ation al tutela ge. Th e results were stun-
ningly success ful, and the customs and exc ise
became "the first service with sens itive
security competences to be turn ed ove r to the
Kosov o prov isional gove rn ment" .
Pond in no way und erestim ates the chal-
lenges which face the refor mers, particularly
with regar d to crime, co rruption and the per-
sistence of nationali sm. She is, ho wever , opti-
mistic. On the mac ro-level she believes that
the typ e of reforms the EU per suaded the
Maced onian govern ment to acce pt in the
Oh rid agreemen t of2001 will defu se national-
ist tension s; what wi ll it matter, run s the arg u-
ment , if ethnic Albanians live in five differ-
en t states when all tho se states offer credibl e
guara ntees for indi vidu al and min orit y rights,
g uarantees suc h as tho se w r itte n into th e
Ohri d agree men t? On the micro-leve l she
sees hope in a nu mber of initi ati ves, includ-
ing, for exa mple , the wor k of the Ce ntre for
Dem ocra cy and Recon cili ation in So uth East-
ern Europe . Thi s splendid organi zation , now
sadly lackin g in fin ancial backin g, is produc-
ing new schoo l histor y textbo oks writte n by
yo ung historians fro m the region.
Th e region ' s yo uth is another factor which
ge nerally enco urages Po nd. A new ge nera-
tion of politi cal activists, educa ted in post-
Co mm unist tim es and frequ ently in Western
Europe or No rth America, will elbow as ide
the "predator y elites" which perpetuated their
A Croatian fight er, Bosnia, 1993; from Shooting Under Fire: The world ofthe war
photographer (Artisan. 978 1 57965 215 8)
each other and/or with Serbia itself. It suffere d
heavily durin g the war of 1992- 5 and, when
peace came, the town ' s problems we re so
intra ctable that it was placed under a separa te,
intern ationally co ntrolled administration .
Since then it has resum ed , more or less, its
pre -war ethnic profil e and has enj oyed an
eco no mic rev ival unparall eled in Bosnia.
Devolution was also a central featur e of the
Ohrid agree ment. On a larger scale, the Repub-
lika Srpska (RS), thou gh in some ways an
encum bra nce to the evo lution of a stable, uni-
fied Bos nia, has, on the other hand, give n Bos-
nian Serb s enough autono my to persuade
many of them that life in the RS is preferabl e
to becomin g part of Serbia; in that sense
devolution has streng thene d the Bos nian state.
The EU is the chief player in the Euro-
pea nization game, but the ICT Y is another
imp ort ant one. It is thanks to the ICT Y, says
Po nd, that no one will eve r de ny that massa-
cres such as that at Sre brenica eve r happened.
It is because of the ICTY that in the ten yea rs
of the tribunal' s ex istence intern ati on al
hum anit arian law has adv anced more than in
the fift y yea rs since the Nure mberg and
To kyo tri als after the Seco nd World War;
one major ad vance has been that , throu gh the
ICTY' s efforts, systematic rape has been
made a crime against hum anity and a wa r
crime . The tribunal has also ended the typical
immunity of sen ior po litica l leaders from
acco untability for war crim es and has
ensure d that the wors t of the bulli es have
been kept out of po wer in Yugo slavia' s sue-
The Master of Shakespeare
Br A. W. 1.. Saunders, 2007
'1tiHI tlJr
l'ulkc ( ;rn -ill('. Recorde r of Srratfcrd -upon-Avcu, to hi!'p a ~c \\, iUi4111l
cessor states. Furthe rmore, it could, an d did ,
exe rcise powerful political mu scle. Press ure
fro m the tribunal sec ure d the arres t, eve ntu-
ally, of the chie f Croatian indi ctee, Ante
Go tov ina, and in all prob ability, if the
ICT Y' s chief pro secut or, Ca rla Del Pont e,
had had her way the EU wo uld have fro zen
negoti ation s with Serbia until Ra tko Ml adi c
and Ra dovan Karadjic had been sent to The
Hagu e. Eve n more imp ort antl y, the ICTY
made mo st peopl e realize that war crimes
were unac cept able and mu st be puni shed ; it
is significa nt that when Go tov ina was
arrested in Decemb er 2005 there was no seri-
ous pub lic prot est in Croatia where, a decade
ear lier, the tribunal was frequ ently and vehe-
mently denou nced as a threat to Croa tia 's sov -
ere ignty. An d one suspec ts that if Ml adi c and
Karadjic are even tually app rehe nded most
Serbs wi ll acce pt thi s without enthusias m but
also witho ut violent co mplaint.
On the last day of 1939, John Co lville wro te
in his diary that , "As always throu ghout hist-
ory, the situation in the Balkans is obsc ure,
explosive and liable to change" . Elizabeth
Pond' s thoughtful and provo king book has
brought greater clarity, and has show n that ,
despite the undeni able dangers, there is less
com bustible material than before, and that
many of the contempora ry cha nge s are for
better rather than worse . Most imp ortant of all
she has show n why and how it is necessary to
mak e the Balkans an integral par t of Europe.
Th at is certainly a worthw hile end to a long
and dangerou s game.
1623
"'{lJ'~r ojJht iJUsjXdfr '
D ~\'c l u m

ma ny ways further s the obj ecti ve, the mean s
thus adv ancing the ends . A dipl omat
in vol ved in th e accessio n negoti ati on s with
Rom ania noted that the real imp act ca me not
fro m the check list of co nditions for entry,
but from the day-to-d ay contact bet ween
Rom anian officials and their counterpar ts in
the EU; the latter set exa mples which the
form er knew they had to follow. As Pond
notes, ob ser vers from the pre-accession
states atte nd man y EU committees and
thereb y "absorb the union' s arcane co nsensus
culture long before their co untries become
full memb ers" . Thi s is Europea nization by
osmosis.
Anoth er EU tacti c is to enco urage local
control, oft en throu gh illegal organi zation s,
from the Com munist to the imm edi ate post-
Co mmunist eras . Though dogged nati on al-
ism rem ains entrenched in the yo uth of some
areas, Kosovo for exa mple, in ge neral it is
thi s new ge neration which, Pond beli eves,
will build the politi cal and social institution s
fit for the new Euro pean purpo se .
Thi s proc ess will run from the centr e but -
somew hat paradoxically perhap s - another
important proc ess co uld well be devolution.
Many of Pond ' s chapters co ntain subsections
on specific are as or cities. In one place, she
highli ght s the success story of Brcko in Bo s-
nia. Thi s town was esse ntial to the Serbs
because it link ed their various enclaves with
195 ~
/ ', ,,/;,( C rrlil/e said Ix du i"" '10I" kJ/()lI'Illoposlflity ImJ~r 110 otber notionsl him oj ShrJk.tspurr's RImier', as
J.lIJI'Jli tr}n,8.a ,.,m ar k ar 11'!)'ill ,dl,b~ (OIJI" If;pormy uoJ,.f ofSbtlk~!pm".
Slr Pl1ilip Sidocr and (]ll' l ~ nw i sh H.C'I1;.1i ~ sa llC ('.J (lh n ltuxron
1990
Tht Shl1k#~dll' Proj m .._.AJlfr tlJlHplJltr mw!pi! rf mort tban Ihm million»ords _.. a lMIIJ ofA mt ricaR
profnIors.._did ,101 dismis! tbf poJlibilitJ' /i){Jtlbt pll!JS ilIU!}DWISlJJigh/ htuY! INm D'n'lIm hJ'tlll ohm," potl
named Flilkr GrrJlillf.
Dolil)' TdlL'h'f'".lph.23 April 1990
2007
~ 111 ftct, lIsi"g Jj.J biogfclphkal {/nds[ylis/icpflfomlilfHf.illdimfor plTlfi1fJ, l 't'n] i(J /h~ jlndilJ...v.s oftbe
8:)'((/r rrsftlrrb PlP
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WWW.MASTE ROFSHAKESPEARE.COM
You ha..-e ne ve r re ad a b ook like this!

TL S SEPTEMBER 28 2 0 07
32
Literature
Jonathan Swift
POLI TE CONV ERS AnO N
128pp. Hesperus. Paperback, £6.99 .
978 1 8439 1 1477
I f onl y he had been bett er bred, Lemu el
Gullive r might have disco vered dystopi as
witho ut needin g to leave Eng land. Hi s con-
temporary Simon Wagstafftell us that he com-
piled A Complete Collection of Polite and
Ingenious Conversa tion - that perfect distill a-
tion of "the who le ge nius, humour, polit eness,
and eloquence of Eng land" - mer ely by mak-
ing him self at hom e, over the cour se of many
yea rs, with fift y of the country' s "most polit e
famili es", onl y mo vin g on "as the masters or
ladies died, or left the town , or grew out of
vogue, or sunk in their fortun es, or (w hich to
me was of the high est mom ent ) became dis-
affected to the gove rn ment". The result is a
book that offers its readers "a t lea st a thou-
sand shining questions, answers, repartees,
repli es, and rejoinders" - all the "flowers of
wit and langua ge" that "an assembl y of Eng -
lish ladies and ge ntlemen" could eve r need .
LADY SMART: Did you call Betty?
FOOTMAN: She' s coming, madam.
LADY SMART: Coming! ay, so is Christmas.
Wa gstaff is a pompous bore , and the ladies
and ge ntlemen in whose mouths he places his
1,074 witticisms (not all at onc e) are worse.
Over the cour se of their dialo gues, they see k
relentl essly to outdo one another for clich ed
ripo ste s and pu nnin g non sequiturs: "there's
none so blind as they that wo n' t see"; "she
pays him in his ow n coin"; "comparisons are
odious" ; "love me, love my dog". For "polite
con versation" read "verbal warfare", com-
plete with stage dir ecti on s:
MISS sighs
NEVEROUT: Pray, miss, why do you sigh?
MISS: To make a fool ask, and you are the
first.
In oth er words, thi s Complete Collection is
reall y a typi call y shar p stro ke of misanthro py
from Jon athan Swift , who endows hi s autho-
rial alter ego, the unle arned Simon Wagstaff,
with all that Sw ift despi sed abo ut modern
authorship . Blind ed by jin goism , Wagstaff
proudly proclaims that he is mono glot ; his
politi cal tend encies might be im agin ed from
hi s prescriptive approach to lan gua ge and his
antip ath y to inn ovation . Wagstaff hop es not
onl y that his grea t wor k will pro ve profitable
and presti giou s, but that his nam e will live
on , in phrases such as "as our Master Wag-
staff has it" or "My Lord , as our friend Wag-
staff has it .. ." , "as an instance of gratitude,
on eve ry prop er occasion " amo ng polit e con-
versa tionalists everywhere . Th e company he
keeps - Ned Ward and Charles Gild on , as
we ll as the Poet Laur eate Co lley C ibber and
Lewi s Th eob ald - is bad enoug h, but thi s
hack' s ambition to lay permanent claim to a
IN BRIEF
Taken from Passing Through Eden : Photographs ofCentral Park ,
by Tod Papageorge (105pp. Steidl. $60. 978 3 86521374 7)
mass of platitudes mark s him out as a true
dun ce, and a wo rthy recipi ent of Scriblerian
ire . Generally abusive as it is, Polite Conver-
sation is an attack on tho se who lack Swift' s
values as we ll as his eloquence .
MI CH AEL CAINES
Travel
Anne E. Gorsuch and
Diane P. Koenker, editors
T URI ZM
The Russian and East European tourist under
capi talism and socialism
3 13pp. Cornell Universi ty Press.
Paperback, £14.50 (US $24.95).
978 0 8014 73289
E aste rn Europea n touri sts are no w a staple
fixtu re at the wor ld 's resort s, from
Sharm-el-Sheikh to Courcheve l; Slavonic
signage offers room and mea l deals fro m
Turkey to Te nerife . But it was not always so:
before 1990 , ideological differenc es, travel
restrictions and a shortage of hard currenc y
con spir ed to keep most Cze chs, Poles and
So viet citize ns - however intr epid they we re
at heart - we ll behind the Iron Curtain. Conse -
quentl y, we still lack a clear und er standing of
what moti vates the Eas tern Europe an touri st,
what they are escaping, and wh at ex periences
they see k. Thi s ex ce llent, necessary book
begin s to fill tho se ga ps. Ann e E. Go rsuch
and Di ane P. Koe nker have assembl ed four-
teen essays of con sistentl y high q uality.
On the era hefore Com munis m, the ho ok ' s
bias is toward s the serious side of tra vel:
Alexand er Vari and Aldi s Pur s respecti vely
describ e ho w Hun garian and Lat vian touring
we re manipulated for patriotic ends. In
Latvia, touri sm was to become a personall y
and nati onall y tran sform ation al activity,
gove rne d by qu asi-scientific, fasci stic rules:
snor ing in the dormitory could be stopped by
willpower alon e.
Th e effect of one-party socialism was to
creat e two typ es of travel in the se countries:
the offici al and the infor mal. Offici al touri sm
was a matter of grace and favour. Its currenc y
TLS SE PTEMBER 28 2007
was the voucher, which gave com rad es
access to state resort s. For the exceptionally
loyal and producti ve (Ko enk er describ es a
crui se of "s hoc k workers" taken to Od essa
via Napl es in 1930) there was for eign travel
too. Inform al touri sm enco mpasse d both the
illicit acti vities of offici al tou rists when the
state was n' t looking (eve rything from bart er-
ing to ge tting drunk) and the incr easingly bra-
zen atte mpts of those who couldn' t ge t a
voucher to get to the seas ide an yway (the
"w ild" touri sts of Christian Noa ck's essay) .
Wend y Brac ewell shows that in touri sm, as
in so much else, Yugoslavia was the ex cep-
tion that pro ved the rule.
Movin g through these mai n them es, the
boo k stops off at man y fascin atin g coves and
inlets. Particular highli ght s are Eleonory
Gilburd' s ess ay on Sergei Obr aztsov, who
became a celebrit y in the USS R in the 1950 s
for his travelogu es of Lond on , and Sh awn
Salmon' s description of Intu rist ' s inge nuity
in ge tting foreign touri sts to surrende r hard
currenc y, which included plans to charge for
using television s in hotel room s.
One important lacuna, regrett abl y abse nt
from most studies of tou rism , is the close
interr elation ship betwe en travel and sex .
Nonetheless , with many apposi te illu stration s
- including a suited and crinolined pair of roll-
er-skaters - Turizm is a vo lume to enjoy.
T IM OT HY P HILLIPS
Reference
Rohert Crawford
SC OT LAN D' S BO OKS
The Penguin History of Scottish literature
83 l pp. Penguin . Paperback, £15.99.
978 0 14 029940 3
W hen T. S. Eliot atte mpted to demon-
strate that there was no such a thin g as
Scottish literatur e , Scotland had already lon g
"played an improbabl y large part in wor ld
literature" . To borro w from the title of an
ea rlier book edited by Robert Craw ford, Scot-
land had, after all, invent ed "E ng Lit " , when
in the mid- eight eenth century Eng lis h literary
texts we re bein g studied in the Scottish uni-
versities, as part of the bell es-lettr es and rhet-
oric cour ses. Scotti sh texts were not. Whil e
toward s the end of the nin eteenth century, a
few highl y specialist studies of parti cul ar
aspect s of Scotti sh literary production were
beginning to be publi shed , the first compre-
hensi ve histor y of the country' s literatur e did
not appear until 190 3. And it was not until
late into the century that Scotti sh literatur e
began to be tau ght in the universiti es. Eve n
toda y, there is still only one uni ver sity in
Scotland with a Dep artm ent of Scottish Lit-
erature, that bein g at G lasgow (crea ted in
1971). In the past ten years or so, more than a
doz en histori es of Scottish literatur e have
been published , thou gh the overall numb er
remains relati vely sma ll.
Unlike some of the theor etically orient ated
histori es, Scotland's Books is intend ed for
the interested ge nera l rea der and delib erately
avoid s criti cal theory. With one third of his
book being devot ed to mod ern literatur e,
Crawford focu ses on popul arit y an d the mor e
recent trend of globalization: lan Rankin,
J. K. Rowlin g and Alexand er Mc Call Smith
belon g as much to Sco tland's Books as do
A lasda ir Gray, James Kelm an and A. L.
Kennedy. In addition to the canonical and the
canoni zed, Craw ford di scu sses seve ra l minor
popular writers, particularly of the mod ern
period, who appea led to the common read er.
A poet and acade mic him self, Crawford is
brave to acknow ledge the risk to cont em-
por ary po etry of aca de mization. There are
j ust one or two quibbles, thou gh : Edinburgh
Review is not and never was a monthly publi-
cati on , and Da vid Daiches an d Muri el Spark
never did play togeth er as children. Erudite
and read abl e, and conveni entl y present ed in a
single vo lume, Sco tland's Books is likely to
es tablish itself as an important referen ce
wor k on the subje ct.
MI CH AEL LiS TER
Biography
Pat Shipma n
FE MME FAT ALE
Love, lies and the unkno wn life of Mata Hari
464p p. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. £20.
978 0 297 85074 8
I n 1917 , fort y-one- year- old Margaretha
Ze lle, famed across pre- war Europe as the
Dutch-born dancer Mata Hari, and mistress
to a host of Alli ed officers and officials, was
arrested in Paris on suspicion of spy ing for
Germany. Apparently accuse d of co mplicity
in the death s of 50,000 Fre nch so ldiers and
shipping losses to ene my submarines, she
was impri son ed , tried , found guilty, brou ght
befor e a firin g squad and sho t.
Pat Shipman ' s Femme Fatale is not the
fir st hio graphy of Mata Hari . Nor is Shipman
the first author to draw on contem por ary
record s to chall en ge the case aga inst her.
Whil e ea rly book s and articles swa llowe d the
offi cial French line, research in recent yea rs
by the likes ofTo ni Bentl ey and Ru ssell War-
ren Ho we has raised serious doubts over
claim s that Mat a Hari was a deviou s Ge rma n
agent and that her actions harm ed the A llied
war effort. Wh ere Shipman sheds new light
on the story is in her study of her subje ct's
for mati ve yea rs . She is es pec ially good on
the young Margareth a' s horrible tim e in the
Dutch Eas t Indi es as the wife of an abus ive

army off icer, Rudolf MacLeod, a Dutchman
of Scotti sh descent. Shipman, a professor of
anthropology at Penn sylvania State Univer-
sity, has looked before at the mores and mor-
als of colonial Indon esia and draw s a vivid
picture of how unple asant and isolated life
out ther e could be. The loose-living
MacL eod, she suggests, may have passed on
syphilis to hi s wife, daught er and son. Cer-
tainly the marri age di ssolved into mutu al
loathing . Returning to Europe in 1902, the
coupl e separated. Margaretha, virtually penni-
less, moved to Paris. It was there that she rein-
vented herself as an exotic danc er , cho se her
new name - a Mala y phra se meaning "the
eye of the day" - and became a sen sation.
Although Femm e Fatale break s little
ground where the espionage allegations are
concerned, Shipman ' s work on Briti sh police
and intellig ence records is new. Mata Hari
was of marginal interest to the Briti sh authori-
ties, but fleeting appear anc es in Britain in
1915 and 1916 compelled offic ers to quiz
her , draw up poignant lists of her belon gin gs
and warn the French that she was "not abo ve
suspicion" . Since the y had found nothin g
incriminatin g, Shipman wonders whether
Briti sh officials were guilty of a simpl e dis-
trust of independent , intelligent wom en , trav-
elling alone , who were not "dutiful, bra ve,
hom e-lo ving, and patrioti c". Since their sus-
pect had been incon sistent under questioning,
that may be a sugges tion too far. It is hard ,
though, to fault Shipman' s central point: that
while Mata Hari ' s wartime contacts and trav-
els, thou gh in keeping with her lifestyle and
need for ca sh, arou sed dam aging suspicion,
the ambitions and prejudices of her final
accu sers were ju st as respon sible for her
unju st end.
RODERICK BAILEY
Social Studies
Simon Barnes
THE MEA NING OF SPORT
365pp. Short Books. Paperback, £9.99.
978 I 904977 85 8
A lcohol, the Porter tells Macduff, "pro-
vokes the desire, but it takes away the
performance". In The Meanin g of Sport,
Simon Barne s claim s that the World Cup ha s
much the same effect on English football -
just one obser vation from what quickly turn s
out to be a thought-provokin g and memora-
ble book. Barn es, Chief Sport swriter of The
Times, believes sport to be of primal signifi-
cance. All mammal s "play" , and, whil e their
game s may lack rule s or structure, they are
clearly enjo yed for their own sake . Further-
more , tho se who argue that hum an sport is
"unimportant" struggle to account for its pres-
ence in the mo st depri ved communities in the
world.
The Meanin g of Spo rt discu sses sport's
global and per sonal significance , while focu s-
ing on eve nts such as the Ashes series, the
Sydne y Ol ympics of 2000 and the Rugb y
World Cup. Barn es also muses on the natur e
of competition and "greatness" , and the rela-
tion ship bet ween sport and art. "Every cham-
pion mu st ... pay for his medal s with his
life", and kno w that "v ictory is but a tempo-
rary respit e in a world of defeat". The truly
great - such as Stev e Redgra ve, Pete Sam-
pra s and Shan e Warne - though never seeing
their mastery as the art spectators believe it to
IN BRIEF
be, mana ge somehow "never to get bored "
with being out standing when it reall y counts.
Sport is about stories - triumph, disaster ,
giant-killing hero es; the vicarious narr ati ve
of the extraordinary that children get from
fairy stories but that adult s forg et - and
Barnes is deftl y aware of the story telle r's role
throu ghout. When can a sporting victory be
said to be "unj ust" ? How can the Briti sh
characteriz e a tenni s player once rank ed
fourth in the wor ld as a loser , and why are the
Germans so much better than we are at takin g
penalty kick s? Th ese question s and more are
answered by the 158 neatl y intercalated
vignettes that make up The Meaning ofSport,
which should be compulsory reading for
anyon e with the slightest interest in the
games peopl e pla y, and also for tho se who
ha ve never understood all the fuss.
JOSH RAYMOND
Religion
D. S. Chambers
POP ES, CARDI NALS A ND WAR
The military church in Renaissance and early
modern Europe
256pp. I. B. Tauris. £19.99 .
978 1 845 11178 6
T he putati ve connections between religion
and violence are a con sumin g preoccupa-
tion of our times. Popes, Cardinals and War
illu strat es a parad ox whereby the lead er s of
an institution dedic ated to charity have often
devoted them selves to the glorification of
armed conflict. D. S. Chambers contends that
over many centuri es popes and cardin als
"contributed rather more to the proc ess of
war than to that of peace - and in some cases
they did so with a surprising directn ess and
brutality".
At the core of this rich yet compact book is
the Renaissanc e papacy, but Cha mbers takes
the long perspecti ve in both direction s. He
identifi es the root s of papal milit ari sm in the
notion of temporal dominion in Italy, a conse-
quenc e of suppose d imp erial "do natio n", and
in the Gelasian doctrine of universal papal
power. Though can on law forbade clergym en
from shedding blood , medi eval canonists
often encouraged them to cheer from the side-
line s, or even to man age the team , where the
right s of the Church were at issue.
Yet in some ways, Popes, Cardinals and
War takes a narro w view of its subje ct. Cham-
bers, with a mixture of bemu sement and mild
indignation, present s us with a relentl ess cata-
logue of curial militarism, but doe s little to
place the phenomenon in a broad er explana-
tor y cont ext. We learn virtually nothin g
about problems of go verna nce of the pap al
states, or of whether papal warfare did more
to stabilize or destabilize Italy. Here and else-
where, Chamhers's argum ent hegs the ques-
tion. He is keen to stress that "the papal fare-
well to arms was a very slow proce ss" , and
dul y dra ws attention to papal gloatin g over
the St Bartholomew' s Massacre in Pari s, or
optimi stic sche mes for the invasion of Eng-
land. But the papac y' s direct role in religious
warfare of the sixtee nth and sev entee nth cen-
turi es was dramaticall y receding. To sugges t
that this was due primarily to a desire not to
pro vide ammunition for Prot estant prop agan-
di sts seems uncon vincin g, and Ch amb ers' s
attempts to pur sue the story throu gh the eight-
ee nth and ninet eenth centuries, via the occa-
TLS SEP T EM BE R 28 2007
sionally bellico se posturin gs of Pius IX,
simply underlin e how much the world was
changing. Another parad ox - that period s of
the papacy' s greatest moral authority have
coincided with its compl ete military irrele-
vance - is nowh ere comm ented on.
The book concludes with a slightly biz arre
epilog ue, which hint s at a latent tendenc y to
violence among the Rom an Ca tholic leader-
ship in a new century witnessing "some
ex treme versions of other, older enemi es on
the offen sive". " What", Cha mbers asks
darkly, " if the Vatic an were to be bombed?"
What indeed ? There is little indication that
the modern Roman Curia has reacted to out-
rages again st Church buildings and per sonnel
around the world with anythin g oth er than
moderation.
Warmongering hardl y see ms one of the
sins of the cont emporary pap acy. Pope Bene-
dict' s now infamou s Regensbur g lecture last
Septe mber about the prop er relation ship s
between reaso n, faith and viol enc e was deli v-
ered too late to be exploited by Cha mbers.
Benedi ct' s point, rather lost in the fuss about
allege d Islamophobia, was that coercion has
no role to play in the regulation of religiou s
matters. It is a proposition that hold ers of the
papal offic e onl y slow ly and painfully
learned to recognize as axio matic, and one,
therefor e, that they are perhap s peculiarly
qualified to articulate to the modern world.
PETER MARSHALL
Theatre
John Patrick Diggins
EU GEN E O 'NEILL 'S AMERI CA
Desire under democracy
305pp. University of Chicago Press. $29.
978 0 226 148809
J ohn Patrick Diggins seeks in this rigorou s,
thou gh stodgy, book to liberat e Eugene
O'Neill , "to appreciate [him] beyond the aes-
thetic crit eria of dram atur gy or the neurotic
symptoms of psychology". Diggin s races
through O'Neill' s life - the actor father, the
morphin e-addicted mother, the broth er who
drank him self to death , the sons who commit-
ted suicide, the shadow of Catholicism,
depr ession , alcoholism, sickness and writers '
block. As for dram atur gy, Diggin s make s the
tellin g observation that, in absorbin g Greek
drama, O' Neill "had to lea ve Gree k philo s-
oph y behind". Not for him Aristotl e' s breez y
faith in rational delib eration ; O'N eill pre-
ferred the grim fatalism of Arthur Schop en-
hauer , Alexis de Tocquev ille and Friedrich
Nietz sche.
Skating over the autobiographic al plays,
Diggin s focu ses on The Iceman Cometh, argu-
ing that it fell flat when it premiered becau se
it was too gloo my for a post-war audience.
Eve n now, he write s, "3 study of E ugene
O'Neill tells us some thin gs about ourse lves
that most politici ans would dare not utter".
Diggin s believes that O' Neill ' s reading of
Tocqu eville' s Democracy in America ("a
study in the traged y of frustration") inform ed
his central theme of "how our desires choo se
and control us". This is the O' Neill of War-
ren Beatty ' s 1981 film Reds, played by a
sneering, furi ous Jack Nicholson who look s
into the shining eyes of the Greenwich Vil-
lage anarchists and splutters, " Do you think
there' s go ing to be a revolution in Am er-
ica?". Diggins is more interested in O' Neill ' s
33
idea s than in his art, so the atre buffs may
find this a frustrating book , but he makes a
compellin g case for O' Neill as a think er who
grappl ed with the parado xes of democracy.
Readin g Diggin s made me wond er if
O 'N eill ' s theatric al heir was not Arthur
Mill er but To ny Kushner; Angels in America
could be read as a radic al, optimistic ripo ste
to O' Neill ' s dark vision.
Diggin s' s approach is particul arly timely
given the resurgenc e of political theatre, and
this book is a brave attempt to rescue O 'Neill
from bein g perc ei ved as a writer haunted by
his own histor y and to relocate him as a polit-
ical think er scouring past and present to try to
illuminate an uncert ain futur e.
SAMANTH A E LLIS
Literary Criticism
Julija SUkys
SILENCE IS DEATH
The life and work of Tahar Djaout
192pp. University of Nebraska Press.
US $26.95 (£14.99).
978 0 8032 4320 0
O ne of hundr ed s of intellectuals murdered
in Alg eri a in the 1990s, the prolific poet,
novelist and journalist Tahar Djaout was
ass assinated in 1993, aged thirt y-eight. He
was a tireless and inspi rational figur e in the
battl e for intellectu al freedom. "Poetry is the
first word", he said; "it is the last one as
well." There is a sharp awa reness in his mini-
mali st poetr y, and an eerie for eshad owin g of
his own death in the poem 'The King' s Brevi-
ary" : " KILL HIM MY SONS I HE COVETS
A SUBV ERSIVE VERB". But it was
throu gh journalism that he express ed hi s
views most forcibl y and thu s most dan ger-
ously; six months after eo-founding a weekly
newspap er , Ruptur es, he was dead.
"How does one write a book about a man
one has never met, who com es from a plac e
one has never been ?" Julija Suk ys as ks,
answe ring: "By goin g on a thinking journey,
an immobile voyage" . Thi s voya ge takes
many shapes, some of which work better than
others. The shee r ran ge is ambitious, takin g
the reader from den se politic al arguments
(an explanation of the numerous acron ym s
would have prov ed useful) through to fic-
tion al form s. This must be what is referred to
as "collapsing the genr es of histor y, bio-
graph y, person al mem oir , fiction , and cul-
tural analysis", thou gh what emerges is often
less a "collapse" than an unea sy ju xtapo si-
tion.
Much of Suk ys' s book is speculative to the
point of fiction. Thi s see ms at time s self-
indulgent, and can leave the reader feelin g
uncomfortabl e - what is the basis for
Djaout' s own respon ses to Suk ys' s question s
in "A Po sthumous Intervie w"? How much is
in Djaout ' s own words, cull ed from the huge
amount he publi shed in his curt ailed lifetim e,
and how much inferred by Suk ys herself?
Thi s illustrat es a wider probl em: there is no
explanation of Suky s' s approach; nothing to
tell us what her techniques are intend ed to
reveal. One is left with various flavour s,
which is perh aps wh at she is aiming for : a
feeling of the menac e of the reg ime in 1990s
Algeria, Djaout ' s ambition for his country,
and something of his literary style. Further
readin g is ess ential.
LYDIA WI LSON
34
here is a consc iously paradoxical
T charac ter to the title of th is engag ing
and unusually readable intellec tual his-
tor y. Eve rybody knows that the En lighten-
ment, whether conce ived of as an intellectu al
move men t or as a broad descri ptor of an
epoch, had no truck with miracles. David
Hum e ' s highl y sce ptica l essay Of Miracles
(1748) stuck the philosoph ica l boot in, and
set the tone for respect able educa ted opini on
ever since . The idea that an intervent ioni st
deit y might set aside universal "laws of
natur e" in order to reward individuals, or sim-
ply to demonstrate his existence and omni -
po tence, ca me und er sustained an d success-
ful attack in an age of scie nce and reason.
Jane Shaw , a respected Oxford church
hi stori an and theologian , sets out to unsettle
the moorings of th is fam ilia r narrative. At the
hear t of her case is the co nten tion that the
eightee nth-ce ntury philosophical debate was
not the ope ning of a discussion about mira -
cles, but the end result of a vibrant discuss ion
that had bee n takin g place in Eng land for half
a century and more. Scholars have noted
these later seventeenth-century deb ates about
miracles before, but Shaw is critica l of the
assumptions and methodo logy of traditi onal
intellectual history, whic h conten ts itself
with char ting the relations hip of arg umen t to
The editors arc pleased to
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attention (0 form.
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& David Ye zzi
The winner will rece ive 53,0 00 and the
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by 1\"311 R. Dcc, Ch icolgO.
All ent rants will receive a COP)'
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Please lJ JJrt"f_~ m antHcrirr J ro:
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•' hIlUMrip'''" w ill r~ ,t 1)0,' I't"tlJrlk"d.
RELIGION
The healing touch
PETE R M AR SH AL L
J a n e S haw
M IRACLES I N ENL IGHTENMENT
ENGLAN D
288pp. Yale University Press. £25 (US $45).
9780 300 t t 272 6
argu ment, idea to idea. Miracles were bein g
disc usse d at a philosophical level, Shaw
con tends , precisely because they we re being
asse rted, investigated and co ntested at the
level of eve ryday experience. Much of the
book is concerned with demo nstra ting the
intertextual co nnec tions between elite dis-
courses on the one hand, and what Shaw
labels "lived religion" on the other. Ideas cir-
culated am ong religious and soc ial groups in
more than one direction in this period, when
print culture was blossomi ng, and the "public
sphere" beginning to open up. Ord inary
peop le could be "agents in the shaping of
en lightenme nt re ligion" .
Shaw 's arg ume nt hinges on some bold
claims: that there was a "revival of miracles"
in England in the seco nd half of the seve n-
teenth ce ntury, with increasing rather than
dec lining numbers of peo ple claiming to be
miracle-workers into the early eighteen th cen-
tury. Moreover, these were demo nstrab ly and
generica lly "Protestant miracles": the medi-
eva l mindset had bee n laid to rest. Th is
involved stepp ing round wha t had long been
an orthodox Protestant shibbo leth: that true
miracl es had cease d with the apos tolic age,
and that allege d subsequent miracles were
popish superstition and frau d. Co nsens us
arou nd this issue did not survive the disloca -
tions of the Civil War and Interregnum, with
new indepen dent Churches and radica l Protes-
tant sec ts assert ing the miracul ous as ev i-
dence of their favour ed status in the eyes of
the Lord . Ear ly Bap tists publicized claims
of divine hea ling. M iracles were also touted
by the first Qu aker s, less scrup ulous than
Bap tists about adhering to a strictly biblical
script, and also rather more amb itious in thei r
mini strations: the Quaker leaders George
Fox and Ja mes Nay lor claimed to have raised
people from the dead. Such "enthusiasm"
horrified the respectable (no t least commi tted
royalists who thou ght that the restore d Stuart
monarchs, in their "touching" for scro fula,
exe rcise d a monopoly on div ine healing).
The later seve ntee nth century witnesse d a
react ion, though not in the direc tio n of
total sce ptic ism, some thing that ort hodox
Prot estants identified with the bogeyman of
"a theism". Rather , it was arg ued that allege d
miracl es neede d to be subject to testing
and verifica tion, pred icated on public per-
formance and tru stworth y testimon y.
These we re prec isely the aims and tech-
niques of the new experime ntal philosoph y,
and the poss ibility of miracles was taken
seri ously by mem bers of the nascent Roya l
Society such as Robert Boyle: there was no
necessaril y antithetica l relationsh ip between
" science" and mira cles in the Restoration
era . Shaw point s here to the significance of
the career of the healer Valent ine Greatrakes,
the "Irish stroke r" , whose highl y public
TL S SEPTEMBER 28 2007
successes prom pted inten se interest and a
variety of exp lanatio ns, some fusing reli-
gio us and naturalistic elemen ts.
Mira cle stor ies - usually of mirac ulous
fasts and healings (often by wome n) - con-
tinued to circu late through to the end of the
cent ury, but by the 1690s the clim ate was
changing . Deists and Soc inians increasingly
emp loye d ridicule and spoo f to co unter con -
temporary claims of the miracul ous, and their
cause was helped rather than hind ered by the
antics of the "French Prop hets" , a trio of
Huguenot refugees whose histrionics
repe lled polite socie ty in ea rly eighteent h-
cen tury Eng land. Such cases we re a spur to
the evo lving debate abo ut whether miracles
were possible at all.
Following the logic that past testimony for
past miracles could not have the same evide n-
tial we ight as present testimony for prese nt
miracles, de istica l wri ters questioned the
literal verac ity of the miracles of Scrip ture
itself , wh ile some leading New ton ians
argued that eve nts with strictly naturalistic
ca usa tion could be cons idered "miraculous"
in terms of their timi ng or co incide nce . Shaw
does not seek to deny the flowering of
scep ticism in the eighteen th cen tury, but
she demo nstra tes success fully that there
was no smoo th and inexorable path leading
there. Nor did the philoso phica l writings
of the Enlighten men t close the deba te on
the possibilit y of miracles in Eng land in the
Figment
I
I bow to Him, and bow to Him ;
for bow ing brea ks the thought strea m.
The wind in trees. Tha t is a beg inning
and an end. Refuge on refu ge.
Stoppe d at source . No t desire
but the know ledge of desiring.
I send the sutras to all and sundry and preac h
wha t I ca nno t pract ise .
2
The temptation of sym bo lic orders
ca me to me again:
a peacock imago on Shelley 's page.
As 1 read with j aundiced eye
how he meets , in human gu ise,
the moonli ke idol of his thought,
there was this irreducible crea ture,
woke n from the dar k, and sunning
beneath the scholar 's lamp, Epipsychidion,
his love, his wraith, his mind .
STE P HEN R OM E R
eightee nth cen tury , as the attitudes of John
Wesley were to show. On more than one occa -
sion, Shaw invites us to app ly the insights of
the religious soc iologist David Martin, who
has rejec ted a unilin ear mode l of sec ulariza -
tion in favou r of successive "Christianiza-
tions", accompanied by reac tio ns and reco ils.
Shaws arg ument is not entirely wa tert ight.
To a degree, the book sustains its impression
of miracles in the cen tury 1650- 1750 as a
largely Protestant theme, and debates about
them as an intra-Protestan t phenomeno n, by
resolutely ignoring the Catholic comm unity,
and ant i-Ca tholic disco urses . Moreover, the
argume nt for a "revival" of miracles from the
l650s onwards depends on a clear-cut disag-
grega tion of "miracles" and "providence" that
is difficult to sustain, partic ularly at the popu -
lar level. As Shaw herself admi ts, the vast
majority of people didn't ma ke clear distinc-
tions between wonde rs, miracles and divine
provi dences (and the educated, too, were
some times delibera tely or unconsciously
ambivale nt). The miracu lous may thu s have
been a more consistent element of the Protes-
tant wor ld-view , and Protestant "lived reli-
gio n" , throughout the ear ly modern per iod
than Shaw is prepared to concede . No nethe-
less, the thesis is on balance conv incing .
While Jane Shaw' s study is by no mea ns
the first to attempt to deco nstruc t the Enlight-
enment, expa nd its chro nological para meters ,
or asser t its religious roots, it app lies for mid-
able theological learni ng and sound hi storical
insight to an important subjec t. It is also an
inspiri ng example of how the his tory of
ideas, and the socia l history of religion, ca n
be brought together in fruitful co nversa tion .
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)
2, 3aneracAmwauCymru(e,t 1859)

http://dav.princeton.edu/ 3, , he8el rast N ewslet~er (est. 1792)

1. 3irmirghn Dailj Pcst jest. 1857j
S, Tbe Brstotfvercerr Iest. 1790)
6, TheCaledonianMercury(est. 1860}
7, Dai y tv w> (~st. 1B4 6)

Fear 8, The DerbyI":ercury ~ est. 1788)

9, Freenensjccrreland DailyComrrerualAdvertisl'r( est 1807)
10. GlasgowHerald {est.1820)
11. Hamps hire Te1rgrarmandSussex Chronicle (e>t 1803)
Duringthe academic year 2007/08, the ShelbyCullomDavisCenterfor Historical Studieswill 12.TheIllJstrated Poke Nt\~s (est. 18(54)

focus on the study of fear in history. Weinvite scholarsfrom all disciplines to examinefear as an 13.The Ipswich[oun-al(est. 1720)
14. [arksonsOxfordjoJr1l.l (es; 1753)

historicalexperience, its generative, productive as well as negativeand destructive roles in history, 15. The leeds M~ Tu ry (fSI 1792)
16 Liverpool Mercury(est,1811)
andthe processes by whichit operates, spreads, dissipates, andis countered. Asin the past,wehope 17. Uoyd's lllustrated London Neospaper fest. 1842)
1E. r1anches:erWeeklyTlrlcsanetxaniner(est.1857)
to address topics and problems from a wide variety of periods and places, from prehistory to the 19. TheNC'N<as",kc Wcekll CoJrant (cst. 1SB4}
20. Northern lxhofest 1870)
present,andfromallpartsof the world. Topics couldincludebut arenotlimitedto thefollowing: the 21. North WalesChronicle {est. 1827j

emotionalandpsychictextureoffearinhistoricalsituations;themodeoffear' soperation, circulation, 22. The PrestonChronicle aid lau ashre Adve :1I >e ~ (est 1831)
23. Re yncld s·d\ e\~ spa p"- (es1. 18 5 1 )

and dissolution; people's fear of the state and the state's fears as reflected in its generation of F TheHullParket arc [a51RdingTimes(est 1 8~ 2)

25. The Era{est 1838;

documentation andarchives; fearofdisease, war, empireandimperialdissolution; fearof theracial, 2E. TheExalliner (esl.1808)

religious, political, ideological, andsexualcontamination;fearofdisorderortheimposition oforder; MO," " '«\", O O~I

28. Westerr Mai' (est. 1869)

fearof changeandfearof stasis; fearoftechnology andtheprojectionof alternatives;fearofhelland 29. Y ScnedlCymreig(est,1877)
30. y Cokuad (est. 1869)
forthefateofthe soul;fearofurbandysfunction in generating utopianfutures; fearofthe "mob"; fear 31. TheGrapric[est ' 870)

asa productive agentin violence, resistance, solidarity, artisticexpression, andthought. 32. ThePa'l Mall Gaw :e (est. 18e5)

" 7,;,*t~ 1863)

34. TheLerester Chronicle and Leres-ersb-e r-'ercury(est. 1864)

TheCenterwillofferalimitednumberofresearchfellowships foroneortwo semesters, running :"1.1646)

from Septemberto January and fromFebruaryto June, designedfor highlyrecommended younger 36. Berrow's Wurl~\kr jOJ r rld[ (~'t. 1; 53)
37. The Blakbun StdlldJrd(est. 1835)
scholarswho have finished their dissertations by the application deadline as wellas for senior 38. TheBradfordObserver {est. 1834)

scholarswith established reputations. Fellows are expectedto live in Princetonin order to take an (est 1850)
40. Thels'eofManTimesandGeneralAdwnecr (est. 1869)
activepartin theintellectual interchange withothermembers of the Seminar. Fundsarelimited, and - nTte tercase- Cazeue test 1803)

candidates are, therefore, strongly urged to apply to other grant-giving institutions as well as the :, . 'B69)
43. Shfieb ardRotherhamlndcpendent test. 1839)
Center, if theywishto comefora fullyear. 44. TheYorkrerald(e-st. 1854)
45, TheBuryandNOl".1ChPost (est. 17B6)

46 ~~':~~;~~~~:~G~:;:~ (~~" ;C;~WCCC; lo 1,I" r Elytlerald ard

Written inquiries should be addressed to the Manager, Shelby Cullom Davis Center for 47. The Es>ex SWIJCJrd (est 1831)
4E. ls!eofWightObsc,ver(e,t.1852.)
Historical Studies, Department of History, 129 Dickinson Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, 49. NorthJrlJtonMcrcury(e>t. 1733)

NJ 08544-10 17, U.S.A. SO. The Norfd kC'1r":::HIen d NorwichCezene (est.1910)

)1. Chr:>niquecejersey{est. 1811)
Applications can be made online at http://dav.princeton.edu/prograrnleI3/application.html. The ) 2. TheSta-(est 1869)
51 Thc HnJ'1pjoircAdvcrtiscr(cS'. 1<l60)
deadlinefor applications andlettersof recommendation for fellowships for 2007/2008 is December 54.TheROj:l1 Cornw.lnGazetce {est. 1849)
SS, The Dundee Cccrer & A rg~ s [est lE62)
1,2006. Scholarswho wouldlike to offer a paperto one of the weeklySeminars are askedto senda 56. Thelrr-e-ressCourier (est 1817)

briefdescription oftheirproposalandcurrentcurriculum vitaetotheDirector. 57. CcnsunconorCorkAcverti,er (est 182.6)

SE. The Derryjoumalfest, 1888)

Please notethatwewillnotaccept(axed applications. ) 9. The KerryEven,ngPost (es:.1813)

60. TheCaI1'D" 3,(est.13C4)
61.W'1'i!ham Adw ciser (e<;t. 1857)

ProfessorGyanPrakash If you represent a right s holder who would've been

associated with tnese t.tles between the years 1865
to 1900 and believe eoy wo rk therein is still covered

Director bya relevant intellectual property right please write,

with proof of entitlement to
Ed King, Head of Newspaper Collections,
The BritishLibrary
Cclindale Avenue. London NW9 SHE.
Ter +4410120 74127362
 CLASSIFIED
UNIVERSITY AWARDS &
APPOINTMENTS FELLOWSHIPS

Head of Research C OLUM BIA UN IVERSITY

t N THE CITY O f N EW YORK

The Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) seeks a Head of Research to
oversee the development of the Center's research culture. Columbia University in
Institute the City of New York
Th e activities of the Research Dep artm ent include the organization of scholarly events and
public programs. undergraduate and gradua te teaching initiat ives , programmatic support for
for Scholars invites scholars to apply

Center exhibitions, and running the fellowship program as well as other research opportunities at to be fellows at its

at the Ce nter. Th e Research Department also incorp orat es the Cent er' s Edu cat ion Depa rtment , ReidHall Institute for Scholars at
Rcid Hall in Paris for the
which overs ees a thriving program for Yale und ergraduates, regional school childre n, and the
publ ic a t large. The Head of Research oversees a department of 8-10 including an Associ ate coming academic year, beginning September 8, 2008.
Head of Research . Applications will also be considered for the academic
year beginning September 7, 2009. Individuals as well
The Head of Re search will run the department, overs eeing the de velopment and execution of
as grou ps working on a common p roject m ay apply
scholarly , public and edu cational pro gram s, which currently include over 300 events per ye ar.
for a yearlong or one academic term non stipcnd ary
As an active member of a renowned teaching institution, the Head of Research will over see
fellowship.
and enhance the use of the Ccntcr's collections and exhibitions in teaching, in collaboration
with members of the faculty and with members of the staff. Th e Head of Research will also Opened in January 200 I in cooperation with the
coll abo rate with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in Briti sh Art in London to help to
Maison des Sciences de l' Homme, the Institute offers a
coordinate Yal e-in-London , Val e' s und ergraduate stud y program in the Uni ted Kin gdom.
setting at which fellows may pursue their individual
The Head of Research is expected to pursue sch olar ship in the history of British art and to and collective research while interacting with scholars
participate full y in the intellectual life of the university. Slhe will have one day a week for in France and from other countri es around the world.
research, plus four weeks for resea rch each summer. S/h e will also be encouraged to teach one
Preference will be given to scholars in the Humanities,
graduate or undergraduate course each ycar, as the university course schedule allows .
Social Sciences, and related professional disciplines. The
Applications for thi s po sition arc sought from scholars in the history of Briti sh art who hold Institute welcomes both individual applications and
the PhD and have at least five years of professional experience. Pre feren ce may be gi ven to collaborativegroup proposals. The Institute does not
those who ha ve worked in both academ ic and mu seu m settings and who are familiar with the
consider applications from doctoral or postdoctoral
running ofrcscarch ccntcrs . A collaborative spirit is required, along with excell ent
candidates.
com municatio n, management and lead er ship skills , and a proven track record of scholarship in
the field . Further infor mation about the Institute and application
Please send a letter of application, CV, and a cop y of a re cently published article or book materials for fellowships may be found at
chapter to: Amy Meyers, Director, Yale Center for British Art, p.a. Box 208 280, New Haven www.columbia.edu/cu/reidhall or may be obtained by
CT 06520-8280. Three lette rs of recommendation should rea ch the same addr ess by the calling the Office of the Provost at 212-854 -3813.
closing da te of Octo ber 31 , 2007 . Ple ase also apply online at www .yale.edu/jobs For Applications for 2008-09 fellowships must be received
requisi tion l795BR. by March 3, 2008 . Applications being submitted this year
for 2009- 10 mu st also be received by March 3, 2008.

BOOKS & PRI NTS

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Books are willingly mailed overseas .
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The National Human ities Center offers several fe llowships of
Th e Dep artmen ts o f East A sian Stud ies and Co m parat ive Lit e rat ur e at New up to $75,000 as part of its project "Auto no my, S ingularity ,
York Universit y inv it e app lic at io ns f o r a join t , te nure-t rac k po siti o n at the
assist an t p rofess or leve l in mod ern Japanese and c o m para t ive lit erat u re
Book Search Creativity," an inq uiry into the impact of recent scientific and
Appo intm e n t wi ll beg in Se p te mbe r 1, 20 0 8 , su b ject t o b ud g et ar y an d
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ad mi nis t rat iv e ap p ro v al. We ar e espe cial ly in t erest ed in c an di d at es w ho se Old, Rare & Out ofPrint Books "Whereas, in the past, poets and philosophers asked what it
t each ing an d re sear ch intere st s encom pass areas such as na r rati v e an d Marsha J. Shapiro means to be human , scientists today are asking what it is to be
t ex t ua l ana ly sis, co mparat ive soc ial theo ry, and g lo ba l cu lt ur al d y nam ic s 355 West 85th Street, Apt. 77
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sho uld hav e Ph.D. in ha nd by t he t ime o f ap po in tm ent. 212·595·4219 ; fax 212·875·1948 National Humanities Center. Scholars w hos e wo rk is related
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Japanese /Comparat iv e Li t er at ure Search Comm itte e. Department of East
residential fellowships at the National Humanities Center.
Asian Studies, New Yo r k University, 715 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY
10003. The search co m mittee w ;JJ begin review ing applications on No vember
PUBLISHING & For further information on fellowships and application materiai, see
16, 200 7, an d will continue un ti l the posit ion is fille d. RIGHTS http .z/nattonalhumanltlescente r.org/
.PUBLISHER WASTED: Experienced author
seeks sympathetic though solvent publisher with o r write to National Humanities Cente r,
a view to supporting his latest project: A Subject
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Bibliography of the First World War,' Books in Box 12256, Research Triangle Pa rk,
English 1950-2007. If interested please contact NC 27709.
Gerald Gliddon, 79 The Street, Brooke, Norwich,
NR15 lIT , or by email:
gerald.gliddon@btinternet.com for further Appiicat ion deadiine October 15, 2007.
NYU is an Equal Opport unity/Aff irma t iv e A ct ion Em pl oy er.
information.
 CLASSIFIED
AWARDS &
FELLOWSHIPS

~ Washington University in St.l.Duis The Bibliographical Society

ARTS & SCIENCES
Modeling Interdisciplinary Inquiry:
A Postdoctoral Program in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Washin gto n Un iversi ty an no un ces the eigh t year of Modeli ng In terdis cip lina ry Inquiry, an An d rew W. Mello n
Foundat ion Pos td oc toral Fellow ship Program designe d to enco urage in te rdisc iplinary scho lars hi p an d teaching
acro ss the h um an ities and social sciences. We invite applic ation s from recent Ph.D.s for th e positions as Fellow.
In Sep temb er 2008, the selected Fellows will jo in ou r con tin uing Fellow in ord er to participate in the
Un iversity's on goi ng interdi scipli nar y pr ograms and sem ina rs. The Fellows will receive a two year ap po intm en t
with a stipen d beginn ing at $43,1 50 pe r yea r. Post doc to ral Fellows have an op portnn ity to plan an d pu rsue
their ow n continu in g resea rch in associatio n with a senior facu lty m em ber at \Vashin gton University, and ) over
the co urse of th eir two -year appointment, to teach thre e undergrad uate courses in the ir hom e discipline and to
collabor ate in an in terdisci pli na ry t heory an d met hods wor ksho p.
Major Grants for Bibliographical Research
Application s are invited fro m sc ho lars engag ed in bibli ographical
research (on, for exam ple, book history, textu al transm ission,
publishing, printing, bookbinding, book-ownership and book-collecting) for Majot
Grants to be awa rde d in 2008. Th e Socie ty ho pes to make aw ards bot h for
immed iate resear ch needs, suc h as for microfil ms or travelling expenses, and for
longer-term sup po rt, for exa mp le to ass ist wit h prolo nged visits to libr aries and
arctuves. Several Major Grants, up to £2,000 eac h, will be awarded.
Pantzer Research Fellowship in the Historyofthe Printed Book
The Society has received a ge nero us bequest from th e estate of t he distingu ish ed
bibliog rapher Kath arin e F.Pant ze r Jr and has estab lished award s in her me mo ry.
App lications are now invited for the Pant zer Fellowship , wo rth up to £4,000, w hich
is to be awarded for the firs t time in 2008 . Ap plica nts' research mus t be w ith in the
field ofthe bibliogra phical or book-historical study of the printed book in the hand-
p ress pe riod , th at is up to ci 830 .
The Society also accepts bid for Minor Grants (£50-£200) at any t ime during the year.
App lications mu st be received by 1 December 2007.

T here is no appl ication fo rm, b u t further in for m at io n on Mo delin g In ter disciplinar y Inq ui ry is availa ble on the Further details of allawards and app lication forms may be found on the
Soc iety 'S we bsite - www.bibsoc .org.uk - or fro m:
web at h ttp :// www.ar tsci.wust l.edu /- szwicker/Mell on_Po stdoctoraI_Pro gr am. h tm l. Appl icants sho uld sub mit a
Dr Jo hn Hinks
cove r lett er, a d escrip tion of their research p rogram (no m o re t h an th ree single-s paced pa ges), a brief p ropo sal Secr eta ry: Fellowships & Bursa ries Subcommittee
for the seminar in theory and methods, a curriculum vitae. and three lett ers of recommen da tion . All material s The Bibliogra phical Society
Centr e fo r Urb an Histor y
must be subm itted in paper cop y. University of Leicester
Leicester LEt 7RH
E-mail:jh241@1e.ac.uk

Submit materials by December 1,2007, to

Steven Zwicker (szwicker@artsci.wust1.edu) Department of English
Washington University, Campus Box 1122 One Brook ings Drive, SI. Louis MO 63130 ~ ST ANTONY'S COLLEGE
Washington University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity emp loyer.
Employment eligibility verification requested upon hire.
The Alistair Horne Fellowship
The Alist air Horne Fellowship provides membersh ip of St Antony's College
and financial assistance to a candidate w ho is res ea rching or w rit ing a
significant book o n a topic of moder n history. Young historians and first
author s are enco uraged to apply.

The Fellowship carries a research grant which is in t he order of £ 10,000; this

Coming up in
is curren tly unde r review and t he re is t he possibility of it be ing increased for
2008/9 . Howev er, It s ob ject ive is not o nly financial. As a Senior Membe r
of St Antony's College, the Fellow is entitled to use t he Co llege librar y
and research cent res , ar-d is e ncourage d t o play a full pan in t he Co llege 's
acad emic and social life , as we ll as that of t he Unive rsity as a who le.

the TLS... The Fellow fo r t he academ ical year 2008/ 9 will be elected ear ly in 200 8.
Ap plications sho uld include a curriculum vitae, a desc r ipt ion of the proposed
boo k, an indication of t he autho r's plans for th e year, and t he names of
two referees and should be sent to The Wa rde n, St Antony's College,

5th October - Classics Ox ford OX 2 6JF. cax 44 (0) 1865 27 4527 , emall penny.cooke@sant.ox.ac.
uk. Furt her part iculars can be fo und at http!/www.s ant .ox.ac.uk/peo ple/
fellowships.sht m!. The deadline for applications is 30 November 2007.

12th October History

19th October Philosophy
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The Literary o''::nOl-''J n'-'JV il ilD'D -'J')ll'<il
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Helping writers • Anoffice intheRabin Building forJewish Studies in Mount Scopus will beprovided forresearch purposes and
scholars are expected to bepresent at least four working days a week
since 1996 • TheMandel Scholars willprepare a report regardingtheir activities, which will reflect their progress in research. The
•. D ",I .LUl~ J~.'" report will behanded intotheAcademic Committee oftheMandel Scholarsuntil July15th each year
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CALL FOR PAPERS FOR

The Sword ofJudith: Feminine Agency and the Aesthetics ofTerror

A multidisciplinary scholarly conference and publication on the iconography and textu al traditions of the biblical heroine Judith

Thi s multi disciplinary scho larly conference and publi cation is
designed to promote collaboration and exchange be tween scholars,
writers, and critics working on judith in biblical studi es, liter ary crit-
icism , feminist and psychoanal ytical th eory, art histor y; Italian
Renais sance , English , and Hellenistic stu dies.
Tbc biblical her oine Jud ith is one of th c m ost cha llenging and
provoca tive figures in th e ju deo -Chri srian tradition and West ern
art . \Vh y does judith continue to receive
so much schol arly and critical atte ntion?
For over 2,200 yea rs th e can onicity of The
Book of ] udith, the hist ori cal basis of the
narrati ve, and its autho rs hip has been cha l-
lcngcd and dis pu ted. Do na rcllo's scu lp-
tu re ]udit h an d II olofernes is stu died as a
m et aph or for the de Medi ci rule of Flo -
rence ; Ar te m isia Ge nt ileschi' s p a int ing
]udith and ll oloferne s is stu died as a
m etaphor for fem ale resistance to m ale
do mi na nce .
Th e po werful appea l to the visu al
imaginati o n of the Juclith narrative ha s
inspired an d ch allenge d West ern scribes ,
illustr ators, dr aftsman, painters, and sculp -
tor s for two millennia. T he judith text is
part of the earliest an d most com plete m anuscript of Heowulf
judirh was portrayed by both Dante in The Divine Comedy and
C ha nce r in The Canterhury Tales. T he int ellectuall y influ en tial
Lucrezia Tornabuoi de Medici wr ote an im portant reli giou s poe m
titled "[u dith" in th e fiftee nth cent ury. Donatell o, Mantegn a. C ior -
gi o ne , Mtcbclangclo, Artemi sia Cc nttlcsc h t. Ca ravaggi o, Bot ticel-
Ii, johann Liss, Egon Schiele. Gu stav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka,
Mozart , Scarlatt i, Martha Graham, and I.o pc de Vcgas have all pr e-
sented us with creative interpretations of judirh. judith's be head-
in g of II olo fernes is a paradigm for fem ale agen cy; its depiction
invok es th e aesth eti c of su blime terror.
The figure of judith is kept alive in the Jewish tradition on the
festi val of Ch anu kab . Pop e Jo h n Paul's homily o n judirh an d Mar y
reaffirmed judirh's traditional parallel to th e mother of Chri st .
Roman Catholics still cha nt ju dith's liturgy as part of the trienni-
al Icct ion ar y on appointed days. Submissions to the judith confer-
enc e an d publi cat io n ar c enc ou raged fro m scholars wo rkin g fro m
w ithin the Jewish and Christian tra ditions.
Up to ten uni ver sity- or operating foundati on-a dminister ed
g rants are available from $6.000 to $11,000 for researc h on th e
judith theme. Subm issions should include the scho lar's CV and a
prop osal limi ted to 1, 500 w or ds. Grant req ue st su bm issions must
include the ad ministering inst itution 's na me , addres s, fed eral tax
identification number, nonprofit de signation, the name of acting
dep artment / program cha ir or dir ecto r, a deta iled pro forma
budget requ est, and th e e-ma il add ress of the institutio n's admin-
istr ati ve conta ct. Gr ant requests require the signature of the
dep artmen t chairvpr ogram d irec to r. The budget can include up
to 20 pe rcent dep artment allo cation. Direct all sub m issions to
Judith2008@rarewildflow er.org .
SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION TIMELlNE
November 30, 2007 Proposal subm ission deadline,
December 31,2007 New works select ed (Distingu ishe d Acade-
mic Panel in formation ). Appli cants notifi ed by e-mail.
January 15, 2008 Gr ant s remi tt ed for univer sity - and founda-
tio n -admi nistered g ra n ts,
Spring 2008 Scholarly confe re nce held: The Sword of Judith:
Feminine Agenc)'and the Aesthetics C?f Terror. Participating scholars
will present works-in-pro g ress. All tr avel expense s will be paid
for participants. (C onfere nce locati on de ta ils to follo w.)
August 31, 2008 All fina l en tries submitted by
e-ma il for public at ion. On rec eipt of the publishablc fina l pap er,
th e re m aining 30 perc ent of th e resea rch I prod uction st ipe nd
remitted. Work submitted after August 31 will n ot be eligible for
the fina l pa ym ent or publication .
Fall 2008/Winler 2009 Publication of The Sword of ] udith: Feminine
Agency and the Aesthetics of Terror by the j ason McCoy Inc.l Caryatid
LLC Publications.
ABOUT THE SPONSORSHIP
The Sword of judith con feren ce and p ublicatio n is sponsored by the Brin e
Family Ch arit able Tru st, founde d by Kcvin It Brin e in 1989 to support aca-
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tio ns. Past exh ibitio ns and confere nces funded by th e tru st ha ve included
The Sir \Vil!iilm j ones Symptlsium: "Scholarly Ref7ections," held at New York
Univ ersi ty in 1994; Heroic Annor of the Italian Renaissance: Filippo Negrvli
and hi~ Contemporaries, held at th e M et rop olit an Museum of Art in 1999;
and Y\'tmiors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet,
held at th e Metro polit an Muse um of Art in 2006. Mr. Brin e's books
in clude Objects of Et1tluiry: Tile Life, Contributiolls, dnd Illf lueHces of Sir
WiIliam lanes (1746-1794) (co-edited wit h Garland Cann on ). Ne w York:
New York Univers ity Press, 1995; and The Porchof the Carydtids:Dmwings,
PaiJitiJigs, and Sculptures, with essays by Kcvin R. Brin e, Grah am Nickson,
Adam Weinberg, Mariet Wesrermann and Alexandra Munroe, New York:
j ason M cC oy ; Watcrmill, NY: Caryatid LLC , 2006.
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Ima ge: Donatello ,j uditl1 aHd IloJoftm es, front view,
Piazza dell a Sign oria, Florence, Italy:
Phot o: AlinariJ Art Resour ce, NY
 39

Lesley Abrams is Professor of Mod ern Sarah Curtis edited the Journals of Literatur e. His Selected Poems, 196 9-2005, Stephen Romer has been a Visiting Fellow
Histor y at the University of Oxford. Woodrow Wyatt , 1998-2001. was publi shed earlier this year. at Sidney Sussex Co llege, Ca mbridge . His
anthology of Twentieth Century French
Steven E. Aschheim is Cha ir of Europea n Victor Dixon is Professor of Hispanic Clive Jam ess Cultura l Amnesia: Notes in Poems appea red in 200 2.
Studi es at the Hebr ew Univer sity, Jeru salem . Studies at Trinity College Dublin. the marg in of my time was rev iewe d in the
His book s includ e Scholem, A rendt, TLS of September 14. Th e fourth volume of Carol Rumens' s most recent books are
Klemperer: Intimare chron icles in Turbulent Richard Ellis, is a research ass ociate at the hi s mem oir s, Norrh Face of Soho, was Writing Poetry, 2006 , and Self into Song,
times and In Times of Crisis: Essays on Am eric an Mu seum of Natural Histor y in publi shed last ye ar. 2007, a book of lectures.
European culture, Germa ns, and Jews. His New York . He is the author of The Empty
latest book, Beyond the Border: The Ocean, 200 3, and the forthcoming Tuna: A Denis Judd is Professor of Imperi al Histor y Tom Shippey hold s the WaIter J. On g Chair
German-Jewish legacy abroad, was pub- love story . at London Metropolitan University. He is the of Humanities at Saint Loui s University. His
lished ear lier this year. auth or of Empire: The British Imperial most recent publi cations includ e The
Samantha Ellis is a freelanc e journalist and experience fro m 1765 to the present , and, Shadow-walkers: Jacob Grimm's mythology
Roderick Bailey is a historian attach ed to the pla ywright. more recentl y, The Lion and the Tiger: The of the monstrous, 2005, and Roots and
Imperi al War Mu seum , specializing in the rise and fa ll of the British Raj 1600-1 94 7, Branches: Selected papers on Tolkien , which
study of Brit ain' s Special Operati ons Biancamaria Fontana ' s Montaigne 's 2004 . was publi shed ea rlier this yea r.
Executive. The Wildest Province, hi s histor y Politics: Auth ority and governa nce in the
of SO E operation s in Alb ania and Kosovo , is "Essais" will be publi shed this year. She is Michael Lister is co- editing the forth coming Shoe! Stadlen is a compose r and edit or of
to be publi shed next year. Professor at the Institut d' Etudes Politiques, David Daiches: A celebra tion of his life and New No tes, the magazin e of the Society for
Universite de Lau sanne. work, to be publi shed this yea r. the Promotion of New Mu sic. He has carri ed
Jennifer Breen is the editor of The Selected out field work amo ngs t sha mans in Bur yatia.
Poems of Joanna Bailli e, 1999, and Women Caroline Franklin is Pro fess or of Eng lish at P eter Marshall is Professor of History at the
Romantics: Writing in prose, 1996 , as well as the University of Wales, Swa nsea . Her University of War wick. His most recent book Raymond Tallis, who was a doctor for ove r
the co-author of Romantic Literature, 2002. book s include Byron: A literary life, 2000, is Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A ghost thirt y years, has three books due out in 200 8:
and Mary Wollstonecraft: A literary life, story, 2007. The Kingdom of Infini te Space: A journey
T. H. Breen is Professor of Am eric an publi shed in 2004 . round your head, The Enduring Significance
Histor y at Nor thwes tern University. His Heather O'Donoghue is a Rea der in of Parmenides: Unthinkable thought , and
book Ma rketplace of Revolution: How Russell Goulbourne is Professor of Early An cient Icelandic Literature and Antiquities Hunger.
consumer politics shaped American Modern French Literatu re at the University at the University of Oxford . She is the auth or
Independence was publi shed in 2004 . He is of Leed s. He is the author of Voltaire, Comic of From Asgard to Valhalla: The remarka ble Bharat Tandon teach es at St An ne' s
wor king on a new book entitled Dramatist, publi shed last yea r. history of the Norse myths, publi shed earlier Co llege, Oxford . His boo k Jane Au sten and
The Collapse of an Am erican Empire: this year. the Morality of Conversa tion was publi shed
Revolutionary political culture, 1774-1 776. Dipika Guha begin s readin g for an M FA in in 200 3.
Playwriting at Bro wn Unive rsity this month. Timothy Phillips has studied the develop-
Lucy Carlyle is a writer and a postgradu ate She is also an actor. ment of Russian holiday resort s and is the A. N. Wilson ' s recent books include Aft er
stude nt at the University of Oxford . She is author of Bes lan: The Tragedy of Schoo l No. the Victoria ns: The decline of Bri tain in the
working on a doctoral thesis discussing James Hall is the author of The World as I which was publi shed earlier this year. world , 2005, and Betje man: A Life, publi shed
"frock-consciousness" and bod y aes thetics in Sculpture: The chang ing status of sculpture last yea r. His novel about the Wag ner famil y,
the writing of Elizabeth Bowen and from the Renaissance to the presen t day, Andrew Porter is chief music critic of the Winnie and the Wolf, has been shor tlisted for
Rosam ond Lehm ann. 1999, and Michelangelo and the Reinvention TLS. this year 's Book er Pri ze.
of the Human Body , 200 5. A series of
Richard Crampton is Professor of East exclusive interviews with Mich elangelo , Josh Raymond is writing a doctoral thesis Lydia Wilson is studying for a PhD at
Europea n History, and a Fellow of St Coffee with Michelangelo, was publi shed this on the neural basis of peak sporting Ca mbridge University in medieval Ar abic
Edmund Hall , University of Oxford . His month. perform ance at Imperi al Co llege, Univer sity phil osoph y.
publications include Atlas of Easte rn Europe of Lond on.
in the Twent ieth Century , 1997 and The David Harsent was appointed Writ ing Zinovy Zinik' s book s include a coll ection of
Balkans since The Seco nd World War, Fellow at Sheffie ld Hallam Univer sity in Oliver Reynolds is the author of four shor t stories, Mind the Doors, 200 I, and
2002. 2005 , and is a Fellow of the Royal Soci ety of volumes of poetry including Almost, 1999. One-Way Ticket, 2005.

TLS CROSSWORD 712 C A

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ACROSS DOWN C A S A U B o N E M E

I Sir Robert Chiltern was ideal in this I It gave Hume a lift in 1886 (6, 3) B M Y C 0 C K T A I L
I B R H Y A
role (7) 2 A wrenc h for Fuller, when separate d
M A L E I C (j N o C L A S M
5 Eng lish playw right assoc iated with from pen (7) A D N S R N P
Horaee (7) 3 Unreaso nable request from Newby C (j L E T T E A D A M A N T
9 Zero gain recalculated for Dame Edith (5) (1 ,3,2,3) D 0 H R I I 0
to Bearer of greet ings from Claudius to 4 Possibly large woman singing in con- I N G R E s S I (j N N o 0 N
old Norway (9) clusion (4) A I L A 0 0
R (j S S E T T I T T 0
11 A tenor might be highly decorated (6) 5 "Wa ugh congra tulated me on the
M T E E R I n A N U S
12 Characte r miss ing from Edgewor th (8) Shelley, I congratulated him on - - "
I 0 I OM s V 0 0 R
14 This is abo ut includin g Mc Ge ller in (Wi lliam Boyd, Any Human Heart) (4, 6)
O .C • • ' P 0 0 N E R I S M
papal co urt (5) 6 Many exist for "V" (5)
15 Kale, who told her hu sband "O ut, yo u 7 Measure Shakespea re, for example , as SOL UTION TO CROSSWO RD 108
mad-headed ape!" (4, 5) one who lays down the law (7)
18 Som bre garb ex hibited by Co llins and 8 Place to work like a beave r (suit nove l- The winner of Crosswo rd 708 is
Moore (5, 4) ist) (5) Mary Cartlidge , Dorking.
20 & 17 down Ter minal dramatist (5, 9) 13 Rankin records result of 22 across ,
22 Papa' s seasonal rains (8) and Drinkwater some festivals in rising
24 First judge - other sort of father-in-law seas ( 10)
(6) 16 Traveller, a co untryman of Kneale (9) Th e sender of the first co rrec t
26 Trojan flower makes Carmen sad - and 17 See 20 across so lution opened on Octo ber 26
screa m, perhaps (9) 19 MacLeish on strike (3, 4) will rece ive a cas h prize of £4 0.
27 King Igor rewritten by Russian novelist 21 Caref ully composed jo kes (7) Entries shou ld be ad dressed to
(5) 22 Tacos cooked for 4 playing her (5) TLS Crossword 7 12,
28 Pamela, whose virtue was rewarded (7) T imes Hou se, 1 Penn ington Stree t,
23 Miss St Clare of French escape (5)
29 Composer finds devalued lire in 25 Street to satisfy hungry authors? (4) Lond on E98 1BS.
Dicke ns (7)

TLS SE PTE M BER 28 2 0 07

40

P erambulatory C hristmas Boo ks, Part Il.

The intent ion of this series, in whi ch we
recommend an ad mirable but more or less for-
go tte n book by a notable writer, is as mu ch to
praise Lond on ' s co rn ucopian sec ond-hand
book shop s - said to be und er threat from
o nline sloth - as to fish go od book s fro m
obscurity. Eac h of our treasur es wi ll have
been purchased for und er a fiver. Last wee k,
we trumpeted The Face of Eng land by
Edmund Blunden (£ 1 from An y Am ount of
Books). This week's acq uisi tion, a littl e-
known novel by Guy de M aup assant, Mont
Oriol, com es from Keith Faw kes (po pularly
known as the Flask) in Flas k Wa lk, Hamp-
stead . Of all Lond on ' s biblio-caves, the Flask
is perh aps the best for bargain s. So metimes
it is imp ossible to ge t to the book s on the
shelves for the book s on the floor. The
friendl y, middle-age d staff are apt to offer
unreq ues ted di scounts, an d at least one of
them is ex treme ly know ledgeable. We have
known custo mers buy a batch of tatt ered
paperb ack s from the Flas k, read the lot , then
return them in part -exchan ge for another lot.
M aup assant' s shor t stor ies are ava ilable
in num erou s miscell aneou s editions , but his
novels are se ldom mentioned . Bel-Am i and
Une Vie are still read, but Mont Oriol has
di sap peared. Set at a Hydro in the Au vergne,
it in vol ve s th e a utho r 's usu al flirtations and
intri gu es. Li ke all of M aup assant' s novels,
Mont Oriol has the feel of an ex tended sho rt
story , but there are man y enjoyable passages.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -----, being alive, in all its precariou s horr or." The
Melody mongers
One co nce rns a disc uss ion between an ava nt-
ga rde co mp oser, Sa int-Landr i, and some
patron s of the Baths. The mu sician despises
the likes of M assenet and Go unod. " It' s all
up with the hackn eyed co mpose rs of the old
schoo l. The melod y- mon ger s have had their
day. A nd that ' s what peopl e wo n' t see.
Mu sic is a new art and melod y was merely
the lispin g of infan cy."
Sai nt-Landri clin ches his case by makin g a
parallel with impressioni st paintin g and mod-
ernist literature: " Your hall port er cares only
for blood- and-thunder stories; the middl e-
classes read no vel s that appeal to their emo-
tion s, while rea lly cu lture d peo ple deli ght in
wor ks of ge nius, which are sea led books to
the rest of the wor ld" . Mont Oriol was pub-
lished in 1RRR.
The Blind Eye conta ins a lot of ap horistic
Our copy is part of the Wern er Lauri e ed i-
tion of Maup assant, translated by M arjo rie
wit, and occasionally some wisdom besides.
Lauri e ( 1929). Thi s 1949 reprint is a pleasur e
"My fear of flyin g has abs olutely nothing to
do with a fear of death , but o n the contrar y of
to handl e and to rea d; it comes in grey wrap -
pers, and cos t £3. 50 . Th e Flask is open most
afternoo ns, including Sundays . Repair with
yo ur pur chases to the Flask Inn, a haunt of
Maup assant ' s co ntem pora ry RLS, then go for
a wa lk on the Heath . Life sca rce ly ge ts better.
T he aph ori sm is the mo st eco nomica l of
liter ary forms but the least satisfy ing,
offe ring "too much too soo n or too littl e too
late, but never ju st enoug h for the tim e
being". The author of that aphor ism about the
aphoris m is Don Paterso n, in his seco nd book
of ap hor isms, The Blind Eye . Mr Pater son, a
res pected poe t, believes that "the lapid ary
co ldness of the aphor ism ass uages a griev-
ance far better than the poe m. !t erec ts a stone
over each indi vidu al hurt" .
probl em with wit and wisdom (if yo u' ll
permit us an aphor ism) is that yo u usuall y
ge t one or the oth er. "Ah, the Yanks: eve ry
seco nd poem a blood y ma nifesto" is the kind
of thin g that might have been sa id ove r a
drink, witho ut fear of exa mination. "As a
j ourn ali st he was a disgrace to his profession,
which is to say he was a credit to his profes -
sion" was thought wi tty and w ise eno ugh to
be inclu ded , but mo st readers will think it
unworth y, as the author pro bably does by
now . A number of refl ecti on s are m or e trui sm
than aphor ism : " No sense steps into the same
word twice" ; "M y parent s concei ved me, the
uni verse con ceived of me". Som e of the
wisdo m - "The beaut iful can only relax in the
co mpany of the ugly" - is hok y-pok y.
When not in lapid ary mood , Mr Pater son is
rev isiting pas t amatory torm ent. No doubt
he has the bleak satisfac tion of knowin g that
here he is at his best: " She insisted on abso -
lute honesty, so I told her eve rything. I never
saw her aga in, but at least I had spared the
nex t guy the same ordea l". The Blind Eye is
publi shed by Faber at £ 12.99.
of the Berg Co llection at the Library .
Kerouac' s gra phic talent has been und er-
ex posed. Before he got started as a writer, he
was fond of drawing up illu strated title pages
in his noteboo ks - "Merchant Mariner by
John Kernuac" , for exa m ple , is portentously
annotated in pencil , "First Manu script March
1943: No t Copyr ighted" - but the display con-
tain s a deli ghtfully minimali st Emily Dic kin-
son, one of K erouacs wife aslee p, another of
the author as a boy. There are man y manu-
scripts, including the "scro ll" version of On
the Road, rece ntly publi shed to mark the fifti-
eth annive rsa ry of the novel (rev iewe d in the
TLS, Sep te mber 7), and a variety of diaries.
An entry for Jun e I , 1941 , reads, "M y diaries
in the pas t see m now to have been nothing
but horribl y acc ura te data ...". Beatific Soul
costs £25 ($45) and is published by Scala.
F or Met afict ion IV, we see k sce nes fro m
ficti on in which histori cal per son ages
min gl e w ith mad e-up ch aract er s at rec ogn iza-
bly rea l location s. Kay Phil ipp akis fro m San
Francisco prop oses a sce ne from Death Is
Now My Neighbour, an Inspector M orse
novel by Colin Dexter, " in which Mor se vis-
its the Bear in Oxfor d and chats wi th Steve
and So nya Lowbridge, the proprietor s":
Morse turned left into Alfred Street, and . .
tried the saloon-ba r door of the Bear Inn. He
tapped lightly on the glass of the door. Tapped
agai n. A few minutes later . Morse was
seated with the landlord, Steven Lowbridge, at
a table in front of the bar.
"Would you like a coffee or something?"
asked Sonya, his wife. Morse turn ed round and

T his drawing of Vincent Va n Gog h by Jack

Kerou ac is one of many ske tches and
paintings by the novelist included in Beatific
looked towa rds the bar, where a row of beers
paraded their pedigrees on the hand-pumps.
" Is the Burto n in goo d nick ?"
Soul: l ack Kerouac on the road, at the New M s Phil ippakis, who stud ied in Oxford, says
York Publi c Lib rary until February 10, 2008. that the Lo wbridges "were for man y yea rs in
Th e exhibition is acco mpanied by a catalog ue charge of the Bear".
of the sa me name by Isa ac Gewirtz, cura tor J .C _

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TLS SE PTEMBER 28 2007