The judge in Dublin who ran the trial in which Samuel Beckett was a witness in the 1930s called Proust 'Mr Prowst'. This is supposed to be one of the things that made SB despair of Ireland and never want to return.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 23 August 2018 17:10 (six years ago) link
What was the trial about?
― jmm, Thursday, 23 August 2018 17:14 (six years ago) link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_I_Was_Going_Down_Sackville_Street#Libel_lawsuit
― the pinefox, Friday, 24 August 2018 07:56 (six years ago) link
Mentioned this on the pub last night and was just scrolling thru now - two left-wingers and their love for a reactionary (in this case Naipaul):
https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-painful-sum-of-things/
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 24 August 2018 12:39 (six years ago) link
Thanks for sharing, I'd like to give that a read as well this weekend.
I've been thinking more of the "painful admiration" one of them cites and the ambivalence of that relation between a left-wing/progressive reader/critic and a reactionary author (Tariq Ali also wrote an obit of Naipaul - it appears they were friendly?).
It struck me as curious that - with some notable exceptions - this appears to be much more common in English literature than in other countries/regions/traditions? There's Naipaul and Powell, but also the love of Waugh, Larkin, Amis, Kipling, etc. I had assumed it was perhaps in large part due to "high Tory" culture and its reproduction in the cultural institutions/universities in the UK?
I finished the Anderson essay last night and was disappointed he hadn't gone a bit further in exploring this peculiarity of English culture but this afternoon happened to remember he dedicated a typically lengthy essay on more or less this question 50 years ago (!).
It's paywalled on their site, but I believe can be found elsewhere online (or in his book English Questions) https://newleftreview.org/I/50/perry-anderson-components-of-the-national-culture
― Federico Boswarlos, Friday, 24 August 2018 18:05 (six years ago) link
I was also left unsatisfied by the second part of the essay, I feel like quite a bit was left unresolved. That said, it does make me want to read Powell (as well as The Dream of the Red Chamber and Malcolm Bowie on Proust), so there is that.
― Federico Boswarlos, Friday, 24 August 2018 18:09 (six years ago) link
Good to be reminded of n+1. I should read more of it. Like this excellent reply from Wood:
https://nplusonemag.com/issue-3/essays/a-reply-to-the-editors/
― the pinefox, Friday, 24 August 2018 18:27 (six years ago) link
Wouldn't we need to know more about how other countries, et al, handle it before we could say England was distinctive?
Or: Flaubert is in some ways reactionary. He's revered in France (by liberals and leftists, by Barthes, et al). So such traditions perhaps have their own versions of this?
― the pinefox, Friday, 24 August 2018 18:29 (six years ago) link
In Germany, one or two of the big modern names have been on the left - Brecht, Grass, Wolf? - which does present a different scenario.
― the pinefox, Friday, 24 August 2018 18:30 (six years ago) link
Yes, that's true but I always was under the impression in these other countries/literary traditions that they were more of an exceptional character?
I'll admit, I haven't fully thought this through at length, but I have had trouble coming up with other analogous examples where capital R reactionary authors are still held in the same esteem from other countries (there's Flaubert, Celine in France; Heidegger in the Continental Philosophy tradition). I definitely acknowledge more familiarity with Anglo-American literature than others, but still...! That said, I may be totally missing some obvious examples.
― Federico Boswarlos, Friday, 24 August 2018 18:50 (six years ago) link
I would have thought that in France for instance, it could be shown that half the canon was conservative or reactionary in some way. It's an old canard that Marx loved Balzac 'despite' his royalism.
The difference you're pointing to, I think, is not about the historic canon but a more recent field - say, post-WWII. That would be a clearer, because more limited point of comparison.
Then there's also a difference between 'fascist modernism' and 'conservative English', ie / eg: between Pound and Larkin - very different sets of reactions and audiences involved.
― the pinefox, Saturday, 25 August 2018 17:25 (six years ago) link
I had assumed it was perhaps in large part due to "high Tory" culture and its reproduction in the cultural institutions/universities in the UK?
I would say that that hasn't been reproduced much in universities (and to an extent elsewhere in the UK) since, say, the 1980s -- English Studies is very much a post-New-Left formation in which the default is liberal or left. In fact in a way, people like Larkin and Powell are *not* that respected in universities, and PA may be writing against that to a degree.
Whether other nations have remained more conservative, or been similar, etc, I don't know - but there have been very conservative (critical) traditions in France / Germany. My understanding is that Barthes and Derrida for instance were writing against much more rigid formations than existed in the UK, which partly explains why they didn't entirely fit our frameworks.
― the pinefox, Saturday, 25 August 2018 17:29 (six years ago) link
Yes, those are totally fair points and I prob should have made a distinction b/w fascist and conservative reactionaries which, together with their audiences, are very different from one another.
Also, yes it doesn't seem to be something that has continued among younger generations - at least, I think most younger(ish) conservative/reactionary writers in the English speaking world seem to be, to use an Andersonism, "of little moment." Perhaps in the UK itself, this is in part due to or reflects the waning influence of high Tory culture over the course of the second half of the 20th century? I'll admit to being a bit out of my depth here - not being English and observing from abroad - so should probably stop making these somewhat sweeping generalizing speculations :)
― Federico Boswarlos, Saturday, 25 August 2018 19:39 (six years ago) link
Where are you now Federico?
I agree about the waning of high Con culture. In a way this connects to the cultural change often described by old-time ilx poster Robin Carmody.
― the pinefox, Sunday, 26 August 2018 07:10 (six years ago) link
Australia's most respected poet, Les Murray, is a tedious reactionary in his politics. (My contribution from a tiny country nobody cares about)
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Sunday, 26 August 2018 23:50 (six years ago) link
I'm in Toronto where - curious if this is also the case in Australia - we've inherited some legacy of high Con culture too (though not nearly as strong).
To go back to PA's essay, I'm surprised they didn't inspire a larger response in the Letters pages. The journalist/critic Jeet Heer managed to have a successful Twitter poll on it, though.
Anthony Powell is:— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) August 17, 2018
― Federico Boswarlos, Monday, 27 August 2018 15:09 (six years ago) link
I know the poll is presumably a light-hearted jape, but its two options are not really alternatives.
Is Anthony Powell:
a) inferior to Samuel Beckett, orb) superior to Doris Lessing?
Think carefully before you answer.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 11:05 (six years ago) link
do i have to read any of their books tho
― mark s, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 11:09 (six years ago) link
re letters: Yes, just one response so far in the LRB? Which made an OK point about retrospective insight into a body of work but was itself ultimately unconvincing. I mean this is literally laughable:
"Without the relation to Balzac, Proust’s project is both unintelligible and, to some extent, pointless."
We might as well all write in, one per issue, saying things like:
"We have forgotten Flaubert. He remains, of course, the master - and Proust's"
"Well and good. But the true wellspring of the Proustian ethos is, of course, Stendhal"
"That Proust is fundamentally unreadable without an expert knowledge of the Goncourts used to be well understood. No longer, to judge from the recent pages of the London Review"
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 11:11 (six years ago) link
this entire exercise is perry dodging the 91 balzac novels he knows he ought to have read (bcz marx) but hasn't
― mark s, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 11:16 (six years ago) link
My game plan: read a million words of Powell, a million words of Proust, then some biographies & criticism. Eventually compose 8 or 9 tweets refuting Perry Anderson's views of both. Never say I don't work for you people.— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) September 15, 2018
― mark s, Saturday, 15 September 2018 22:37 (five years ago) link
jeet go on ilx
ugh jeet he did a series on tweets on how Powell/that generation of writers had a 'thing' for Thatcher.
I revive with this New Yorker write-up on Spurling's biog, which made me think that oh of course Anderson doesn't even make an attempt at reviewing it.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 29 November 2018 22:29 (five years ago) link
The teratology of the contemporary political imagination – plentiful enough: Trump, Le Pen, Salvini, Orbán, Kaczyński, ogres galore – has acquired a new monster.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 31 January 2019 00:05 (five years ago) link
Guess who's back?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratology
actually didn't know about the meaning of this word at all.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 31 January 2019 10:39 (five years ago) link
Thanks for pulling that out PF. I can see how he comes off as pompous with his wider vocabulary, but in this instance it does the job.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 2 February 2019 18:10 (five years ago) link
Finished this tonight. It's not my idea of a very good PA essay.
The Lula material is partly reheated, simply in that he's written at length on Lula before (but not about his trial, successors, etc). He comes out as quite partisan for Lula's PT / workers' party - that's one of the things that most interests me about the essay. PA still has an ability to be very impressed by certain people, like the analyst he compares to Marx, and Lula himself.
But then the treatment of Bolsonaro: we get the standard PA problem that he hates 'bien pensants' more than anyone else, and is more keen to take swipes at them than to make any serious criticism of the political Right - in this case, by the sound of it, far Right. This particular strain of contrarianism is tired. The things that Bolsonaro has said and done, as I understand it so far, are worrying and dangerous towards several groups of people. PA makes light of most of this.
― the pinefox, Friday, 8 February 2019 00:00 (five years ago) link
Perry will be unimpressed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/15/american-museum-of-natural-history-will-not-host-bolsonaro-gala-event
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 17 April 2019 10:26 (five years ago) link
smh at everyone not knowing what teratology means, do you not read stephen jay gould ppl, everyone familiar* with the paling corpses of birth-dead monsters in 19th century pickle jars knows this word
*i mean like from books shut up
― mark s, Wednesday, 17 April 2019 11:04 (five years ago) link
https://newleftreview.org/issues/II125/articles/perry-anderson-ukania-perpetua
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 08:33 (three years ago) link
so far the feeblest response in the Discourse™ has been someone saying they always confuse him the grayson perry 😴 and the best someone saying they always confuse him with GERRY ANDERSON, which is correct bcz that's who he is
― mark s, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 13:49 (three years ago) link
it's going on a bit this, on which page is the murderer revealed ?? ho ho ho
― calzino, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 15:24 (three years ago) link
Is ukania named after kakania?
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 16:29 (three years ago) link
Sorry lol just saw the relevant footnote
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 16:30 (three years ago) link
The murderer was William Longshanks and the murder's been going on for 954 years amirite
― Chip-vill-A (imago), Tuesday, 13 October 2020 16:36 (three years ago) link
it's a tom nairn gag but i'm sure there's some fancypants referent behind it, these lads go for miitteleuropa like incels on anime
― mark s, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 16:37 (three years ago) link
This is a terrible pun, if Perry (or Nairn) took Cool Britannia as some sort of parallel campaign it would be worse.
(Also name drops Lampedusa's saying. Think I'm getting old)
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 18:25 (three years ago) link
ukania is from ruritania. it's a tom nairn joint
― here comes the hotstamper (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 13 October 2020 19:08 (three years ago) link
ukania was my least favourite peter andre single
― you are like a scampicane, there's calm in your fries (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 13 October 2020 19:10 (three years ago) link
xp. and it's from the 60s iirc !
― here comes the hotstamper (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 13 October 2020 19:13 (three years ago) link
ts: robert musil vs anthony hope, who do they want us to think they actually enjoy reading
tbf i wd totally binge on a massive lrb two-part perry polemic exploring why rupert of hentzau is better than remembrance of things past
― mark s, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 19:21 (three years ago) link
(the woman anthony hope married had exactly the same name as my grandmother apparently)
― mark s, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 19:22 (three years ago) link
nairn definitely uses it in the 1988 edn of the enchanted glass
― mark s, Tuesday, 13 October 2020 19:23 (three years ago) link
"tbf i wd totally binge on a massive lrb two-part perry polemic exploring why rupert of hentzau is better than remembrance of things past"
*Todd Flanders voice* contrarianism makes baby Jesus cry.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 09:15 (three years ago) link
I learnt a new word, "indurate", thanks Perry Thomas Anderson!
― Neil S, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 13:04 (three years ago) link
Sorry Perry, but to use one of your own favourite phrases, this is "total bollocks":
Passively mutinous under Thatcher, collusively supine under Blair and Brown, the liberal academy sprang to life not over the ref or Iraq but over Europe, once the Referendum on it was lost. At the oldest universities Remainer passions ran so high that the occasional Leaver misfit could become a social leper; at Cambridge, the Vice-Chancellor’s office censored unwelcome opinion with stone-walling worthy of the Writers’ Union under Brezhnev.
― Neil S, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 13:14 (three years ago) link
And this is almost too on the nose:
As for the culture of the country in any wider sense, a symptomatic celebration of it came in 2015 from Dominic Sandbrook, whose Great British Dream Factory, hailing the matchless global success of its television series, detective stories, fantasy literature, pop music, children’s books, action films, science fiction etc. across five hundred pages, proudly announced: ‘I have stuck to the middle ground—the “middlebrow” some might say—and have deliberately not picked things that appeal only to self-styled intellectuals.
― Neil S, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 13:20 (three years ago) link
I had insomnia last night and thought maybe this would bore me to sleep but I ended up a third of the way into it and enjoying it tbf.. And lol kept having to pause to learn new words that I have already forgotten.
― calzino, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 14:03 (three years ago) link
oh it's great in its Perry Anderson way, but for someone who namedrops both Gramsci and Stuart Hall he really isn't interested in culture, middle-brow or otherwise, it seems to me
― Neil S, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 14:08 (three years ago) link