Taking Sides: the TLS v. the LRB

adding: to be clear i do not had the argument sketched even roughly in my mind (re the dynamic interaction between modernism, kidlit and ghosts) but i sense it's there and someone needs to make it (me, in the LRB) (they don't do anything like enough on kidlit)

re this issue as a whole: i imagine most of the energy went into the ukraine material and i will certainly read that at some point, without great enthusiasm (the robespierre piece seems very by-numbers to me, not least bcz it cites simon schama a couple of times)

oh i shd read the wdlm one. some of his short stories are amongst my favourite things.

so the lrb has finally arrived and i have read the de la mare piece. i have some thoughts, but i'm not even going to attempt to put them cogently – more a sort of list.

the interplay with modernism is generally misframed, i think - i don't especially mean in ford's article, it's not particularly egregious in that respect but it does probably result in what mark correctly says is a repeated 'not v fashionable these days' observation, expressed in one way or another.

the yellow book, late 19th century aestheticism, laforgue, the grotesque, modernism being a diversion, maybe coherent in intent, but not coherent in terms of its influences, there is continuity from de la mare backwards and forwards. it is the literary canon, and its 'and then modernism' narrative that makes it seem like de la mare is off to one side (sure he is, but *more* than literary modernism? why are *they* at the centre? i do not mean to get all carey - i like modernism, and no i don't know why i've put this bit in brackets) - all of these scumble the modernism v de la mare framing. plus, late christian eliot is different from early eliot. he also became something of a guardian of literature, i think – he raised a similar subscription for arthur machen. he was a mystic too! (in a way that the high catholic that wyndham lewis became was not).

i'm a bad reader of poetry, so i found the quotations useful, and i'm interested to read Wootten's book. i think we had a boxed copy of come hither when i was growing up. mystified to know why – wouldn't have appealed to either my mum or my dad, and if it was a gift to me, i never picked it up - the cover and the tweeness emanating off it put me off. i will look for it the next time i visit my mum, as now i'm interested.

Walter de la Mare's The Vats (1915) and JG Ballard's The Waiting Grounds – unusually... uniquely?... taking place off earth – are the same story. i've been meaning to put something down on paper about this for years. notes everywhere. but yes, they are the same. not entirely sure what this means other than people underrated ballard's victorian-ness.

slightly to mark's point - a comparison of the evolution of british science fiction from fin-de-siecle and edwardian lit, as compared to the US paths from Lovecraft/Machen etc and the different places they reached, and expressions they uh expressed, is v interesting, as is their unification in things like quatermass and that other thread that covers children of the stones and sapphire and steel and such like that i cbf'd to link to atm.

Read this excellent piece on Whiteness in an earlier issue. It puts together a lot of names and thinking around anti-racist discourse over the last century, up to the present.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n03/musab-younis/to-own-whiteness

Late to Reynolds on McLaren. The idea that Punk's destructive side has been overlooked in favour of its DIY/creative side strikes me as totally absurd - this might at most be true for Reynolds himself and a few other post-punk specialists, but the general legacy of Punk in mainstream popular culture is 100% the destructive, cartoonishly violent stuff; that's still the caricature that comes up when most ppl think of what a punk is, the Grundy interview is still their most iconic moment, etc.

Agree. That's convincing.

NYRB subscribers are wild pic.twitter.com/PmTZFB50Dr

— Chris (@CMccafe) April 4, 2022

it me

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n06/bee-wilson/too-specific-and-too-vague

A classic example of saying almost nothing of the titles under review but using their subject as the basis of your own little essay.

Good one!

I didn't enjoy Patricia Lockwood in the same issue, I suppose the diary is the most self indulgent section but she didn't have anything perceptive or interesting to say on Kafka and her humour fell flat for once.

NYRB has gotten pretty boring, IMO. Maybe partly a retrenchment to not doing anything that might offend their advertisers since the Ian Buruma controversy, and also just the fact that it's very difficult to fill Bob Silver's shoes. Too many boring reviews of boring books.

LRB 24.3.2022:

Tom Stevenson on the history of economic sanctions. A good topic, and of course timely. I'd like to think that sanctions against Russia now are effective, but then I tend to imagine that like most other things they are spoiled and rendered moot by the corruption of the world's power and money. But some well-meaning people also say that sanctions are *bad*.

Stevenson tends to make sanctions sound harsh and effective, but he doesn't at all make me think that they are as bad as war. Thus he makes me feel like they are a preferable alternative to war. There is also something intuitively reasonable about the notion of sanctions which there is not about the idea of war -- analogous to, say, not answering someone's calls, as vs going and burning down their house. Others will say that this analogy and judgment are misguided.

So, sanctions:
- are good because they can hurt nations that act badly (like Russia)
- are good because they are not war (like NATO fighting Russia)
- are bad, many people say, because they hurt innocent civilians (many people say that sanctions on Iraq and Iran have been cruel or criminal)
- but then again are good, many similar people also say, and should be extended though vested interests oppose them? (South Africa then, Israel now.)

Between all these positions I'm not certain what the correct position is on sanctions, but am still inclined to say they look more good than bad, compared to other things.

I forgot to note that Fredric Jameson's review of Tokarczuk is not really a review at all, nor a coherent article about the issues behind the text in question. It would be kindest just to say it's a man of 88 enjoying himself, and that the whole article would be fairly OK if it were a long private letter to a friend who had also read this 892pp novel and knew what it was about.

Mark Ford on Walter de la Mare: I don't know this poet, but found this article fairly good and the best thing in the rather sub-par issue.

Touching to read that WDLM 'grew up in Charlton and Forest Hill' then lived in 'Beckenham, Anerley and Penge'.

Confusing to realise, after rereading, that 'Walter de la Mare' was his *real* name and 'Walter Ramal' his early pen name - I'd thought it was the reverse.

I forgot to note that Fredric Jameson's review of Tokarczuk is not really a review at all, nor a coherent article about the issues behind the text in question. It would be kindest just to say it's a man of 88 enjoying himself, and that the whole article would be fairly OK if it were a long private letter to a friend who had also read this 892pp novel and knew what it was about.

I scanned it because I do intend to read the book and that was my impression - or the rather less considered 'what the fuck are you talking about', anyway. I'll go back to it after I've read the book.

dont bother, fredric james svcks even more than terry eagleton >:(

The "Responses to Ukraine" feature was pretty dire. It reminded me of the NYRB US 2020 election issue, where they got all their contributors to write some blurb on the upcoming election. This kind of forum, in which you'll be lined up alongside other contributors, asked to comment on a politically-charged issue, and not really given space to develop an argument (essentially Twitter in periodical form), brings out the most conformist tendencies and becomes a purely rhetorical exercise: find a novel angle on rehashing the conventional wisdom.

Strong words but somewhat fair, I think, o.nate.

I was predisposed not to like this feature - why on Earth should I care what Prof R*se thinks about this world-historical issue? - but actually found it a bit better than expected. It seemed that they had primed contributors to talk about different things. But on the whole, no, not keen.

Finished that LRB and on to LRB 7.4.2022.

Apart from Lethem on Lem I've found LRBs quite unappealing lately. Here the one definite highlight would appear to be Adam Mars-Jones. Who is now listed as 'director of the Writers' Centre at Goldsmiths'.

But actually the issue holds a bit more than that. Tom Stevenson in Ukraine: he seems a notable addition to the LRB roster in being a military expert who is also politically critical. I like his clear factual writing here.

Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite on Wales: a good topic (how often does the LRB cover Wales next to Scotland or NI? It doesn't). She's very positive about devolved government. It's also noticeable, maybe unsurprising, how far the diminution of the Welsh language resembles what happened in Ireland.

The front cover advertises 'A poem by Maureen N. McLane'. Unusual. I thus read the poem, and thought it was bad.

Even if, unlike me, you thought that aspect of the cover was good, you might still think this cover bad, including the slanted text announcing Julian Barnes.

Poor, dull letters page save the list of alliterative actresses.

I actually read all I was interested in the latest April issue, in about an evening a week ago.

John Gallager on a really interesting book (partially written by Carlo Ginzburg), its the strange case of a man who claimed to be a Werewolf. The book has a curious design, because the two authors are making contrasting arguments from the same source material, which is not something I see published often. Lydia Liu's piece on the Chinese typewriter (ofc the computer makes all attempts null and void, and its funny how this is swiftly covered) was a quietly good, back end piece. In the middle you have Kevin Okoth's piece on Cedric Robinson, which started a bit slow but when it gets going its great on the critiques (and counter-) of Marx. I never get to read enough about these so its nice to encounter these arguments in a digestible manner. Rosemary Hill on publisher Joseph Johnson was used to draw a picture of the London literary scene back then. I always like sitting down with one of her pieces, they always introduce me to something I wouldn't normally seek to read about, in a very conversational way. Finally Michael Hofmann on a curious book -- "An African in Greenland" -- which is just as the title says. Love this very short one pager, and it doesn't cut what MH is excellent at, which is either saying this is really good or really bad and using some passages and comparison to enforce the very basic, brutally made judgement. I ended with Chris Mullin's diary piece on the attempts to make him fess up on the identity of the remaining Birmingham bomber.

Tolstoy...is good now

https://t.co/RFioMoJGOQ pic.twitter.com/1rjSCdT9Z8

— Jess Bergman (@jesslbergman) April 18, 2022

Would I enjoy a whole book by Matthew Specktor, mooning around the smog of L.A.? Maybe---I do enjoy the detailed, flashlight clarity of his thoughts and feelings about the Dream Syndicate, especially live, leading to the download of his collection (the link still works, I just now used it again):
https://saveyourface.posthaven.com/the-dream-syndicate-live-1982-1983

Finished LRB 7.4.2022 - leaving me in the very unusual position of having no LRB to read.

Nicholas Penny I have only noticed in LRB in last couple of years: his old-school rigour and niche obsessiveness are not exactly enjoyable, but here the fastidiousness becomes comic:

it is a surprise to find him described in an essay by Audrey Flack, reprinted in the catalogue, as ‘cast aside’ and rather amusing to read of his ‘discovery’ by her – not in a dark chapel in a rural church, nor in the basement store of a provincial museum, but hanging in the Renaissance section of the Met!

In conclusion - his tone could be from the 1960s or 1930s:

It is a small exhibition but well judged as an introduction to the artist. The unobtrusive labels are supplemented by a free exhibition guide with succinct texts drawing attention to details and explaining puzzling features but not telling us what to think. There is no entrance charge and when I was there at half-term, the ‘us’ consisted of many visitors of all ages and diverse backgrounds.

Matthew Karp on Robert E. Lee: I enjoyed this, realised I knew nothing of Lee, was very interested to read of him as failed military tactician.

Adam Mars-Jones' article turned out to be a systematic critique: great to see.

Couldn't much follow the Chinese alphabet, did get more than expected from the werewolf.

Chris Mullin's one of the most historically and politically significant pieces.

I should probably have a new issue by now, shouldn't I?

Some v good stuff on the LRB blog lately

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2022/april/a-beacon-of-openness-and-generosity

We have made our 21 April issue free to download as a PDF – if you like what you read, be sure to take advantage of our subscription offer and get 12 issues for just £12!

Free issue here: https://t.co/SpUDGvtr5J

Subscribe here: https://t.co/r9zMz9RJtw pic.twitter.com/LhHXyNsVvc

— London Review of Books (@LRB) April 25, 2022

Reading criticism of Ted Hughes led me to the 1988 poem 'On the Reservations', which I was surprised to find had appeared in the LRB.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n11/ted-hughes/on-the-reservations

I'm not sure that I think this is a good poem, but I do find it an interesting text, and not especially what I'd have expected from Hughes, especially when he was literally writing poems in celebration of the Royal Family. The diction and form of this seem to be something that you could find in eg: Iain Sinclair's CONDUCTORS OF CHAOS anthology.

She dreams she sleepwalks crying all the dead
huddle
in the slag-heaps wrong
land wrong
time tepees a final
resting for the epidemic
solution every
pit-shaft a
mass grave herself
in a silly bottle shawled
in the canal’s
fluorescence the message
of the survivors a surplus people
the words
washed off her wrists
and hands she complains keep feeling
helpless

The poem makes repeated references to mining, and it would seem accurate to say that it is consciously a post-miners' strike poem.

I finished LRB 21.4.2022.

The front cover mentions 'Cosmolgy'. I thought this new spelling must reflect the content of the article. It doesn't. It seems just to be a typo, in an unfortunately prominent location.

Collini on BBC is entertaining and readable, but to a rare degree confirms Terry Eagleton's old description of SC as a liberal 'standing dauntlessly in the middle of the road'.

Andrew O'Hagan now has some kind of licence just to write 'personally' about anything. He says here: 'I love the internet, perhaps more than anyone, but my innocence died with its success'. Most of that sentence seems to me bad and false.

Erin Maglaque writes rather indulgently about a book about love that sounds quite bad. But not entirely indulgently.

Tom Crewe on Turgenev is very standard LRB stuff on an old writer, relatively well done. Crewe is becoming a novelist.

Lots of history in this issue: France and England in the C19, Italy in Egypt.

Ubiquitous blokeish Burrow does not make Pope sound enjoyable or appealing.

The next issue seems worse.

yes it's weird going with an unusual spelling of turgenev on the cover as a tease (it looks like a typo but apparently isn't) and then missing the actual typo

by the grace of god in all my days as a sub the only error on a cover that was let thru was miles davis's birthyear when trailing his obit (still wrong but less obvious)

I might be the rare ILBer who likes Phillips, but I’m trying to figure out if I should get a subscription to the LRB, the NYRB, or the Brooklyn Rail.

(I know you non-US folks will probably have no idea what “The Rail” is, but it is similar to the other two, tho a bit more focused on visual art and certainly much more generally “left” in its contributor base).

i enjoyed the pope piece tbh: it did not make pope seem likeable (i don't think he was?) but it did make sense of why ppl thought so highly of him and the scale of his success at the time, also the tale of his feud with edmund curll is amusing and even slightly instructive (dawn of copyright)

I liked Arianna Shahvisi's Short Cut - starting off with Schrodinger's What Is Life (itself an excellent piece of writing which I would highly recommend), and linking it to the cost of living crisis - not in a particularly instructive or illuminating way perhaps but it felt satisfying and not gimmicky.

I think the science in that piece was too hard for me to understand.

I have read the Brooklyn Rail in NYC, after a friend recommended it to me with fanatical enthusiasm.

I found it quite poor and thus - insofar as it had been so highly recommended - massively overrated. I don't think the issue I saw contained one single good article.

But it's free isn't it? Or was? Unlike the other two. Thus more like the BRIXTON REVIEW OF BOOKS?

Well, in all fairness the pinefox, while I think we both admire each other’s enthusiasm, our tastes very rarely intersect, so it might not be the best question for you. I’ve found most issues of the Rail to be infinitely more interesting than the LRB.

Is it, as I've assumed, free?

The LRB costs - though not really much for a subscription.

The Rail is free in Bkln and 90$/yr for those outside

LRB 12.5.2022.

Unusually unenjoyable. For me only a few slight highlights to mention:

* Maya James Short Cuts on climate change and energy - a strong succinct account.

* Blake Morrison on THEY by Kay Dick: seems like another revival of an experimental British writer, a la Ann Quin. A balanced and intelligent review.

* That other old-stager Neal Ascherson on 18th century Poland: sounds niche, but made interesting by what seems the eccentric, relatively democratic political structure described.

Eric Foner on the US Democratic Party makes things seem bleak even though their actual popular vote has been strong in the last couple of decades.

To be fair, Edmund Gordon on, for some reason, the decline of insect populations is actually worthwhile also.

ascherson's polish piece briefly mentions the 1863 uprising -- as subsequent to the period it covers but also connected… what it doesn't mention is that the formation of the first international workingmans' association was formed as a direct response in support of the poles at this time, with marx very active in its proceedings (he had a low opinion of russia, as the backer of all reaction in europe)

Since we’ve touched on reviews based in places, a couple of you might like to know I was mentioned by name in The Paris Review, which was very pleasing. (It happened in the summer 2020 issue but I only just found out.)

That’s fucking marvellous, hope you frame that.

is it pessoa-related, or that day we tested if babybels really bounced off of yr balcony despite being told not to (bcz food science)

It’s both! Alright maybe just Pessoa. Just a brief mention in this interview with the excellent Margaret Jill Costa - I’ve never met her but the little contact I have had with her suggests she’s an excellent person: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7570/the-art-of-translation-no-7-margaret-jull-costa - still I’m grateful for the mention.

That’s cool, Tim! Funny enough, I mention Pessoa at the beginning of a review that was just published in the Poetry Project Newsletter. Interested parties can read that here.

I enjoyed reading that - thanks. It’s usually good to disagree with Pessoa; I’m sure he’d have agreed.

Thanks! Pessoa was one of my first literary obsessions, had no idea we had a big expert on the boards

If we have, it’s certainly not me!

Too modest! Well, at least allow me to say that your press makes lovely book objects! Really gorgeous.

I looked at that Paris Review interview and it became a blur - I'd never read anyone or anything it mentioned. But I finally reached the bit where it mentioned Tim Hopkins' excellent work and I could follow that.

Thoughts on the NYRB? Seems a little too namby-pamby liberal for me in its politics, but they have a 10 issue for 10$ promotion on at the moment

i have an online sub (which i mainly use for archival research, since the archive is complete back to 1963)

my sense is that since the buruma debacle whoever now runs it have been pushing quite hard to expand it to a much more updated cultural outlook -- -- but tbh i haven't been reading closely recently so i don't have a feel for how that's turning out

as always their UK correspondent is terrible lol

i haven't looked at it since cancelling my subscription at that point :/