Taking Sides: the TLS v. the LRB

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 :/

went back to read my very good posts abt it and found this lol

doomed like the flying dutchman forever to sail the world's media, on his forehead a post-it note reading "dick" which everyone can see but him: the ian buruma story

― mark s, Thursday, 20 September 2018 22:39 (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

FWIW when I've seen the NYRB it has seemed obsessed with US politics - understandably you may say - in a way that probably makes many of its articles transient. Huge amount of back catalogue articles on, say, John McCain or Mitt Romney.

The LRB is, I believe, more global in outlook, very regularly carrying reports from Africa, South America, Russia, especially China nowadays, and always especially the Middle East. Unsure if the NYRB does that as much.

My impression on the whole is that the NYRB is too right-wing for me in that I don't picture it supporting the few politicians I like and admire.

I have also been rather disappointed by the actual stodgy copy in the NYRB. Colm Toibin is an exemplar for them and as I have all too often said, I don't think much of him as an essayist.

Thanks all.

The literary review atmosphere is pretty abysmal, it seems, even more abysmal than I previously believed.

I met Buruma once, when I was selling books at an event he was doing. I hardly sold any of his books and apparently was a total creep to a few female staff.

Colm publishes just as much, if not more, at the LRB. It's a disease.

The offer is so cheap I'd go for it, especially if you have access to the catalogue.

There will always be the odd interesting essay in it. The literature coverage is no worse than the LRB, which is to say they aren't v good

But if I'm looking at what has been published this year there is an essay by Jacqueline Rose on Simone Weil and Hofmann on the Walser biography.

i just had a quick glance at the last six months. there actually doesn't seem much evidence what i claimed as a push to be more culturally modern -- i know there were a couple of pieces i noticed at some point last year (or the year before?) which made me think "oh, they wouldn't have had THAT in the old days" but i can't remember what they were lol (i didn't read them) and it evidently wasn't in recent months. i only spotted three pieces by two writers i think of as must-read (j.hoberman and garry wills, plus jacqueline rose as chairman alphie notes), which i will probably go back and dig thru -- as well as several i think of as must-not-read lol. most contributors i don't know either way (bcz out of touch).

judging by the exchanges on the letters pages american history is still busily being re-litigated in a post-1619 context (adding: sean wilentz is one of my must-not-reads tbh). i think down the years american history is probably what i've learned most abt from the nyrb (james macpherson and so on; wills again)

i generally find their essays on classical music and fine arts and 19th century authors useful if rarely sprightly bcz they're thoughtful and information-rich even when (and hence bcz) they're a long way from my own tastes and sensibilty (jenny uglow i see is a regular contributor and i'm right now consulting her very good little book on the (british wing of the) art of book illustration). the PEN-adjacent cultural-political backslapping i wd probably mostly skip over: it looks like there's a still a lot of it but it hardly has the salience it had in the 1980s ffs

three pieces by two writers = three pieces by two writers

ilx shd start using the "An Exchange" formula when starting threads viz

"whats the most unacceptable thing to come out of yr ass: An Exchange"

i went back a bit further and found pankaj mishra contributes now and then: he's one of the ppl i had in mind when i said "expanding in a better direction"

I'd guess that the typical age of NYRB contributors is higher than the LRB's.

Yes the LRB carries long-stagers like Anderson and M Wood, who would raise any average age, but it also seems very deliberately to publish younger people, 'chasing the millennial vote' etc. I don't generally think that these younger writers are good.

I reflect: I'm not sure that Perry Anderson has ever been in the NYRB. If true, that would say something about the NYRB vs the LRB.

The typicalGolden Age of NYRB is 10 Issues for 10 Dollars

^I forgot to capitalize “Is.” #onethread

"i generally find their essays on classical music and fine arts and 19th century authors useful if rarely sprightly bcz they're thoughtful and information-rich even when (and hence bcz) they're a long way from my own tastes and sensibilty"

The Charles Rosen archive is superb and almost a good reason for getting a subs for a year. Devoured a lot of it over a week when they opened it up.

yes rosen is great

LRB 26.5.2022: seems printed on different paper, in accordance with previous article on threat to the Finnish paper supply.

It doesn't seem, by my lights, an exciting issue. James Meek on civil wars is good, especially for taking the bold line of asking when civil wars and violence are justified and good. He fills a gap which I've always felt in the 'storming the Capitol' outrage: basically that many of us might think that storming the Capitol is a good idea, if the right people do it at the right time, but this has been completely occluded by the understandable liberal horror at what happened.

Clare Jackson on Elizabeth Stuart: after a few pages of this I'm not quite sure who Elizabeth Stuart was.

Francis Gooding on Levi-Strauss: this is a good worthwhile topic. I'm not sure I can make sense of the claims made for the 'wild thought' but the article builds to an impressive crescendo.

Edna St Vincent Millay should be good to read about. Some of the rest does not look so appealing.