Taking Sides: the TLS v. the LRB

LRB 2.2.2023.

Loads of articles I have now read and will not comment on, except:

* the Spanish badger who discovered a hoard (p.27)
* numismatics languishing beside heraldry as an 'auxiliary science of history'! I haven't even thought of heraldry this way before, as an ongoing academic discipline. (p.25)
* article (pp.26-7) on the Rosetta Stone and / or reading hieroglyphs in general. A case of the LRB bringing in someone very expert on a field, giving them a short space to explain it - he does a good job, but mostly it's still, predictably, beyond me. (The appearance of Derrida in penultimate column further livens it up but is never likely to clarify anything.) I expect that Mark S will claim to understand it.

oi

Last couple of pieces I've read :

Michael Ledger-lomas on Vivekananda, who was an interesting figure in the development of yoga in the early 20th century, and how that tradition translated to the West. Sort of funny to read an account of (mostly) Western women who fell under his spell (though he wasn't a cult leader-type), how they dote on him. Overall, as someone who does a lot of postural yoga and who knew of Vivekananda as someone who was dismissive of it I found it quite informative on the person and his journey.

In the latest issue there is Ian Pace on Hugo Wolf. This pianist-musicologist -- who is a very annoying liberal who yes has now picked the usual culture war bigotries on twitter -- imparts his knowledge on the course of late 19th century music, with not uninteresting stuff on the various factions. What gets lost is Hugo Wolf and why should we care?

yes, i wanted a lot more on the shifting importance of the "song" as a valued form within the classical aesthetic, and (the curve would not be same shape). the shifts in its popularity also even back when i was studying music for a-level (mid-1970s), wolf was basically shunted into a halfway house: "important composer (know his name!) except also not important (he only wrote songs and we never analyse songs!)"

my own hurried theory of the decline in presence classical parlour song would address shifts in the focus of amateur musical activity (incuding the decline of parlours and of pianos in parlours) alongside the rise of recorded music (which introduced alternative forms of song and song-practice) -- but these actually probably impinge only indirectly on the attitude that high critical aesthetics took to the "song" (high critical aesthetics was slow to recognise recorded music as an instrumentality to pay mind to, and rarely gave a fvck abt amateur activity)

better still someone could explore it all who knew what they were talking about

(in conclusion: i'm not sure we *do* need to care abt hugo wolf, but that fact is interesting in itself)

full stop before "the shifts" s/b after "its popularity"

also s/b less pompous in delivery but i'm tired and can't write properly apparently

I was once in a seminar on Roland Barthes' essay 'the grain of the voice', and someone fairly knowledgeable said that this was all about German 'lieder' which I believe were some kind of song.

I add that small fact to Mark S's history of classical song.

yes that's right -- lieder is the normal german word for song (any song) but in the correct context very much means the kind of art song that eg dietrich fischer-dieskau would have sung

what i'm calling parlour song is a much broader (and tbh much vaguer) term which (i feel) functioned as the larger cultural space in which the lieder (dieskau mix) could flourish

I saw a piece a while ago around arts cuts/how could classical survive. I don't think it mentioned a return of Lieder.

Standing in a small group in somebody’s house listening to a person sing is a hell of a lot more cringey than listening to someone play the piano.

TS Lieder vs. Schlager

GENTLEMAN JIM really good. Now watching one with a different star from Errol Flynn that is fantastic. Will report later.

Ha. Wrong thread!

"Standing in a small group in somebody’s house listening to a person sing"

Thinking more of a small venue. If I got to a person's house I am stealing stuff.

i think that even in parlours listeners were allowed to sit down (but the territory is underresearched IMO -- at least in english, maybe there's loads of sociological liederchat in german -- and the fact that it's "cringe" is exactly the item that needs explanation tbh)

(this review did none of that work)

LRB 16.2.2023.

James Wolcott on Guiliani: very strong, brisk, salty. One of the best pieces of writing I've seen from this mannered writer. He mentions the era of 'zero tolerance' as a RG policy area, and rather implies that it was successful. That's one area where more thorough critical analysis would be merited - but I guess Wolcott thinks that's not the territory of a biographer.

Bee Wilson on Paul Newman. People have remarked before that the LRB is poor or light on film - leaving aside the regular film reviews, ie: that it doesn't carry enough extended film work. Here's a fair instance of such work. I think it rests too much on the claim that Newman was fantastically good-looking. I don't like the casual judgment that Tom Cruise is much less handsome. I might even agree with it, but it's just too subjective to belong here.

Adam Mars-Jones on novel THE FURROWS: masterclass in close, technical, attentive eloquent criticism from perhaps still the finest reviewer of new fiction in English.

Terry Eagleton on Peter Brooks and narrative: outstanding in its way, though also, you could say, a montage of opinions TE has expressed before, most of which I agree with. I wonder if Brooks's slim book is a bit more suggestive than TE makes it sound.

I was mixing up Peter Brooks with Peter Brook and thinking that the slim book was The Empty Space. As you were.

I thought it was about Peter Brook at first too (esp since he passed away a couple of months ago)

An LRB contributor quits her job.

Last week I resigned my post at QMUL. Although the sector as a whole is becoming inhospitable & I loved my students & colleagues, QMUL managerial decisions made staying untenable. For me the last straw was the cruel, craven call by management for students to snitch on us. https://t.co/gnDcUfBrhu pic.twitter.com/6ZzimMcvbd

— Laleh Khalili (@LalehKhalili) February 21, 2023

Zero tolerance certainly was successful at absolutely helping to destroy New York and put tons of people in prison.

That Giulani piece seemed to try for a fall-from-grace narrative of sorts, and while he had that in public perception, I can't really entertain the notion of anyone joining the Republican party posessing grace in the first place, so stopped halfway through.

Nice piece by Hofmann on an East German novel, where he spends only some of the time reviewing, choosing to talk about the place and the culture, with a few titbits of biography.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n05/michael-hofmann/no-room-at-the-top

Oh cool, we bought a cheapo proof of that one at the weekend.

LRB 16.2.2023.

Laleh Khalili (see above) does a good job explaining history of Diego Garcia, evacuated for a US military base, situating it in a much larger geopolitical history. The article is stronger for not being sentimental or outraged, but coolly reporting the (arguably outrageous) facts. It's rather like a NLR work in that respect, in the spirit of Anderson. She also makes Philippe Sands' book sounds worthy.

Neal Ascherson on Tom Nairn: OK as a personal reminiscence, but people seem to like asserting Nairn's intellectual greatness without actually citing specific good ideas that he had. One bad bequest from him to left intellectual idiom was 'Ukania', 'Ukanian', which is taken by everyone from Anderson down as marvellous satire, something to guffaw at, devastating to the British state. I've always found it lame and unrevealing, and I note that the hapless and archaic UK state has so far outlived Tom Nairn (though it is in trouble, giving some credence to his general outlook).

This particular poor satirical trope, by the way, was also echoed by the great Raymond Williams who, in TOWARDS 2000, wrote of 'the YooKay'. 'Mad Frankie' Mulhern evidently thought this was a brilliantly caustic reframing of the UK state. I think it's even weaker than Nairn's (which was at least tenuously linked to an idea of 'Ruritania'). You might as well say 'the You Ess Eh' or 'the Ell Arr Bee' and think you'd thus made a significant critique of those phenomena.

I forgot previously to mention that Joe Moran's 'Gen Z & Me' was quite touching and thought-provoking, especially well supported by sociological models. One particularly good observation he makes is that (scare story) 'young people are indoctrinated by radical lecturers' doesn't seem very plausible given that most lecturers actually find it very hard to influence said young people to do or think anything at all. In this genre of writing, a danger is 'the kids are all right!' - excessively celebrating young people, mainly just in order to disagree with older people who are suspicious of them. Moran mainly avoids this naive note and manages to stay curious and balanced.

Article on 'radical literary practices' and the alphabet: it's well enough turned to LRB style, but much of this is a celebration of sophistry and empty, smug gestures. In England I find that this discourse is dominated by twee mutual congratulation. I'd like, for a change, to see someone with a more impatient view demolish it.

I'm sure he had his skeletons in the closet like everyone else but man that article on Adolfo Kaminsky is inspiring stuff.

Easily the best thing they've published this year. A must read!

James Wolcott on Guiliani: very strong, brisk, salty. One of the best pieces of writing I've seen from this mannered writer.

I usually enjoy Wolcott as a media critic, and I found the Giuliani piece fairly typical of his style, though I think perhaps he is less sure-footed in discussing politics as he is writing about film, for instance. He seemed to stick pretty closely to the conventional wisdom about Giuliani, and I wouldn't say he was wrong about anything per se. But it also didn't seem to offer much in the way of new insight.

I don't like the casual judgment that Tom Cruise is much less handsome. I might even agree with it, but it's just too subjective to belong here

I mean you could argue that Newman is closer to the "ideal" male model physically, largely by virtue of being 5'10" instead of 5'7".

LRB 16.2.2023.

Izzy Finkel on 'shopping basket' for Retail Price Index: informative. She knows a lot. The article seems like it could be about inflation in general but keeps diverting into the actual 'items in the basket' and becomes more about that.

Rosemary Hill on lighthouses: more entertaining than expected for being so critical of the book reviewed. Rather than 'a glorious tour through the history of the lighthouse', it's 'a rather disappointing and inconsequent muddle' and the author seems never to have been in a lighthouse.

Emma Smith on Twelfth Night: very irritating, banal reading of an old play, full of strained arguments. She modishly hitches her reading to contemporary events, then complains that critics do this, then says she'll do it anyway. The fact that this is a UCL lecture suggests that the old UCL-LRB links endure.

Adam Shatz on Adolfo Kaminsky: I'd never heard of this character, had no idea what it would be about, but Kaminsky turns out to have been an admirably principled person who served the oppressed and endangered for most of his life. The ethical commitments he makes, to Jews under Nazism, Algerians resisting France, or against Israeli military policy, are remarkably sound, consistent, impressive. He worked with one Francis Jeanson, who appears as himself in Godard's LA CHINOISE (1967). The article is odd in not seeming to fit anywhere, as a review of anything or part of a larger project, unless that's Shatz's forthcoming book of essays.

Thomas Meaney on George Grosz: so often I find LRB visual art essays pointless. Here, for a change, is one with energy and direction as well as description and information. We get a real sense of Gross's career and its political implications.

Julian Bell on Cezanne: for a while I felt the same here, that Bell's taut and well-controlled writing takes us a long way into interest in Cezanne. It makes me decide to go to the exhibition before it closes.

Ian Pace on Hugo Wolf: I was amused to remember Mark S's comments on this essay's failure to dig into its subject. A funny thing about the essay is that it stages big aesthetic confrontations between Wolf and eg: Brahms, but if you don't know what Brahms sounds like, as I don't, then the meaning of the confrontation is entirely unavailable.

LRB 2.3.2023.

William Davies, 'The Reaction Economy': LRB Winter Lecture. Davies is intelligent, thoughtful, well read, often makes distinctive observations about contemporary life. He deserved to get a Winter Lecture slot. I hoped for good things from the article. But ultimately it's a curious letdown.

He's right to posit the 'reaction economy' in some form. Right that people are used to 'reacting' on social media. Right that this can be connected to 'feedback loops'. The connexion with behaviourism is less clear. That movement might be better connected with the modern usage of 'triggering'.

But WD proves unable to connect these things convincingly with his other themes, like (predictably) the 'populism' of Trump and BJ. He doesn't really show that those politicians have much to do with liking social media posts. He brings in the word 'reactionary', seemingly almost as a joke, then forgets that it's a joke and acts as though it (in its origins) closely relates to his 21st century theme. He finally turns - again rather predictably nowadays - to Hannah Arendt and preaches 'forgiveness' as a radical action. This is useless unless we have some criteria about whom to forgive, for what, and when. Actually there are numerous people in public life that I will not, and do not wish to, forgive. And if I did, it would not be a beneficial action to anyone.

The simplest problem here is that WD just can't connect up the different themes he wants to talk about; his article isn't really a whole but pretends to be one.

But another problem is that he falsely extrapolates from extreme examples. It's definitely true that lots of people go on holiday and take pictures and post to Instagram. But it's not true that large numbers organise their holidays around potential photos, taking large amounts of time preparing things 'including costume, hair and make-up' for the shoot. This is only true of 'influencers', models, etc -- not most people. By a like token, WD spends much time talking about 'reaction videos'. These may indeed be popular with some people. But the fact that WD has to spend a lot of time explaining what they are suggests that his audience, at the lecture or in the LRB, are not really familiar with them, and would not spend hours each day watching them. The dedication involved in making and following them cannot be in the same category as 'Liking things on Facebook'.

There is an element here of ;anthropological inquiry', exploring 'the other', those strange people over there who do these queer things - yet WD covers this up by saying 'we'. But I think his 'we' is unconvincing. I don't think he himself is much part of these particular reaction chains he describes - a fact that he could reflect on, re the differentiation of the 'reaction economy'.

The one reaction chain that WD was indeed part of was Twitter, which he mentions at the start. But a strange thing that WD does not notice, though it is oddly germane, is how far social media engagement has gone *down*. In the case of FB, of course, large numbers have left it and certain demographics remain. In the case of Twitter, it is very common to see people say 'my engagement has dropped by 90% in the past year', due to Elon Musk algorithms or whatever reason. And on Instagram, many ordinary users have likewise found 'engagement' (number of likes and comments) plummeting. One reason for this last, I think, is that IG is now so full of adverts, and also recommendations for other things, rather than the accounts (of friends, et al) you are actually supposed to be following. So 'monetizing the reaction economy' is actually diminishing 'engagement'? These more localised factors might need to be taken into account in a full account of WD's case.

One would also expect WD to have a more nuanced historical sense of the emergence of what he describes. That is, not to depict it as something that's just handed, but something that has been developing gradually. His version of that is to cite Erich Fromm. OK. But a really historical narrative of how 'reaction' was different in 2023, 2013, 2003, 1993, 1983, 1823, would also help.

A small example comes to mind. People now display their holidays on IG. 40 years ago, a staple of sit-coms was: 'Oh dear, Gerald -- Marjorie and Duncan want us to go over and look at their holiday photos'. Duncan would project the pictures on a screen in a darkened room, and give a lengthy commentary on them. Gerald would mutter at the tedium, but also have to give a polite 'reaction', while hoping for another G&T. Yes, 'reaction' has changed, but 'narrating the self', 'displaying experience', etc, are also very long-standing features. By a similar logic, you could posit Trump not as new and unprecedented, but as an extension of Reagan - and so on.

"That is, not to depict it as something that's just handed"

For handed, read landed.

Agree the Davies piece was not good but I hadn't really thought much about why. So this is very satisfying to read and articulates a lot of what I think my subconscious was.... "reacting" to.

yes, I thought it was all a bit "so what?" too

at the point he suggested ppl watch twich because of a fear of freedom as theorized by the Frankfurt school I had to think "you sure about that one sport?"

(possibly mangling the argument a bit here but it was something on that level)

LRB 2.3.2023 has turned out to be a dull issue. Compact Michael Hoffman on the pathos of the DDR is the best thing I've read in it.

When I rediscovered the fact that it contained a long review of W.H. Auden I thought I still had a treat in store. I didn't, really, because I soon realised this this review is of a particular kind that the LRB publishes, mainly (or only?) about major poets. (But I can't think who else now, save multiple overlong articles on Eliot.)

This particular kind of review:
* doesn't start by providing any basic background; part of its schtick is the implication that we all know the basics already. But why does that apply here, and not to other topics like physics or Ancient Roman military campaigns? (NB I, personally, don't especially need a basic introduction to Auden; I love a few of his poems; but others might need it more than I do, and actually the challenge of writing down basics can actually clarify for a writer what they aren't clear about.)
* doesn't proceed by clearly reviewing and describing the material in question (but I'm well aware that is standard LRB procedure).
* doesn't move forward chronologically, in a way that might best help most readers to grasp a writer's career, but jumps about arbitrarily between phrases from different moments.
* quotes these phrases sonorously and pointedly, and draws some paradox out of each, but doesn't seriously examine them in context.
* doesn't quote or discuss whole poems at length, thus producing a misleadingly decontextualised sense of a given poetic line or couplet.
* strikingly, doesn't make any advancing *argument*. After I'd read a page of the elegant musing of Matthew Bevis, I realised that I had no idea what his main arguments about Auden or even his basic view of Auden might be.

It would be good, just as an instructive kind of experiment, to imagine an alternative kind of review that would do the opposite of these things.

haha i leapt for my copy in a "let's see if i can disagree with the pinefox" mood and realised that
(a) i'd actually already read the auden review
(b) literally totally forgotten this fact and also everything from the review

so in conclusion i do not disagree with the pinefox

Good.

I don't like James Butler but his Care article is creditable. Takes on a difficult, largely unhappy subject, with a lot of reading and facts, combined with reflection. The financial accounting becomes beyond me: Butler could have explained it more directly. But the more speculative thought is welcome, eg when he talks of the omnipresence of corporate 'care' alongside the 'invisibility' of the care industry.

LRB 16.3.2023: Nicholas Spice on Wagner and conductors is a very Mark S article. History of classical music, some good challenging thoughts about the nature of the conductor (the way he queries the conductor's centrality makes sense to me as an outsider), and even material on the great Mark S topic, technology / recording / music.

Keenly waiting for Mark S to explain what's wrong with Spice's article.

i think it's very good and very interesting and i need to reread it and take notes! i like the way he treats tár as simply a jumping-off point for a much broader on-going discussion (which tbh i think is the correct response to it). i think there's more to say on the effects of technology on the evolving understanding of this strand of music but that's why i'm writing (or was writing but plan once more to restart) a history of it -- what spice says seems largely true and is well jigsawed into the official aesthetics as it evolves after hanslick

(i might add that i find the run of the 19th century theorists of the aesthetics of music, and wagner worst of all, just unbearably prolix and exhausting to read -- these are not ppl who had to wash their own dishes! -- so it's always handy when a brisk modern can sum them up nice and swiftly)

my one complaint is quite minor: he never explains why or in what way adorno's phrase "conductor's music" in the opening sentence was intended as negative? i think it might have been instructive! in search of wagner, adorno's book on wagner is openly his funniest, from its epigraph on in: "horses are the survivors of the age of heroes"

(as a legendarily prissy sourpuss TWA is very underrated as a funny writer)

I am glad to know that Mark S appreciated the most Mark S article in the paper.

Isn't Nicholas Spice the LRB's publisher? He seems to be another of those elderly LRB blokes given free rein to write about anything that floats through their transoms. It sounds like this article is at least coherent though!

Yes, and yes. But, curiously, he only publishes rarely - the whim just occasionally takes him. And yes again: this particular article is, I think, well-informed and clearly written.

The one thing that *I* could use a bit more of here is: why is Beethoven different, revolutionary, mindblowing compared to previous composers? Here I feel like Spice is repeating a received idea and I don't know the basis of it. But assuming it's somewhat true, he could probably explain it in a couple of sentences.

he does kind of explain it -- or anyway gestures towards an explanation, abt the material that a musician will need to have mastered to play music before beethoven (viz haydn and mozart) vs what they will need to master from beethoven onwards, but yes, it could perhaps have done with more expansion

spice seems now to be a kind of publisher emeritus (the mastehad says "consulting publisher" = not actually a title i've encountered before, but as i've probably noted elsewhere, every non-vast magazine parses and divvies up the tasks and the titles differently anyway so this only means anything concrete to someone in their office)

i feel that if a publisher can write then they should be allowed to! they are on-staff! and as PF says he doesn't write often -- fewer than 50 pieces in more than 40 years. "anything that floats through (over, surely? — ed)their transoms" in spice's case is almost all (a) classical music or (b) related to matters austrian

the transom thing is now bothering me: a transom is a crossbar but it's the crossbar at the top of something, in which case "over it" it is also wrong!

the usual explanation is that it goes "over the top of the door but through the little window above the door" -- which is a great figure for receiving something you weren't expecting but also weirdly intricate and detailed lol

the earliest spice contribution is actually a letter (from just over 40 yrs ago) complaining abt a review by a tom paulin!! which results in a very spicy exchange

spice spicy ugh 😔

the transom thing is a reference to Spinal Tap, the scene where David St Hubbins is explainig his spiritual journey:

DAVID: Before I met Jeanine, my life was cosmically a shambles, it was ah, I was using bits and pieces of whatever Eastern philosophies happened to drift through my transom and she sort of sorted it out for me, straightened it out for me, gave me a path, you know, a path to follow.

apolgies for introducing cheesy references into serious LRB discussion!

haha lol no my apologies to you! my actual-real dayjob (asking impertinent questions abt the would-be author's intended meaning while i correct their spelling and facts) was intruding there

Trust Mark S to find a way to bring Tom Paulin back into it.

he is there at the root of everything: oldest and fatherless