Last Week’s New Yorker Review: August 12, 2024
Last Week’s New Yorker, week of August 26
"As I left the Leroy Merlin home-improvement store, I noticed an arrow pointing in the direction of the morgue"
(Job search continues, excuse delay, rinse, repeat.)
Another very strong issue!
Must-Reads:
“On Cancer and Desire” - Annie Ernaux finds meaning in the mess. This is basically cheating; it’s not even new Ernaux, just newly-translated. To file this under “Personal History” is a bit like filing Walden under “Letter from Concord” – it’s hard to argue against, but also obviously wrong. Anyway, yes, yes, it’s a masterpiece, chronicling Ernaux’s year of cancer, love, and war in just a few enigmatic gestures. The magazine does deserve significant credit for its excerption, which is so elegant one hardly minds traversing the entire emotional journey of a book-length work in a single segmented section. If any reader checks out the Ernaux book, I’d be interested to know whether this section appears in full or, as I imagine is more likely, has been carefully pieced together. If the latter, the feat is nearly on par with Alison L. Strayer’s translation. Ernaux’s whole project is both formally mirrored and explicated by this excerpt, which builds to a meditation on “visible evidence” followed by more literal “insides” – something Ernaux says “I realize now that I neither saw nor wanted to see.” This story tracks shed skins – piles of clothing, removed for what Strayer translates as “lovemaking” – with bodies absent. Ernaux’s story is a reminiscence on the recent past; memories, absent of bodies but showing their traces. Ernaux herself is present but absent, her visions are imparted changed – as she writes of one photo, “To tell the truth, it is neither alien nor familiar, having simply undergone a distortion of its dimensions and a heightening of all its colors.” Photography and memory are not so distant. I’ll spare you more limp analysis. By the way, don’t go in expecting a trudge; the piece is very funny, and not just in some droll literary sense – the last line is a punchline.
“The Infiltrators” - David D. Kirkpatrick enters the chat with the vigilantes who see what the F.B.I. can Nazi. Push through the somewhat credulous approach Kirkpatrick initially takes toward the F.B.I.’s inaction; he builds his case slowly before pivoting, and the piece is more effective for it. Kirkpatrick’s structure is complex but deliberate; he first sets up the danger of neo-fash gangs and their connection to the electoral far-right1 before patiently recounting the feds’ party line on their inaction (it’s the first amendment!) and the Republicans pressuring them not to crack down on right-wing extremism (almost as if they have something to gain!) He then shifts to the leftist vigilantes who are actually doing something – and here the piece picks up considerably, since there’s suddenly actual crimefighting involved. G.P.S. trackers are planted, Nazi soldiers are doxed, U-Hauls are vandalized, AirBNB is complained to! Eventually, Kirkpatrick cites the case that both the fascists themselves and the F.B.I. are presenting the same “false choice between policing the far right and respecting free speech,” since violence is not speech2 – something the feds conveniently understand with anarchist protesters and Black gangs. (You don’t have to be a historian of the organization to have an idea that some of these biases may be institutional in nature, of course.3) Kirkpatrick makes these two stories stronger by pairing them – it’s not merely that the leftists are effective, it’s that they’re doing what the government won’t. I wonder, though, if the vigilantes will still prickle at the flattering comparison – they’re not trying to be the woke feds, after all, they’re trying to bash fash.
Window-Shop:
“Sea Change” - Brooke Jarvis is a rock, she is… a peninsula! This is filed as a feature, not a book review of Wilko Graf von Hardenberg4’s Sea Level: A History – but that’s a new book, and Jarvis certainly seems to take a lot from it. I complain around here about reviews that never bother appraising the book, but surely there’s a better solution than just swapping out the category name. Regardless, when the summary is this spirited and fascinating, I can’t complain too much. I had never seriously considered “sea level” as a concept, and while I’m not surprised to learn that it’s a misleading construct which was directly tied to “the quest to make the world governable”, I’m still enlightened. A quick journey forward to the present moment hits the expected climate change beats, but the focus on measurement is unique. As Jarvis says, we’re trying to “keep pace with a fluid reality” while clinging to rigid systems. Roll tide?
“The Kamala Show” - Vinson Cunningham spots the changing patterns of the Kama-Kama-Kama-Kama-Kama Chameleon. If Harris isn’t going to make, like, any policy pronouncements, it’s especially fair game to cover her personas. Cunningham never actually pins down his most fun idea, which is that Harris resembles the Aaron Burr character in Hamilton – he just cites that for Harris, “the principal thing is to be in ‘the room where it happens,’ as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s song goes.” Of course, that song is outlining the political philosophy of a senator – who made his name during questioning sessions – turned vice president – who was kept perpetually on the sidelines. Harris probably isn’t the candidate who should be kept away from guns in New York City, but the connection still goes beyond coinage. Cunningham is also right that Harris’ obvious pleasure in her unexpected situation is infectious, especially compared to Trump’s surly, raspy, and increasingly low-energy bearing. This piece is fundamentally a work of punditry about something that’s plain to see, and as such it’s not especially useful – but Cunningham brings a bright energy to the vibes assessment. Bright, as in, neon green.
“Out of the Past” - Justin Chang opens his mouth to Close Your Eyes, and he receives a big surprise. Spirit of the Beehive is a genuine masterpiece, and I’m incredibly excited for whatever Erice’s cooked up. I’m thankful that Chang doesn’t give too much away; mostly, I’m keen on his analysis of the “slick digital polish” that dismayed me a bit watching the trailer. If he says it serves a purpose that pays off, that’s good enough for me – and I appreciate the formal analysis. Could I follow his plot synopsis? No, and I don’t care – I’ll get it when I watch the movie.
“A Cult in the Forest” - Alexis Okeowo feeds the survivors of a massive Kenyan death cult. A profoundly horrifying story. Okeowo doesn’t draw things out – by the end of the first section, that mass death will occur is already evident, though its scope takes a little longer to become clear. Okeowo connects things to the Jonestown murder-suicide, which is the only comparable event I know of; even there, pretty much everyone died, whereas here the perpetrators largely walked away.5 (The degree to which Mackenzie’s guards were believers versus hired help isn’t especially clear.) A bit more scene setting would help this piece, I think; the size of the compound, for example, feels like a crucial detail. Mostly, Okeowo foregrounds survivors’ stories, which were surely not easy to find, as well as her climactic meeting with Mackenzie – an earlier piece by Carey Baraka covered most of the same ground, but lacked this access. (That piece is also far more skeptical about claims of organ sales than Okeowo – that detail is quite crucial to Okeowo’s reading of Mackenzie as largely driven by greed.) While it’s a feat of reporting, though, I don’t think Okeowo’s analysis focuses nearly enough on the politics of the situation – the Christofascist extremism that Mackenzie pushed. Yes, extremist Christianity is popular in Kenya – but surely this isn’t just because of “‘ignorance and poverty’”; there are complex dynamics at play related to submission and control. Note that Mackenzie’s wife reaches toward the American right wing “censoring textbooks” in order to excuse him; this is an incredibly telling moment. Radicalizing people is not as simple as staging fake miracles. The COVID pandemic clearly had a big impact, too (Baraka gives it much of the credit) and it’s not a great leap from hydroxychloroquine to starvation and killing. If Mackenzie and his helpers were motivated by greed, they didn’t get there by reading the Bible. Kenya is a hypercapitalist state with extreme income inequality. Capitalism, so the meme goes, is a death cult. In this case, that’s shockingly literal.
Skip Without Guilt:
“Future Imperfect” - Katy Waldman tAIkes a villAIge to rAIse a chAIld. (Online title is an incredibly silly Betteridge’s Law of Headlines candidate, part one.) Some books just sound… stupid. Like, so stupid. (People regularly get surgery to make them “harder for surveillance cameras to identify” – that kind of stupid.) At least “hard” sci-fi has the dignity to admit it’s just makin’ shit up! This kind of “what if our world was a little bit different in revealing ways, and also had lots of extremely powerful technology?” setup is so tired!6 Waldman does an alright job dissecting the book, mainly focusing on how it doesn’t do enough to critique the maternal guilt it presents, and how the plot’s turn toward “public shaming” strains credibility. (A fake-world version of CPS comes after the mother for taking her kids’ devices away. Sure.7) In any case, I was already laughing at the dumbness by the time she lobbed that criticism. (Everyone has “human-size eggs” called wooms – come on! – that default to “veined reddish light and the whoosh of a heartbeat.”) Look, maybe everything works on the page and it only seems unbelievably goofy in a decontextualized review.8 And maybe James Patterson will win the Pulitzer.
“Remainders” - Louis Menand is a shelf-ish lover. (Online title is an incredibly silly Betteridge’s Law of Headlines candidate, part two.) If you already know the very basics of the history of bookstores in America, there is absolutely no reason to read the first four sections, which recount that story with no panache and no surprising details. The second half is more interesting if you like Menand Remembering Some Bookstores (I do!) and musing idly about what bookstores’ business model should be (I don’t!). The former is fun because it’s not tethered to anything, it’s just a memory piece, and Menand has fun with it. (“The Upper East Side isn’t where you would expect to sell a lot of Baudrillard, or all four volumes of Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche. But you could.”) The latter is annoying because Menand doesn’t actually know what he’s talking about, and he’s done absolutely no research into the economics of bookstores, instead deciding that curation is “probably still” the way for bookstores to go, because – he thinks so! Or that a wide selection of books in mixed condition can’t be profitable because – he thinks so! It’s actually insulting that he doesn’t deign to, you know, interview the people whose livelihood he’s talking about. I want to throw the book at him.
Letters:
Heather “thought the Tolentino piece [on tween cosmetics] pulled off what it was trying to do, too, and I enjoyed it. She has a nice way of puncturing her own anxieties that has been particularly successful as she’s turned towards children/motherhood as topics.
“I do get fatigued by these moral panics about the younger generations that don’t offer much counterpoint, especially anecdotally. For every ten year old with a 10-step skin care routine, there’s a ten year old falling asleep with chocolate on her face (the ratio is likely closer to 5, even 10, chocolate faces for every retinol user). Hearing from the exceptions provides more nuance to our understanding of what’s going on with young people, helps to maintain a sane balance for elder anxieties, and, perhaps most importantly, fills in context that may help us think about how better to support the ten year olds who are already worrying about crows feet.” As usual, my readers are easily eloquent enough to make the actual magazine’s letters page. (Sometimes they do.)
Listen up,
I’m a bit annoyed by the parenthetical remark that “such groups lie beyond even the fringes of the Republican Party.” The difference is plainly tactical more than it is ideological, in the same way that Marxist podcasters aren’t exactly enlisting in the Kurdish militia – wait, bad example, but you get what I’m saying. ↩
Property damage is also not speech… ↩
The lesson the FBI took from COINTELPRO is clearly not “we shouldn’t have done that” but instead “we shouldn’t have gotten caught”; as Kirkpatrick puts it, they fear “the wrath they would face from Congress and the public if they were again caught”. That even their understanding of what they got in trouble for focuses more on political bias than on violent and aggressive tactics also speaks to the character of the organization. ↩
Wilko Graf? Don’t mind if I do! ↩
The Heaven’s Gate cult is just a completely different situation and is only mentioned, I think, because it’s American and readers will be familiar with it. ↩
Oh, the world is filled with “hums,” which are “graceful, tireless, superintelligent robots” that shield people from harm? Yeah, I liked that premise as a fairly small part of Jon Bois’ bizarro football opus 17776, I don’t need to read a book about how actually the conceit tells us something about anomie and connectedness, or whatever. ↩
Why does every dystopian story insist on making the government hypercompetently fascist? Where are the inept-fascist futures? ↩
Not to mention in a series of snarky parentheticals in a review of the review. ↩