August 10, 2024

Last Week’s New Yorker Review: August 12, 2024

Last Week’s New Yorker, week of August 12

"Cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat cat."

Apologies for the slight delay, dear readers; I’ve been ramping up my job search efforts. My lines have some nibbles, but any leads are still appreciated!

After two notably substandard issues in a row, I suppose the law of averages demands an issue with basically no skips. Well, this one delivers! It’s not so much that any one piece was a massive standout and more that everything is quite good; picking the must-reads (I always set a hard cap at two¹, because if I’m not making the hard choices what’s even the point of this endeavor?) has never felt more arbitrary. But off we trot.

Must-Reads:

“The Tail End” - Sloane Crosley says cat’s all, folks. Truly, there is no reason not to just read this one: It’s really short, it’s highly accessible, it’s funny, it’s moving, it has enough bite not to go down like, well, cat food. A message to the people who read this newsletter without reading the magazine²: It’s time to use your complimentary non-subscriber article. The premise – a personal essay about a dying cat – is so simple it seems impossible to execute well: Insisting on its gravity would be blinkered; adding false depth would be contrived. Crosley’s solution, which is revealed in the climactic flourish (it’s effective enough I’m tempted to add a spoiler tag), is to simply insist that one cat gets one story. “Maybe I can leave the jokes in the grass, swim naked in the pool of a hard sell. Your pet dies; it feels like a secret you’ve been keeping might die with her. It feels serious.” I have an elderly rescue dog who, as with Crosley’s cat, “fell into my lap.” Early in my life with her she had a brush with vet-induced death so close that I still think of every day with her as an unearned gift. (I suppose it’s earned in the sense that I’m the one cleaning her perennial liquid shits off the floor.) I suppose that means this is catered toward me – but I’m really highly resistant toward much pet content, as readers of the Cartoon and Poem Supplement to this newsletter can attest.³ Crosley’s tone stubbornly insists on the personal part of the personal history, never trying to explain her sorrow away but putting it before us without fear of judgement. That helps. I didn’t find any of the humor that amusing, but neither does it cheapen Crosley’s story. That’s vital. But none of that is really what makes the tale purr. That comes from deeper inside.

“The Inheritor” - Clare Malone bears down on R.F.K. This could easily have presented Kennedy as wacky-verging-on-rabid; that’s the story I was expecting from the pre-pub focus on the Central Park-dumped bear. That’s only two paragraphs here, and Malone, perhaps stymied by the fundamental incomprehensibility of the anecdote, can’t give it the grotesque air it acquires coming from R.F.K’s own mouth, in one of the most bizarre own-goals of the political season; truly, you must watch that video in full – it’s like a short film Harmony Korine would make while overdosing on antihistamines. Instead Malone really tries to get to the bottom of his egomania and fearfulness. Maybe the answer isn’t particularly surprising if you’ve looked at the man’s last name, but Malone still gets credit for making a decisive and engaging case. You can sum the man up in four words – “the second as farce” – and the full Camelot canon is present: Drug addiction, bad behavior toward women, conspiracy, the specter of death, old-money privilege. It’s all in the arrangement, then, and Malone’s arrangement favors darkness over humor; a farce isn’t funny when you’re living it, and Kennedy’s story is one of “deep despair” that eats away everything but his own self-importance. That includes Mary Richardson, his ex-wife, whose death to suicide Malone clearly sees Kennedy as bearing some responsibility for. (The detail she adds about “Mother’s Day” is both misleading and precious, but otherwise it’s a persuasive case.) And it includes the gradual (and perhaps partly drug-induced) loss of the ineffable Kennedy charm. Kennedy is a strange mix of powerful and pitiable; in that respect, at least, he’s positively presidential.

Window-Shop:

“Promised Land” - Rachel Monroe seeks tribal justice in Oklahoma. A knotty legal drama with stakes and vivid characters. In one corner, the Oklahoman governor Kevin Stitt, whose fanatical opposition to tribal rights “has baffled” even his political allies, who are calling it “‘nonsensical’” and “‘a betrayal of his duty’” on the record. In the other, Chuck Hoskin, Jr., chief of the Cherokee Nation, who’s facing an impossible task: Establishing a state apparatus on the fly while essentially being governed by his sworn enemy. In practice, it’s mostly a question of crime and punishment, and Monroe only briefly addresses how shameful it is that that’s the one task we actually rely on the state to provide.⁴ (Hoskin expresses a desire for reform, but admits that the tribe “did things substantially the same as the state”, which does make sense under the circumstances.) The middle third of the piece, addressing the bad blood between tribal cops, county cops, and federal agents, vacillates a bit between the petty dramas Monroe was able to validate and broader concerns that are harder to fact-check (Monroe’s previous piece was far from anti-carceral and the focus on “public-safety problems” here is similarly iffy but far more forgivable as an issue of prejudicial policing and not phantasmal criminality). The ending speeding-ticket anecdote is an unreal drama unto itself, an obvious bad-faith stunt that reveals which side is indulging in petty tribalism – would you believe it’s the colonizers?

“The Devil Take It” - James Wood fucks around and finds Faust. Lacks any thesis beyond “here are some thoughts James Wood has had about Faust recently while reading some related books”, which is only slightly to its detriment. Wood is an excellent lecturer even when he wings it, as it turns out. Ed Simon’s “controversial” suggestion that “the story of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness” is a Faust tale sparks in me the need for a Faust alignment chart – surely that story qualifies as “structure neutral, ingredient rebel”, meaning we can scientifically confirm that it’s Faust in precisely the same way an ice-cream taco is a sandwich. The third section, in which Wood explores Faust as theology, is especially compelling; its “truly diabolical temptation” is that of “the reader’s own religious surety”. It’s a mischievous idea – you can practically spot Wood’s devilish grin.

“Notes from Underground” - David Remnick seeks peace and goes to Sinwar. An excellent but very strange piece – one which embodies so many of the difficulties the liberal US press has had covering the Gaza story, and overcomes only some of them. To start with, I certainly have to applaud the magazine for running long, deeply reported, serious coverage of Hamas in Gaza. When Remnick covered Netanyahu at similar length, I wrote that “I knew less about Sinwar, and could've used an exploration of his psychology as detailed as the one Netanyahu recieves.”⁵ I assume Remnick took that as a personal challenge, and I await my residuals. This delivers that detailed exploration, and the piece’s first half, which covers up to October 7th, is gripping and new. Remnick manages something remarkable, a portrait in whispers. Access is scarce, but Remnick turns this to the piece’s benefit: Sinwar is a phantasm who serves the roles others want him to serve, and nonetheless, Remnick finds the man inside the legend. Everything through “‘…a dinosaur there’” is stellar, eerie, elegant, hard to beat. The sections covering October 7th have much less new to say, and they feel less focused. There’s a very odd moment when Remnick equates Gazan rhetoric with Israeli action – surely an Israeli saying the Gazans reminded him of Nazis isn’t “as jolting as” that same Israeli mentioning that their goal in Gaza is “extermination.” Actions are more jolting than rhetoric – isn’t there some saying about that? The next-to-last section, on the aftermath, rushes past the total destruction of Gaza so quickly you’d think it was a training exercise. But any leftist prone to pre-judging Remnick will have to admit, ending on an unchallenged quote that says the Israelis “now seem to want to be Hitler” is ballsy. Painting Sinwar or Hamas in rosy hues was never in the offing, nor should it have been. But achieving justice for Palestinians, or even just an end to horror, may not be possible within the frameworks Remnick is comfortable endorsing. That’s jolting indeed.

“Divorce Story” - Parul Sehgal is knocking on a door labelled “marriage complaining.”⁶ Everyone’s been loving this one, and it’s definitely both vicious and correct. Frankly, the most likely reason I don’t love it more is just that my only prior exposure to Manguso was the one compelling but rather pat piece she wrote for the magazine a few years ago. Things start off with a survey of self-pleasure (what Sehgal wonderfully terms the “solo session”) and segue into a gloomy marriage that fits the classic model of codependency so precisely it makes you wonder if Tolstoy was wrong about unhappy families. I understand that Sehgal is arguing, in part, against the easy use of loaded terminology like “abuse” or, ye gods, “schmoopie”, but not even mentioning codependency is really strange – even if it’s an imperfect lens, it’s also obviously key to Sehgal’s reading of Manguso, one in which the caretaker-speaker plays her part in the dynamic in ways she isn’t able to admit. Codependency isn’t innate to so-called “hetero marriage”⁷ in the same way slamming into pedestrians isn’t innate to luxury SUVs – there’s still a problem there, and it sure seems like it’s a category flaw! Sehgal’s point is more limited; she wants us to take care, and take time, when communicating our pain. Enough “baby talk and baby thinking”, she says; grow up. “Whatever you say, mommy”, says the reader. Let’s unpack that.

[Just for reference, this is where last week’s Alex Ross must-read, the best piece of the last two weeks combined, would rank if in this week’s magazine.]

“Bad Dream” - Jackson Arn says ain’t it fun, living in surreal world? Something must be done about Arn’s late disengagement with NYC art, I say. I know it’s the summer, but since February he’s covered just three museum shows, and nothing in the galleries.⁸ Instead he’s jetted between Venice, Paris, and now Brussels, delivering missives from abroad. I assume he’s avoiding the stench of subway air, and maybe the need to actually review a show; he seems to prefer roving essays loosely pegged to shows. I’m certainly not saying he isn’t good at them. This one, on the key role of mundanity and ordinariness to surrealism, doesn’t seem wrong – although certainly my subconscious is, if anything, far more mundane than the average surrealist scene; my dreams tend to take place in brutalist officescapes populated by a mix of distant relatives and minor celebrities. (Keegan-Michael Key, why are you working at the DMV?) Surely part of the point of surrealism is bridging the gap between waking life and the imaginary – showing that the hard line we imagine between the two is actually quite blurry. And psychoanalysis makes that same point: Ceci n’est pas seulement un cigare. Arn’s parade of paradoxes seems distinctive, because he states each one with such panache. Spend a little time mulling them over, though, and like the “utilitarian realities” of Surrealism, they’re surprisingly ordinary.

“Fixing the Court” (Comment) - Amy Davidson Sorkin tries on a packer. Comment is usually at its best when it isn’t pegged to a breaking news story. I feel better-informed for having read this, instead of the usual (unsurprised and dismayed).

“After Long Silence” - Alex Ross runs a rediscover story. A lovely appreciation of a rediscovered opera which really makes me regret making other plans that Wednesday. (I was this close to going!) It’s hard to envision (enlisten?) “a progression that pinballs from C-sharp major to A major by way of an E dominant seventh”, but it helps that Ross calls it “a wacky jolt worthy of Berlioz.” The piddly second half, though… I understand why Ross wants to use his platform to critique classical-music institutions’ programming, but it’s kind of a bummer; can’t we hear about how well the Festival Orchestra are playing, not just how much Ross approves of the (admittedly needless) machinations by which they choose what to play?

Skip Without Guilt:

“In Deep” - Inkoo Kang sinks. Well, something had to be down here. I’m tempted to leave it at that, because I have no insightful comment – I’m sure Kang assesses this show correctly, but she hasn’t given me a reason to want to find out. Just a bit of thematic analysis would go a long way. Workaday TV reviews fill no need for me, and if the pop music reviews are going to continue treating the reader like they’ve never listened to music before and have to start with the most popular thing, maybe Kang’s reviews could assume a bit more unfamiliarity with the medium. Who even has Apple TV+? I’ve heard tell of an arcane legend who was known to say he didn’t even own a TV!

---

Letters:

Michael thought the Katherine Rundell piece on sharks was “a fun read” – but it “could be that I just really, really like sharks.” Fair enough!

At least three of my readers listen to Car Seat Headrest; at least four subscribe to Harper’s. Good data.

What did you think of this week’s issue? Strong one, right?

---

One for the money, two for the show,

forty dollars a year for subscribe to the newsletter.

(It remains really funny to discover the years-old music videos for these random songs I like a lot. This one is incredibly shoddy in ways that are sorta charming. [On the other hand… just hire a real director. It’s NYC, you can get a film student for cheap.] Seems like Bell has retired from music and the modest public eye that comes with being a contributor to Chairlift and Dirty Projectors; hope she’s thriving in any case!)