Last Week’s New Yorker Review: June 3, 2024
Last Week’s New Yorker, week of June 3
"‘That’s gauche, maudlin, inaccurate — and uncomplimentary to the Pope.’"
Must-Read:
“The Long Ride” - William Finnegan side-slips in the barrel with resolutely non-professional surfer Jock Sutherland. I greatly enjoyed Finnegan’s surf memoir from about a decade ago, and I appreciate that the magazine has allowed him biennial surfer profiles since then. His Kelly Slater story had a more entrancing narrative, his Kai Lenny story had higher stakes, but this one comes the closest to the Hemingway-esque magic of that memoir – its pockets of surf lingo that aren’t the least bit affected, cutting like a board’s blade across the page, revealing Sutherland’s vision of surfing as a skill like any other, worth doing well not because it’s useful or remunerative but just because – because it’s somewhere on the ever-growing list of skills his mother stuck on the wall. Finnegan never outlines this philosophy, but trusts us to find it with him, as he plays the usual reporter’s part, the semi-incompetent who wants to learn a little something. Here, it’s something about ritual and attention – but Finnegan doesn’t try too hard to crack Sutherland’s code or mine him for zen insight; he recognizes that the only way to learn the lesson is to watch carefully and do what you’re told. (Surf wax on, surf wax off.) I especially liked when Finnegan wove in the history of Hawaii and its issues with poverty, racism, and tourism – though he could’ve gone deeper in places. This is a low-stakes hangout, and a fairly long one, but the casual beauty of Finnegan’s writing hides deep wisdom. It’s somewhere in the waves.
Window-Shop:
“Subconsciously Yours” - Merve Emre raises a cigar to Freud. Just as every era must have its Freud, every literary critic for this magazine must have their reconsidering-Freud essay. 1983 brought Janet Malcolm’s well-known two-part feature on the pro- and anti-Freudians dissecting his archive. 1998 had Daphne Merkin on the lasting influence of Freud despite his skeptics. 2014 summoned Joshua Rothman, online, reviewing a revisionist history of the man. (Is there anything left to revise?) 2017 yielded Louis Menand on the lasting importance of psychoanalysis in America despite, say it with me, those skeptical of Freud’s work. Now here comes Emre for her turn on the couch. Her task is much like Tallis’ in the book under review: to “synthesize and clarify” Freud’s ideas without excessive focus on the “battles” between “‘bashers’” and “fanatics”. She performs very well, painting a picture of a Freud whose depressing ideas were often summoned by his personal pains and travails, but who nonetheless presents a kind of hope to the rest of us. It’s a far better way to reclaim the man’s legacy than by protesting loudly about how unfair his haters are being. Yes, he was deeply troubled, but it’s not as though we’re assessing his fitness for celebrity; his ideas aren’t always scientific, but much of what’s made his work so lasting is the dark poetry at its center. If you know your Freud well, you won’t learn anything or find any novel analyses here – but Emre’s clarity may still clarify your view. If you’re spottier, this is an excellent summation with few blind spots (though it does miss Freud’s brilliant writing on the uncanny). The magazine has a compulsion to repeat itself when it comes to Freud – thank goodness it’s not too painful. Da!
“By A Whisker” - Rebecca Mead is the cat’s pajamas. As with a cat, this piece’s strength is its size and warmth: Not too big; just right to curl up with. (Patience may still be required.) Mead clearly enjoys the book under review, by Kathryn Hughes, and quickly sums up its pleasures (though it’s overkill to follow a quote with “…Hughes writes vividly” – let us judge that.) It helps that the book has the easily summarizable hook of commercial popular nonfiction (cats turning from “‘anonymous background furniture into individual actors’” was a moment key to Modernism) and the scholarly seriousness of a university-press history (HarperCollins handled U.K. distribution, but here JHU has it.) Alternating chapters between a cultural survey and a biography of Louis Wain is a smart solution, and Mead splits her time similarly. I was more interested in the cat facts, only because I knew Wain’s basic story, and Mead doesn’t have time to go in-depth – though I’d never considered the connection Mead draws between his cleft lip and a cat’s face. Mead spends the last section on the idea that Wain’s humanoid cats are at odds with our present focus on “their strangeness”, which is an interesting thesis, but sparked in me the thought that what Wain is really the precursor to is the vast online world of furry art. While many still unfortunately associate the entire subculture with cringe, it’s actually full of wildly diverse expressions1 stemming from the basic idea of “animal heads on humanoid bodies” – which Wain can only be viewed as a precursor of. There’s so much hope and artistic generation in owning that lineage – especially compared to Mead’s conclusion, which lands in a place of numb alienation. Fuck that – put some cat ears on.
“Whatever You Say” - Jackson Arn spirals with Jenny Holzer. Sort of annoying to spend the whole piece minus one stanza discussing a single central installation, but also justified when you hear about what else Holzer has been up to. (Nothing that great!) Holzer’s work isn’t that difficult to “get”, so there’s not much for Arn to say that’s non-obvious – until the end, when he whips up a wonderful reference to Holzer’s most famous slogan that also works as an analysis of her art in general. I’m not sure his idea of “Aha! art” is that useful – seems limited, if you ask me, and I’m not sure it even describes David Maisel’s work, let alone the “others” Arn gestures toward – but it’s a great name regardless. This might have worked about as well if it were just a Goings On blurb – but if Arn is going around in circles, it’s mostly just in the literal sense.
“States of Play” - Eyal Press fights for rights in states. I wish Press would address the elephant in the room when it comes to “states’ rights”, which have a long history of providing a thin justification for all sorts of fascist policies, including segregation. Fighting for greater liberties in state Supreme Courts doesn’t inherently imply giving states more power, just making states use the power they already have for good… but still, it’s a thin distinction. This is a fairly dense and even lawyerly account of a narrow technical movement – not the most gripping reading unless you’re a law nerd. I appreciate how realistic Press is about the difficulty of effecting any change through the law, and it’s valuable to describe a legal movement trying to effect that change through, if not exactly back channels, then at least under-utilized channels. The snail-slow nature of law means it’ll be unclear for a while yet just how much can be accomplished this way; Press may be writing this story slightly early, though I appreciate the desire to explore the strategic cutting edge (and to get a scoop of sorts). I read this out loud to my lawyer grandmother (retired) – she loved it. It may please the court!
“Red Line” - Stephania Taladrid finds the U.S. and Mexico at cross purposes. Exceptionally newsy for the paper magazine; this feels more like an online piece to me… but still a good one, covering the political implications of the border battles with clarity. It’s certainly preferable to some of the other immigration-politics coverage they’ve published. And not every story like this needs to constantly remind us of the human stakes through gut-wrenching anecdotes. Still… there’s a way to cover political maneuvering that makes the parties involved feel like vivid agents with complex motives, and not pieces on a game board. I’m not sure Taladrid has nailed it; Bárcena is an odd central personage who’s only been in her position for a year and might not last under Mexico’s new president, she’s also not much of a character. But if she’s just a placeholder for Mexican interests more broadly, why focus so much on her movements and the differences between her and her predecessor? For such an explanatory piece, there were too many moments when I was confused, and Taladrid filters Mexican politics through their U.S. implications more than is helpful – the assumption that a reader would only be interested in Mexico insofar as it effects the U.S. is, well, part of the problem. This is still a smart and fairly comprehensive piece, and as a bonus it may help you sound smart at parties.
Skip Without Guilt:
“Inside Job” - Richard Brody plays the part for Hit Man. A clunker of a last line; it sounds as though Brody is saying the new film is a better love story than the “Before” trilogy, obviously not his intention. Before then it’s perfectly alright, but I’m not sure Brody justifies how much plot he gives away with any particular insight into that plot; he clearly wants to talk about the ending, but to do so has to slip into a parade of nonspecifics that feel designed to confuse. (“…its symbolism reaches far beyond the notion of ambient evil to illuminate the reckless passions that an intense sexual relationship comprises and the dangerous vulnerability that a romantic bond entails.”) Sounds like a fun movie, though, and I trust Brody’s recommendation. I hope it’s a hit, man.
“Are We Doomed?” - Rivka Galchen starts with an earthquake. Hey, at least it’s not Harvard. But I’m not sure any piece which asks the question “what are a random group of college students discussing in their open-ended conversational class?” could ever avoid banality. Sure, the kids are bright (at least, Mikko clearly is), but it’s still just a talking heads panel in which none of the talking heads have any expertise. No one is presenting research, everyone is just speculating wildly about a random assortment of loosely grouped topics. Who cares?! If the world is actually ending, the literal last place I want to be is back in a classroom listening to the unformed arguments of twenty-one-year-olds at a private university. There is a certain pedagogical utility to this sort of class – though that utility would be far greater if it weren’t meticulously disconnected from its obvious political implications. But Galchen is unwilling to write a piece about pedagogy; she tries to extract wisdom from in-class musings (can you imagine how mortifying it would be to have your college discussion responses published anywhere ever, let alone in this magazine?) and grants way too much uncritical space to those who muddy the water between our genuine approaching apocalypses and tenuous A.I. worries based on little evidence that mostly serve to prop up A.I. power. I’m dropping out.
Letters:
I don’t usually include letters about the Cartoon & Poem Supplement (for paying subscribers!) but since there’s nothing else in the mailbag, Susan writes that this panel is “one of my all-time favorites. Laughed out loud. Still laughing.”
She also writes that she “caught the same vibe of joy from this Anthony Lane post-movie reviews piece [on a book-summary app] as I did for the last one [on Lord Byron] – they’ve set him free, apparently.”
What did you think of this week’s issue? (Or any week’s! It’s never too late to write in.)
Song of the week!
Please note that due to an ongoing Buttondown glitch, I’ve had to link to Google-searches in which the intended link is the first result. Both those links are to awesome videos by friends or friends-of-friends of mine whose stuff bears little resemblance to what you might first think of as “furry art.” No, the category is not “my thing”, but neither is Tom of Finland, that doesn’t make it not awesome.