Last Week's New Yorker Review: ☀️ The Weekend Special (October 28)
The Weekend Special (October 28)
Pieces are given up to three Jacksons (for fiction), Malcolms (for essays), or Rosses (for your picks). As with restaurant stars, even one Jackson, Malcolm, or Ross indicates a generally positive review.
☀️ Fiction
“From the Wilderness” by Yukio Mishima. Two Jacksons. intruder, intentions, interval. There are probably more ideal times to publish archival work by everyone’s favorite quirked-up ultranationalist coup supporter; still, Mishima’s prose is undeniable. Presenting the anecdote in intricate detail first from his perspective and then all over again from an only slightly wider third-person perspective is an unexpected choice, subtly raising questions of memory and objectivity that eventually erupt at the end. It’s true that knowing the circumstances of Mishima’s death will color one’s reading of lines like “Not that I had ever been a madman” – will render it richer, but maybe also simpler; a portrait of individual psychology and not a treatise on the “immoderately odd and dangerous” role of writing in society. Mishima believes in the materiality of language; he feels it. It’s staring him in the face – and maybe it’s a mirror.
☀️ Weekend Essay
“Baseball Is for the Losers” by Nicholas Dawidoff. One Malcolm. charm, change, championship. An endearing recap of the season with an irrelevant extended interlude on the 1986 World Series – I’m not sure what that’s doing here. Otherwise, if you’d like a fairly snappy (though not nearly Angell-level; what is?) recap of the postseason to this point, this is such. Dawidoff is as attuned to the media environment around the game as to the game itself, a postmodern style fit for a very postmodern sports world. Not much more to say, is there? Play ball.
☀️ Random Pick
“The Empire Strikes Back” by Adam Kirsch (January 9, 2012.) No Rosses. mind, might, mirror. This would be so cutesy if it came out last year, when thinking about the Roman Empire was a meme. Instead, Kirsch can’t rely on that connection to provide significance; still, he’s intent on comparing a savage past to an enlightened present. Yes, Rome was a nasty and brutish place to live, but Kirsch goes too far in assuming some of those same things aren’t going on in our supposedly enlightened modern world. He’s just published a pro-Israel polemic, so he shouldn’t be so quick to judge Romans for undervaluing certain kinds of life. People in glass houses shouldn’t shoot stone throwers in the head, and all that. The only flaws he admits we share with Rome are income inequality and, of all things, an inflated art market. Maybe next time the U.S. can sell a thousand Guernicas to Israel instead.
☀️ Something Extra
I saw the new restoration of Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors at Lincoln Center: mind-melting. I only knew Pomegranates and assumed it was far-and-away his masterpiece, but this was just as good. The man did things with a camera that nobody has, before or since. I’ll be looking for more.
Have a piece from the magazine’s past that you want me to review? Venmo $20 per request to @SamECircle, then write me an email or a note on Venmo letting me know you've done so and what your requested piece is. No limit on the number of requests.
Sunday Song: