Collected Miscellany

I have been working on a book review to be published in an actual magazine and so have been distracted and unable to post much of substance. I did want to offer some disjointed thoughts on an earlier issue however. A few posts down I discussed a 2 Blowhards post on the question of “light entertainment.” Michael was wondering if we aren’t a bit too quick to write off light hearted fare as lacking higher merit while we reserve this merit for more “serious” works. My short answer was that the key is to value each for what it is, but that there is a difference.

Art in the big sense needs to rise above the here and now. There is something transcendent about art. It teaches us something about what it means to be human; it captures something bigger than the medium with which it communicates. Timelessness is certainly one category. If something can speak to people across generations and time periods then it obviously goes deeper. But something can also be art because it captures something perfectly or in a unique way. It doesn’t transcend time so much as capture it and so transmits meaning to us from the past. Such are my scattered thoughts.

A number of bloggers have noted this James Wood review of John Le Carre’s latest book. It is more than just a review, however, as Woods skillfully and at times rather brutally insists that the great spy master is over-valued. This ties in with this whole light entertainment business as Wood is castigating critics for trying to elevate LeCare from a great genre writer (at least his early works) to a legitimate literary figure. Woods is drawing a line that keeps LeCare out of literature and within genre:

A glance at the bald-faced illiteracies of a contemporary thriller writer such as David Baldacci suffices to explain why Le Carré is softly treated by literary readers. The “thin” terminus hotel and “softened” Beethoven are delicately done, and the whole passage is elegantly finished; it is the discourse of an educated man rather than the words-by-the-yard offered by contemporary sellers. But it is, all the same, genre-writing. The prose always observes its own conventions rather than revealing anything new, deep, or truthful. The details are merely the quorum necessary to keep the narrative process going; the specificity is essentially bogus (the lift licensed “for three persons,” the “small Opel,” the garage playing Beethoven)–not because it is false but because, in its very banality, it gestures not toward the unpredictable world but toward the conventions of a certain kind of efficient realism. The prose announces, in effect: “here is what the world generally looks like according to the conventions of realism.” It is a civilized style, but nonetheless a slickness unto death.

This is the type of line drawing Michael was talking about.

Personally I never saw Le Carre as anything more than light entertainment. I enjoyed his early works for their dark tone and plots. Although I saw the real Cold War in very different terms I always enjoyed my spy novels dark with a touch of tragedy. I think the fact that LeCare painted the Cold War in such terms accounts for his popularity. Perhaps this is my bias but it seems to me that his tone matched the zietigist for much of the late twentieth century. The liberal establishment far too often fell into the moral equivalency that is at the bottom of LeCare’s novels. The famous E.M. Foster quote seems is a good example:

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

This is the attitude at the heart of many of LeCare’s characters and hence they appealed to those who shared the sentiment. When LeCare rants about the war in Iraq the same thing happens – those who agree nod approvingly those who don’t are turned off. If Wood’s review is on target, however, it seems that his obsession with the war in Iraq and literary ambition beyond his abilities have doomed his latest work. Oh well, I can always go back and re-read Len Deighton

When I was teaching at a community college I always warned my students against relying on the Internet for source material. It seems silly to have to say it but just because something is on the web doesn’t mean it is true or reliable. This is something you have to teach students but surely not respectable and published authors? Well, it seems as if Kevin Phillips, author of American Dynasty, has failed to follow this basic wisdom.

Now, I have never been a fan of Mr. Phillips as he seems to be the media’s favorite type of “conservative” – a an ex-conservative. (BTW, why is it that the media, who despised President Nixon, loves to quote ex-Nixon men like Phillips, Safire, and even Pat Buchanan when it suits their purposes?) As a result I haven’t read the book, but luckily Peter Schweizer has, and in a piece for National Review Online he unpacks many of the conspiracy theories Phillips gives credence to in his supposedly devastating book on the Bush family.

What is startling is just how flimsy the evidence is for many of the wilder claims Phillips makes. Here are two examples:

– Phillips believes a good case can be made that Prescott Bush, George W. Bush’s grandfather, was recruited into the world of intelligence by a British spy. The source he quotes is John Loftus and Mark Aaron’s book The Secret War Against the Jews, which argues that every American president since FDR has “betrayed Israel and the Jewish people.” The book offers only anonymous sources for this remarkable claim. Nevertheless, Phillips quotes it ten times on such sensitive matters as his allegation of Bush-family links to Nazi Germany even though the authors offered only anonymous sources and an unpublished paper by an unknown author for their claims. (I asked repeatedly for a copy of the unpublished paper from them over the course of two years and received no answer.) In another instance, Phillips claims that the Bushes have obstructed Justice Department investigations into CIA activities. His source? A book by Russel Bowen called The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family Exposed. Bowen claims to have run drugs for “the secret government” in America, which apparently makes him qualified to write on this subject.
– In another chapter Phillips revives the tired old story that the Reagan-Bush campaign planned an “October Surprise” to prevent the release of American hostages in Iran before the 1980 presidential election. Although long since abandoned by Democrats who, after an official inquiry headed by Rep. Lee Hamilton, admitted there was no evidence for it, Phillips says the theory should be taken seriously — based on new evidence. His sources? A series of overheated stories on the left-wing website, consortiumnews.org, written by Robert Parry, an obsessive pursuer of this theory whose work has been repudiated by The New Republic, Newsweek, American Journalism Review, and even The Village Voice.

The point isn’t that Phillips criticizes the Bush family, but that he spins these wild theories based on little more than Internet wackos and conspiracy theory fantasy. Which is a shame because Phillips’ The Cousins’ Wars was by all accounts a serious work of history. This is often a problem with the more journalistic accounts of recent history. They are often shallow with little foundation or suspect sources. Which is why I skip them for the most part. Unfortunately, these books often sell well and poison the mind of those who read them thinking they are getting accurate history. Phillips ideological agenda has been clear for some time but now his scholarship is slipping. President Bush does seem to have a way of unbalancing people.

Schweizer, author of Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism, has a book on the Bush family coming out in April. Perhaps the diligent reader can read them both and compare notes.

UPDATE: New York Times review of the Schweizer book here.

Interesting post over at 2 Blowhards on “Light Entertainment.” Michael wonders whether we under value so called light entertainment. The first issue is of course where to draw the line:

If, say, Noel Coward is light entertainment, then why not Oscar Wilde? If Wilde, then why not “Lucky Jim”? If “Lucky Jim,” then why not Jane Austen? If Jane Austen, then why not Moliere? And if Moliere, why not the comedies of Shakespeare? Perhaps there really is a line, and to the left of it everything is froth and will never be anything but mere froth, while to the right of it everything is adult, substantial, and has the potential of being found great. But where does that line get drawn? And who gets to make this decision?

After discussing the problem with automatically placing more “serious” works above lighter fare like comedy and farce, he wonders if critics are missing the point:

In any case, isn’t viewing light entertainment dismissively rather like criticizing a sushi dinner for not being a meat and potatoes meal? It’s missing the point. And in a culture of abundance where none of us is exactly starving for entertainment or art, and where we get to choose our own pleasures, what’s the point in being exclusive?

I need to organize my thoughts on this one a bit more (and read the comments to the post), but I think the key lies in balance; valuing a work for what it is – neither claiming too much nor too little. Terry Teachout has touched on this issue a number of times and in a review [sub. req.] of Thomas Mallon’s Bandbox for National Review, has this to offer:

Profound it isn’t, but if you want to be diverted by a smart writer who knows what it means to be serious, you won’t do much better than Bandbox.

To me that strikes the right tone. It acknowledges the skill and intelligence involved but admits that the work is still “diversion.” More later when I have organized my thoughts.

The fruits of learning never come easily or pleasantly, but must be striven for. The strenuous self-discipline and self-denial necessary to master a difficult or complicated body of knowledge at least initially involves pain. to teach that things which bring lasting happiness to the individual can be acquired effortlessly and enjoyably is to ill-prepare one for the real hardships of life.

— W. Wesley McDonald, Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology.

I have noted before my interest in the Oxford Press series on the Seven Deadly Sins. Here is what I had to say the first time:

Part of me wonders whether these aren’t simply elegant excuses for ignoring the reason for listing of the Seven Deadly Sins in the first place, that is to avoid them. But the reader in me finds the subject interesting and the packaging attractive.

Abram Van Engen’s Books and Culture review of the series so far (there are three books not yet published) has reinforced my original instincts. I have far too many books to read wihtout adding books that dance around a subject, no matter how witty or elegant. You can feel Van Engen’s frustration coming out in the review:

An editor’s note explains that these books are intended “to chart the ways we have approached and understood evil, one deadly sin at a time.” The problem, however, is that the series lifts seven names from an old and closely detailed map in order to draw a new and rather vague one, occasionally replacing what once was a warning with a blessing . . . Joseph Epstein’s thoughts and anecdotes concerning envy are in the same vein. Epstein—the lapidary essayist who was for many years editor of The American Scholar—defines envy by a question: “Why does he have it and not I?” And while he poses the fine line between actual and perceived injustice, he does no more than that. Nowhere in Envy do we actually find out what envy is—much less, why it constitutes a sin; what is missing is a conceptual analysis of the vice proposed. The book feels quite sophisticated, but the feeling is belied by its limited claims. Regarding the place of envy in human nature, for example, Epstein is unprepared or unwilling to comment. Some say this, some say that, no one really knows. In the end, Epstein sends us out on our own: “one must decide, finally, whether envy is or is not a part of human nature.” It would be nice if he could help. Yet swept along by brilliantly smooth prose full of wit and panache, the reader almost forgets that the writer is hardly making a substantive, ethical claim.

He finds the Phyllis Tickle volume on greed a bit more on target but still lacking in depth and context. Given my gut feeling and this review I think I will save my money. The last think I need is a sophisticated reason to indulge in greed, envy, or lust.

National Review’s blog-like The Corner has had a number of posts on the concept of “conservative literature.” Jonah Goldberg raised the issue after being queried by a reader. Rick Brookhiser objected:

Stop this meme before it kills again. Best conservative movies, best conservative fiction, best conservative breakfast cereal–how about just the best?

Jonah followed up:

Rick – Lord knows I’m sympathetic with your position. I wasn’t looking for ideological conservatism or anything like that. Just sort of the classics of literature which appeal to the eternal verities and that sort of thing. One of the reasons I don’t have any definitive answers is that, like you, I’ve never really read fiction for its “conservative” insights, but rather for its insights, pure and simple. Still, don’t, say, Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy represent a kind of small-c conservatism worth mentioning? Don’t Heinlein or Walker Percy have views of human nature which gibe with the conservative spirit?

Readers and other Cornerites weighed in before Brookhiser again reiterated his feelings:

Jonah, we are men and women before we are conservatives, and that is what fiction is about. Now I can think of novels that address particular situations that are of special interest to conservatives–the passing of old orders, etc. But such discussions almost instantly deteriorate into endless wangles about minor aspects of great writers (what does Dostoyevsky think of democracy?), or blow-the-man-down assertions that self-reliance or realism or [insert favorite virtue] are the property of conservatives.

So what say you gentle reader? Are their books that are conservative int eh sense Jonah is talking about? Authors like Waugh, Elliot, Chesterton, Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis may come to mind but how much of that is tied into their religious faith as opposed to conservatism? I would be interested in hearing others opinions. I will offer my take later tonight or tomorrow (when I have more time).