Of Books Michaelmas 2004

£2.00 Oxonianthe Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 http://www.oxonianreview.org 2 the Oxonian Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1

in this issue: from the editor Reviews & Features Taking sides Any man who sacks cities Th is issue - the last Oxonian Review of 2004 Michael Moore and the art of polemic Temples and graves and holy places Niall Maclean - refl ects a range of reactions to the death of the page 3 Is a fool left, symbolised by the passing of the father of And his turn as victim will come. Redressing the balance deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, and the subse- Noreena Hertz on debt relief quent move to the right orchestrated by George Michael Hugman and Dirk-Jon Omtzigt - Poseidon, Trojan Women, by Euripides page 5 W. Bush’s administration, the after shocks of In the Prologue of Euripides’ Trojan Women which have reverberated around the world. To The future looks right The Right Nation: Why is America Diff erent (fi rst performed in Athens in 415 BCE), the gods this end, this edition features reviews of Michael Murray Wesson Poseidon and Athene predict that the victorious Moore’s oeuvre; David Hare’s new play, Stuff page 7 Greeks, as a result of their sacrilegious act of rap- Happens, chronicling the lead up to the Iraq A more serious literature ing the priestess Kassandra, will suff er and, like war recently produced at the National Th eatre; Will May interviews Professor of Poetry, Christopher Ricks page 9 their prisoners, the Trojan women themselves, Philip Roth’s new book, Th e Plot Against America; become victims of war. and Th e Right Nation: Why America is Diff erent Oxford authors in print Featured writer: Carmen Bugan In 2004, over 2400 years after the fi rst produc- by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, page 10 tion of Euripides’ play, considered by many to be which examines the newly dominant conservative All that glitters... the greatest anti-war play ever written, we have coalition in the United States. The Line of Beautyy, Booker Prize, 2004 no Olympic gods to warn us that the destruc- Th e Oxonian Review also welcomes the new Amy Sackville page 11 tion of cities and holy places will lead to our own Professor of Poetry, Christopher Ricks, an Oxford ruin. And no Olympic gods to predict that that alumnus, and highlights Crossing the Carpathi- Imagined history Philip Roth’s second glance at America’s past cycle of violence and war, though ages old, will ans, a fi rst book of poetry by the up-and-coming Jacob Risinger continue. It has been over three years since the poet, Carmen Bugan, who recently completed page 13 pillaging of the Twin Towers and already several her DPhil in English Literature. Other reviews The magic revival of Tornedalen revolutions of this cycle have occurred. Who is address the concerns of fringe cultures that rarely Mikael Niemi’s Popular Music Malin Linstrom Brock there to remind those behind the World Trade receive public attention, such as the mixed-lan- page 14 Center attacks of their hubris? To remind the guage community of the Tornedalen area near ‘Known knowns’ aggressors in Afghanistan and, now, in Iraq, of the northern Sweden-Finnish border featured David Hare’s take on popular politics theirs? in Mikael Niemi’s best-selling novel, Popular Tim Markham page 15 In the ancient world, it was the artists, writ- Music. By contrast, Alan Hollinghurst’s 2004 ers, and dramatists who took the responsibility of Booker Prize winning novel, Th e Line of Beauty, Iron ladies: Women in Thatcher’s Britain The Women’s Library, London E1, until 2nd April 2005 responding to political catastrophes and subse- also reviewed, depicts with new insight and vivid Kate Nichols page 18 quent acts of retribution and opened the public language a now well-documented fringe group, eye to the nature and context of these atrocities. the homosexual community of Th atcher’s 1980s. London Film Festival 2004 Over two millennia later, it is largely still the art- In addition, reviews of four international fi lms Melissa Gronlund page 16 ists, the writers, the dramatists, and now also the from the 2004 London Film Festival exemplify fi lmmakers, who take on this role. the broad range of topics that appeal to fi lmmak- A note on reactions to the death of Jacques Derrida As the Oxonian Review of Books goes to print ers and audiences today. Finally, we end - we feel Joseph Streeter the world has witnessed further violence and fi ttingly - with an obituary of Jacques Derrida, page 19 upheaval: the killing of controversial Dutch fi lm- who died on 8th October 2004. maker Th eo van Gogh, Sudanese armed forces Th e weekend before the Presidential elec- Poetry blockading refugee camps in Darfur despite UN tion, Osama bin Laden addressed Americans condemnation, the quelling of uprisings in Fal- on al-Jazeera, saying: “Just as you lay waste our Scrambled Michael Donkor lujiah and Mosul, not to mention the news of the nation, so shall we lay waste yours.” It seems that page 8 stockpiling of nuclear material in Iran and atroci- the world has indeed come to this. Th e cycle will The Height ties uncovered in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo continue, but at least we are forewarned and shall Michael Donkor Bay. Undoubtedly, the most worrying develop- have our say. page 12 ment, however, is the re-election of George W. Mask Bush as President of the United States and the Michael Donkor subsequent resignation of his Secretary of State, Avery T. Willis page 18 Editor-in-Chief Colin Powell; events which seem to have secured Notes pinned to fridge doors the infl uence of an increasingly right-wing con- Avery Willis is an American DPhil student in Classics at David Illingworth page 12 servatism. Balliol College.

In the online edition Got a letter to the editor? http://www.oxonianreview.org [email protected]

Kelly Grovier on Crossing the Carpathians Blackwells will off er a gift voucher worth £25 to the writer of the best letter to the editor Alan Ward on Derrida Want to advertise? 2004 photo retrospective [email protected] Additional reviews and features

Cover design and image by Nasir Hamid michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 the Oxonian Review of books 3

the Oxonian Review Taking sides of books Michael Moore and the art of polemic http://www.oxonianreview.org

Michael Moore number have cited it as evidence of a growing Editor-in-Chief Farhenheit 9/11 ‘liberal bias’ in the US media. Th ey are certainly A Dog Eat Dog Films Produc- Avery T. Willis tion right about the fi rst point, although to label the 122 min fi lm ‘mere polemic’ is to make the mistake of 2003 assuming that ‘polemic’ is straightforwardly a Senior Editor Kristin Anderson Michael Moore pejorative term. (As for the second claim, the Bowling for Columbine frequency and vehemence with which it is made A Dog Eat Dog Films Produc- serve to show that the art of performative con- tion tradiction is alive and well.) To count as polemi- Editors 120 min Chris Bradley 2002 cal, a work need only be one-sided—points are Josh Cherniss aggressively marshalled in one direction, with Phil Clark little attempt made to deal with relevant counter- Michael Moore Michael Moore Len Epp Stupid White Men Dude, Where’s my country claims. 9/11 certainly fi ts the bill on this score. Alex Kalderimis Penguin Books Ltd Penguin Books Ltd Th e central thesis of the movie is that Bush’s ‘War Katherine Lafrance 2004. 2004. on Terror’ and, more specifi cally, the invasion Thomas Marks 304 pages 320 pages. April Warman ISBN: 0141019999 ISBN: 0141013001 of Iraq in March 2003, are sideshows to distract attention from the close relationships that exist David Williams between the Bush family and elements of Saudi he verbal palsy that affl icts George W. Bush Arabia’s ruling class—including members of the Thas been extensively documented. Entire Saudi royal family and the Bin Laden family. Th e Online Editor Paul Vetch books have been devoted to the subject, and the argument Moore off ers in support of this thesis ‘50 Hilarious Bush Gaff es’ e-mails have (largely consists of nothing more than a series of sugges- thanks to the eff orts of US subcontractors) prob- tive questions. Why were members of the Bin ably reached even Afghanistan by now. While Online Assistant Laden family fl own out of the US in the days Will May it’s true that statements like ‘almost all of our following September 11th 2001, before being exports come from overseas’ are irredeemable in questioned by the FBI? Exactly how extensive pretty much any context outside management are the business relations between the Bushes Publisher consultancy, it’s also important not to lose sight and the Bin Ladens? What is the signifi cance of Paul Vetch of the fact that George W. Bush’s artless use of Taliban leaders travelling to Texas in 1997 (when language is, on occasion, one of his most eff ective Bush was Governor) to discuss with oil industry Acknowledgements Balliol College polemical tools— witness Al Gore’s implosion in executives the possibility of running a natural gas the face of Bush’s sledgehammer platitudes in the Eric Bennett, Bursar of Exeter College pipeline through Afghanistan? Collectively, these Frances Cairncross, Rector of Exeter College televised debates leading up to the 2000 Presi- questions serve to raise suspicion, but they do dential election. not nearly convince. The Oxonian Review of Books is published primarily Th e relationship between art and polemic is Th e problem with 9/11 isn’t that it is ‘mere by graduate members of the University of Oxford, al- longstanding and complex. Th ere is obviously though it welcomes contributions from other University polemic’; rather, the problem is that it’s not very members. Contributors bear sole responsibility for no necessary relationship, since plenty of works good polemic. Polemical works do not seek to its content, which in no way refl ects the views of the of art do not count as polemics (because they are convince in the way that philosophical arguments University of Oxford. All works are copyright of their respective authors. not trying to prove a point), and most polemi- do. Philosophers try to carry their audience by cal works do not deserve the label of art (usu- showing, clearly and carefully, how a conclusion ally because they are trying too hard to prove a follows in a satisfactory manner from a set of visually eff ective section of the entire fi lm—the point). Th ere can, however, be a relationship of plausible premises. To criticise Moore for failing evocation of the events of September 11th via an functionality between the two forms. It might to live up to these standards is to misconceive entirely black screen, overlain with the sounds seem that this relationship tends to run in one his aim. Moore seeks to convince in the way that of screams and emergency sirens—is genuinely direction—while very few works of art are im- polemicists do, which is by charming the audi- powerful, but clearly is not an integral aspect of proved as works of art because they are polemi- ence, appealing to their sensibilities as much as to the fi lm’s overall thesis. cal, plenty of polemics are improved as polemics their reason. Th is is the appropriate benchmark Perhaps the most disappointing thing in all because they are works of art. Orwell’s 1984 and of his work, and 9/11 falls short. Moore is rarely this is that Moore is capable of much better. He Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will are diamet- in command of the large amount of information does have considerable skill in using the visual rically opposed polemics, but the power of each he has to play with, and the movie meanders medium. In the late 1980s, after several years stems from words and images that are immensely towards a de facto end rather than building to a working in print journalism, Moore went back well-crafted. George W. Bush’s debate perform- recognisable fi nale. Furthermore, the visual tricks to his hometown of Flint, Michigan to shoot a ances might show the occasional power of artless he attempts to play in charming the audience— documentary about the town’s economic and language, but this power is a function of unusual the art of his polemic—are not entirely eff ective. social collapse after General Motors decided to context—Bush operates in a political climate Th e Bush-as-cowboy joke has been done so many close their local plant. Th e result—Roger and where nuance is considered by many to be a times before, and is now so fi rmly ingrained in Me (1989)—is a fi lm rich with images that are mark of moral and intellectual degeneracy. In the public consciousness, that Moore’s splicing of immediately striking and beautifully evocative. normal run of things, artistic fl air improves the Bush’s ‘smoke ‘em out’ speeches with old episodes Moore’s quest for an interview with the epony- persuasive power of a polemic. of Bonanza seems more obvious than amusing. mous Roger Smith, chairman of GM, takes him Commentators on the political right in Amer- Similarly, the sportscast-style roll-call of the states from exclusive golf course to expensive restaurant ica have tended to dismiss Michael Moore’s most forming the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ is both to snooty health club. Th e oft-mocked Moore recent fi lm, Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), as ‘mere unfunny and misses a trick (no mention is made dress sense (baseball cap, baggy trousers, greasy polemic’, and some of the more rabid of their of signifi cant British involvement). Th e most continued on page 4 4 the Oxonian Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 continued from page 3 Moore once again displays his genius for fi nding jacket) might seem casual bordering on the individuals who almost seem to have been put on Good polemicists always assume there is totally remiss, but there is nothing casual about the planet to make his points for him. Th e local work to be done in getting the audience the way he gleefully juxtaposes his just-a-down- militia in Flint (he is consistently drawn back onside, often a great deal of work, and home-guy-looking-for-answers persona against to his home town) patiently explain to Moore they continually seek to tailor their output the assortment of complacent snobs, unctuous why they use bowling pins—archetypal Ameri- in relation to the type and magnitude of lobbyists, and whorish minor celebrities he meets can objects—for target practice: because they this task. along the way. Th e search for Roger in various are ‘roughly human shaped.’ In the background high-class contexts is set against the physical gambolling happily are the children of the mili- many millions of Americans who will always in- and spiritual disintegration of Flint, brilliantly tiamen, dressed in pure white on an overcast day, stinctively prefer the views of a Bush to those of a conveyed through a series of vignettes involving presumably to emphasise the fact they are not Gore or a Kerry and who elected him to second, town residents. Moore takes us on a tour of the bowling pins. Shortly afterwards, we are told by this time uncontested, term? Moore is sometimes newly-built, state-of the-art Flint jail, staff ed by Moore that the gunmen in the Columbine High accused of explaining away the views of conserva- wardens formerly employed by GM, and popu- School massacre began the day of the killings tive Americans by attributing ‘false consciousness’ lated by less fortunate former employees (many with a 7am trip to the local bowling alley. With to them. Th is is an unwarranted accusation based of whom are childhood friends of their jailers). great dexterity, Moore has imparted in us the de- on lax usage of the Marxist concept, since Moore Prior to the opening of the jail, we are shown pressing sense that violence is inextricably woven never claims that in voting Republican these con- wealthy townspeople in evening wear who have into the fabric of his home country. Polemic, yes; servatives act against (as Marx and Engels would forked out to attend a cocktail party in the build- bad polemic, no. put it) their ‘real’ or ‘objective’ interests. In fact, ing, and for the kitsch fun of spending a night in When stripped of the visual medium and con- Moore’s view of these Americans is less sophisti- the cells. As Moore brings the movie to a close, fi ned only to words, however, Moore is a much cated, and more mysterious - he claims that when the general theme of the gulf between worlds—in less eff ective polemicist. An enthusiastic blurb on they vote Republican, they act contrary to their this instance, the gap between how the corporate the back of his most recent book (Dude, Where’s own beliefs. If only these people were suffi ciently world views its front-line employees, and the re- My Country? [2003]) gushes, ‘What Moore has to educated, or less in the thrall of a right wing me- ality of being such an employee—is summarised say needs saying again and again’. Th is is handy, dia, they would realise what their values ‘really’ in an ingenious close-up of a mechanised public since when writing this is exactly what Moore are – ‘deep down’. I suspect we’d reach Australia relations display at the headquarters of General does. To stultifying eff ect. Humour is often before we dug up the latent liberal core of Jesse Motors. A car production robot and a plastic hu- taken to be Moore’s trump card, but he never Helms, Rush Limbaugh, or George W Bush, and man fi gure in overalls shake hands languidly, as constructs polemical jokes as lastingly funny as the same must go for millions of ordinary Ameri- if in a mutual state of deep stupefaction. Above Robin Williams on the NRA (‘Th e Constitu- cans who share their views. them is written the legend: ‘Me and My Buddy’. tion says we have the right to bear arms - or arm We might be witnessing the gradual demise Th e surprising box-offi ce success of Roger and bears - actually we can’t remember which’) or Bill of Michael Moore as an eff ective polemicist. In Me provided Moore with the platform to pro- Hicks on the American pro-life lobby (‘If you’re recent interviews, he often cites with relish the duce two television shows—TV Nation and Th e so pro-life, don’t block med-clinics, OK? Lock sheer numbers who have bought his books or Awful Truth—which ran sporadically throughout arms and block cemeteries’). Instead, we are pre- watched 9/11, as if this is further evidence of the the 1990’s. Each show dealt with a single issue, sented with feeble puns (‘Reagan, Bush, Cheney, ‘liberal majority’ he assumes he is now address- and many displayed the same facility with brutal- and the whole Lott of them…’) and a strange ing. Good polemicists know that those who buy ly streamlined images we see in Roger—for exam- obsession with the open letter format. Th e net re- their books don’t necessarily buy their arguments ple, Moore conducting a choir of throat cancer sult is that is Moore’s arguments are much more – there has been as much negative coverage of victims signing ‘Th e Twelve Days of Christmas’ naked on the page than they are on the screen, Moore’s work as there has positive. Good po- through their electronic voice boxes in the lobby and the kinds of defi ciencies we are charmed into lemicists always assume there is work to be done of Philip Morris Tobacco in Manhattan. Unfor- overlooking in Bowling for Columbine are up- in getting the audience onside, often a great deal tunately, there is no doubt that Moore’s polemi- front, obvious, and annoying. of work, and they continually seek to tailor their cal skills are showcased best by relatively self-con- Both Dude, Where’s My Country? and Moore’s output in relation to the type and magnitude tained topics. When he returned to documentary previous book Stupid White Men (2002) are rife of this task. Th e very best work from a forensic fi lmmaking in 2002 with Bowling for Columbine, with these defi ciencies. One well-worn blun- knowledge of their audience, its sensibilities and he undertook a far more ambitious project - to der is for Moore to lament how the members foibles, and craft their output in such a way as give an account of spiralling levels of gun crime of some group in society are denied access to to press all the right buttons. Moore undoubt- in the US. As with Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore’s power, before going on to laud the members of edly realises this, and it is surely no accident that central thesis is not convincingly established. Th e the same group for not committing the kinds of he chose to begin his career as a print journalist fi rst two-thirds of the movie work towards ex- crimes only the powerful can commit. Perhaps back in his hometown, utilising to the full his plaining the elevated numbers of gun deaths as a the deepest problem in both books, however, deep understanding of the people of Flint. Since consequence of the ease with which fi rearms are concerns the status of the claims Moore makes in then, Moore has grown into a national—indeed, available in America. Moore then takes us over support of what he takes to be a better America international—fi gure, and the scope of his po- the border to Canada, ostensibly to pull the rug - one marked by workplace democracy, higher lemics has grown in proportion. His return to from under our feet—Canadians have, he claims, spending on public services, affi rmative action, Flint in Fahrenheit 9/11 to document the eff ects equally free access to guns, and yet commit gun control, and a greater willingness to work in of the war in Iraq on the town residents almost far fewer gun crimes. He fails to acknowledge, partnership with the international community. has a sense of nostalgic longing to it, a search for however, that this is not a controlled experiment, While in his fi lms Moore attempts to beguile the the security blanket of local knowledge. Moore since hand-guns (the cause of most gun deaths) audience into sympathising with the causes he knows his reach is, and must be, broader than are much harder to obtain in Canada. More- supports, on paper he assumes that we are already this. But he is struggling. When we see a po- over, the causes on which Moore fi nally settles— sympathetic. Towards the end of Dude, he cites lemicist who attempts to expand his reach by a scare-mongering media, fear of crime, poverty poll evidence suggesting that ‘most’ Americans assuming that the audience is already on his side, (all probably authentic reasons)—are suggested are in favour of his model society, and he loftily we see a polemicist who has lost touch with the somewhat glibly, and defended with faltering states that his claims ought to be accorded the fundamental nature of his art. coherence and conviction. status of ‘common sense’. Unlike Fahrenheit 9/11 though, there is If there is a ‘majority’ in America sympathetic enough visual fl air in Bowling for Columbine to to Moore’s model society, it cannot be a very in- Niall Maclean is a Glasgwegian DPhil student in political carry the audience in spite of these defi ciencies. fl uential one. How else are we to account for the philosophy at Balliol College. He currently lives in London. michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 the Oxonian Review of books 5

Redressing the balance Noreena Hertz on debt relief

riting accessible books about technical Noreena Hertz subjects is a task often attempted but I.O.U. The Debt Threat and W Why We Must Defuse It seldom mastered, particularly if the goal is to Fourth Estate, 2004. retain a certain level of academic function as well. 256 pages. Cambridge economist Noreena Hertz demon- ISBN: 0007178980 strated with Th e Silent Takeover (2001), which details the ascendancy of the global corporation, that she too has the ability to achieve this level of widespread yet substantive infl uence. And while one might naturally question the economic content of a book on third-world debt principally endorsed on the back cover by Bono and Bob Geldof, her second treatise, IOU: Th e Debt Th reat and Why We Must Defuse It, remains surprisingly rigorous and scholarly while sacrifi cing none of matic altruisms). Th is theme is outlined early on its popular appeal. and revisited throughout. Fortunately, it becomes clear in the fi rst chap- With these loans having the primary (if un- ter why Bono’s name appears on the back cover, stated) objective of tying even unsavoury gov- as Hertz describes his lobbying work alongside ernments to the donor countries for reasons of Bobby Shriver for the Jubilee 2000 campaign. political clout rather than humanitarian relief, it It provides an insight into the inner workings of is not surprising, suggests Hertz, that little mon- the political process: Bono was the driving force ey actually reaches the poor. A poignant example behind a campaign in the US to gather congres- of this is the chlorine plant Fallujah 2, fi fty miles sional support for a $535 million package of outside of Baghdad, which was identifi ed as part debt relief. Th is initially seems a gimicky start- of Iraq’s chemical warfare building capacity in the ing point, but to assume over-simplifi cation is now infamous UN Security Council meeting at unfair: the anecdote makes for an interesting and which the US laid out its case for war. In actual engaging introduction, but it also highlights the fact, the British export credit agency ECGD had political complexity of achieving positive reform. provided the expert insurance to build this £14 International development is a topic that is rarely million factory. Th at the export credit agency has high on the political agenda in the developed provided insurance for weapon-related export is world; this example illustrates the enormous no exception: indeed between 30 and 50 percent eff orts required to build a consensus for action of all exports credits prior to 2000 were allocated amongst Western politicians more concerned to cover sales by UK arms exporters. with their own re-election. And perhaps more Th rough focusing on specifi c examples of lend- importantly, Hertz herein outlines the history of ing practices, Hertz is able to assemble a rela- broken promises from the West to the developing tively complete picture of the origins and nature world that becomes the backbone of her book’s of debt. It was not only developing countries invective—indeed, this sense of betrayal is inte- that benefi ted by accepting loans from the de- gral in order for her to transform IOU from mere veloped world, unsurprisingly, banks in the West exposé into rallying cry. became increasingly wedded to loaning from a Th e fi rst section, largely historical, details how purely profi t-driven perspective. Th is rocketed in lending to developing countries became one of the 1970’s, when a quadrupling of the oil price the principal tools of geo-political strategy at the provided excess cash to many previously impov- height of the Cold War. Th e US, Soviet Union erished oil-producing countries, who then depos- and China became locked into a cycle of com- ited their newfound wealth—$333.5 billion—in petition through buying the allegiance of states western commercial banks. Unfortunately, the through the tactical provision of aid and loans. urgency with which the commercial banks were A striking example is the civil war that ravaged investing their petrodollars frequently led them Angola for 26 years, as fought between the to turn a blind eye to the economics of the Want to advertise with Soviet-fi nanced MPLA and US-backed UNITA projects they were fi nancing. In Togo, for exam- and FNLA forces. But this is not the whole ple, a combination of export credits and a loan message that Hertz is trying to convey—it is syndicated by German Commercial banks was the not simply that lending buys infl uence. When used to build a steel mill. When the Togolese oxonian review distributed negligently, such loans can also prop government realised that no iron ore was avail- of books up undemocratic regimes who fail to distribute able to start production, it ordered the German the loans as promised and who instead absorb technicians to dismantle an iron pier located at them despotically, therefore leaving the burden of the port – a pier that had been constructed by ? repayment upon populations who saw no benefi t Germany prior to WWI and which still func- from the actual transfer of money (and often, as tioned well. Once the steel mill had exhausted Contact the Executive Editor, we have seen in the case of President Mobutu in the pier as a feedstock, it closed down. [email protected] Zaire, serving to highlight certain hypocrisies— Hertz further strengthens her argument by or at least oversights—in the donor state’s diplo- continued on page 6 6 the Oxonian Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 continued from page 5 her third main point, an argument for an inter- As one bond trader observed, ‘Capitalism detailing the rise of a secondary market for debt national system of debt reconciliation—in eff ect caused by the increase in lending. Th e Brady plan has no soul.’ a court for international bankruptcy. Th is is an that emerged in the wake of the Latin American idea that already has much credence amongst debt crisis of the 1980 created debt bonds, but the groundwork as she moves into the second international economists, but one that benefi ts the unforeseen consequence of this was the power section of the book, which focuses on the dan- from being raised in such an accessible book. that it gave the market over the fate of develop- ger that debt poses to developed and develop- At this point, Hertz’s suggestions have real ing countries. Th e interest rate developing coun- ing countries alike. Highlighting our collective potential to be a signifi cant part of the solution. tries pay on their debts is extremely sensitive to dependence on a global market, she notes that However, in going on, all too briefl y, to address the market’s judgments about the likelihood of the impoverishment of millions abroad results in wider issues of development, she tries to cover default: Brazilian bonds fell sharply as the popu- fi nancial vulnerability at home via currency crises too much ground. In particular, her ideas on Na- larity of the left-wing presidential candidate Luis and the transmission of macroeconomic shocks tional Regeneration Trusts (NRTs) appear almost Ignacio da Silva rose in the polls. Th is, for Hertz, between countries. as an afterthought. Th ese bodies are proposed as is the power of debt. Its infl uence is pervasive And where these connections are present in mechanism to distribute funds that accrue from and yet the markets that make the life or death fi nance, they are equally powerful in issues of debt relief; control would be shared between decisions for developing countries seem to care health, the environment and national security. government, civil society and international insti- little for the consequences of their actions: as one Here, Hertz follows in the footsteps of Nobel tutions. However, she fails to delineate how the bond trader observed, ‘capitalism has no soul.’ prize winner Amartya Sen and Columbia econo- shared control would function, how to determine Hertz’s writing is at its strongest here. Balancing mist Jeff rey Sachs, who have prominently vocal- which societies are ‘civil,’ itself an undefi ned explanation with eff ect, she conveys crucial ideas ised the wider and more fundamental repercus- concept, how ‘nationhood’ is itself defi ned, and that are drawn from a huge body of interna- sions of endemic poverty. Debt leads to disease, how to prevent the coalition-based NRT from tional fi nance literature without descending into she asserts, from cholera in South America to the undermining the democratic function of the state the technicalities that characterise most work in AIDS pandemic that sweeps Africa, which then in question. modern economics. creates the need for greater aid investment and Accordingly, the book is not without its faults: Perhaps her most strident economic critiques, therefore an exponentially increasing debt. Th e the devil is in the detail when it comes to eco- as well as her greatest moral ire, are expended on degradation of the environment functions simi- nomic policy and development. Having estab- the ‘debt vultures’ on whom Hertz places particu- larly: by overusing natural resources, health crises lished so eff ectively in the opening chapter that lar focus. Th ese investors buy up the debt of de- inevitably result and the demand for imported political barriers to reform are many, it is disap- veloping countries at reduced prices, and then set goods rise as domestic assets dry up, thus wors- pointing that she does not describe in more detail about systematically collecting repayment. Th e ening the cycle of debt. However, given today’s how to surmount these varied challenges. Simi- world’s poorest countries are taken to court, their increasingly paranoid political climate, the idea larly, the power of the markets to veto reform of assets seized, and every dollar paid in this way is, that poverty breeds the resentment that in turn the international fi nancial architecture is hinted she suggests, a dollar eff ectively lost to health and fuels global terrorism is perhaps her most eff ec- at but never really tackled head-on. Finally, the education. tive argument for debt relief. Even to a popular strong-arming of developed country governments It almost comes as a surprise, then, that her audience, this argument is hardly new, but she in setting the agenda at the IMF and World Bank commentary on the role of the IMF, and to a presents it forcefully and concretely. In part this is acknowledged but never really brought to the lesser extent the World Bank, is saved until so is due to the continued use of illustration and fore. late in the book. However, when it comes, it is empirics to drive the message home, not just on But complaints of omission and over-simpli- illustrated by Hertz’s own experience in post- extremist terrorism but on issues such as nar- fi cation are always going to be present where an Communist Russia as an employee of the IFC, cotic trade. And again, this is where her strength author has taken issues of such complexity—is- and provides an individual’s insight into a very is—in reminding her readership that the choices sues normally the domain of professional econo- prominent debate and condemnation (well- we make negatively aff ect others, but ultimately mists—to a wider audience. But for the most known even outside development circles are also create a desperation that returns to haunt part her criticisms are thorough and accurate, as the very politically-charged conditions of IMF ourselves. are her solutions. Th e fi nal thought that we are lending and of the dreaded Washington Con- So how do we undo this self-perpetuating off ered in the book is conveyed as a challenge: sensus of structural adjustment). Hertz correctly mess? Hertz fi rst addresses the termination of ‘Th e proposal I have laid out is a blueprint for a condemns some of the conditions imposed under lending with wilful negligence, and here her new way forward. Discuss it. Refi ne it. Improve structural adjustment programmes as profoundly prescriptions are full of promise. A constant upon it. But don’t ignore it. You can’t aff ord to.’ undemocratic. (Nicaragua, for example, was theme throughout, irresponsible lending prac- IOU is, ultimately, a call to arms: Hertz pleads only able to achieve entry to the Heavily Indebt- tices are defi ned by three traits: that regimes elegantly and persuasively that third-world debt ed Poor Country Programme [HIPC] if it agreed that borrowed lacked democratic consent; that aff ects us all, and that lobbying for its dissolution to the privatisation of the country’s national monies were not distributed in ways that helped is a battle that must be fought, and fought now. hydroelectric company, despite the fact that the the people; and that the lender could reasonably Nicaraguan National Assembly had unanimously have known that this would be the case, there- passed a law suspending all private concessions fore rending such practices easily avoidable. Th e involving water use.) arguments that underpin these criteria are drawn One advantage of writing from the front line from jurisprudence and international law, and are of the battle against debt is that Hertz is able compelling in their simplicity. Hertz then ar- to explore some of the IMF’s most recent and gues for a second category of debt relief. Appeal- stark failures. Th e failure of the HIPC was much ing to the political philosophy of human rights, Michael Hugman is an MPhil student in Economics. His deeper than the fact that it attached the same she argues that wherever the repayment of debt research interests include the application of microeconomic stringent conditions to entry. Th ere has been a would result in the denial of basic human rights theory to development policy, institutional economics, and wholesale failure to deliver the money needed to and amenities, then outstanding monies should fi nance issues in development economics. He also heads Research and Strategy for a charity working on education back up these solutions to global debt, raising her be waived. Again, her chosen case studies of resource investment in Kenya. leitmotif of broken promises once again. Also countries that are spending more servicing their resurfacing is her condemnation of irresponsible debt than educating their children or caring for Dirk-Jan Omtzigt is a Dutch graduate at Exeter College. His lending: certainly, the IMF was as guilty as any- their ill have served throughout to set the scene MPhil thesis is on pension reform and income inequality. Dirk-Jan obtained a BA in Mathematics from Oxford, a BA in body of lending to questionable states. for this argument. In order to determine which Economics & History at Durham, and worked for 3 years as Accordingly, Hertz has already laid much of countries need such relief, Hertz then introduces research analyst at Goldman Sachs in London. michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 the Oxonian Review of books 7

Th e future looks right

he United States, as conventional wisdom John Micklethwait, has it, is the ‘fi fty-fi fty’ nation. More or Adrian Wooldridge T The Right Nation: Why is America Diff erent? less evenly divided between liberals and con- London: Allen Lane, 2004. servatives, it is a country with a divided heart. 464 pages . Not so, contend John Micklethwait and Adrian ISBN: 0713997389 Wooldridge– both journalists at Th e Econo- mist, and both graduates of Oxford – authors of the timely and engaging Th e Right Nation: Why America is Diff erent. For them, the US is, and increasingly will be, dominated by a conservative coalition that they term the ‘right nation.’ On this view, George W. Bush should not be seen as a glitch or an anomaly. He is, instead, the shape In 1964, the liberal Lyndon Johnson trounced Barry of things to come; the embodiment of a new Goldwater – a moderate by the standards of today’s era during which the Republicans will form the Republican Party – at the polls, and John Kenneth natural party of government. Galbraith proudly proclaimed that ‘These, without Th ere are, of course, many objections that can doubt, are the years of the liberal.’ Then, it was the be advanced to this thesis. Didn’t the Democrats left that had the ideas and momentum . . . and the dominate the 1990s in the form of Bill Clinton? Haven’t both of the two previous presidential right that responded. election campaigns been close-run aff airs (ago- nisingly so in 2000)? True, say the authors, but was in the alienation of working class voters over and gay marriage.1 Does the fractious nature of throughout his tenure Clinton was constrained social issues such as affi rmative action; in the loss US conservatism threaten its future and thus by the right nation in the form of a Republican of Southern support through Johnson’s champi- the argument of the book? Micklethwait and controlled Congress. Th is, in eff ect, meant that oning of the Civil Rights Act; and in the growth Wooldridge concede that it might. Th e Re- Clinton governed as an ‘Eisenhower Republi- of the business-oriented Midwest and West Coast publicans could become too ‘Southern’ and too can’, embracing causes that conservatives would which identifi ed with the Republican message of intolerant, thus alienating the more moderate have been happy to put their names to, such low taxes and deregulation. Where it went right elements of their support base. Furthermore, the as NAFTA, a balanced budget and welfare re- (in both senses) for the Republicans – and this is authors’ rather vague explanation of what holds form. When Clinton tried to move to the left, closer to the central concern of the book – was the conservative movement together – it is, they in respect of health care and gays in the military, in the determined construction of a movement. say, ‘more sociologically coherent than one might his initiatives invariably fl oundered and he was Th ink-tanks such as the Heritage Foundation imagine’ – is far from convincing. forced to retreat to the centre. Future Democrat- and the Cato Institute were established to de- Th e success of US conservatism also has to ic presidents are likely to face similar constraints, velop ideas; and newspapers such as the National do with its exceptional nature, which the authors Micklethwait and Wooldridge argue, whereas Review and Weekly Standard began to propagate liken to a heretical reformation within the broad Bush (we need no reminding) has dragged the them. Initially designed to counterbalance a lib- church of conservatism. For Edmund Burke, US dramatically to the right and just secured an eral establishment, these institutions have, today, three of defi ning features of conservatism were: a even greater share of the vote. Th is explains why, become an establishment in their own right. Th e belief in established hierarchies; skepticism about on issue after issue, the ‘default’ positions of the Right Nation leads us through them in intricate the idea of progress; and elitism. In Britain, and US are to the right of other industrialised na- detail – an aspect of the book that is fascinating Europe more broadly, conservatism is still iden- tions; it is the ‘right nation’ that lies at the heart for the political obsessive, but which might also tifi ed with these values. Th at is why the Tories of US exceptionalism. prove tedious for those with a more casual inter- tend to be associated with elderly white men If that, in a nutshell, is the argument, how est. who fret about fox-hunting and bemoan Britain’s did this extraordinary state of aff airs come about? Apart from generating ideas, the right has decline, real or imagined. In the US, in contrast, Why should Democratic presidents be ideologi- also been extraordinarily good at building coali- conservatism has managed to reinvent itself as an cally constrained, whereas Republican adminis- tions. For the outsider, who might tend to think egalitarian, progressive and liberating creed – a trations are not? Th e Right Nation also bills itself of US conservatives as marching in step, one of philosophy for the young and optimistic. Th at as a ‘portrait’ of the emergence and subsequent the book’s revelations is how fractious the move- is why the Republicans can attract the support of success of the conservative movement. Th e ment is. Libertarians jostle with social con- people such as Dustin and Maura, two twenty- 1960s, the authors remind us, was very much the servatives, and neo-conservatives with Christian somethings from Colorado Springs whom we era of the liberal in the US, the culmination of a Evangelicals. Th ese alliances, Micklethwait and meet in the fi rst pages of Th e Right Nation. For period of Democratic dominance stretching back Wooldridge remind us, have not always existed. them, conservatism is not about ‘old people try- to the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt Indeed, in 1976 a majority of Evangelicals voted ing to cling to things, but about young people in 1932. In 1964, the liberal Lyndon Johnson for Jimmy Carter. Today, through the hard work trying to change them.’ trounced Barry Goldwater – a moderate by the of organisations such as the Christian Coalition, Th e book is, it must be stressed, admirably standards of today’s Republican Party – at the Evangelicals form an army of ‘foot soldiers’ for even-handed. Instead of proceeding from the polls, and John Kenneth Galbraith proudly pro- the conservative cause – a fact that Karl Rove premise that one side is wholly irrational, Mick- claimed that ‘Th ese, without doubt, are the years exploited to the full in orchestrating the defeat lethwait and Wooldridge emphasise their non- of the liberal. Almost everyone now so describes of John Kerry. Indeed, for European observers, a partisanship. In the aftermath of a heated elec- himself.’ Back then, it was the left that had the surprising feature of the 2004 presidential elec- tion campaign, this is something of a relief, and ideas and momentum; it was the left that set the tion was how many voters (21% according to also reassures the reader that the authors are not agenda and the right that responded. one poll) cast their ballots on the basis of what engaging in distortion or convenient omission. Where it all went wrong for the Democrats they identifi ed as ‘moral’ issues, such as abortion continued on page 8 8 the Oxonian Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 continued from page 7 and Wooldridge do not ignore, but possibly play the US has moved to the left before, and for such But if this the book’s strength, it might also be its down, the extent to which all governments have a sustained period of time, that suggests that con- weakness. Readers who feel strongly about the had to shift to the right over the last thirty years. servatism is less ingrained than Th e Right Nation issues might fi nd the authors’ scrupulous neutral- Tony Blair’s New Labour Party is just that – New would have us believe. Indeed, the Republicans’ ity rather bland. Th at said, Th e Right Nation is Labour, a far cry from the Labour Party of the current campaign to shift the US aggressively to not above occasionally exposing the contradic- 1970s. In Germany too, Gerhard Schroder’s the right might eventually provoke the sort of tions of the wilder elements of the Republican Social Democrats are in the process of contract- backlash that greeted the Democrats at the end Party, often with great wit. Defending Bush’s ing the welfare state, rather than expanding it. of the 1960s. fi scal indiscipline on the basis that it will prevent Th at said, even if Th e Right Nation does overstate In conclusion, if my response is anything to future Democrat governments from spending the exceptionalism of US conservatism, its more go by, Th e Right Nation is likely to produce a on social programs is, they point out, ‘rather like modest claim is correct: on most issues, the de- mixed eff ect upon readers of a liberal persua- saying that, because your brother-in-law drinks fault positions of the US are to the right of other sion, who feel that they have little in common too much, you’re going to drink all the alcohol in nations. New Labour might recognise the im- with the right nation. Anything this well-written the house before he visits for the Memorial Day portance of fi scal discipline, but it is also able to and researched, that fl uidly combines detail with weekend.’ Th e neo-conservatives’ lack of faith in invest in public services in a manner that, as the accessibility, is bound to make for an exhilarat- the ability of government to address social prob- Clinton years demonstrate, would prove diffi cult ing read. On the other hand, even leaving aside lems such as poverty is seemingly at odds with in the US. Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s more tenuous their blind faith in the ability of government Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s tendency to conclusions, their central thesis – that the Repub- (when in a military uniform) to transform far- overplay their hand is particularly evident in the licans have gained the upper hand and look set fl ung nations into ‘beacons’ of democracy. Poor fi nal chapters, where Th e Right Nation reads more to dominate US politics in the medium term – is John Ashcroft, the US attorney-general, comes like an introduction to the US as a whole, rather depressingly well-argued and persuasive. Indeed, off particularly badly. His use of his offi ce to than one part – albeit a highly signifi cant part their book seems especially prescient if we con- impose his brand of ‘big-brother conservatism’ – of that country. Here, the authors boldly pro- sider that, as of 3 November 2004, Republicans on the US – by, for example, meddling in the claim that the US has always been a conservative control the House of Representatives, the Sen- medical use of marijuana in California – is, the nation, characterised by ‘suspicion of state power, ate, the Presidency and look set to infl uence the authors point out, exceptionally short-sighted. enthusiasm about business and deep religiosity.’ composition of the Supreme Court for a genera- As a member of minority himself (Ashcroft is an Indeed, conservatism is ‘encoded’ in the country’s tion to come. Th e era of the right nation has, it Evangelical who refrains from smoking, dancing DNA, and embedded in its culture and tradi- seems, dawned with a vengeance. and looking at nude statues), he would do bet- tions. Once again, there is an extent to which ter to adopt a ‘live-and-let-live attitude that gives this is true. As Micklethwait and Wooldridge Murray Wesson is a South African DPhil student in Law at Ex- eter College. His dissertation investigates substantive equality minorities like his room to fl ourish.’ note, even during the 1960s – Galbraith’s ‘age of and socio-economic rights. If the book has a fl aw it is that, like many the liberal’ – European-style socialism did not works of this nature, the authors tend to become fl ourish in the US. But the fact that there was an Notes 1 Voting poll: Cited in New York Times, Katharine Q Seelye, too excited about their thesis and thus overstate age of the liberal, which the authors chronicle in ‘Moral Values Cited as a Defi ning Issue of the Election’ , their arguments. For instance, Micklethwait such detail, should give us pause for thought. If 4 November 2004.

Scrambled Written at Elmina Castle, Ghana

In this boxed room of dark, Th ere would be no more of that. A short break for the thin whipping tongue there were no holes for ventilation. of leather that kisses backs, and leaves rude lovebites.

Although the walls were a stinging white, white as salt, He would swelter, sweat in heat and breathe too fast dressed as the rest of the fortress, when there was no air to be had. He could not tell their colour. His fi ngers felt only for shadows, and crumbling brick. Th e sea off ered little, soothing rustles of consolation, what else?

Th is proud beacon, erect before unruly waves, housed slaves. It was the grind, and the not knowing He couldn’t take. And so He shouted. All was legs, legs, arms. Beating on stone, arms bruised. Th is was his punishment. To hear, beyond the full force of that His penis knocking against His thigh, His knees, looking to themselves, locked door voices shouting new words that scrambled crashing to one another, against the long howls of sounds, sounds He knew. His hands tearing at the hair on His head, and coming back, gritty with sand. Th ey had tried to give him the gruel again. Th ose wet lumps, coloured in only one shade of grey, Sensibly, they had taken off the chains before they threw Him in. had seen no pepper, or tomato. Another batch was expected shortly, and essentials were running low.

It was the gruel again that He could not take, swallow, lamb-like. Comets of His spit and grain fl ew fast in a master’s face. Th ough the food dripped like melted wax, his features stayed that red, which, He had learnt, meant a dry slap, a booted kick.

Michael Donkor Wadham College michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 the Oxonian Review of books 9

‘A more serious literature’ Will May interviews Professor of Poetry, Christopher Ricks

uthor of books on Milton, Tennyson, Keats Will May: How do you view the role of Professor Christopher Ricks and Eliot, editor of many more, including of Poetry? Dylan’s Visions of Sin A Penguin Books Ltd Th e Oxford Book of English Verse, Christopher Christopher Ricks: I think the terms are straight- 2004. 528 pages Ricks is among the most accomplished scholars forward: to administer to and to encourage ISBN: 0140073361 of poetry still writing. Th e former Balliol under- an appreciation of poetry. Th at is usually best graduate, who has also taught at Cambridge and done by poets who are themselves critics and as Bristol, is now the Warren Professor of the Hu- you know since they war they have almost all manities at Boston University. In May 2004, he although not all been practising poets, but the was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford Univer- earlier tradition was not I think an ignoble tradi- sity. tion. Th e Professorship was established in 1708 by WM: So as someone who has often argued for Henry Birkhead to give ‘keenness and polish to the inclusion of the creative artist in the academy, the minds of young men as well as to the ad- you didn’t feel there was a problem in standing vancement of more serious literature both sacred for a position that has in recent years been fi lled and human’. Unsurprisingly for Oxford, the by a practising poet? chair in creative writing and it isn’t a chair to fos- remit has not changed so very much in the last ter creative writing especially. Th e best way to get CR: No I didn’t feel so. It wasn’t my idea to stand. 300 hundred years - the duties of the chair now people to write well and to appreciate new poetry I t was put to me that I should stand and I look include judging a poem on a sacred subject in is to get them to read well and that includes read- back and I see enough people who are not poets. addition to the more public duties of giving a ing the great poets, the great majority of whom Th ere’s also the further question that there have termly lecture and speaking at the University’s are dead. been many good poets who have not had the honorary degree ceremony. Previous holders of ability to speak about their own or about other the chair have included Matthew Arnold, Cecil WM: Could you tell me something about your people’s poetry; that’s not quite the case with Day Lewis and W. H. Auden. inaugural lecture, ‘Many Voices: From the French’? Tennyson because he made wonderful remarks Several eyebrows were raised in the press fol- CR: People are terribly interested in the election about poetry and the edited Th e Golden Treasury, lowing Christopher Ricks’s nomination.1 As a but then not terribly interested in the lecture one of the fi nest poetry anthologies ever made, non-poet, Ricks’s position is by no means unique which I’m afraid is life. Th e Oxford and Cam- but Tennyson wasn’t and wouldn’t of wished to - John Jones and A.C. Bradley are among the bridge boat race always seem to attract more at- have been thought of as a critic, neither I think pure critics who have held this post in the last tention than Oxford and Cambridge education. was Hardy. I don’t think it’s necessarily true that century. Yet, coming after likes of Paul Muldoon, Th e purpose of the fi rst lecture is to say some- the best poets have always written the best criti- James Fenton and Seamus Heaney, Ricks’s elec- thing about what the speaker takes poetry to be cism. tion over poets Peter Porter and Anne Carson so that I think that there’s necessarily a preamble. seemed to declare resolutely that this post was WM: Do you feel optimistic about the state of ‘Many voices’ is meant to be partly about the contemporary poetry? not a chair in creative writing. John Carey de- voices of diff erent language or diff erent regions fended Ricks’s nomination as being a breath of CR: I’m chary of the word optimistic partly – I will be talking about the regional poet Wil- fresh air after ‘the rule of theory’2 but perhaps because of its political implications and partly liam Barnes.3 It also wants to be something about this did more harm than good, in that his com- because I think both optimism and pessimism the diff erent voices of poetry and prose, because ments seemed to politicize the election of the are misplaced. I take optimism to mean rather I think that to say what one believes poetry to Professor of Poetry. more hopeful than is altogether realistic. I think be in relation to prose it is necessary to place the Th ose hundreds who attended Professor Ricks’s that one of the disadvantages of being my age is start of literature. Th ere’s a Nobel prize for litera- inaugural lecture must surely have had their that a sense of new poetry is, to use a beautiful ture and that includes everything, but the Pro- doubts allayed. Th e fi rst part of the oration, a formulation by William Empson, one of the fi rst fessor of Poetry needs to know where he or she defense of prose, was itself the achievement of things to go – the phrase makes it sound rather stands in relation to all the great literature that is that art form’s ambition- a judicious, persuasive, like a faculty, as if you are losing you’re hearing, not poetry. I want to say something about where meaningful communication. His supple juxta- or like getting rid of a grand piano when you the voice of prose and the voice of poetry come position of predecessors Arnold and Muldoon have to move into a much smaller house. I think from, and I want to say something about French - the latter foiling the former’s schematic un- that this sense does go early and editing Th e Ox- infl uence on that matter - poets as great as Valéry derestimation of prose with his own prose work ford Book of English Verse I stopped with Seamus and Baudelaire have points of view about the dif- ‘To Ireland, I’ - was a pleasing and instructive Heaney for a series of reasons; one of which was ference between poetry and prose. I don’t believe congruity. It is tradition for Professors of Poetry not having the confi dence to judge recent poetry. their point of view but it’s a very important tradi- to give space to their predecessors, often by way I do not think that the occupation of the Pro- tion. of tribute or homage, but few have confronted so fessor of Poetry is especially to encourage new WM: You have described literary theory as ‘inimi- directly and so honestly the substance of their in- writing. New and contemporary poetry may in cal to undergraduate teaching’ .4 What is at stake tellectual contributions. Having shown, through fact be more visited, more welcomed and relished in the teaching of English literature? argument and example that the relationship than poetry of the past, not least because lately CR: Undergraduate teaching largely has to be between ‘prose’ and ‘prosaic’ is only grammatical, there has been a lot of condescension toward the practised not with indiff erence to theory but Professor Ricks ended not on a rhetorical fl our- past - what the excellent historian E.P. Th ompson theory’s claims to bring political and educational ish, but with the recorded voices of poets reading called ‘the enormous condescension of poster- salvation were overblown. Th at said, I don’t at all their poetry. Due deference, and welcome, from ity’. Th at means there may be something to be mean to use this post in order to attack theory. the lectern of critical authority to the voice of done by way of retrieval – I don’t use the word I only mention this to you now because you ask artistic creation. recuperation because that sounds like someone has been ill, but you know what I mean. It isn’t a continued on page 10 10 the Oxonian Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1

continued from page 9 me. On the other hand, people can say that if a liberal humanist is going to give lectures then Oxford authors in print they are necessarily political, and that might be true. Featured writer: Carmen Bugan My tutor at Oxford John Bryson believed that there was not a great deal to be said for explicit omanian-born Carmen Bugan’s debut col- Carmen Bugan examination of the raison d’être of what one was lection of poetry, Crossing the Carpathians, Crossing the doing. Th e point of studying English literature R Carpathians is a promising new work. Her voice is restless was to give you a lifetime of reading for enjoy- Oxford: Oxford Poets and peripatetic, shuttling between lyricism and 2004. 64 pages ment. You created with other people something a gentle urgency, between fragility and stoical ISBN: 1903039681 extraordinary; you could share with other people tenacity. Th is adaptability quietly off sets the something that was both individual and had a abiding violence of her imagery, rife with rec- great communality – what Wordsworth called ollections of Ceausescu’s autocracy. Indeed, the joy ‘in widest communality spread’. [Bryson] the simplicity of her language here serves a didn’t feel, unlike Matthew Arnold fi fty years disarming turn. In ‘Fertile Ground’, a menac- earlier, that literature would take the place of ing fl ashback to police brutality (‘I was prun- religion. ing tomato plants when they came to search/ One of the most diffi cult things about teach- For weapons in our garden’) is overturned by ing in an American system that is democratic her measured frankness: and plutocratic is to get people to be respectful of genius. Th ere is always a temptation to attack And when the oil spilled on the ground, shiny over ageing poet’s garden for illegal arms. ‘Th ere’s genius because it creates envy within the student. crushed tomatoes only one thing of danger to you here,’ Neruda They asked me about weapons we might have groaned in defi ance: ‘Poetry.’… Part of studying English Literature is to be re- kept. spectful of genius. In this sense, it’s a very old- ‘Oil,’ I said. ‘You eat and live. fashioned place that I’m coming from. Th is alone makes one dangerous.’ See the online edition for the full text of this re- view: http://www.oxonianreview.org WM: Does the poet make a good literary critic? With terse self-assurance, her narrative voice CR: Well, I think the greatest poets made good resembles another voice of poetic resistance: critics. In my introduction to Th e Oxford Book as Pablo Neruda lay on his deathbed, thugs Carmen Bugan recently completed her DPhil in English of Poets, I left out F.R. Leavis quite deliberately dispatched by Salvatore Allende combed the Literature at Balliol College. although he was a great critic because what I wanted to do there was talk about the extraordi- nary combination of the poet-critic. Th e novel- ist-critic is much rarer - I think Henry James may be the only example. George Eliot was not a great Don’t know your pdf from critic and neither was Dickens, but I certainly don’t think the poets have the monopoly in talk- your pdq . . . or your ing about poetry. T.S. Eliot very wisely wanted to submit to the judgement of his peers. It is jpeg from your elbow...? their opinions that he cared most about. Poetry shouldn’t be left to poets, although you’d be right to pick up a faint air of defensiveness in my tone Then ask here. Dame Helen Gardener would have made a good Professor of Poetry, as did A.C. Bradley. Th at said, it would be a pity if my election was OXUNIPRINT at Oxford seen as a regressive move and was allowed to University Press interfere on this occasion with the post. we’ve been in the print and media business Notes for over 400 years, although thankfully Polly Curtis, ‘Oxford professor seeks to prove the times 1 they are a changin’ in The Guardian, 13 May 2004, our staff are a bit younger . . . ! , accessed 9 Nov. 2004. We can help you organise, promote, and produce your own, or John Carey talking to Mark Lawson on Front Row, BBC your Company’s printed material, from full colour brochures, 2 Radio 4, 17 Feb. 2004, , accessed 8 Nov. 2004. letterhead or promotional flyer See his selection of William Barnes’ poetry in The New 3 Oxford Book of Victorian Verse ed. by Christopher Ricks (Oxford, 2002). To find out how we can help you make the right choice Christopher Ricks, ‘Literary Principles as Against Theory’ contact us now on 4 in Essays in Appreciation (Oxford, 1996), p.332. 01865 514691 e-mail [email protected] Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

Will May is a DPhil student in English Literature at Balliol College. His dissertation explores the writing of the works of the British author Stevie Smith. He was recently awarded the www.oup.co.uk/oxuniprint Lord Alfred Douglas Memorial Prize for poetry.

David Williams (contributor) is a Canadian DPhil student in English Literature at Balliol College. michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 the Oxonian Review of books 11

All that glitters... Th e Line of Beauty, Booker Prize, 2004

hat would Henry James have made of hurst has acknowledged in interviews, less politi- ‘Wus?’, wonders an ambitious secretary to cal and literary urgency in writing about gay sex Gerald Fedden, the Tory MP whose house and in 2004. Instead, the interest lies in the context, family lies at the centre of Th e Line of Beauty. the actual social and physical space, in which Hollinghurst’s protagonist Nick Guest, an ardent these encounters occur. follower of ‘the Master’, provides an answer that, Th e fi rst sexual experience takes place in a one feels, the author’s own work modestly strives West London private garden, to which, as the for: Feddens’ guest, Nick holds a key. Th e line be- He’d have been very kind to us, he’d have said how tween private and public is blurred again and wonderful we were and how beautiful we were, he’d again over the course of the novel and is central have given us incredibly subtle things to say, and we to the map Hollinghurst outlines of gay London wouldn’t have realized until just before the end that in the 1980s—a city where a tube station toi- he’d seen right through us. let is famous for having been cruised by Rudolf Henry James’ shade was a much-noted presence Nureyev. It is that same combination of promis- when the Booker shortlist was announced ear- cuity and enforced silence which leads to another lier this year - as Hollinghurst’s hero’s hero, the masked presence in the text. Early on we hear of eponymous subject of Colm Toíbín’s Th e Master, ‘illness’ but even when a friend of the Feddens’ and the subject of a notably absent longlister, dies of AIDS, the subject is quietly absorbed into David Lodge’s Author Author. While the latter that realm of the ‘vulgar and unsafe,’ a subject two use James’ biography for their material, Th e which the upper classes eff ace. Privacy, as a key Line of Beauty makes his infl uence felt in the Conservative ideal since the Victorian era from texture of the prose itself: the third-person voice, which Rachel Fedden’s wealth originates, is re- fi ltered through Nick’s mind, is languid, at times vealed to be both a privilege and a prison. Nick complex, and beautiful. Hollinghurst avoids is allowed to remain in the house only on the un- mere pastiche but is not ashamed to acknowledge spoken assumption that his sexuality will remain the debt. Nick’s summary of Th e Spoils of Poynton closeted. Th e political disaster that strikes Fedden Alan Hollinghurst which, late in the book, he is attempting rather at the climax of the novel similarly turns upon The Line of Beauty non-committally to adapt for the screen, could the revelation of hidden transactions. A scandal Picador, 2004. serve Hollinghurst’s tale just as well. It is a ‘bleak’ involving insider trading is followed swiftly by 320 pages. ISBN: 033048320X comedy ‘about someone who loves things more the discovery of his aff air with his secretary, but it than people’, and Nick is surrounded by charac- is the gay Guest, the lover of a millionaire’s dying ters who fi t that description. Equally, Nick’s the- son, who becomes a scapegoat, sacrifi ced in order zgerald’s, traces the transition from old to new sis on ‘style that hides things and reveals things to allow the Fedden family to retreat back into money, and similarly observes that behind the at the same time’ informs the structure of the the security of their unvoiced alliances. apparent diff erence between schooled, refi ned society and the novel in which he exists. Th e Feddens circle remains an impenetrably elegance and brash showiness is the same hol- Th e exposure of privacy is at the heart of exclusive environment throughout. Holling- low love of ‘things more than people’. While in the novel, in two parallel and socially opposed hurst’s satire of the 1980s cult of money cun- the earlier novel it is Gatsby who owns shelves of worlds: the corruption of Th atcher’s revolution, ningly positions (and helpfully labels) its hero unread, uncut books, here it is an English lord fi gured in the ‘Tory sleaze’ which lurks in the as only a ‘Guest’ in the world of the fabulously who keeps uncut ‘classics’ in a ‘gilded cage’—he, background from the beginning of the book wealthy. As such, he is at once fascinated by and of course, has read them elsewhere; his library is and fi nally explodes in Gerald Fedden’s face excluded from that world and its mores. Nick’s precious for the objects, not the words, it con- and Nick’s discovery of the hidden yet public fi rst association with his hero Henry James is that tains. Nick notes that the ‘new’ Lebanese mil- gay scene of the 1980s, which leads him to a he too can ‘stand a great deal of gilt’ (a clever play lionaire Bertrand Ouradi’s art collection, which transition from chaste adoration of unattain- on words)—he loves ‘beautiful things’—but for he regards with distaste, is a part of the ‘necessary able straight men to active sexual encounter. Th e much of the novel, and for the Feddens’ strata trappings of his position’, sensing vulgarity in the latter has been something of a media fi xation in general, this beauty is confi ned by posses- disparity between class and money; however, the (culminating perhaps in the Daily Express’ bi- sions and wealth. As Hollinghurst has publicly same might equally be said of the Feddens’ and zarre headline ‘Booker Won by Gay Sex’), but in explained, Nick is ‘not just looking on in hor- their extended family’s possessions, from the gift fact, Hollinghurst himself has admitted that in ror, but is actually susceptible to the glamour of of a Gauguin to a performance of classical music comparison to his previous works (including Th e it all’. All of this—the brilliance and sparkle, a in their drawing room (one of several brilliant Folding Star, nominated for the Booker in 1994), veneer for corruption and emptiness, the social satirical set-pieces). the sex scenes themselves are comparatively whirl, and the gaze of the outsider-inside fasci- Nick’s social and sexual emergence—and sub- chaste. When Nick loses his virginity—perhaps nated with the society he observes in one rather sequently his dramatic fall from grace—is fore- the most explicit sexual description in the oblique young man (fi rst Toby Fedden, then the grounded against and parallels directly the boom novel—he thinks to himself how he has ‘never young millionaire Wani Ouradi)—recalls another and bust, the promise and the disillusion of seen it described in a book’, a tacit acknowledge- American novelist and another Nick, as if the 1980s Th atcherite Britain. Th e satire hinges, like ment that a young man twenty years later could narrator of Th e Great Gatsby has at last emerged much of Henry James’ work, upon issues of class, not say the same. Certainly there is, as Holling- from the closet. Hollinghurst’s novel, like Fit- which is ultimately at the root of Nick’s outsider status. As the son of an antiques dealer, whose The line between private and public is blurred again and again over the course of the intimacy with the interiors of stately homes has novel and is central to the map Hollinghurst outlines of gay London in the 1980s—a in the past been that of the clock-winder, not the city where a tube station toilet is famous for having been cruised by Rudolf Nureyev. guest, he is ‘a puzzle […] in many contexts – he continued on page 12 12 the Oxonian Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 continued from page 11 of emotional nuance, worthy of James himself, Notes pinned to fridge doors was often being interviewed obliquely, to see how reveals an unrelenting honesty in the face of the he fi tted in’. Th e subject of money or class origin pettiness, sordidness, meanness and self-absorp- itself is occluded by the ‘upper-class economy’ of tion which accompany emotions of a suppos- I speech that Nick admires and imitates. Hollin- edly grander scale. Later, when Wani is dying of when you go out ghurst, like James, has a keen ear for the infl ec- AIDS, Nick feels himself somehow in posses- please buy some slippers tions and elisions of upper class social chatter, sion of that story, so that it becomes ‘his own so that when you and an equally keen eye for the proprieties of the drama’; the notion of our responses as a perform- come back semi-rural middle class (again drawing parallels ance which we watch ourselves enacting recurs i won’t hear you between 1890s and 1980s social convention). throughout the novel and is, I think, among Pages of dialogue are sustained with the merest Hollinghurst’s most acute observations about hu- II hint of intervention from the author. At other man behaviour. i need times, he throws out an off -the-cuff portrait in Th e novel as a whole, tracing the middle years milk, bread, fruit perfect miniature: witness the lady who wins ‘a of the decade, has a refi ned balance of structure i’d like half-bottle of Mira Mart gin’ at a village fête, ‘and that refl ects Nick’s myriad invocations of the ‘line mother, brother, father laughed, and blushed violently, as if she’d already of beauty’ itself. Taking Hogarth’s sweeping curve i can’t drunk it and disgraced herself’. and fi nding its most perfect example in the dip manage, big, feelings In this brittle and thrilling new world, the ‘line of a man’s spine, Nick mirrors the fi gure to make III of beauty’—which might be variously fi gured an ‘ogee’, the double curve of a window, door the door in the novel as a bloodline, an aesthetic ideal, or or angel’s wings, also paralleling the high and is squeaking on its hinges a literary style—appropriately recalls the ritual subsequent come-down of cocaine use and the again of cocaine addiction as well. Th e drug becomes classic rise-and-fall narrative in miniature. Th e WD40’s worth a try an integral part of Nick’s sex life, social life, and two parts of the novel each accelerate towards a but i can still sense of self; that ritual, ‘all done with money’, as politically-charged party (fi rst Toby’s twenty-fi rst hear you Wani observes, is linked explicitly to the enabling birthday, then the Feddens’ wedding anniversary) power of wealth, inducing the feeling that ‘eve- and then fall away; the novel begins and ends IV rything had become possible’. Like the gilt-laden with Nick entering and leaving the empty Not- marmite possessions of the fi rst half of the novel, coke ting Hill house, in very diff erent circumstances, is like exerts a fascination for Nick that injects a certain but both entering and departing with nothing. family glamour into his life. His intoxicated vision is On the level of syntax, for all the bite and sharp- you love it handled with fi nesse by Hollinghurst, whose style ness of Hollinghurst’s prose, there is as much or hate it takes on a hard quickness and boldness, narrow- that is genuinely lovely, as when Nick, looking ing his adjectival range to all that glitters, captur- out over London from the privileged vantage V ing the ‘gleaming’, ‘brilliant’, ‘bright’ surfaces point of a Notting Hill balcony, feels that ‘he had the bulb’s gone which Nick fails to see beyond so that we too been swept to the brink of some new promise, a the cheese are caught up in a trick of the light… until it is scented vista or vision of the night, and then held is sitting all defl ated by a characteristically piercing ob- there’. Like the thrill of Fitzgerald’s Long Island in the dark servation, the realisation that the drug is ‘pure evenings, this description succeeds in transcend- maturing compulsion, though it gave them the delusion of ing the world of property so that we read on choice, and of wit in making it’. poised with Nick at the start of a new decade, full VI As the second half of the novel progresses, of promise. Hollinghurst’s achievement, at the defrost Nick’s experience of ‘come-down’ increasingly last, mirrors Nick’s own: he retains a sense of the the icebox dominates, and elegant, remote Wani Ouradi’s beautiful, and asserts its possibility, against and it’s fi lling up ‘love of corruption’ gradually erodes his glamour. within a world of deceptively brilliant surfaces. the ice cubes Th e description of his fl accid, coke-fuelled porn fi t in but only just marathons must surely rank among the most Amy Sackville has just completed an MPhil in English at Ex- eter College. Her thesis focused on James Joyce and Salman uncomfortable reading of recent years. Hollin- Rushdie. She has recently published work in the James Joyce Broadsheet. ghurst has a gift for observing those states of David Illingworth being which lack purity or grandeur. His range Worcester

Th e Height the Oxonian Review Th e day after you kissed me that of books hard about us: I could feel my lip was split.

Against a full cushion of pink, a slither of brown Th e Oxonian Review of Books was founded in We welcome reviews of recently published wrote its small scar. 2001 and remains Oxford’s only interdiscipli- work in any fi eld (literature, politics, science, and nary postgraduate publication. Its purpose is to the arts); original poetry or short fi ction; and And, whilst you are silent, stimulate intellectual discourse and to off er stu- drawings, photographs, cartoons or other artwork I can pass my tongue, spear-like, dents an opportunity to introduce opinion into amenable to black-and-white publication. Re- press around its crinkled edges. a public forum. Th e Oxonian Review of Books viewed work—which can include books, fi lms, features reviews of recently published books in exhibitions, or other events of interest—should Hushed. “Sorry”. You say literature, politics, science, and the arts; original have been published, exhibited, or performed in poetry or short fi ction; and drawings, cartoons, most cases within the last year. We welcome both the word, falling downcast, or other artwork amenable to print publication. brief write-ups and more substantial commentary as you remember It is published exclusively by graduate members and review. we both tasted the blood. of the University of Oxford although it welcomes Michael Donkor contributions from other University members. Wadham College michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 the Oxonian Review of books 13

Imagined history Philip Roth’s second glance at America’s past

Philip Roth country and their home. Philip’s older brother, stand in stark contrast to the prevailing climate of The Plot Against America Sandy, is dispatched to rural Kentucky for a the American populace. When a Lindbergh sup- Jonathan Cape, 2004. 391 pages. summer with the ‘Just Folks’ program, a scheme porter labels him a ‘loudmouth Jew’ and criticizes ISBN: 0224074539 articulated by Lindbergh to assimilate Jewish his political leanings in the middle of a restau- children into typical American (i.e. Christian) rant, a protesting Herman sings ‘On the Banks of norms. Buying into Lindbergh’s vision of the the Wabash, Far Away’ in a ‘brisk cadence…loud future, Sandy questions and almost discards his enough for everyone in the cafeteria to hear.’ Jewish identity in the face of a cultural tide that And in one sense, Herman’s song is not so diff er- he views as strongly progressive and anti-Jew- ent from Roth’s novel: an imaginative protest and ish. Roth is at his best, however, in describing caution thrown at a world that is often too busy the eff ects of the American Fascist regime on or too disengaged to keep a close eye on personal Philip’s older cousin Alvin and his father. Rebel- liberties. ling against Lindbergh’s isolationism and what At the novel’s end, after ‘the plot’ has un- he views as American Jewish apathy, Alvin leaves folded and ordinary American life is once again t the most basic level, the drama played out behind ‘the Jews who are a disgrace to Jews’ and resumed, Philip confesses that he would never on the world’s political stage is never far A joins the Canadian army on the British Front. again ‘be able to revive that unfazed sense of se- removed from the personal fears and anxieties His war career is short-lived, and he quickly curity fi rst fostered in a little child by a big, pro- that seem to be a permanent staple of modern returns to Newark minus the bottom-half of his tective republic and his ferociously responsible life. Or at least that seems to be the thinking left leg. For young Philip, sharing a bedroom parents.’ Th at seems to be exactly Roth’s purpose behind Philip Roth’s new novel, Th e Plot Against with his handicapped cousin, the tragedy of the in writing a frightening-yet-realistic historical America. Anyone opening the book in hopes of age is manifested in a physical reality: Alvin’s saga, a reminder of the thin threads that bind a uncovering weapons of mass destruction, Al- missing leg becomes representative of the way in citizen’s life to the mechanisations of politics and Qaeda cells, or a heads-on critique of the current which Lindbergh’s fascism has incapacitated all history. But there are moments when the reader US administration will be sorely disappointed American Jews. Mustering his childhood ener- wonders whether nine-year-old Philip is really in however. What Roth off ers instead is an alterna- gies to help carry Alvin through a diffi cult physi- a position to make such insightful claims. While tive history – an imagined ‘what if’ that allows cal and spiritual recovery, Philip learns to band- Philip’s observations are vivid and relevant, the the author and his readers to consider modern age Alvin’s torn, infected stump: story occasionally exceeds the scope of a child’s questions of nationalism, isolationism, and per- I sat on the edge of my bed, turned up my left trouser perspective, leaving young Philip as none other sonal liberty in the safe space of a literary world leg, and, shocked to realize that what remained of than a ‘boy masquerading as a man among men.’ that never truly existed. Alvin’s leg was not much bigger than my own, set out As the novel shifts its focus from family life In June 1940, the novel’s young Philip Roth to bandage myself. I’d spent the day at school mentally in New Jersey to the unravelling of Lindberg’s is seven years old when Charles Lindbergh, the running through what I’d watched him do the night presidency, Roth abandons Philip’s young-yet- American aviator and popular cultural icon, is before, but at three-twenty, when I got home, I’d only just started to wrap the fi rst bandage around an imagi- determined voice for a selection of records ‘drawn marked as the Republican party’s candidate for nary stump of my own when, against the fl esh below from the archives of Newark’s Newsreel Th eatre.’ the presidency. For Roth and his largely Jewish my knee, I felt what turned out to be a ragged scab Roth does connect all the dots of the Lindbergh neighbourhood in Newark, New Jersey, Lind- from the ulcerated underside of Alvin’s stump. Th e conspiracy tightly and answer most of the reader’s bergh’s quick ascendancy to political fame ushers scab must have come loose during the night—Alvin lingering questions, yet abandoning the protago- in a climate of ‘perpetual fear.’ Lindbergh, after had either ignored it or failed to notice it—and now nist for 26 pages of the most intense exposition all, represents a rugged isolationist who promises it was stuck to me and I was out way beyond what I could deal with. Th ough the heaves began in the seems to be one of the book’s key instabilities. to keep the United States out of ‘Europe’s war,’ bedroom, by racing for the back door and then down Another weak spot lies the novel’s sudden end- estranging American Jews who are anxious for the back stairway to the cellar, I managed to position ing, which wraps up the Lindbergh presidency Roosevelt and the United States to intervene on my head over the double sink seconds before the real and sees the United States back to normalcy but the behalf of European Jews. When Lindbergh puking began. makes little comment on the implications of such carries the popular vote and secures the electoral Philip’s experience of being ‘out way beyond a dark spot on the national consciousness. vote of forty-six states, he immediately signs the what I could deal with’ is not a condition faced Th e lack of a refl ective ending leaves the pri- ‘Iceland Understanding’ with Hitler, vaguely solely by the novel’s children. As Philip strug- mary burden of interpretative responsibility with aligning the United States with Nazi goals and gles to come to terms with an increasingly adult the reader, whose world is hardly more secure guaranteeing that the US will not defend Britain world, he is forced to watch the disintegration than Philip’s own. At a time when the FBI can from Germany. Th e central crux of the novel’s of his father, Herman, a strong and independ- carefully monitor the library habits of ordinary preoccupation, however, occurs when Lindbergh ent man made helpless by national events. His Americans, Roth’s novel speaks strongly against – a historically lukewarm anti-Semite – enter- father’s emotional response is manifested in both the dangerous swells of patriotism and unques- tains Nazi sympathies and begins to restrict the grief and anger: Philip watches his father ‘sob tioned political enthusiasm. Schoolteachers have liberties of Jews in Roth’s Newark and the rest of uncontrollably’ after visiting Alvin in the hospi- long asserted that history can teach us a valuable the United States. tal, yet later is forced to see Herman ‘bloody his lesson, or at least prevent a few repeated mis- While the novel’s political crisis off ers a power- beloved older brother’s fatherless son.’ Th rough takes along the way. In Th e Plot Against America, ful and provocative taste of Roth’s strong imagi- all of this – even in the loss of his safety, his Roth’s alternative history boldly suggests a few nation, the most compelling moments are those career, and his rights – Philip’s father holds on mistakes that we simply can’t aff ord to make at in which national events intersect with Philip’s to a vision of a country where ‘all men are cre- all. middle-class, New Jersey family. His mother ated equal.’ In another of the novel’s chilling takes a job in a woman’s clothing store, faithfully moments, Herman Roth takes his family on a Jacob Risinger is an American visiting student at Lincoln laying money aside in a Canadian bank in case summer holiday to Washington, D.C., where the College. He is currently completing a BA in English Literature the Roths are forced to leave behind both their Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument from Middlebury College, Vermont. 14 the Oxonian Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1

Th e magical revival of Tornedalen

ummikko (noun) – 1. a monolingual person; someone does not shy away from topics such as religious who does not speak Mean Kieli; 2. a man of impor- bigotry and child abuse, his deadpan sense tance; a southerner. of humor and burlesque characterizations of Mikael Niemi If language is suggestive of how we understand Tornedalian idiosyncrasies rescue the novel Popular Music the world, then ummikko speaks volumes about from unbearable melancholy. Touches of magi- Perennial the culture that coined it. Ummikko is Mean cal realism worthy of Gabriel García Márquez 2004. 400 pages ISBN: 0007145519 Kieli (lit. ‘Our Language’), a Finnish dialect that result in a book that makes you laugh and cry at is governed by the rules of Finnish grammar but the same time: the realistic portrayal of north- which includes extensive and imaginative bor- ern village life repeatedly transforms itself into a also been released, bringing further attention to rowing from Swedish vocabulary. It is spoken supernatural farce. In one of the most memorable the area. or understood by approximately 40,000 people, and hilarious episodes in the book, Matti’s friend Of course, this expansive infl uence and posi- most of whom live in the north of Sweden close Niila is haunted by the ghost of his grandmother tive reception does not mean that Popular Music to the Finnish border. Th is area, usually referred and decides to visit the local witch doctor, a mad is without fl aws. Niemi’s anecdotal approach to as Tornedalen, provides the setting for Mikael transvestite, to put an end to granny’s spooky vis- makes the book an easy read, but sometimes Niemi’s best-selling novel Popular Music, pub- its. Th e reader here ends up on ground as unset- disturbs the linearity of the plot, as it begins to lished in Sweden in 2000. tling as Niila’s own: in this scene, Niemi cleverly read like a series of separate and unrelated stories. Th e various meanings of ummikko hint at a refuses to allow one’s interpretative faculties to At times, the writing also risks becoming more culture suff ering from a severe lack of self-esteem, distinguish fully between reality and hallucina- ethnography than fi ction, as the particularities of isolated from the rest of Sweden by language tion. Tornedalian culture are spun out in great detail. and geography. Perhaps this is why the commer- In his latest collection of essays, Th e Irrespon- Furthermore, women are strangely absent from cial and critical success of Popular Music took sible Self ( 2004), critic James Wood expresses a the story. Th e ‘Popular Music’ festival should the Swedish literary establishment by surprise. preference for comedies of forgiveness in place perhaps be interpreted more as an expression of Not only was the book written by an author of the comedies of correction that he sees pre- the entrepreneurial skills of a village than as an from Tornedalen (situated about as far from dominating the Anglo-American literary land- expression of unreserved admiration for its local Stockholm, the country’s capital, as is possible— scape. Wood insists on the moral and aesthetic hero. approximately100km above the Arctic circle), superiority of laughing with the characters, not Whatever its failings, Popular Music has ap- but the book takes as its setting this same Arctic at them. While it’s doubtful whether Popular peared at a time when pride in Tornedalian location, a surprisingly exotic background for a Music would pass muster with Wood—it is far language andculture is on the rise, and Niemi has best-seller. Th e establishment quickly recognised too funny for that—it does make a serious eff ort single-handedly managed to introduce awareness the book’s promise, however, and awarded it to be compassionate with its comedy. Although of this cultural resurgence to the society at large. the August prize (the Swedish equivalent of the the novel is narrated by Matti’s adult self—who And in doing so, he may also have provided a key Booker prize) while promptly dubbing Niemi has migrated south from Tornedalen—it remains to an area long misunderstood. When Linneaus Sweden’s latest ethnic writer. loyal to the younger versions of Matti and Niila traveled through Lapland in the eighteenth cen- On the surface, Popular Music tells a familiar and to the boys’ imaginary version of the world. tury, he expressed disgust at the people he met in story. Growing up in Tornedalen in the sixties, Th e dual perspective of boy and man results in an Tornedalen and incomprehension when facing Matti sees his village struggle to keep up with a intermingling of tragedy and comedy that slowly the fertile yet unfamiliar landscape. Condemn- fast-changing world, and discovers girls and rock becomes inseparable. ing the region as backward and illiterate (Torne- and roll in the process. Add to this a society that With this blended tone, Niemi successfully dalian literature was a matter of oral tradition, cultivates a defi nition of men that involves fart- maneuvers around accusations of cultural exploi- and therefore failed to trade beyond its linguistic ing, binge drinking and sauna marathons—not tation. Matti and Niila are representatives of the boundaries), Linneaus’ scornful account has to mention the abhorrence of everything knapsu diff ering temperaments found in Tornedalen as a dominated the offi cial view of the region for (‘unmanly activities’)—and it is not surprising result of the area’s appropriation of neighboring centuries, and its inhabitants have seldom had that Mikael Niemi has been compared to other cultures. Of the two characters, Niila is undoubt- widespread opportunity to refute in writing this lad lit-writers such as Nick Hornby and Roddy edly the more tragic. It is in his home that reli- reputation and defend their culture’s virtues. Doyle. gious fanaticism reigns supreme and signifi cantly, Mikael Niemi has done a great deal to al- Like many authors who write about the era of his primary language is Finnish, or more exactly, ter this perception. In a wonderful prologue their adolescence, Niemi trades on nostalgia. Th e Mean Kieli. to the story, the narrator is caught on a snowy sixties in Sweden witnessed economic growth Although the book is written in Swedish, mountain after foolishly licking a frost-bitten and positive visions of the future, very diff erent Niemi’s occasional use of Mean Kieli has also monument. Only the vernacular knowledge of from the soaring unemployment rates and half- endeared him to those who work to preserve the his childhood saves him and loosens his tongue, empty villages that now characterise much of the language. In 2000, the EU charter for regional both literally and fi guratively. Th rough the use of country’s backwater. With a population of only and minority languages was passed in Sweden, self-deprecating humour and a love for storytell- nine million, many Swedes can trace their recent which brought recognition to Mean Kieli as a ing, Niemi has produced a novel that describes ancestry back to those now declining small towns minority language and the right for its speak- Tornedalian culture without betraying its origin. and villages in the north. While Niemi is not the ers to use the dialect when dealing with local Note fi rst writer to describe northern parts of Sweden, government offi cials. For a people who had long The defi nition of ummikki has also changed in the last other authors, such as Kerstin Ekman (Blackwa- been deprived of these rights, it was a bittersweet couple of years. Where once it referred to a man of im- ter, 1993) and Goran Tunstrom (Th e Christmas victory as the language risked extinction. Inspired portance, it is now generally used to describe a person who does not know Mean Kieli, a person who is deprived Oratorio, 1983), tend to write books that feature by the book, a weeklong festival bearing the nov- of the riches of a culture that has managed to incorporate characters burdened by poverty, premature deaths el’s name was created in Tornedalen in the sum- many others without losing its originality; a man to be and the endless plowing of muddy fi elds. mer of 2004 and included theatrical performanc- pitied rather than admired. Th e contrast between these novels and Popu- es throughout the village of Pajala, where some of Malin Linstrom Brock is a DPhil in English literature at lar Music could not be more stark. While Niemi the book is set. Th is fall, a movie adaptation has Pembroke College. She does not know Mean Kieli. michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 the Oxonian Review of books 15

‘Known knowns’ David Hare’s take on popular politics

n Stuff Happens, David Hare’s new dramatic Th at said, there are, however, strong perform- David Hare reconstruction of the political run-up to the ances from the cast, including Nick Sampson as Stuff Happens I Director: Nicholas Hytner Iraq war, Kofi Annan enters the stage as an other- Downing Street chief-of-staff Jonathan Powell, Olivier Theatre worldly fi gure with the voice of a meditation tape Adjoa Andoh as Condoleezza Rice, and a me- Sept 1- Nov 6 2004 (‘Imagine a pool of fresh, clear water…’). Imme- ticulous study of Blair by Nicholas Farrell. Dick diately thereafter, an unnamed journalist delivers Cheney (Desmond Barrit) and Alastair Campbell a monologue in favour of the US-led invasion of (Don Gallagher), meanwhile, are well-deployed Iraq. What is remarkable about this monologue as comic foils who surface for brief moments to is not that the pro-war position is given such vituperate about one political enemy or another. eloquent and forceful prominence. Indeed, hav- Alex Jennings is broadly convincing as the US ing publicly expressed his own anti-war position president, though more could have been made of many times over, here Hare is studiously bal- Bush’s bravado. (It is presented here as unfl inch- anced, though he does tend towards a pedantry ing and unrefl ective, while the international which impedes narrative elegance and which public has witnessed that it can be much more sense is almost that Hare is forgiving Powell, and momentarily echoes the Today programme’s more dramatically compelling: a dynamic mediation declaring him to be, fi nally, moral. Th is sits un- anxious attempts at impartiality (‘…and now between stimulus and response, a negotiating easily with an audience living in a world wherein thirty seconds’ airtime for the Tory spokesman’). tool, or a means of playing for time.) Nicholas discussing the morality of individual players is Rather, the scene stands out because it succinctly Hytner’s direction, too, is elegant and necessar- largely unproductive, especially as these ‘indi- exposes as fatuous the entire premise upon which ily energetic. Perhaps most exhilarating are the viduals’ are nothing more than vehicles through the pro/anti- debate was founded. ‘How obscene fast-paced choreographed scenes at the UN and which the politics of the time are expressed. it is’, the journalist laments, ‘how decadent, to Congress which, as well as depicting the world Indeed, the attempt stands in direct contrast with give your attention … to the relentless discussion of diplomacy as a heady dance, compellingly Hare’s earlier point, which had suggested that of the manner of the liberation … Do I like the contrast those characters for whom politics is a for us to speak in these terms is simply absurd, people who did it? Are they my kind of people? maelstrom neither of their volition nor under the peculiar consequence of reducing politics to … I trust Blair/I don’t. Bush is stupid/Bush is their control, and those – Rice, par excellence personality. Th is oversight unfortunately seems clever. Th is obsession with ourselves!’ In a few – for whom every utterance slots into the ma- representative of the play as a whole. Ultimately, pithy lines, Hare reveals the narcissism which has chine with a satisfying click as the momentum of and frustratingly, Stuff Happens fails to capi- characterised political discussion on both sides the offi cial narrative proceeds seamlessly towards talise on the inherent diff erences between the of the debate: it is, he suggests, a discourse which war in Iraq. two dramatic worlds of the news media and the is topically outward-looking but which, ultimate- Nevertheless, the play still functions more as theatre with convincing eff ect. Th e play remains ly, is overwhelmed by the infl uence of a popular well-intended re-enactment than as either po- encumbered by the dictates of the former, neither culture that equates politics with self-identifi ca- litical critique or drama. Oddly, Hare seems to making political capital out of its fi nitudes nor tion. make a half-hearted attempt at the latter genre transcending it for the sake of credibility in the Th is lucidity is short-lived. Th e play quickly by off ering up the fi gure of Colin Powell (Joe latter. reverts to what can only be described as an ani- Morton) as the sole tragic hero , who makes a mated version of the Guardian: there is, to be principled stand against Bush before being sum- Tim Markham is an Australian DPhil student in Political Theory sure, a fl eeting thrill at seeing the characters of marily shunted out of the decision-making proc- at Lincoln College. His thesis explores Pierre Bourdieu’s phi- this familiar world brought to life, but it proves ess. Having scrupulously avoided pronouncing losophy of practice and uses the case study of the political sociology of British and US war correspondents 1990-2002. irretrievably insubstantial. Th e reliance on verba- heavy-handed judgement on characters through- Tim is also a researcher in media sociology in the Department tim transcripts does lend the production a certain out, this seems an odd device. In truth, the of Media and Communications, LSE. integrity, but, again, this alone does not justify dramatic reconstruction, nor does it easily trans- late into dramatic eff ectiveness. Hare might have played upon the superfi ciality of such a realist ac- count in order to excoriate a vapid media for pre- senting events and people only within contrived ‘dramatic’ structures. Instead, he chooses to take that confected character template and fl esh it out—which surely misses the point. Mak- ing the dramatis personae of journalism more human and sympathetic simply confi rms the fi ction without advancing fact. And while his particular approach to characterisation does not for the most part become easy caricature –Bush’s self-possession is more evident than his inanity, Blair is more cunning than sanctimonious– it cannot go further than impersonation. By taking as his starting point these distorted reductions of political fi gures, Hare can neither develop char- acters who are believable beyond the world of the media, nor tackle why it is that the perceived character of these people means so much to us in the fi rst place. Alex Forrest 16 the Oxonian Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1

Melissa Gronlund on the London Film Festival 2004

his year’s London Film Festival brought nearly 300 feature length and short fi lms to London from 20 October to 4 November and was, as Tusual, a popular and critical success. Th e fi lms were organised into categories of origin (Asian, French, British, European), as well as genre, and included for the fi rst time documentary features. Th e Oxonian Review of Books reviews a selection of four of the fi lms shown: French director Agnes Varda’s Cinevardaphoto (three short documentaries); American director David O. Russell’s feature I Heart Huckabees; the new American experimental documentary, Tarnation; and Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046, the festival’s gala screening.

Cinevardaphoto sion she tells of Hendeles, alone in her big house, surprising. Th e 1999 Th ree Kings – the single dir. Agnès Varda with only teddy bears to keep her company. As in best depiction of the fi rst Gulf War – couched a France 2004 Th e Gleaners and I, which examined the past and moral dilemma in a fi lm shot like a music video present practice of gleaning, Varda’s recuperation and headlined by Ice-T and Marky Mark. Here, of what might be overlooked and her foreground- the characters are less important for their role ing of these elements through intimate, informal in the improbable narrative than for their abil- commentary turns the fi lms’ emphases on Varda ity to highlight the connection between every- herself as the human, fallible fi lmmaker. Such day choices and ethical consequences. I Heart free and unassuming self-representation gives Huckabees aims to show how we are responsible Varda’s fi lms a feeling of irreverence and joy – as for this world – one dependent on petrol, okay inevardaphoto, by the marvelously original when, in Ulysse, she gives her photograph and the with megachains, and full of pretty girls who CFrench fi lmmaker Agnès Varda, is a triptych drawing of it to a group of schoolboys, who tell are objectifi ed and (what’s more) unhappy. To of short fi lms ‘triggered by photographs’ consist- the fi lmmaker they defi nitely prefer the drawing accomplish this without pontifi cating, Russell ing of her latest, Ydessa, the Bears and Etc; Ulysse, – or as in Salut les Cubains!, when still photo- employs screwball antics and farcical explications from 1982; and Salut les Cubains!, a portrait of graphs of the musician Hector Angulo become a of the opposing philosophies – Tomlin and Hoff - the Cuban people in 1963. Varda interprets the dance to the beat of the soundtrack. man, in game, spirited performances, explain the photograph more or less along the lines of Bar- meaning of life by holding up a wool blanket; I Heart Huckabees thes’ Camera Lucida, considering the photograph dir. David O. Russell Huppert demonstrates her motto of ‘cruelty, as a document of ‘that which was’, and taking the America manipulation, meaninglessness’ by sleeping with image’s content as starting point. In Ulysse, she 2004 Schwartzman in the mud. Such scenes are emi- tracks down the subjects of a photo she took in nently likeable, and when the fi lm slows down to 1954, where a man and young boy pose by the catch its breath you can see glimpses of Russell’s ocean. Th e man, who Varda found working as talent for pointing out the absurd in what passes the art director at French Elle, had no memory of for normal. Taken as a whole, however, I Heart the photograph at all, but remembered the day of Huckabees is one of those rare things: a fi lm that the shoot – mostly that the young boy was always has too much going for it. carried from place to place. Varda came across Tarnation the boy, called Ulysse, at his small bookstore dir. Jonathan Caouette in Paris; Ulysse had no recollection whatsoever ith the pace of a sprinter on speed, I Heart America of the day, but did not doubt that it happened. WHuckabees pulls out all the stops, goes 2004 While investigating the studium of the still pho- for broke, skids off the rails, and keeps on mix- tograph (what Barthes defi nes as the the interest ing metaphors until the audience gives up. Th e the image elicits in us) Varda masterfully gives fi lm, directed by the American David O. Rus- the fi lm its own punctum – its sudden pinprick sell, is a bewildering mess, and one leaves either of meaning. Th e reason for the excursion to the exhausted or exhilarated, probably depending on sea was to cure Ulysse, who had fallen ill in Paris the number of Charlie Kaufman titles you own. and could barely walk on his own. A short scene Th e fi lm’s premise is a broadly drawn Manichean three-fourths of the way through the fi lm shows struggle between meaningfulness (as embodied arnation, a fi lm edited on an iMac for a Ulysse’s mother recounting the ordeal of that by Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoff man, bumbling Ttotal of £125, has been this year’s Sundance- time: her voice breaks and the discursive fi lm is but lovable existential detectives) and meaning- to-the-Phoenix success story. Comprised out of suddenly transformed by this pierce of emotion lessness (Isabelle Huppert, in stilettos). Th e two reams of home footage that Jonathan Caouette, into a portrait of maternal solicitude. sides fi ght for the sympathies of Jason Schwartz- the fi lm’s subject, has been taking since a child, Ydessa, the Bears and Etc chronicles the eccen- man, an environmental activist who, armed with the fi lm is the sweetest and most complicated of tric art exhibition of Canadian gallerist Ydessa Do Not Cross tape and bad poetry, is trying to things – an homage to his mother, Renee. Hendeles, who spent years tracking down an- halt urban sprawl; Jude Law, a corporate yes-man Caouette, now in his 30s, was born to a tique photographs where subjects pose alongside at the superstore chain Huckabees; his girlfriend, beautiful young Texan – ‘a highly successful teddy bears, and recently mounted them in the Naomi Watts, Huckabees’ perky spokesmodel; regional model’, as the fi lm describes her with Haus der Kunst gallery in Munich. Varda’s cam- and Mark Wahlberg, Schwartzman’s existential unintentional irony – who underwent regular era regards the photographs and Hendeles herself buddy, a fi refi ghter with a fear of petroleum. All doses of shock therapy from the age of 16 on. with the same amount of bemused curiosity and this in Pop colours, played cartoonishly, with the Schizophrenic and unstable, she married early sympathy. She fi nds that the repetition of the screen’s pixels breaking apart at various moments and her husband left her before Caouette was single subject matter forces attention on the an- to demonstrate how everything is interconnected. born (he did not know she was pregnant). She cillary eff ects of the photograph – what becomes Best known as a satirist or as someone who then moved to Chicago, where she was raped in interesting is the diff erent type of chairs people titled a fi lm ‘Spanking the Monkey’, Russell front of Jonathan – and that’s where the trouble posed in, the way they held the bears, where they is much less hip than he’s made out to be. His begins. He’s put into foster care, abused, given to focused their gaze. She refuses to let Hendeles project, here and in previous fi lms, is deeply his only slightly sane grandparents; smokes PCP become a fi gure of fun: with exquisite compas- earnest and his commitment to moral concerns by accident at his mother’s; frequents gay clubs michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1 the Oxonian Review of books 17 dressed as a Goth girl; and is hospitalised time ity of the subject in pain. Tarnation is indeed riv- en come in and out of his life – the daughter of and time again. eting – particularly in its portrayal of the young the hotel concierge, a nightclub dancer (played Th e force of the fi lm derives from Caouette’s Caouette – but only for half of the reason that by Zhang Ziyi, best known in the West for her personal story. Tarnation’s early footage is as- makes a great fi lm great. role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), a gam- tonishing and heartbreaking: Caouette imper- bler called the Black Widow (Cheung) – in slow, sonating an abused housewife, Caouette cutting 2046 glamorously fi lmed episodes marked by long himself in front of the mirror, Renee blissfully, dir. Wong Kar-Wai drags on cigarettes and profi les at dusk, scenes Hong Kong/France unnaturally happy. 2004 drunk on romance and cinematic indulgence. But while the audience leaves moved by Figures of impossible glamour and beauty, the Caouette’s history, Caouette himself has larger women of 2046 give exceptional performances ambitions – where he is not as successful. Th e and make the fi lm: Cheung seems nothing more fi lm’s aesthetic strategies – low-budget abstract than a cipher for the author-character who brings imagery that punctuates, à la Pink Floyd, scenes them to life and onto the screen. of trauma and drug use; an exasperatingly literal Tightly controlled, Wong’s fi lms do not so soundtrack; a disproportionate reliance on cap- much elicit emotion as represent it onscreen; tions to give the back story – are patently bad. which is why one walks away from the fi lm awed It is tempting to write off this amateurishness by by the sheer beauty of the sentiment, but not pointing out that Caouette actually is an ama- he release of Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046 answers moved. Th e elaborate and creative costumes, the teur, and that his decision to use multi-coloured Tyears of speculation and anticipation among stylised cinematography, the actors’ tendency fl oating graphics does not demean the power of the substantial tribe of Wong acolytes – and to quote their lines (they are given the script the fi lm. Th is rationale, however, submits that those less convinced – with a triumphant portrait only moments before they shoot the scene, and the fi lm is powerful because of its content rather of romance, with a capital R, rising and subsid- often do not know who they are playing) – all than its form. It is heralded for being ‘raw’ – as ing. In the works for more than four years, the contribute to a consciousness of the drama and in the less stylised, the better, because it allows fi lm had been delayed so many times it seemed artistry that is more decadent and gorgeous than closer access to what is interesting about the fi lm, like some expensive process art joke. When news a distancing strategy ought to be. Wong’s use of i.e., Caouette’s life. Th e formulation is on the came of its impending completion, the fi lm slow-motion in certain key scenes – of characters one hand patronising – Caouette does ask, albeit world bent over backwards. A provisional version smoking, crying, registering shock or bad news, through the graphics, to be taken seriously as (lacking special eff ects) premiered out of compe- smiling – isolates a feeling and makes it palpable, an artist – and also underestimates what a fi lm tition at Cannes – three other fi lms were moved even unbearable. Th e image of the Black Widow, ought to achieve. Th e best examples of fi lm-as- around to accommodate its screening time – and one black glove swinging by her hips, her vamp life, such as Jonas Mekas’s Lost Lost Lost or Stan the print was driven down from Nice, escorted lipstick smeared across her face, captures heart- Brakhage’s oeuvre, succeed precisely because they by an armed motorcade, only three hours before break in a way it feels only mawkish to write engage with the problem of what it means to rep- its delayed curtain call. Such treatment speaks to about. resent life aesthetically: the extent to which life the esteem Wong (justly) enjoys. Wong has been criticised for being self-indul- can present itself unmediated, what happens to a A drama set partly in 1960s Hong Kong and gent and inconsistent, but he, like Taiwanese life incessantly recorded, how to affi x ‘meaning’ partly on a train time-traveling towards the year fi lmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang, is re-imagining the to ‘reality’. Caouette passes over these concerns 2046, 2046 barely reveals the traces of the previ- ‘feature-length fi lm’ with a reverence for cinema in favour of unceasing footage of himself and his ous versions it is woven out of – the initial idea, a that recalls the members of the France’s Nouvelle mother, and the fi lm degenerates into a kind of futuristic thriller about the year 2046, for exam- Vague and a feel for texture that is unparalleled. emotional eddy – Caouette, besotted with his ple, or a possible sequel to In the Mood for Love, 2046 deserves all the attention it gets. and Renee’s story. In one episode we watch him Wong’s 2000 fi lm with Tony Chiu-wai Leung trying to work himself up to tears in front of the and Maggie Cheung. Rather, 2046 is pervaded camera: he is nostalgic for the good old days of throughout by one singly struck chord of roman- being entirely messed up, when the tears came tic longing. Leung here plays a solitary, quietly Melissa Gronlund is an American MPhil student in cinema studies at Exeter College. Her thesis is on the use of photo- naturally. It is the romance of madness, the last confi dent rake, who takes a room in a Hong graph in Chris Marker’s fi lms. She is also a freelance art critic lines of Trainspotting – the emotional individual- Kong hotel to write science fi ction novels. Wom- and publishes regularly in arts magazines.

Oxonianthe Review contributing: of books Submission Procedures: Guidelines: sustained discussion, but not familiar with the terms employed in a specifi c fi eld of discus- Th ere are two ways to go about submitting to Short reviews can range from as few as 400- sion. In longer articles, a premium will be put the Oxonian Review. Th e simplest is to write 850 words. Longer pieces are expected to be on pieces that include a balanced, contextual a full draft of your piece, and then submit. 1500-2500 words. We will generally observe discussion of the work on the way to a well- Th e second option is to propose a topic and the stylistic conventions of major U.K. peri- articulated response. Neither a full discussion then receive feedback from the editorial staff odicals (e.g., the Times Literary Supplement). nor a strong response should be missing. before the full article is written. All submis- Poems and pieces of short fi ction will be sions should be e-mailed to the Senior Editor. judged on their individual merits. However, Submissions should be attached to the e-mail please remember that we have a limited in Microsoft Word format, single-spaced. number of pages, and longer pieces are less Contact Us: Indicate your name, writing experience, and likely to be published. Keep in mind that expertise in the subject, as applicable. Also we look for clarity and readability as well as Avery Willis Kris Anderson Editor-in-Chief Senior Editor include details about the book(s) or event(s) depth and rigor. We assume an intelligent, in- Balliol College Exeter College discussed. terested audience, capable of understanding a [email protected] [email protected] 18 the Oxonian Review of books michaelmas 2004 . volume 4 . issue 1

Iron ladies: Women in Th atcher’s Britain Th e Women’s Library, London E1, until 2nd April 2005

urn right,’ commands the blue painted crimination that she had to overcome as similar Marc Jacobs on his Autumn 2004/5 collection) ‘Tscreen that greets visitors to ‘Iron Ladies: to that faced by other women. – there is a lot more to be revealed about our Women in Th atcher’s Britain’, the current exhibi- Th e majority of the exhibit is archive material only female Prime Minister than her favourite tion at the Women’s Library. Dutifully obeying, – letters and photographs – from the Th atcher handbag designer. the viewers are confronted with an iconic pho- Archive Trust and the Churchill Archives Cen- Fortunately, while ‘Iron Ladies’ playfully ap- tograph of the Iron Lady herself and a quota- tre, accompanied by banners, badges, campaign peals to nostalgia by displaying somewhat pre- tion from Labour MP Oona King: ‘I don’t care fl yers, books and a wall of 1980s clothing. Hav- dictable leg warmers, exercise videos and Dynas- if Margaret Th atcher was the devil, it meant so ing raised a knowing eyebrow at Th atcher’s use ty, it is tempered with more serious commentary much to me that I was growing up when two of domestic metaphors in her speeches (although on the relations between women and the unions, women – she and the Queen – were running the it is careful not to condemn overtly), the exhibi- on debates over sexuality and sexual health, and country’. Th is somewhat defeatist point sets the tion nevertheless seems to fi nd no contradiction on protest movements. Not enough is made tone for the entire exhibition, the fi rst to consid- in implicitly connecting political women with of Th atcher’s total repudiation of the women’s er not only the impact of Th atcherism on British fashion. Would an exhibition on Churchill have movement, nor is her legacy considered in any women but also what it was like to be Britain’s dedicated an entire wall of somewhat limited depth. But for an exhibition put together on a fi rst female Prime Minister. display space to his choice of clothing? Yet, like small budget, ‘Iron Ladies’ is informative and It is divided into fi ve thematic sections: ‘Glass it or not, women in the public eye do have the worth a visit, if only for an alternative view of the Ceilings’, ‘A Woman’s Place Is In Her Union’, additional pressure of appearance to consider, Th atcher legend that she and the Tory party are ‘Th atcherism: Handbag Politics’, ‘War Mak- as Th atcher’s ‘Dress Diary’, planned weeks in busy rewriting. Certainly, that such an impor- ers/Peace Makers’ and ‘Body Politics’. In each, a advance with military precision down to neck- tant exhibition should receive so little coverage or close focus on Th atcher is followed by a broader laces and colour of stockings, shows. And to an funding and be sidelined as a minority interest is display detailing the responses and actions of extent, , the fashion display is unusual and does perhaps a sad indictment of the lost opportuni- women in Britain at the time. Th e diffi culties make for entertaining viewing. As a symbol of ties of Th atcher’s time in offi ce. Th atcher faced as a woman in a male-dominated that decade, Th atcher is ripe for reduction into environment are thus contrasted with those of the realm of ‘I love 1980s’ kitsch. Ultimately, average British women. And contrast it was: the though, while turning Th atcher into a ‘look’ Kate Nichols is a research assistant for the Beazley Archive in exhibit astutely emphasises the Prime Minister’s the Ashmolean Museum. Her main interests include the his- might currently be in vogue – ‘It’s all about fi nd- tory of museums and the reception and collection of Greek inability/disinclination to acknowledge the dis- ing Th atcher sexy’ (New York fashion darling and Roman art.

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A note on reactions to the death of Jacques Derrida

There was no shortage of obituaries of Jacques Derrida, who Paul de Man). Close links were made between behind them. Th e more public place of intellec- died aged 74 on 8th October 2004, and it is not my intention to de Man’s wartime writings and his subsequent tual life in French society, coupled with its highly add to their number. Rather, I want to focus on these obituar- ies, which showed clearly the range of reactions that his work academic career on the basis that, through adopt- centralised and interdisciplinary academic centre, provoked. He was variously characterised as a dangerous ing some form of moral and conceptual relativ- enables the philosopher to be much less con- nihilist, advocating a pernicious relativism that undermined ism, he might assuage his own guilt. Of course, strained by disciplinary factors than their Anglo- all claims to truth and morality; a charlatan in the tradition of all of this might be true with respect to de Man, American counterparts. Accordingly they can Hegel and Heidegger, concealing banalities behind incompre- although many of the justifi cations for such an range more widely across academic fi elds, and hensible prose; or a revolutionary ‘thinker of the unthinkable’, subjecting cherished verities to rigorous analysis and opening argument rest on some rather facile psychology. Derrida’s prose quite explicitly shows its literary up new perspectives from which to contest canonic claims to Likewise, Derrida’s intellectual debts, particularly parallels, as does the work of that other notori- truth and power. Although his infl uence on academic debate to Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, ously obscure French thinker, Jacques Lacan. waned somewhat since its height in the period from the late have also been used to compromise deconstruc- On a personal note I fi nd some justifi cations 1960s through to the early 1980s, the manifold reactions to his tion. Certainly Heidegger is a troubling fi gure: for abstruseness – such as the idea that diffi cult thought and infl uence have resurfaced since his death. Rather than trying to summarise his work – if such an enterprise is for a time he supported the Nazis and, in his ideas require diffi cult prose for their expression possible, or even desirable, given that it would necessarily later philosophy, he appears to have thought that – spurious, and I do not warm to that side of involve the imposition of some kind of ordering principle on authentic being could be revealed in the ‘original Derrida’s work. Nonetheless, Anglo-American a diverse range of texts – the more useful focus might be on meanings’ of German words (see, for example, philosophers should not be deceived into think- attitudes towards his work, particularly the fi rst two above, his essay ‘Building, dwelling, thinking’). Th e ing that abstruseness and diffi culty is a preserve and on the possible longevity of his legacy. case of Nietzsche is much more obscure. How- of modern continental thought. Derrida’s work Nihilism/relativism ever, with both authors, Heidegger especially, it is scarcely as diffi cult as that of Kant, while Witt- Some of the accusations of this sort merit little is worth asking whether disreputable conduct genstein, claimed by analytic philosophy, while comment. Anthony Grayling, self-appointed should discredit their works, and the same point extremely rewarding is frequently obscure. public defender of truth and rationality (demon- might be made of de Man. Moreover, it is un- Legacy? strated, presumably, by the alacrity with which he clear whether deconstruction should be charac- Assessing the legacy of any thinker so imme- castigated Derrida’s legacy) accused ‘deconstruc- terised as a philosophical theory – it is, in many diately after his or her death is always a nearly tion and its postmodern allies’ of abandoning ways, more similar to scepticism, being a certain impossible task. In the 1930s, Spengler and standards of judgement, ‘and thereby making it a attitude rather than a coherent philosophical Toynbee were major fi gures, but are now read al- criterion of excellence that a work’s author (his or model. most exclusively by intellectual historians. By the her intentions, of course, aside) has an appropri- Charlatanry same token, Giambattista Vico’s Nuovo Scienza ate gender, ethnicity, or geographical origin’. It Perhaps the most common criticism levelled at was substantially neglected until its rediscovery is dispiriting to see a once respectable academic Derrida is that of charlatanry. Th e Cambridge by Jules Michelet in the early 19th century. So philosopher using such lazy terminology. With dons who opposed his honorary doctorate any loud claims for Derrida’s place in Western respect to standards of judgement, almost all of pointed out, among other things, the opacity of thought need to be taken with a pinch of salt: it Derrida’s work addresses solidly canonical texts his prose, which they felt was a mask for essen- is something we simply cannot know yet. Terry and authors. Admittedly, his canon is much tially banal thoughts. Roger Scruton felt that Eagleton noted the brilliance of Derrida’s early wider than that of the average analytical philoso- there was nothing to explain in Derrida’s work, work, while the development of that peculiar pher, comprising as it does authors as diverse since it was ‘nonsense’, while in a similar vein the conjunction of disciplines called ‘Th eory’ owes as Levi-Strauss, Freud, Plato, Austin, Rousseau, headline to the New York Times obituary labelled much to his infl uence. However, a number of and Marx. Nonetheless, they hardly betray any Derrida an ‘abstruse theorist’. Th e Guardian, in recent literary critics once receptive to these ideas rejection of the canon, so much as a desire to an editorial column defending his work, noted – notably Frank Kermode and David Lodge understand it. Indeed, ‘new historicist’ critics that ‘for many, Derrida personifi ed the worst – have voiced the complaint that ‘Th eory’ has have questioned the canon more thoroughly than type of “French fraud”, in the manner of Jean- rendered texts as simply grist to the philosophical Derrida and his followers, and it over-simplifi es François Lyotard and Michel Foucault, impen- mill, and have called for a return to the methods matters enormously to regard them as his ‘post- etrable theorists who spouted nonsense.’ (Th e of writers like William Empson. Most Anglo- modern allies’. In any case, it is surely no bad meaning of the last quote is not entirely clear to phone philosophy departments remain resolutely thing if the authority of the Western Canon is me – specifi cally whether the Guardian editorial closed to modern continental philosophy, and occasionally called into question. writer regards Foucault and Lyotard as ‘impen- in this setting Derrida is probably more ignored Similarly, a letter to the Guardian saw in de- etrable theorists who spouted nonsense’, or is than actively criticised. John Searle’s argument construction ‘a backlash against post-war exis- simply characterising popular conceptions. Th is with him is a rare example of his reception by tentialism with its uncomfortable emphasis on is particularly puzzling as Foucault is nothing like a philosopher, but it resulted in almost nothing individual responsibility’ and went on to suggest as diffi cult to understand as Derrida.) productive. Accordingly, one suspects that Derri- that this ‘conveniently let France off the hook Although it is judicious to be wary of clichés da’s legacy will be most signifi cant (at least in the for collaborating with the Nazis’. Th e claim that about French hero-philosophers, Derrida’s death US and UK) in literature departments, although Derrida, in denying any fi xed, non-contextual did highlight the unusually high status of phi- there are some signs that the analytic-continental meanings, thereby positively advocated a form of losophers in French society. It was announced philosophy distinction is weakening. Any more relativism is not new – although why he should by the president’s offi ce, and Chirac commented certain statements about his future infl uence are be particularly concerned with addressing French upon his infl uence and legacy. Compare this impossible, although those interested in intellec- war guilt is unclear. Th e ethics of deconstruction with Britain: Tony Blair felt the need to join the tual history will have much on which to work. came to the foreground in 1988, when an assidu- chorus of praise for John Peel, but there is almost ous Belgian doctoral student, Ortwin de Graef, certainly no intellectual for whom he would uncovered Paul de Man’s anti-Semitic wartime extend the same courtesy. While there have been Joseph Streeter is a DPhil student in Ancient History at Uni- writings for the newspaper Le Soir (for a readable versity College. His dissertation examines personal identity in and are public philosophers – Bertrand Russell summary of this controversy, see D. Lehman’s late antiquity, particularly in relation to death. He is currently is the most obvious example – they most often co-editing a collection of G.E.M. de Ste Croix’s essays on early Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of become so when their serious intellectual work is Christianity for OUP (forthcoming, 2006). http://www.oxonianreview.org