THE NEW REPUBLIC • MARCH 21, 2OO5

HIS IS ALL THE MORE SUR- intelligent reader would see through the cality. We all know that what we are prising since Frankfurt gets claim at once. This is not artistry, this is reading is spin; we all know that the per- right to the nub of the prob- spin. So I think that Frankfurt is wrong son quoted is not really committed to lem: "The contemporary pro- even about ordinary bullshit. It may be the truth of what he is saying; and yet Thferation of bullshit ... has deeper true that the ordinary bullshitter needs we are all somehow willing to go along sources, in various forms of skepticism to go through the motions of pretend- with what we instantly recognize to be which deny that we can have any reliable ing that the truth of what he says mat- ersatz news. This is the problem with access to an objective reality, and which ters to him—but this itself is bullshit, bullshit: it is contagious. It invites us all therefore reject the possibility of know- and it may be easily recognizable as such to grow more detached from the real, to ing how things really are." Actually, skep- to us all. In this way we are all drawn give up caring about what is true and ticism is not the same thing as bullshit. into a complacent and rundown theatri- what is false. • There are genuine and deep ways of wondering about the reality and the pos- sibility of objective truth. Skepticism can be an honorable calling. But in the con- temporary world it often degenerates Paula Fredriksen into a received attitude, a hip pose, a rhetorical ploy, a kind of academic party trick. Imagine such a skeptic coming to Beautiful People the humanities center: what kind of pa- per is he or she going to give? An earnest argument that there really is no such THE INVENTION OF RACISM xenophobia. How, he asks, did these thing as truth? Of course not. Such a IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY ideas develop as patterns of thinking, paper would lack "irony," which is these By Benjamin Isaac as attitudes of mind? What relation did days the great validator of intellectual these ideas have to Greek and, later, to authority. (I put "irony" in scare quotes (Princeton University Press, 592 PP-, $45) Roman ideologies of imperial expan- because the current version has almost sion? And what contributions did these nothing in common with real irony.) So REEDOM, DEMOCRACY, PHIL- ideas, passing from antiquity to moder- the paper will inevitably be an "ironic" osophy; art, education, law. nity through the paradoxical conduit of performance that the truth simply does Many of the ideas and ideals Enlightenment thinkers—Hume, Vol- not matter to the speaker. This is not that deflne our culture and taire, and Kant, among others—bring to skepticism, it is bad theater. And the what we most value in it trace the development of modern racism? point that the "ironists" are making is Fback across millennia to the civilizations that in their bullshit-artistry they can of Greece and Rome. These two ancient get away with it. (It is not unusual for REEK CULTURE, IN ITS LONG societies constituted a fundamental stage such speakers to draw attention to the history, had two formative en- in the historical development of the West. fact that they have actually been paid to counters with foreign peoples Later, refracted through medieval insti- come and spread their bullshit.) before its hegemony finally tutions, reclaimed in the Renaissance, Gceded to Rome's. The first encounter, in In this way, the bullshit artist raises and re-appropriated in the Enlighten- the early fifth century B.C.E., was with a host of ethical problems that do not ment, this classical patrimony continued Persia. The westward thrust of this imper- arise at the level of ordinary bullshit. For to exercise a decisive influence in shaping ial power out of Asia precipitated the for- bullshit artistry demands our complicity. the culture and the politics of Europe. mation of military alliances between the It is, in its own way, a demonstration of But a shadow side accompanied this perennially fractious Greek city-states; power. The bullshit artist in effect says, amazing heritage. Greek and Roman in the end they cooperated and success- "This is bullshit, but you will accept it writers also conceived, developed, and fully resisted conquest. The second en- anyway. You may accept it as bullshit, rationalized systems of thought that de- counter occurred about a century and a but you will honor it anyway." In this nied full humanity to other human be- half later. This time the aggression went respect, the bullshit artist is a knight of ings. Bigotry and social hatred, aimed at in the opposite direction: under Alexan- decadence. Frankfurt ignores this exam- outsiders beyond the borders of empire der the Great, a military power identified ple; indeed, his analysis of bullshit rules and at immigrant communities within, with Greek culture confronted the Per- it out as impossible. And in this way he both marked and marred ancient litera- sian Empire and prevailed. fails to confront the most interesting— ture. This is the dark theme that compels The Persians had controlled a vast and influential—style of bullshit in our the rich research of Benjamin Isaac in his multi-ethnic empire that included Egypt, time. important book. the Near East, and what corresponds But the problem is even worse. For Scrutinizing a huge array of classi- to modern-day Iraq (ancient Babylonia) once we recognize that the bullshit artist cal sources in an eight-hundred-year and Iran (the Persian heartland). Alex- flaunts his indifference, we have reason arc from the flfth century B.C.E. to the ander pushed yet farther east, into the to go back to the ordinary bullshitter fourth century C.E., Isaac lays open territory of what is now Afghanistan and and ask whether it really is true, as their expressions of ethnic prejudice and Pakistan. Through military and diplo- Frankfurt asserts, that he must hide it. matic prowess, he ruled it all. But the Think of Gergen's claim that Summers Paula Fredriksen is a historian of ancient political unity of this huge area lasted reminds him of Socrates. I think that any Christianity at Boston University. only as long as its master. When Alexan- MARCH 21, 2005 • THE NEW REPUBLIC der died in 323 B.C.E., his empire splin- bringing foreigners, as immigrants, any virtue How could there exist a tered into smaller kingdoms and city- "home." competent commander or a courageous states. Yet an underlying cultural unity soldier with the habits of these peo- endured. ow DID GREEKS, IN BOTH ple?. .. They indulge their bodies in the Wherever Alexander conquered, he these experiences of foreign luxury of their riches. They have souls established cities and left behind colo- contact, regard non-Greeks? humiliated and terrified by the monar- nizing populations. Forms of urban gov- According to a scholarly tra- chy." Greeks, he recounted, are hard, ernment, and thus of Greek religion; Hdition that traces back to the Enlighten- disciplined, masculine, strong, free. East- such organs of post-classical civic cul- ment, those who fought in the Persian erners par contre are soft, corrupt, effem- ture as the agora, the gymnasium, the Wars regarded that struggle as a contest inate, weak, and servile. What produced library, the theater or amphitheater or between Western democracy and Orien- such inferior people? Persian govern- hippodrome: these "old country" insti- tal despotism. For Herodotus and his ment, Isocrates explained, and Persian tutions spread an exported form of generation, these modern historians as- social relations. (Greek government and Greek civilization, enabling the growth sert, the war against Persia was no mere society, accordingly, produced intrinsi- of a new international culture, which military encounter, but a Kulturkampf cally superior people.) Various vase scholars call "Hellenism." Hellenism of the deepest spiritual and historical paintings visually broadcast the same was always a hybrid phenomenon, a significance, recognized as such by the message. In one particularly striking creolization of local customs and cul- combatants. By repelling Darius and example, a heroically nude Greek pre- tures with the dominant element of Xerxes, opines one scholar, the Greeks pares to sexually assault a terrified Per- Greek. (Artifacts from the Ptolemaic resisted gradual "orientalisation ... sian. The Greek runs at the Persian, kingdom, for example, though recogniz- coupled with spiritual slavery and the grasping his own erect penis in his right ably Hellenistic, are also unmistakably rule of priests." "It was the contact and hand like a sword. The Persian presents Egyptian.) Greek itself became antiq- collision of two different types of civi- his buttocks, while the caption reads, "I uity's English, the universal linguistic lization," writes another, "of peoples of stand bent over." The painting refers medium that facilitated trade and trav- two different characters ... tliis contest to an Athenian victory in 465 B.C.E.; el, the exchange of both goods and between the slavery of the barbarian and the imagery portrays the enemy as ef- ideas, the workings of government and the liberty of the Greek, between Ori- fete, impotent, feminized. Translated of diplomacy, across this vast expanse ental autocracy and Hellenic constitu- more colloquially, the message is: "We've that stretched from the eastern Medi- tionalism." "In depicting the heroic ef- really buggered the Persians." Given terranean to the edges of India. In brief, fort of the Greek complex to save itself," Persian culture, Greek victory was "nat- Hellenism was the West's first great ex- declaims Volume Five of the 1927 Cam- ural," as natural as the dominance of perience of globalization. bridge Ancient History, Herodotus like- male over female. wise described the heroic saving of "Eu- Culture, art, trade: these descriptive rope, as yet unborn for freedom, for In their Hellenistic phase, Greeks abstractions mask a homelier reality. science, for civilization." encountered myriad other ethnicities as War and its aftermath, peace, bring they took over the old Persian Empire. different, distant peoples closer. The But as Isaac's scrupulous interroga- Syrians and Phoenicians, Egyptians and contact with other cultures achieved tion of the evidence makes clear, Hero- Jews, among others, became the subject initially through military conquest dotus and his compatriots experienced of Hellenistic ethnographies. Such writ- (Alexander's, that of his political heirs, contemporary events with no such stir- ings often ascribed demeaning charac- eventually Rome's) brought disempow- ring and morally polarizing clarity. True, teristics and customs to these people. erment, deportation, and dislocation to they saw in Persia a powerful monarchy Traders such as the Phoenicians are in- the losing side. Defeated peoples might and the threat of foreign domination. But variably described as deeply dishonest; remain where they were, cooperating they nowhere state that the Persians as a Easterners such as the Syrians, spoiled and accommodating themselves to the people, because ruled by a monarch, by luxury, are "natural" slaves. Tiie zo- new order. Or they might move, be- were therefore culturally or morally infe- oiatry of the Egyptians unnerved the coming refugees, exiles, or slaves. But rior to the Greeks; nor do they describe Greeks, as did the greater antiquity of these empires also established domestic these wars as a struggle of freedom- their culture. Egyptians, in the Greek peace, which enabled and encouraged loving Westerners against decadent, bar- view, are typically wanton, dishonest, interior travel and less traumatic forms barian Asiatics. These opinions are in- and rebellious; their religion is a de- of migration. Merchants, enticed by deed to be found in the literature of praved dementia. Jewish customs and the wider horizons and the increased Western antiquity (as well as in the publi- religion also occasioned negative com- opportunities for trade brought by cations of the modern academy), but not ment. The Jewish god, disliking the com- empire, could travel in safety, and so until the fourth century, once Greeks pany of other gods, was accused, like his could pilgrims, who celebrated festivals looked at Persians from a more belliger- people, of "unsociability." Jewish food and journeyed to famous temples and ent, expansionist perspective. iaws were obtuse; circumcision was at holy sites. Populations mixed as soldiers The more aggressive Greek mili- once repulsive, alarming, and vaguely married and they and their families tary ambitions became, the more dis- comical. Greek writers presented such garrisoned military colonies in frontier paraging grew their views of targeted negative stereotypes and demeaning de- areas. Ancient empire not only spread Eastern neighbors. Thus, writing circa scriptions as flat fact. Various foreigners, the unifying global culture of Hellen- 380 B.C.E., Isocrates urged that "it is they claimed, were simply dangerous: ism abroad. It also facilitated the migra- impossible for people raised and gov- they sacrificed humans or ate them; they tion and mingling of various peoples. erned as they [the Persians] are to have were sexually profligate; in war they THE NEW REPUBLIC • MARCH 21, 2OO5

were sickeningly savage; in peace, intrin- condition and also passed these on to ority and of corresponding foreign de- sically untrustworthy. their descendants. Slaves, in this view, crepitude, was not rational. were born slaves and born to be slaves. HE GREEKS ASKED, "WHAT But the obverse did not apply: freedom OME INHERITED THIS GREEK are these foreign peoples could not alter the nature of a slave. worldview, with some neces- hke?" and let prejudice shape Once deteriorated, ethnic character sary modifications. Rome's the answer. But they also asked stayed deteriorated, or could only fur- Western geographical location Tthe more fundamental question: "Why ther decline. Rand its military success enabled (and are foreign peoples the way they are?" But contact with outsiders—an in- perhaps required) thoughtful Romans and grounded their hostile stereotyping evitable consequence of empire — to hoist the conquered Greeks by their in "scientific" explanations that account- brought with it also anxiety over conta- own theorizing petard. The Greeks, ed for the character of entire peoples. mination: the low qualities of outsiders, many now slaves, became the soft, The physical and mental traits of ethnic in the view of the Greeks, were conta- luxury-spoiled Easterners; the Romans groups, these Greeks held, were fixed in gious, communicable through contact. In became the "hard," virile, virtuous West- populations by environment. "Environ- an age of globalization and immigration, erners. And whereas Greeks had thought ment," as we have already seen in the then, when people of various ethnic primarily in binary oppositions of East case of Isocrates, was imagined in differ- groups resettled in significant numbers, and West—Europe as opposed to Asia, ent ways: as society, as government, as the vanquished posed real dangers in Greece as opposed to Persia—the reali- climate, as geography (which connected the imagination of the victors. Their low ties of Roman conquest turned the com- "race" with "soil"), and (a particularly in- characteristics might pass via resident parative axis ninety degrees. Romans flexible form of environmental determin- aliens into the "host" culture, and there- thought in terms of North and South, ism) as astrology. by corrupt it. (Again, the obverse never and tinkered with theories of racial envi- Isaac observes that the concept of the apphed: ahens could not, by contact with ronmentalism accordingly. The too-cold environment as causing national char- Greeks, substantially improve.) So one North produced fierce fighters defective acteristics rode together with a bipolar source of the hostile stereotyping so in government and culture (that is, the worldview wherein Europe, where the visible in these ancient sources seems to Germans); the too-warm South pro- climate was harsh and the people were be fear—a fear that, according to the duced effeminate, servile, overly cultivat- sturdy, contrasted with Asia, where the canons of their own explanatory theo- ed weaklings (the Egyptians, for exam- climate was good and the people were ries of Greek moral and cultural superi- ple). Italy, needless to say, occupied the wealthy and, in consequence, "soft." Aristotle refined the idea further: the Greeks, he said, occupied the ideal envi- ronment between Europe and Asia. Greeks were therefore most suited to ruling others. Further, Aristotle ex- plained, the inhabitants of Asia, servile CRUCIAL LEGAL ISSUES by nature, were likewise well suited— A challenging book for anyone, not again, by nature—to being ruled by just lawyers and law students, who Greeks. Alexander's victories, of course, "proved" the correctness of Aristotle's believes that justice can be done if theorizing. we have the will to pursue it." A further conviction strengthened -Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate this view. Not only were a people's char- acteristic (and characterological) traits acquired by environmental influence, but these characteristics, once acquired, were heritable, virtually intrinsic to their designated "race." Hence Phoenicians were typically Phoenician wherever they were, even when outside their native environment, whether natural or social. Jews were always and everywhere Jews; Egyptians, unalterably Egyptian. Their acquired characteristics ran in the blood, passing invariably from one generation DEBORAH L. RHODE to the next. s Americas leading expert on legal ethics vividly demonstrates, America is This idea had a convenient corollary. Aoverlawyered and underrepresented: there is too much law for those who can It justified imperial rule. Conquered peo- afford it and too little for everyone else. A scathing indictment of America's legal ples, as evinced by their defeat, were status quo, this book presents no mere manifesto but a reasoned and realistic inferior to the victors by nature. And agenda for lasting reform. once enslaved, they acquired further servile characteristics from their servile $29.95 LAW AT OXFORD WWW.OUP.COMAJS/LAW OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MARCH 21, 2005 • THE NEW REPUBLIC perfect middle. It produced the world's Yet Rome's political culture was applications (and distortions) of Darwin natural rulers. "The true perfect terri- much more open than that of the in ways that ancient racism could not, tory," writes Vitruvius, a first-century Greeks. Manumission was a normal and but this distinction should not obscure B.C.E. author, "is that which is occupied widespread practice, and the large freed- their more fundamental similarities. Bio- by the Roman people. In fact, the races man class of former slaves contributed logical determinism characterizes mod- of Italy are the most perfectly constitut- vigorously to Roman society. Citizenship ern racism and grounds it in "science" ed in both respects, in bodily form and in in Greek city-states had been closed, in precisely the same way that environ- mental activity, to correspond to their commonly restricted to offspring whose mental determinism characterizes and valor Hence it was the Divine Intelli- parents were both citizens. Rome grant- grounds the racist theories of antiquity. gence that set the city of Rome in a peer- ed citizenship generously: by 212 C.E., In subordinating the individual to the less and temperate country, in order that it had universally enfranchised the free collective ("race"), ancient racism and it might... command the whole world." population of the empire. Coping with modern racism both ignore the ways in Roman imperialism was both like their own success, imperial Romans fret- which individuality, personal characteris- and unlike Hellenistic imperialism. Ro- ted about the dangers of foreign influ- tics, and free will shape human experi- man intellectuals adopted and adapted ence; the moral hazards of immigration; ence and, thus, humanity. much of Greek ethnographic "science," the communicable corruptions of intrin- Herein lies the telling distinction expanding the theory to account for and sically inferior outsiders passing, wheth- between ethnic prejudice and racism. describe the exotic others whom they er through the army or through pliant Contemporary anti-immigration move- now encountered on their northern and civilians, into their own culture, compro- ments, for example, often demand that western frontiers: Celts, Gauls, Britons, mising their much-loved Romanitas. immigrant minorities conform to the various Germanic tribes. Insecure about They articulated these fears and preju- cultural and social values of the host their own culture (they were indebted, dices by drawing deeply on the xenopho- country. Ethnic prejudice thus does not and they knew it, to the richer culture of bic legacy of Greek proto-racist theoriz- deny the possibility of change, whether the Greeks), they insisted on their own ing. And yet they produced one of the at the individual or the collective level. excellence in the virtues that they val- most open and international societies Racism does. But "race" in the sense ued: virility, moral and physical disci- that the West has known. that racists employ the concept—a pop- pline, patriotism. ulation invariably displaying intrinsic Yet Romans also inherited the LASSICISTS AND ANCIENT and unchanging social, cultural, psycho- Greeks' fear of influence. Their anxieties historians have long debated logical, and physical characteristics — were fanned by their own greater success. among themselves whether does not exist. As Isaac urges, quoting The Pax Romana, together with the su- Greek and Roman societies the Belgian social scientist Jean Hier- perlative engineering of an empire-wide Cwere "racist." They have concluded that naux, "Race is not a fact, but a concept." system of highways, required and en- these societies were unquestionably giv- This concept of race from the classi- abled the army's greater mobility and en- en to xenophobia. Ethnic and cultural cal past was preserved in literature wide- couraged increased interior migration. prejudice doubtless existed. But Greeks ly read by European intellectuals ever Romans worried about their armies' and Romans, in academic estimation, since the Renaissance. "If it is accepted weakening through contact with the very were innocent of a concept that could that the Athenians inspired Western outsiders whom they had defeated. And reasonably be identified as "racism." civilization with their democracy," Isaac they worried particularly about the "pu- Benjamin Isaac now seems to have asks, "can it be denied that they were rity" of Rome, with so many foreign resi- settled this question against the previous instrumental in conveying the idea of dents polluting the capital and its citizens, consensus. He has done so by scrupu- racism?" Enlightenment figures thought alienating presiding Roman deities by lously canvassing some eight centuries' deeply with antiquity's racist theories, to dragging along their suspect customs and worth of ancient evidence, and by ana- which they added their own preoccupa- strange gods. From time to time, the Sen- lyzing a huge swath of academic opinion tion with skin color. Thus Buffon theo- ate acted on these anxieties and issued in at least a half-dozen modern lan- rized that black men (that is, Africans) directives temporarily driving such sus- guages. But in his quest to define his his- were a degenerate form of white men, pect foreigners (Egyptians, astrologers, torical question with precision, Isaac has grown progressively darker through pro- Jews) out of Rome. This fear of alienating also surveyed and evaluated the various longed exposure to extremes of heat and heaven ultimately led to the significant definitions of racism proffered by the sun. He further opined that countries anomaly of persecution, the attempt to modern fields of sociology, anthropology, lying in a temperate zone—in Europe, coerce other Romans to worship only the psychoanalysis, Darwin studies, law, and say—produced the most beautiful peo- gods that were native to them. biological science. With compelling intel- ple. Hume asserted that "Negroes, and lectual and moral lucidity, he considers in general all other species of men ... the phenomenon of racism itself: the are naturally inferior to whites." Voltaire ways that it rests on "science," the ways repudiated the idea that climate caused Class Action that it posits the heritability of acquired skin color as unscientific: "Negro men Give The New Republic characteristics, the ways that it reduces and Negro women, transported to the to your favorite student. the individual to the definitions of an coldest countries," he observed, "still SubscrJbeatwww.tnr.com/gift imagined collective. produce there animals [sic] of their These are the points of principle com- own species." He concluded that blacks mon to both ancient and modern racist must have sprung from different original theory. True, modern racism relies upon ancestors. THE NEW REPUBLIC • MARCH 21, 2005

The great Kant coordinated all these cataloguing protocols to the 1996 Miche- and so demanding of individual decision different observations by combining the hn Guides to Venice ("The Venetian is that it makes Hemingway in Paris only a theory of climate-caused skin color with bom with a positive attitude toward life few years earlier seem like the last sea- the idea of inherited characteristics: once that is maintained by an imperturbable son of the Grand Tour where Europe sat heat had caused skin to blacken and nature") and to Scandinavia (where it still to have its picture taken. the condition was communicated across seems that native Scandinavians are born "Fixed" was, for Isherwood, a new generations, it was irreversible, fixed "by with national pride). The patterns of usage: it is the photo-chemical process nature." Climate also affected tempera- racist thought pop up everywhere, even used to stabilize an image in the dark- ment and intelligence, Kant held, which when the enterprise at hand is self- room. That could make you think that is why blacks were by nature also intel- consciously anti-racist. Isaac's wit light- "fixing" is somehow geared to correct- lectually deficient. ("So fundamental is ens a very oppressive realization: our cul- ness, or finding the one and only right the difference between these two races ture seems powerfully drawn to thinking print—as in, "Well, I've fixed your pa- of man, that it appears to be as great in these racist terms. pers, Mr. Lime." But, as any photogra- in regard to mental capacities as in That this is so, as Isaac has powerfully pher knows, the fix is optional, and cre- color.") And unlike the more generous argued, is testimony to the foundational ative in its degree and its timing. The fix Buffon, who was willing to regard all na- importance and powerful intellectual locks a picture in, but only at the photo- tives of temperate climes as most beau- legacy of Greece and Rome. Ancient emotional level that the photographer tiful, Kant's aesthetics demanded more Greeks and Romans have bequeathed wants. The fix is atmosphere: the day can precision: "The tallest and most beauti- us not only their ideas of freedom, art, be bright or noir. It is your choice. ful people on dry land are on the para- philosophy, and much else that we value, Here is an example of how lsher- llel and the degrees which run through but also, he concludes, "some of the ele- Germany." wood's fixcoul d be ambiguous. When he mentary concepts of discrimination and came back from Berlin in 1933, he had With dry humor and a keen eye, Isaac inequality that are still with us." To be the notion of turning his diaries and his traces this march of folly through the able to identify these sinister concepts memories into a "huge tightly construct- racist theorists of the nineteenth century clearly is to give us some critical pur- ed melodramatic novel in the manner to the fantasies of eugenics, througii chase on them, and thus some crucial dis- of Balzac." He wanted to find room for modern anti-discrimination laws that tance from them. In this hope, and for all the wayward, doomed, stray, and seek to protect groups of people from this reason, anyone concerned with shadowy people he met in Berlin, and race crimes by defining them as racial racism, and more generally with the he thought of calling the novel Die Ver- groups to the highways and byways of moral complexity of our civilization, will lorenen, or The Lost. But he changed UNESCO documents, through the Li- be profoundly educated by Isaac's mag- his mind (and the title remained avail- brary of Congress's horrifically muddled isterial and ethically lucid study. • able for the somber little-known movie that Peter Lorre directed in the 1950s). Yet Isherwood's people—Sally Bowles, Mr. Norris, the boys, and even Herr David Thomson Issyvoo—why, they are not lost, they are indelibly inscribed (I nearly said fixed) in our view of Beriin on the brink of Hitler. It's a lurch or two, I admit, from The Observer as Hero Jean Ross (the original and unsuccess- ful Sally) to Julie Harris in lAm a Cam- era (1955) or Liza Minnelli in Cabaret ISHERWOOD: A LIFE REVEALED of repair or restoration. But there is an- (1972). Christopher Isherwood is now By Peter Parker other way of "fixing" things, and it goes forever linked to the insouciance of (Random House, 8i;pp., $39.9;) like this: "Life is a cabaret, old chum." But if Sally Bowles had been that good, he once re- m "^ IX" IS A WORD FOR OUR I am a camera with its shutter open, marked, she would have been a star. • . time, blunt and secretive, quite passive, recording, not thinking. B~^ yet promising transforma- Recording the man shaving at the F SALLY BOWLES'S BERLIN IS THE • tion. If the "fix" is in, don't window opposite and the woman in modern, swift-bite take on Isher- -IL. we all suffer because of it? the kimono washing her hair. Some wood, then the fixingda y has come When the World Series of 1919 was day, all this will have to be developed, with Peter Parker's immense and "fixed," the game needed Babe Ruth in carefully printed, fixed. Imagnificent biography. Some of Isher- order to recover. But if we have a bad wood's admirers will be put off by its knee or a car that won't start, it is a mercy Those first four words are as famous title. After all, Isherwood has hardly if someone says they can "fix" it for us. as they are tendentious (a camera suffered from neglect, and a great part That treatment—we hope—doesn't in- doesn't know a kimono from a kiss). of his often tricky mix of art and self- volve a cheating fix. It must be a true case They are Christopher Isherwood in promotion was to make his life the Berlin in the years from 1929 to 1933, be- essential material for his casually nar- David Thomson's new book, THE WHOLE tween demoralization and Nazification, cissistic project. Well in advance of EQUATION: A HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD, boys for sale and the Hitler Youth. That Norman Mailer and Advertisements for has just been published by Knopf moment is still so modern, so dangerous. Myself, he was in the habit of keeping