New Criterion articles from May 2005

New Criterion archives from May 2005

The virtues of a Cambridge history.(Notes & Comments: May 2005)(Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Where are the Greens when you need them? You know: those environmentally sensitive folks who hammer metal spikes into trees in order (so they say) to protect our arboreal friends from the depredations of evil loggers. Never mind that said...

"Une puissance musulmane"?(Notes & Comments: May 2005)
May 1, 2005... The novelist, historian, and essayist David Pryce-Jones does not make it into The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature, but he does make it into the current issue of The New Criterion with a charming review of Sybille...

Unheralded genius?(Notes & Comments: May 2005)(Andrea Dworkin)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
May 1, 2005... We were prepared to let the untimely death of the radical feminist Andrea Dworkin last month at fifty-eighty pass without comment. It is not that we subscribe to the admonition that de mortuis nil nisi bonum--we don't--but rather that we felt...

Retaking the university: a battle plan.
May 1, 2005... After the Vietnam War, a lot of us didn't just crawl back into our literary cubicles; we stepped into academic positions. With the war over, our visibility was lost, and it seemed for a while--to the unobservant--that we had disappeared. Now we...

Who needs "a new history of German literature"?(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Who needs A New History of German Literature? (1) What is wrong with the old ones? Quite a lot, actually. The most famous, Wilhelm Scherer's Geschichte der Deutschen Literatur, was inspired by the noble conviction that "poetry is a holy...

Patrick O'Brian's naval mastery.(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2005... The Royal Navy stumbled badly on the outbreak of war against America in 1812. In August, the USS Constitution sank the HMS Guerriere. In October, the USS United States captured the HMS Macedonian, and in December the Constitution sank the HMS...

Fiddle-faddle.(New poems)(Brief Article)(Poem)
May 1, 2005... there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle--Marianne Moore, "Poetry" Fiddle-faddle Well, all that fiddle perhaps. But not this sublime faddle, far more important than whatever "this ...

On the Feast of the Innocents.(New poems)(Brief Article)(Poem)
May 1, 2005... On the Feast of the Innocents Where were we ? In the Metro, somewhere under Paris. A chill new year, and the scruffily seraphic boy across the aisle was bored. All he had to play with was a pen, no paper, his...

Not-so-great New York 2005.(Art)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2005... Keeping up with contemporary art in New York is not for the faint-hearted, the squeamish, or the easily disappointed. It demands open-mindedness and the will to let hope triumph over experience. And it demands stamina, not only because of the...

Gallery chronicle.(Art)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2005... Dateline: Paris, February 25, 1830-- Eight hours to curtain. Alexandre Dumas, Hector Berlioz, and other Romantics have gathered at the Theatre Francais. Theophile Gautier, with leonine mane, rolls up wearing a red waistcoat and lime green...

Marketplace morality.(The media)
May 1, 2005... A generation ago, before John Paul II was pope, even those who were in favor of ecclesiastical innovation might have been shocked at the idea of applause in church. Yet when the Papal Nuncio to Washington gave the homily at the Pope's funeral...

Ignorant armies clash by night.(Fiction chronicle)(Never Let Me Go)(A Changed Man)(American Purgatorio)(Saturday)(Winslow in Love)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... I have never felt that I have an obligation (professional or personal) to conceal the endings of books from people. I've always suspected that anyone who hasn't figured out where the book is headed after 300 pages of warm-up probably isn't...

The jewel in the cobra's mouth.(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2005... In 1843, Sir Charles Napier conquered Sind: and a year later Punch carried a cartoon of the victorious general with the caption "Peccavi," that is, "I have sinned" The Latin pun is often attributed to Napier and could have been his, given his...

Ambiguous type.(William Empson, Volume I: Among the Mandarins)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Ambiguous type John Haffenden William Empson, Volume I: Among the Mandarins. Oxford University Press, 695 pages, $45 After working on this biography for twenty years, John Haffenden probably knows more about William Empson than Empson...

Infinitely abysmal.(Tales)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Infinitely abysmal H. P. Lovecraft Tales. Library of America, 850 pages, $35 The appearance of a volume of Tales by the pulp fantasy author H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) in the Library of America has been met with unpredictable...

Reticent achievement.(Quicksands: A Memoir)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Reticent achievement Sybille Bedford Quicksands: A Memoir. Counterpoint, 224 pages, $24.95 "Yes, I hung on" says Sybille Bedford early in this memoir. And so she has. In her mid-nineties now, she sees herself as a survivor, an...

On the waterfront.(Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... On the waterfront Phillip Lopate Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan. Crown, 432 pages, $25.95 There is a genre of writing that can be called "On the Road" literature. It often attempts to portray the enigmatic ordinary of...

Boy George.(George Sand)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Boy George Elizabeth Harlan George Sand. Yale University Press, 384 pages, $35 Even in her day, George Sand's great literary renown was eclipsed by her public personae. These were several and occasionally contradictory. Depending on...

A long and happy life.(V. S. Pritchett: A Working Life)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... A long and happy life Jeremy Treglown V. S. Pritchett: A Working Life. Random House, 322 pages, $25.95 The subtitle of Jeremy Treglown's brief and near-perfect biography V S. Pritchett: A Working Life is deliciously pointed. In the...

Miss Pym disposes.(No Soft Incense: Barbara Pyre and the Church)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Miss Pym disposes Barbara Pym No Soft Incense: Barbara Pyre and the Church, edited by Hazel K. Bell. Barbara Pyre Society, 115 pages, 7.50 [pounds sterling] Although No Soft Incense, the title of this collection of essays put together...

The royal sea.(Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The royal sea N. A. M. Rodger Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815. W. W. Norton, 976 pages, $45 Academic scholarship often treats maritime history as a narrow subfield of military history, but several recent...

The elfin mind.(Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... The elfin mind Jens Andersen Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life, translated by Tiina Nunnally. Overlook Hardcover, 608 pages, $35 "It matters nothing if one is born in a duck-yard, if one has only lain in a swan's egg." Anybody who...

Shorter notice.(Christopher Wilmarth: Light & Gravity)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Shorter notice Steven Henry Madoff Christopher Wilmarth: Light & Gravity. Princeton, 184 pages, $49.95 Christopher Wilmarth tells a tragic story of American art--the story of an artist who held his own against aesthetic inhumanities...

An imaginary "scandal".(Notebook)
May 1, 2005... If a prisoner walks into my consulting room in the prison with a stick, he's a sex offender; if he has gold front teeth, he's a drug dealer; and if he's reading Wittgenstein, he's in for fraud: for it is virtually a law of our penal...