Media & Journalism – Page 3

Small town truths

Be it in the ports and industrial centers of Britain or those of continental Europe, or whether just another small town, like that of Angoulême in south-west France, of which Emma Rothschild tells of in this aeon article, the tentacles of the slave trade and the societies that subsisted from its labors and the wealth accrued through its brutality and the denial of human dignity, stretch across oceans and continents and are indelibly entwined throughout much of modern history; from out of the so-called Age of Discovery, through the years of “revolution” and “enlightenment” and beyond.

Slavery; certainly, long (or belatedly) recognized by most as a monumental moral failing, but too often regarded as an unfortunate consequence of the human quest for improvement and expansion – a weak defense of colonialism and tainted by theories of race and white superiority. Only in the most recent of times, have the complicated threads of slavery come to the forefront of research and public discourse, and as being more than just a factor, but a defining factor, in the course of the Modern era, and one still having a profound (and detrimental) effect on societies around the world. A history revolving around the once accepted narratives of great men and great events has been, if not superseded, greatly complemented by this shifting focus. If telling the story of slavery is long overdue, it is also an important consequence that in doing so other influencing strands in the historical narrative have gained traction – of families, of women and children, about work and play; in other words, the stories of ordinary people who lived and died, who made good choices and bad, and were never just the set decorations to the epochs adorned with the jewels of State – monarchs, politics and church.

Emma Rothschild’s essay compliments her latest book, An Infinite History, in which she explores the extended family of her subject over many generations, bringing to the fore, amongst other things, a complicity in slavery – to be read as a microcosm of that of a greater society, and the responsibilities that follow out of that. As she explains it:

[…] An Infinite History is a micro-history, in the sense that it starts with an individual, and it is also a medium-scale and even a macro-history, in the sense that it moves outwards from the individual, by the relationship of contiguity, to her immediate family, to her acquaintances and neighbours, in the social space of Angoulême, and to her posterity over time. It has turned out, along the way, to be a history of what individuals knew about far-off slavery, and of what it meant in their lives.
Slavery en famille, aeon, 1 October 2021

Emma Rothschild’s book, An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France over Three Centuries is published by Princeton Press, and there is more information on their website, including a Q. and A. with the author, and another short essay on the “hidden economic lives of women”; also a concern Rothschild develops in her book. I should say, the book has its own website with a number of interesting resources; for example, a family tree and maps.

Below embedded is a short taster about the book – a project, really, on a particular way of telling history – on SOUNDCLOUD.

“An Infinite History” by Emma Rothschild, Princeton University Press, 2021.

Everything – or nothing – to lose

With Berlin’s International Literature Festival, another cultural event made tentative steps back to normality last month. I read with great interest Leïla Slimani’s opening speech in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and fortunately it has made its way into the wide world with an English translation in pdf format available here. Also, I suppose in the interest of the “International …” bit, Slimani delivers her address in English so I have embedded the YouTube video (54:00) below. (I have to say, with opening passages that invites her listeners to join her in a thought experiment, Slimini immediately outs herself as a Virginia Woolf acolyte; for such is a technique not dissimilar to that which Woolf often used in her speeches (including those that were to form the basis of “A Room of One’s Own”). Sure enough Woolf is quickly catapulted to center stage; the direct quotes come from a wonderful 931 essay called “Professions for Women” – to be read here, and found in many anthologies of her work.)

Opening 21st International Literature Festival, Berlin, September 2021

A star of the literary scene in Europe and beyond, Leïla Slimani carefully constructs an argument that is concerned with some of the contemporary tendencies; ones that stifle constructive discourse and shy at the complexities of literature. Having encouraged us to (do a Virginia Woolf) and brutally kill off the angels within; she reminds us of the fates of the famous, the notorious, the literary heroines of yore; how little girls are molded to fit an ideal and come of age conditioned to please and in fear of transgression; how our voices are so often curtailed or silenced. And it is here, and with her own experiences, she connects with the fashionable preoccupation of renegotiating the past, of speaking at one’s own peril! For, she maintains, we must speak up, and without trepidation, without fear of reprisal (yes, of being cancelled.) Writers and artists (but we all really) must have the freedom to break down walls and resist categorizations and assumptions – and this can only be achieved when we are in command of our voice. There is more, so whether watched or read or both, Ms. Slimani’s words are well worthy of our time and thought.

Having now done so, and following the recent talk surrounding Slimani’s new book, In the Country of Others, the first of a trilogy and this one set mostly in post-World War II Morocco, and with very much familial biographical elements, I surprise myself by the realization that I have not read any of her work (slender though it is; to date only three novels) – even successfully “not reading” Lullaby (The Perfect Nanny in the US) her controversial, prize-winning and best-selling novel of a children-murdering nanny (well, that’s the short version, presumably there is much more to it than that). Why I deemed this a success on my part I couldn’t say. Subject matter? Aversion to hype? The first would imply an over-sensitivity that I would be quick to deny; the second, an affliction that I have often overcome. Whatever the reason, its status suggested it as an appropriate literary starter. But alas, at least here in Germany, it remains so popular that I must wait my turn at the local library.

However, the German translation of her 2015 first novel Dans le jardin de l’ogres, which was published outside France in 2019 after the success of Lullaby, was available. All das zu verlieren, meaning literally in English “everything to lose” and which was published as Adèle in English, was certainly a difficult introduction to this lauded writer. Normally, perhaps, I would have read the dust-jacket blurb and thought: well, rather not. (I swear I am of an age where I struggle with contemporary twenty-somethings or thirty-somethings with husbands or wives and/or lovers, kids, parents – none of whom understand them – doing what they sincerely believe to be radical!) What could this Adèle, for that is the thirty-something (with husband and child, et cetera) subject’s name, have to say to me?

The Great Wave

In the digital magazine, Aeon (very accessible and very much to be recommended) “Great Art Explained” series: the famous Hokusai work, The Great Wave off Kanagawa (circa. 1830) in a short video (also on YouTube and embedded below) explained.

And, exceedingly well explained in my opinion; especially informative is the greater look at the rigid class hierarchy of the Edo period from which ukiyo-e (simplistically put: the traditional Japanese wood block prints of the time) sprung, and evolved – from its folkloric, hedonistic beginnings to a broader range of subjects that, with Hokusai, would find inspiration in the landscape. Mount Fuji would replace the Kabuki actor as the star of the popular print.

The video, then, is not just about one work, nor one artist, but offers a glimpse at an art form rooted in the traditions – cultural and technical – of Japan but, with a nation’s opening up to the world after two centuries of self-imposed isolationism, that was to be influenced from without (for instance; away from the human form as prime subject, Prussian blue ink, perspective techniques), and then, in turn, to make its own mark on movements elsewhere, especially on the impressionist and post-impressionist movements in 19th century western Europe. (This Wikipedia article on ‘Japonisme’ is informative in this respect.) Not dissimilar to the to and fro of waves – both great and small – falling upon shores – near and far- in a continual rhythmic exchange; dislocating silt and sand from one place and depositing it in the next.

This latter observation reminded me of a – to then be sought out again – stunning interactive piece last year from Jason Farago, and still on the NYT website (for those with access). Linked to here and headed A Picture of Change for a World in Constant Motion, Farago investigates another Katsushika Hokusai print, “Ejiri in Suruga Province” from his renowned cycle “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.”. Without the iconic appeal of “The Great Wave”, Farago does however excavate from this work an awful lot of stuff that feels contemporaneous, and connects our fast and furious times to the frenetic pace of life on the brink of modernity at the turn into the last century; in disparate regions of the world with cultural traditions in opposition only when considered under a purely chauvinistic gaze.

“Ejiri in Suruga Province” Katsushika Hokusai – Donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In this tenth print of the series, the wave metaphor has been blown away by the wind – the winds of change perhaps; more than fishing vessels on high seas threatened, their crews bowed, praying in unison, the mighty Mount Fuji made minute, this landscape, while treacherous still and with a winding path difficult to traverse, it is well-peopled by those taking their destiny in their own hands, doggedly facing down the head-winds.

And, if all that was not enough, the master is to feature in an upcoming exhibition at the British Museum; Hokusai: The Great Picture Book of Everything (30 September 2021 – 30 January 2022) – a recently acquired collection of small drawings, rarely before seen. The exhibition website is a wellspring of information, and includes an online look at the entire collection.

A progressively Black intelligentsia

As previously pondered, listening to The Ezra Klein Show every week has now become firmly entrenched in my personal well of information, and is as good a way as any to stay abreast of topical matters in US politics and society – and quirky and accessible it is for good measure. And, it is to Ezra’s podcast that I owe my introduction this year to some interesting new (to me) people. Though his guests cover the gamut of race, ethnicity and gender, they are mostly of a similar socioeconomic milieu (though not necessarily born into it); one which can be broadly defined as the professional urban class (academia, government, media, think tanks) and of liberal, left(-ish) persuasion, and mostly young (-ish), that is, in the middle of life and career (though he has pulled in a few golden oldies, like Sanders and Chomsky!). Reasoned, articulate voices from “the other side” are an exception, but when there, are also well chosen and not those seeking provocation for the sake of provocation.

One such typical guest last week was Eve Ewing. Beyond the very interesting conversation that flowed easily between her academic work as a sociologist, her literary endeavors as poet and author and her active commitment to justice and equality, I started thinking about her as a typical example of an evolving coterie of younger, opinionated – and Black – people that have joined the fray with a vengeance in the very recent times and come to my attention with their impressive array of talents. (May I say: highly educated, articulate, courteous, humorous, without being accused of intimating all these traits to be an exception? Probably not. I guess I will just have to accept assumptions made of me as I dare say I make of others – but not here! The question I pose and the answer I give are predictably defensive.) More than anything, I have been impressed by their fearlessness in harnessing their diverse talents to explore and experiment with different mediums, how steadfastly they resist being pigeon-holed, and how uncompromising they are on matters of principle. (I only now realize, for instance, the breadth of Ewing’s range, and how cleverly she blends her artistic interests with the larger societal imperatives that are important to her.)

For Eve Ewing, and an issue only mentioned in passing, that applies (amongst other things) to the policing system and its abuses. I read this forceful essay in Vanity Fair last year, in which Ewing makes her case in respect to police unions that operate (actually as their names often suggest) more as brotherhoods. She traces there a line from the enforcement of the Black Codes at the end of the Civil War through to a system of unionized labor such that solidarity across unions (especially in the public sector) meant that whether police unions were in fact of the same tradition was not questioned. This was an aspect that I had not taken into account when, like many others outside the US, and however sympathetic one may have been to the cause, I found myself aghast at the absolutism of “de-funding”, “getting rid of” and the like that evolved from Black Lives Matter and the outrage about the sanctioned murders from which that movement and others emerged. Though not one averse to the radical, I was skeptical of some of the activist’s demands and their prospect of ever being implemented. That may well still be so, but Ewing and others have convinced me that sometimes it is plain, stark language that is required to attract an audience; later, the most attentive among them will persevere and extricate the details to force a workable agenda.

To digress; a time for reflection: Who then will enforce laws? one such as I may well ask – and too hastily. Perhaps, a more valid question would be: What is to do when laws are inherently prejudicial and, it follows, applied with prejudice? Change the laws and rethink their enforcement, may well be an answer. For example, and this is hardly original: greater concentration and resources on fighting poverty, improving access to employment, education, health-care; better funded outreach into neighborhoods: schools, community and youth centers, churches; using trained interventionists instead of armed police to mediate low-level conflicts (arising through drug or alcohol abuse, civil or domestic altercations, mental health issues). I understand the “de-funding argument” (which has got the most attention) have ideas like these in mind – in other words, redirecting some of (or a lot of!) the funding given to police departments into other areas and into the improvement of (less confrontational) institutions. That is not abolishing the police, but it is at least diversifying enforcement agency and exposing the system to greater scrutiny. Then there is the problem of electing lawmakers who support a different approach to law enforcement; here there must be an acceptance by the greater society – by voters – of the inadequacies and plain wrongfulness of a judicial system too beholden to historical precedent. A year after the murder of George Floyd and the conviction of his killer, is there is an indication of some move in that direction? I don’t know.

Eve Ewing first came to my attention with her poetic contribution to the NY Times acclaimed (and to some controversial) 1619 Project and later (I think) her involvement with a boycott of The Poetry Foundation, but the tone of the conversation with Ezra was more “street” – more community, sociologically steeped. Ewing’s comments, based on her research and writing, specifically in terms of a school closure debate in her home town of Chicago, and how public schooling access are conditional to the neighbourhood in which one lives, were really thought provoking. And, just her fundamental concern that public schools should even be “categorised” (or, it follows, “stigmacized”), I share so much. A question I have often asked is: Why are there bad schools anyway? Bad schools should not exist! Wealthy countries (forget about variations in the subsets thereof) must be able to figure this! One would think.

le 14 juillet

That is today. La fête nationale française. The 14^th of July, or Bastille Day as I have always called it.

Coming just after the 15o^th anniversary of the birth of Marcel Proust , on 10^th July, 1871, I use this proximity and this day to rekindle a too long dormant fascination with the great French writer. See it as my own personal gesture of admiration for La Grande Nation (as the Germans call it – and not always with affection!).

In the arts pages of a German newspaper last week (FAZ); a collection of snippets from those who have, at some time or other, turned to Proust – and, with various degrees of success. One, Louis Begley, succeeded as a young man where others failed, and later was enriched not only in a literary sense but also in that Proust led him to the love of his life. Begley took the opportunity to do a little promotion in this regard for his wife, Anka Muhlstein. In celebration of Proust’s anniversary, Penguin Random House have released a special paperback edition of her 2012 book Monsieur Proust’s Library which explores the literary influences of one who was to on and so profoundly influence other writers, and up to this day. The synopsis on the publisher’s website insinuates this to be a light – and encouraging – read, for those who persist in their struggle.

My copy of the Penguin Classics six volume edition of “In Search of Lost Time”

And I am in need of some encouragement, for as you may have guessed, as Begley succeeded so have I failed. It is to be clearly discerned from the condition of the spines of the paperback volumes of In Search of Lost Time (or perhaps I should use the French title À la Recherche du temps perdu; as I remember even the translation of the title is forever a matter of heated debate) standing on my bookshelf that, generously speaking, I made it half way through – though I am relatively sure I didn’t make it to the end of The Guermantes Way. When? Twenty years ago? Is that possible? What precisely happened I don’t know; distracted, presumably put to one side, then packed away – as life, and my place in it, moved on.

Also, a few days ago I caught a very nice discussion on the Times Literary Supplement’s weekly podcast (always informative listening) with Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Exeter and Proust expert, Adam Watt. Embedded below, and to be found about 4 minutes in or, in Spotify reckoning, at approximately -48:00.

The TLS Podcast – July 7th, 2021.

Watt’s essay for the TLS July 9, 2021, issue, can be found here. Take note, though; access is only granted to a very limited amount of articles in any one month, so good luck!

Now, then, Monsieur Proust, you have my attention! At least, I have taken you again to hand or, to be precise, the first volume of your monumental work, which, in this translation by Lydia Davis, is titled The Way by Swann’s as opposed to Swann’s Way; also a matter of contention. (Whilst all under the aegis of Christopher Prendergast, each volume has a different translator.) On Lydia Davis. I must say, after reading some terrific flash fiction stuff by the so named a few years ago, I had to check whether this was in fact the same person whose name I remembered from the Proust translation. And indeed it was. A New Yorker profile in 2014 explained the French connection and much more (including an American literary first marriage of the highest order – of which I was probably one of the few to be ignorant of).

As an aside, some words of encouragement: a way once lost remains to be found!

Let the search begin, one may be tempted to say; if it wasn’t for that complicated pas de deux of Being and Time – that illusive intangible that constrains and dictates; that essence which he and his accomplice – that other with the name Marcel just as he, and much more than a reflection of each self – sought with word to tame; to make palpable; just like the most famous little cake of all time – soaked in tea, not once but three times, melting into involuntary memory.

Parrots or people

As said in the previous post, legendary amongst many, is the Monty Python “parrot” sketch” (sometimes called “The Pet Shop”); this I have always understood to be a parody of the linguistic flights of fancy [sic!] we have taken (at least in the Anglophone world) to avoid speaking plainly on the subject of death. I must admit to being fundamental in this regard, and even the oft used “pass” and its derivatives (-away, -on, -over), though inoffensive, irritate me madly.

When all’s said and done we share the same fate. So, say it out loud, that what needs to be said: be it parrots or people, let dead be dead. Or is it: “bleedin’ demised”?

Introducing John Cleese and Michael Palin and a stuffed “Norwegian Blue” in “The Parrot Sketch”!

Janet Malcolm

There are names in journalism that everyone knows – Janet Malcolm, who died on June 16 in New York City at 86 years of age, is one such. During her almost sixty years at The New Yorker, she wrote a multitude of pieces over an extraordinary range; some I have read but most I of course I have not – being (funnily enough!) once too young, and later, before the digital revolution, while the said esteemed publication came my way only sporadically.

Interesting, are the controversies commented on in The New York Times obituary – serving to remind of just how radically the print media and journalism has changed in the last decades – how trite Malcolm’s transgressions now appear and how prescient her ideas about what good journalism is and what it could and could not do.

Also, in the NYT obit, and as one forever on the watch for lurking wolves – hunting in pack for easy prey, with family in tow or home in the den – I note with delight the link to her great 1995 essay in The New Yorker; entitled “A House of One’s Own” and inspired by the Stephen/Woolf/Bell family house-hopping, correspondence and biographical works, including Quentin Bell’s famous Woolf biography, and culminating with conversations with Quentin and Anne Olivier Bell during a visit of her own to Vanessa’s Charleston home. Malcolm brilliantly explores the Stephen sisters’ coming of age and complicated relationship; with others and with each other and brings Vanessa out of the shadow of her more famous sister. She surprises with details of the familial animosities and inconsistencies that the protagonists left in their wake for the next generation to grapple with. But, in considering Angelica Bell’s bitter recriminations, what Malcolm also does in this essay is articulate her own personal theory of biography; one in which choices have to be made, circumstances rarely prevail and moral certitude anything but.

In what I have written, […]I have, like every other biographer, conveniently forgotten that I am not writing a novel, and that it really isn’t for me to say who is good and who is bad, who is noble and who is faintly ridiculous. Life is infinitely less orderly and more bafflingly ambiguous than any novel, […]and if we pause to remember that [they] were actual, multidimensional individuals, whose parents loved them and whose lives were of inestimable preciousness to themselves, we have to face the problem that every biographer faces and none can solve; namely, that he is standing in quicksand as he writes. There is no floor under his enterprise, no basis for moral certainty. Every character in a biography contains within himself or herself the potential for a reverse image. The finding of a new cache of letters, the stepping forward of a new witness, the coming into fashion of a new ideology—all these events, and particularly the last one, can destabilize any biographical configuration, overturn any biographical consensus, transform any good character into a bad one, and vice versa. […] Another biographer might have made—as a subsequent biographer may well make—a different choice. The distinguished dead are clay in the hands of writers, and chance determines the shapes that their actions and characters assume in the books written about them.
Janet Malcolm in The New Yorker A Critic at Large – June 5, 1995 Issue

Finally, The New York Review of Books, to whom Janet Malcolm also often contributed over very many years, kindly provide a peep into their archives (probably for a limited time) to celebrate a great journalist’s life. From their mail of June 17, 2021:

Free from the Archives:

Janet Malcolm, a longtime contributor to The New York Review, died yesterday at the age of eighty-six. Between 1981 and 2020, Malcolm published thirty-eight pieces in our pages, including the essay below, part of her career-long meditation on the hazards of writing about other people. “Almost from the start,” she writes, “I was struck by the unhealthiness of the journalist-subject relationship, and every piece I wrote only deepened my consciousness of the canker that lies at the heart of the rose of journalism.”

The Morality of Journalism
There is no such thing as a work of pure factuality, any more than there is one of pure fictitiousness. As every work of fiction draws on life, so every work of nonfiction draws on art.

25 June 2021: There have been numerous tributes to Janet Malcolm in the last days, but I would just like to mention one last one; an antipodean perspective that unites her with another that I have long, long, admired. Should one have read any of Helen Garner’s non-fiction works, it would surely not surprise that she would have been influenced by Malcolm, in style, in sensibility and in methodology. (It also should be said, both writers shared a talent for attracting controversy, and not shying from it, and that Malcolm was not uncritical of Garner on a book and its repercussions that received intense scrutiny in the Australian literary scene and beyond, and that this appears not to have affected Garner’s admiration.) Here in a Guardian tribute adapted from her introduction to the Australian publication of an essay collection entitled “Forty-One False Starts“, Garner says:

To open any one of her books at random is to find myself drawn back into that unmistakable sensibility, that unique tissue of mind, and to grasp how deeply I am indebted to her. […]
[…]I saw manifest [in her Plath biography,The Silent Woman] what I was at the time painfully trying to learn: the fact that beneath the thick layers of a writer’s self-censorship, of her fear of being boring or wrong, lies a whole humming, seething world waiting to be released. I learned from watching Malcolm in full flight that I could go much further than timidly nibbling at the edges of people’s peculiar behaviour. I saw that I could get a grip on it and dare to interpret it, to coax meaning from it. The tools were already in my possession. […] that in journalism, as well as in fiction, I could call upon the imagery, the spontaneous associations and the emblematic objects that I had learned to trust when I myself was groaning on the therapist’s couch.
Helen Garner on Janet Malcolm: ‘Her writing turns us into better readers’, The Guardian, June 24th 2021.

Another way of seeing

There are few works of contemporary fiction that have left their mark as profoundly as Colson Whitehead’s 2016 best-selling, prize-winning novel, The Underground Railroad. A magically realised narrative, a tour de force that takes the reader on an uncompromising journey amongst souls, alive and dead and and in the murky depths in-between; through their suffering and degradation; on a restless search for absolution for sins not committed and some dignified resolution, and to be granted sanctuary; a place to call their own, a place to rest without fear or sacrifice – even when it be the final.

In only three sittings I have brought to a conclusion Barry Jenkins’ brilliant adaptation of the novel. Presented as a ten part series on Amazon Prime, I would have to say that this is a format very well-suited for such an intellectually and viscerally powerful work, and I am not sure it could be easily pared down to feature film length. (I really wasn’t looking to sign up for another streaming service, but the chatter of late had become so intense and the temptation too great.)

Admittedly, some of the opening scenes are discomforting, even threaten to overwhelm with their brutality, but there is this one undeniable reality – the barbarity of slavery – that must be confronted before the layers are stripped back to lay bare the soul of the characters – in whatever world they inhabit and wherever their journeys may lead. The alert viewer will recognise early that Jenkins is operating on multiple planes of narrative filmmaking; not just that of a stark, unadulterated realism, but that which blends tangible human experience with the emotional response and psychological mechanisms without which those experiences could not possibly be endured – memories and dreams; as alive as the cotton boll, as the whip, as the next to be lynched, but holding the promise of a way to freedom.

Another outstanding aspect of the series is the haunting soundtrack from Nicholas Britell that accompanies most every frame; conjuring an extraordinary atmosphere of foreboding, of unrelenting disquietude, of an unresolved tension between the living and the dead. As a taster, a guest essay by Scott Woods – excellent read – in today’s New York Times led me to the following on Vimeo (fifty odd minutes, so give it time); Barry Jenkins visual homage to his extended cast is augmented by Britell’s musical composition. (And, here is a wonderful NYT Magazine piece on Britell, and a close up on his collaborative creative process with Jenkins. )

Starring a cast of many from Barry Jenkin’s “The Underground Railroad, and with score by Nicholas Britell

On the Vimeo site is an informal and insightful text written by Barry Jenkins; describing the circumstances under which the accompanying film evolved during the greater film-making process. An act of seeing, and with the black gaze, a tribute to his players and the histories of all their shared ancestors. A gesture of gratitude, of respect, of love.

[…]we have sought to give embodiment to the souls of our ancestors frozen in the tactful but inadequate descriptor “enslaved,” a phrase that speaks only to what was done to them, not to who they were nor what they did. My ancestors – midwives and blacksmiths, agrarians and healers; builders and spiritualists, yearn’ers and doers – seen here as embodied by this wonderful cast of principal and background actors, did so very much. […]
Barry Jenkins, Vimeo

Jenkins may well think that should he never make another film, he has left some work of substance in his stead – I read this the other day – and, of course, that is so, but after watching and thinking about The Underground Railroad, I await, and with confidence, the realisation of that which is yet to come.