Reviews and News:
Tim Parks on the pitfalls of the politically engaged writer: “Does someone want to silence us? Are we at war? Nothing is more exhilarating for a writer than to feel that simply putting pen to paper is an act of courage and a bid for freedom… And nothing is more galvanizing for readers than to feel that they are collaborators in this bookish heroism, that reading itself is a revolutionary act.”
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The French presidential elections are approaching, with Marine Le Pen’s National Front in a surprisingly strong position. What better time to revisit the life and times of the original French nationalist, Cardinal Richelieu? James P. Pinkerton in The American Conservative: “Richelieu might be best known to Americans as the scheming villain in Alexandre Dumas’ swashbuckling historical novel of 17th-century France, The Three Musketeers, which has been made into a movie at least two dozen times. Of course, to be a proper villain, one must have power. Richelieu had plenty of power, and he used it to change France. And so even if Dumas chose to depict Richelieu as a villain, many in France think of him as a hero.”
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Why is rap getting religious?
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The story of “Colonel” Alexander Gardner, “one of the most enigmatic adventurers of the 19th-century Great Game in Central Asia.”
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Anthony Burgess’s prolific talent: “One of the difficulties in making a fair assessment of Burgess is his enormous output across many genres. He published about 60 books, including novels, biography, autobiography (the two volumes Little Wilson and Big God and You’ve Had Your Time are hugely entertaining), translations of opera libretti, original libretti for musicals, an epic poem, literary criticism, music criticism, plays, studies of linguistics, coffee-table works, tales for children, polemics against censorship and a collection of sonnets…But Burgess was not merely an unremitting slogger; he was also a prodigy of imagination and inventiveness. There are some duds in there, for sure, but on top form he was incomparable.”
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John Simon reviews Tracy Tynan’s Wear and Tear: “A good many books are interesting, but far fewer are charming. That, however, is what Wear and Tear is.”
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A history of dogs in India: The Nawab of Junagadh, Mohbet Khan Rasul Khan owned 150 dogs “including bull terriers and Border collies with a separate kennel and caretaker for each dog. There was a veterinarian, an Englishman, to take care of them. When the nawab wanted to see any one of the dogs, it was brought to him in a palanquin.”
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Michael Kahn to leave Washington’s Shakespeare Theatre Company at the end of the 2018-19 season.
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Essay of the Day:
The power of political parties in America is at an all-time low. That’s a bad thing, Stephen Eide argues in City Journal:
“Donald Trump’s surprise election win dramatizes how weak the party system in the United States has become. Over the course of the twentieth century, the Republican and Democratic Parties gradually lost control over the electoral process that they once dominated. Though party affiliation still runs fairly strong among voters, party organizations are much weaker than they used to be, especially with respect to presidential campaigns. Party leaders once selected candidates and promoted them to the electorate; now, the candidates themselves, independent groups, and the media largely handle these functions, with party organizations playing only a supporting role.
“The decline of the party system offers one of the most potent examples of the unintended consequences of good-government reforms. Starting in the early twentieth century, Progressive reformers weakened parties in an attempt to make American politics more democratic. The result has been a weaker democracy overall.”
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Photo: Aurland Lookout
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Poem: Alfred Nicol, “Addendum”
