THE SPINE MAY 16, 2010
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Twice in two years (once in 2007 and a second time in 2008), The New York Times puts its mantle of approval on Tariq Ramadan who almost everybody on the Upper West Side saw as an innocent victim of dictatorship because the Bush administration had barred him, under provisions of the Patriot Act, from entering the United States. After all, how could anything required by something called the Patriot Act be justified at all?
The esteem of the Times came to Ramadan first in a longish essay--which form its Sunday magazine has virtually given up using--on Ramadan by Ian Buruma who has, out of what one hesitates to speculate is a psychological compunction, tried to find common ground between Islamic jihad and liberalism. It would really be nice--wouldn't it?--if Muslim extremists could long sit in the same tent with members of the Harvard English department. Some of those professors actually think they could. But not a one of them has ever tried. (By the way, Damon Linker has published a respectful but devastating review of Buruma's recent book, Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents in "The Book," TNR's daily feature on its website.)
The second endorsement came by way of an also long essay, "Reading the Koran," this time by Ramadan himself. I've read for my sins the Koran myself, actually two and a half times. Of course, I also studied (and taught) the Communist Manifesto, and I suppose that some of my colleagues even saw in it a tract open to very soft interpretation. There are probably humane readings of Mein Kampf.
In any case, perhaps in contrition or to give belated "equal time," the Times has now twice in two weeks given what are truly rave and serious reviews to Paul Berman's intellectually exacting takedown of Ramadan, The Flight of the Intellectuals.
The first of these came from a deep thinking reviewer and a long-time former editor of the Times's own Book Review, Dwight Garner, writing in the daily paper. Garner especially admires Berman's critical agility, what Michael Foot once called in the old British left Labour weekly, Tribune, he edited an admixture of "sledgehammer and pickaxe." (Foot died two months ago at 96, was for a time leader of the Labour Party weekly and also wrote for TNR over several decades.)
Mr. Berman's book, portions of which first appeared in The New Republic, is a patient overturning of the rocks that, he argues, Mr. Buruma failed to look under. He writes about historical figures Mr. Ramadan professes to admire and notes the tiny degree of separation that link them to Hitler and the Nazis during World War II. He points out that Mr. Ramadan's ambiguous comments about things like 9/11, the stoning of women in Muslim countries against Jews. Mr. Berman detects a kind of seventh-century barbarism lurking behind Mr. Ramadan's genial smile.
And today there is the second weighty approval of Berman. It comes in a piece in the Times' Book Review by Anthony Julius, among the most sober and scintillating intellectuals I've ever encountered. (He has written for TNR and been reviewed in it.) Julius compares Berman to Julian Benda whose The Betrayal of the Intellectuals, a learned polemic written in 1927 and yet a standard for honesty right through
the fifties. (It was one of the first paperbacks that came into my hands.)
Here is Julius:
There is 'a dark smudge of ambiguity' that ' runs across everything (Ramadan) writes on the topic of terror and violence." In consequence, Ramadan cannot be trusted to know his own mind, and therefore cannot be trusted when he claims to speak it. Further, his language of accommodation, his project of defining a minority Islam at peace within liberal democracy, emerges as something phony, the more hard-line stance that he advocates from time to time more accurately reflecting his true views. This duplicity is now well documented. The French journalist Caroline Fourest has written a whole book one the subject, with a title that discloses its essential argument, "Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan." Berman contributes to this exposure of Ramadan ...
Then there is the whole question of anti-Semitism. Berman confronts it head-on. I know that most liberals and many Jewish liberals would prefer to avoid their eyes, saying that it is not anti-Semitism but admitting that the feelings may be anti-Zionist and certainly anti-Israel. Given the dreadful world in which we live and given the bloodlust in the Islamic orbit and in sub-Saharan Africa, it astounds that so much rage should be directed at the Jewish state. Yes, Israel engages in a sinewy defense, a very sinewy defense, perhaps even a too sinewy defense. But it does not even approach the ease in killing which every Arab society has as routine. The frenzy against Israel may be nothing more but is certainly nothing less than Judeophobia. This is a crime, a great crime against civilization. A crime in repeat.
Julius observes:
On the question of anti-Semitism, Berman writes about Ramadan's 'brief and angry' essay of 2003 in which he attacked group of intellectuals he designated as Jewish, criticizing them for forsaking their vocation as intellectuals in favor of support for Israel, and of Zionism ... Berman demonstrates that the criticism is bogus...Ramadan went looking for Jews and made mistakes--not all the named intellectuals were in fact Jewish ...'What is surprising,' remarked one of the intellectuals Ramadan attacked, 'is not that Mr. Ramadan is anti Semitic, but that he dares to proclaim it openly.'
Garner, you will recall, observed that Berman's latest book has its origins--as did his previous one, Terror and Liberalism--in the pages of The New Republic. So it is with some pride and a little bit of embarrassment that I want to tell my readers the author has dedicated this work to Leon Wieseltier and me. We take this as a great gift, as we take all of Paul's writings.
But I want to quote a few of his own words:
... your magazine has stood for a great unwavering principle. This is the principle of complexity. It is the recognition that some things cannot be understood at all if they are not explained in full. Most magazines simplify. Your magazine elaborates.
And thinking about complexity, Berman has a truly luminescent review-essay of Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth Century Skeptic. The book was written by the intellectual historian Michael Scammell, an elegant stylist besides. The "skeptic" in the title is Arthur Koestler who, though perhaps more than a bit mad, saw the essential truths of the twentieth century, mostly awful truths. He was the author of Darkness At Noon, a grim novel of the Stalin years before many people glimpsed how really grim things were. The essay, "The Prisoner Intellectuals" is in the current print edition of TNR and on our website now. I don't know how many words are there. But this is not an exercise in simplification.
26 comments
-- Berman has a truly luminescent review-essay of Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth Century Skeptic. Luminescent? Hardly. More like the flames from the bonfire of Berman's vanities. Nicholas Fraser has written a far better review for Harper's Magazine - one that doesn't strive for the mock heroics of Berman's review. http://harpers.org/archive/2010/04/0082905
- ndmackenzie
May 16, 2010 at 6:32pm
Speaking of heroics, take a look at this near-orgasmic portrait of Tariq Ramadan by one British so-called Journalist: "There he sits, all slight, toned physical perfection, all fastidious grooming, all glowing with non-drinking, non-smoking, body-is-a-temple spiritual health. He's passionate about applying Islamic standards at a personal level. It all sounds improbably high-minded and exacting, so it's a surprise to discover that Ramadan is a good companion - playful, warm, quick to laugh, and occasionally flirting on the outer fringes of self-deprecation (he contends that his religious devotion is largely about sublimating the ego, in something like the manner of a western 12-step programme)." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/tariq-ramadan--do-you-trust-this-man-439564.html
- noga1
May 16, 2010 at 7:08pm
Figures that MUCKEnzie would be the first to post and attack Paul Berman. Here is a partial resume of Paul Bermans' work: http://journalism.nyu.edu/faculty/berman.html "Paul Berman is a writer on politics and literature whose articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, the New Republic (where he is a contributing editor), the New Yorker, Slate, the Village Voice, Dissent, and various other American, European and Latin American journals. He has reported at length from Europe and Latin America. He has written or edited eight books, including, most recently, Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and Its Aftermath, with a new preface by Richard Holbrooke for the 2007 paperback edition; Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems, edited with an introduction, published in 2006 by the American Poets Project of the Library of America; and Terror and Liberalism, a New York Times best-seller in 2003. His writings have been translated into fifteen languages. Berman received a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Columbia University and has been awarded a MacArthur, a Guggenheim, the Bosch Berlin Prize, a fellowship at the New York Public Library’s Center for Writers & Scholars, and other honors." Other than call Jews zionazis what has MUC-Kenzie accomplished? LawrenceGulotta has also written a first rate post on Paul Berman: http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/the-prisoner-intellectuals
- jdyer
May 16, 2010 at 7:20pm
I read Julius Review of Berman's a few days and being familiar with his writing I am sure that the review was edited down by someone at the Times. I hope Julius will publish the complete review elsewhere.
- jdyer
May 16, 2010 at 7:35pm
Maybe the New York Times could get Jerusalem Bureau news chief Ethan Bronner to start reading the NYT Book Reviews, if not the actual books being reviewed. Not that the NYT editorial board can even be bothered to read their own business writers, the only news section that still has some journalistic integrity. (written as a NYT reader since 1969, but no longer buying the spin) ndmack is a student of Holocaust inversion techniques, a different kind of 12-step programme that avoids homo-erotic profiles in the UK Independent (thanks noga! that was sooo Oxbridge British). http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/warpedmirror/entry/in_praise_of_holocaust_inversion or maybe ndmack is the Scot now being sought by the "Dubai police announced Sunday they had identified another suspect in the assassination of Hamas arch-terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Army Radio reported. The suspect, a 62-year-old Scottish citizen who was apparently traveling on his own passport, was reportedly identified by the Dubai police from security camera footage. The Dubai police suspect the man is hiding out in Western Europe. ..." copied from news report in the Jerusalem Post. getting hard to keep up with antisemitism disguised as anti-zionism.
- K2K
May 16, 2010 at 7:37pm
Yes, K2K--I also noticed how turned on the writer was! It's hard to imagine someone remaining objective when aroused by such less-than-professional feelings. Here's the deal, ND: Harpers always has it in for Israel, so one would expect a nice bashing to on Berman's book. It would be news if it didn't. However, the New York Times has not always been friendly to Israel, which is why this particular review can be taken seriously. You, on the other hand, cannot.
- MOLLYSIMON
May 16, 2010 at 7:55pm
"homo-erotic " More like "auto-erotic". The writer is a woman and she probably imagined the flirtatiousness.
- noga1
May 16, 2010 at 8:10pm
-- Here's the deal, ND: Harpers always has it in for Israel, so one would expect a nice bashing to on Berman's book. It would be news if it didn't. The Harper's review is of Koestler's book.
- ndmackenzie
May 16, 2010 at 9:44pm
Harper's magazine especially under the editorship of the patrician Lewis H. Lapham has been extremely anti-Israel and tolerant of Islamic extremism. They have also been known to publish reviews which were nothing but thinly disguised attacks on the book’s author. I don’t know what they said about Berman (and I don’t care since I don’t take that magazine seriously—very few people do--- ) the link didn’t allow access to the review. Instead what you get is: “Use your disillusion: Arthur Koestler in the age of extremes By Nicholas Fraser Nicholas Fraser is a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine. His essay on J. G. Ballard appeared in the October 2009 issue. Sorry—the full text of this item is only available to Harper's Magazine subscribers. Subscribe today for as little as $16.97 per year!” Here is how Fraser is listed by Harper’s magazine: http://harpers.org/subjects/NicholasFraser You decide if he is qualified to judge the quality of Berman’s work. Btw: here is a short bio of Lapham: “A son of Lewis A. Lapham and his wife, the former Jane Foster, Lapham was born and grew up in San Francisco. His grandfather Roger Lapham was mayor of San Francisco, and his great grandfather Lewis P. Lapham was a founder of Texaco. He was educated at the Hotchkiss School, Yale University, where he joined the literary society St. Anthony Hall, and Magdalene College, Cambridge. In 1972, Lapham married Joan Brooke Reeves, the daughter of Edward J. Reeves, a stockbroker and grocery heir, and Elizabeth M. Brooke (formerly the wife of Thomas Wilton Phipps, a nephew of Nancy Astor). They have three children” I know he is no longer the editor but he is still a force in the magazine. Their reviews in general are usually substandard. The only interesting critic they have writing for them from time to time is Francine Prose.
- jdyer
May 16, 2010 at 11:46pm
Things the Harper's review tells us that TNRs review does not: -- During the account of his railway trips across Soviet Russia, he recalls his seduction and betrayal to the secret police of Nadeshda Smirnova, a beautiful young woman of upper-class origins whom he encountered on a train. Koestler’s description of the affair veers between boastfulness and self-hatred. “During my seven years in the Communist Party, the only person whom I denounced or betrayed was Nadeshda, and she was the person dearer to me than anybody during those seven years,” he concludes, rather unconvincingly. “It is no exaggeration when I say that I would have died for her readily and with a glow of joy.” But Koestler is honest enough to tell us that, whether she was murdered by Stalin’s goons or not, Nadeshda’s own parting gift to him was a bad case of gonorrhea. -- “I got you to allow me to make love with you by the usual old tricks and cunning,” he wrote to Mamaine Paget, an important conquest who would later become his wife. “Without an element of initial rape there is no delight.” -- After nearly fifty years of saying nothing, the filmmaker wife of a socialist politician told David Cesarani that Koestler had raped her following a Hampstead pub lunch. It was this encounter that led Cesarani to conclude that rape was “almost a hallmark of his conduct.” Scammell contends that Koestler’s alleged rapes were no more than what might be expected from a time in which male sexual aggression was more readily tolerated: “According to popular belief, it was a man’s prerogative to press his claims by all possible means and a woman’s duty to put up a show of resistance even if she was willing, so the line between consensual and forced sex was often blurred.” One can be sympathetic with Scammell’s efforts while not quite accepting his conclusions. Far from clearing Koestler, or making him more sympathetic, he contributes to a bleak portrait of a man who needed women but persistently maltreated them. (my emphasis) And this is Berman's hero of our time. Perhans he should stick to Lermontov.
- ndmackenzie
May 17, 2010 at 1:34am
It's obvious why mackenzie likes Harper's account better. It fits in much more neatly with his natural mind's inclinations. "Cesarani asks if I consider his attitude to the Craigie rape “moral prating.” Not exactly. I gave various examples of his prating in my review. But I do find his desire to assure readers of the NYR that he is far more outraged by the story than either Michael Scammell or me startlingly smug. His current jeering at Scammell, who had believed him to be working merely on Koestler and Zionism, strikes me as repellently self-congratulatory. I was a friend of Koestler’s, a longtime admirer, and a fellow writer. I don’t need a secret marital motive to spot a work falling into that category well described by John Updike—the biography designed to “reduce celebrities to a set of antics and ailments to which we can feel superior.” Cesarani quotes me numerous times in his book as a reliable witness to Koestler’s life; understandably, he doesn’t like it when I fail to return the compliment." http://www.zokster.net/drupal/node/4936 About David Cesarani: "In his teens, Cesarani, himself a Jew, went to work on a kibbutz and became a member of the Israeli peace movement. Of his experience at the time, he said: " "We were always told that the pile of rubble at the top of the hill was a Crusader castle. It was only much later that I discovered it was an Arab village that had been ruined in the Six-Day war." (Source: The Guardian, October 12, 2004) ." (wiki) It is a wonder to me how anyone who had graduated from elementary school could mistake the ruins of an Arab village for a crusader castle.
- noga1
May 17, 2010 at 6:50am
About 7 years ago Berman wrote an excellent article for the NY Times Magazine on Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual godfather of modern day Jihadism. Qutb wasn't the first to promote Jihadism in the 20th Century. Tariq Ramadan's grandfather, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood during the late 1920s or early 30s gets that honor. But Qutb is by far and away Islamism's most influential thinker. Berman's piece on Qutb (here) is worth reading and re-reading if you want to understand the intellectual underpinnings of Islamism. Hershel Ginsburg Jerusalem / Efrata
- ginzy
May 17, 2010 at 8:21am
Thanks Ginzy. Hope you are reassured by Rahm Emmanuel's re-statement of U.S. policy ("We screwed up") to 15 rabbis that was reported in the Jerusalem Post, but not the NYT. Not sure how the more recent atempt to counter the legacy of Sayyid Qutb is faring: "The Rebellion Within:An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism." by Lawrence Wright June 2, 2008 The New Yorker (full article online, but TNR.com's spam filter does not accept the competition?) "...Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, he was the former leader of the Egyptian terrorist group Al Jihad, and known to those in the underground mainly as Dr. Fadl. Members of Al Jihad became part of the original core of Al Qaeda; among them was Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s chief lieutenant. Fadl was one of the first members of Al Qaeda’s top council. Twenty years ago, he wrote two of the most important books in modern Islamist discourse; Al Qaeda used them to indoctrinate recruits and justify killing. Now Fadl was announcing a new book, rejecting Al Qaeda’s violence. “We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do that,” Fadl wrote in his fax, which was sent from Tora Prison, in Egypt. ..." Nor do I know if Mahmoud Mohamed Taha's reform and tolerance counterpoint to Sayyid Qutb, "Second Message of Islam" still has traction, but at least it is still in print. Probably helpful to not have any Jews involved in the debates within Political Islam. :)
- K2K
May 17, 2010 at 10:07am
K2K, I wouldn't expect the Emmanuel meeting with "friendly" rabbis to be reported in the Times which has become the US equivalent of Egypt's al Ahram. Intellectual honesty has become a rarefied commodity at the Times. I just hope the rabbis have retained some level of Talmudic skepticism to the obvious spin attempt. Regarding where Islamism is headed, the genie is so long out of the bottle that I think it is naive to thing any book will make a difference at this point. Qutb is far more influential than anything that will come afterward if it is published in The New Yorker. The genie is long out of the bottle and it will take far more than the equivalent of a "stinging editorial in the NY Times" (to paraphrase Woody Allen) to get him back in. Bernard Lewis has a new book out, Faith and Power: Religion and Politics in the Middle East which sounds like it would be of relevant interest. Maybe I'll pick it up when I am in NYC in a couple of weeks. hg
- ginzy
May 17, 2010 at 10:56am
Ginzy: I noted my view of the NYT in my first comment :) It does not matter if lawrence Wright's New Yorker article failed to get traction in the West. He was reporting on what is happening with Egypt's 're-education' efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood. As to Rahm Emmanual's re-statement of U.S. policy priorities, it will be interesting to see if any of that filters through to actual policy actions. Rahm tried de-linkage with the rabbis, who apparently initiated the meeting. If only we knew how many of the participants read Lee Smith's essay on linkage at tabletmag before the meeting! ("Why do Arab governments—and the U.S.—insist the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of all the Mideast’s problems?") Hope you can manage a visit to Wave Hill on your NYC trip, for the moment of inspiration that only comes from breathtaking views in a breathtaking garden surrounded by the yeshivas of Riverdale!
- K2K
May 17, 2010 at 11:38am
K2K, "He was reporting on what is happening with Egypt's 're-education' efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood." I did not read the article, but to be honest, I am skeptical that any sort of "re-education effort" coming from the hated (by them) Egyptian regime will change the deeply held convictions of most Muslim Brotherhoodeers. Lip service maybe, as that may be needed for physical survival. Beyond that... nah. I was under the impression that the Obamanoids initiated the meeting with the Rabbis and vetted the list to excluded anyone who did not exhibit at least some sycophantic leanings in the past. Do you live in Riverdale? If so, do you attend the Riverdale Jewish Center? h.
- ginzy
May 17, 2010 at 11:48am
noga1 writes: -- It's obvious why mackenzie likes Harper's account better. It fits in much more neatly with his natural mind's inclinations. It is indeed obvious. I have little but contempt for Berman's review which was in the end not much more than an attempt at self-aggrandizement by Berman who sought to portray himself as the heir to Koestler and others who attacked Stalinism. The gross betrayals of Koestler appear nowhere in Berman's review because they would remind us of his betrayals and of his mendacity and malice in writing this review. Betrayal and heroism are not exactly friends. The New Republic betrayed its readers by failing to edit out the ludicrous four paragraphs in which Berman veered into complete stupidity by analogizing the Muslim Brotherhood to Stalinism. This is the same type of lie told by the proto-Nazi liberal hawks and neo-Conservatives in the runup to an Iraq war that cost the lives of more than 100,000 Iraqs and immiserated millions of Iraqis. Paul Berman learned nothing from his moral failure in supporting that war. He remains a mendacious, malicious and bloodthirsty bigot who deserves no respect in a civilized society. Fraser's review in Harper's by contrast was much more informative about the Scammel book and Arthur Koestler. It reminded us that he was far from the hero that Berman needs him to be. It reminded us that in the totality of his life Koestler was not a good man - unless you laud betrayal. Fraser's review was honest because he reviewed the book while Berman's review was dishonest because he merely used the book as cover for promoting his own mendacity and malice towards Muslims.
- ndmackenzie
May 17, 2010 at 12:15pm
Ginzy: from Herb Keinon's JPost article: "...Jack Moline, a Conservative rabbi at Congregation Agudas Achim in Alexandria, Virginia, initiated the two meetings after a talk he had with Emanuel about the Obama administration’s perceived deficit of friendliness toward Israel. The meetings were part of a charm offensive after the Obama-Netanyahu meeting last month. ..." I sometimes live, and always vote, two neighborhoods east of Riverdale where I suspect the Bangladeshis are about to convert the now vacant Young Israel synagogue into a Sufi mosque, due to the rapidly changing demographics. (I wish the Bangladeshis much success, since the saint-worshipping Sufis are more persecuted by the Sunnis than the Shi'a.) I am in my fifth decade of struggling with my inability to be observant, repulsed by the leftism of the Reform congregations, yet not able to take the plunge into Modern Orthodoxy. I find the presence of the Hasidim in the mansions outside the gates of Wave Hill one of the most interesting contradictions of Riverdale. My next trip back will be week of May 23. If I had not become trapped by the real estate crisis (and a managing agent who channels the worst of Bernie Madoff), my intention was to find a way to finally make aliyah, even though I still can not prove my matrilineal descent, one of the problems still complicating the American Jewish community's relationship with today's Israel. (I know the right rabbi could help) I am not sure I could find any place in Israel to fit in, but the promise of aliyah keeps me alive.
- K2K
May 17, 2010 at 1:02pm
Rabbis are not necessarily the best qualified people, by training or inclination, to represent the Jewish community on matters of statehood, diplomacy, war, and peace. Rabbinism historically developed as a non-state remedy to the circumstances of the Jewish people. It contains some anti-Zionist DNA. Rahm Emanuel is playing a divide and conquer game of giving treats (ex. a semi-imperial audience, important news) to some of the more compliant leaders of the rabbinical community.
- amidut
May 17, 2010 at 2:40pm
ndmUckenzie "noga1 writes: --' It's obvious why mackenzie likes Harper's account better. It fits in much more neatly with his natural mind's inclinations.' It is indeed obvious. I have little but contempt for Berman's review..." And yet he hangs around here instead of at Harper's or The Nation. TYPICAL British bigoted masochist.
- jdyer
May 17, 2010 at 7:44pm
ndMUckenzie "The New Republic betrayed its readers..." This is beyond parody. The putrid Muckenzie has decided to become the self proclaimed “defender of TNR reader." I would wager that most TNR readers have nothing but praise for the magazine for publishing this profound and far reaching essay. This is what really rankles Muckenzie: "Berman veered into complete stupidity by analogizing the Muslim Brotherhood to Stalinism." He does have a totalitarian mind set as well as an authoritarian personality. No wonder the bigot was in love with Sadam as well as with Stalin.
- jdyer
May 17, 2010 at 8:02pm
I just read Fraser’s review of Scammel’s biography of Koestler in Harper’s the best one can say about the review is that it’s competently written. Otherwise it’s a thoroughly mediocre piece of work. Fraser has a lot to say about Koestler’s extramarital affairs but very little about the socio-political world the writer inhabited. I suspect that the reason Muckenzie mentioned the review was because it was so vacuous.
- jdyer
May 17, 2010 at 9:19pm
I hope Berman gets an award for this essay on Stalinists and Islamicists. I also expect that he will be banned in not so Great Britain, a country that has gone the way of Byzantium and will probably disintegrate faster that did the Roman eastern outpost.
- jdyer
May 17, 2010 at 9:22pm
Mr. P. you get hukked plenty around here and I do some of the hukking. But a few thanks: for your good post above; for commending Berman's book to us; for publishing Berman's essays over the years--for me he is the very embodiment of the intellectual; for hosting, while putting up with a lot of guff, an unfailingly lively blog, agree with you or not; and for being such a force behind this first class journal that I only came to a few years ago--but better much too late than never-- and which has afforded me uncountable pleasurable hours of reading and arguing and kidding around over these too few years, and learning a lot too. (p.s. I just bought Berman's book so I'm kind of grateful for my Kindle too.)
- basman
May 17, 2010 at 10:26pm
The illiterate MUCKenzie wrote: “Fraser's review in Harper's by contrast was much more informative about the Scammel book and Arthur Koestler. It reminded us that he was far from the hero that Berman needs him to be.” Now, here is what Berman actually said about Koestler’s “heroism:” “Scammell begins his biography with the double suicide, which is a macabre way to begin. But what else was he to do? The journalist in Koestler must have understood clearly that his wife’s inexplicable suicide, if not his own more explicable one, was bound to cast a weird and troubling light over everything he had done until that final moment. The double suicide was destined to damage any lingering quality of the heroic in his long and generally honorable—even supremely honorable—career. But then why should a writer give a damn about maintaining his own reputation for heroism? The notion that writers ought to be heroic is another legacy of the nineteenth century and its idea of a romantic intelligentsia—it is the origin of the idea that, in Russia, led to the cult of the anti-czarist prison intellectual. But Koestler, it would seem, was done with heroism. To be done with heroism may sound, in our own age of professed modesty, like a virtue. It was not a virtue, though. It was a sin against his own lifetime of literary work. What to make of Arthur Koestler, then? Not even Scammell knows, which speaks well of this huge and scrupulous and unfailingly intelligent book.” This complex and paradoxical view of Koestler life is more consistent with the facts of the life of that unhappy man. Muckenzie is the proverbial swine before whom pure pearls have been thrown.
- jdyer
May 17, 2010 at 10:39pm
George Orwell about Koestler: http://www.george-orwell.org/Arthur_Koestler/0.html
- noga1
May 20, 2010 at 10:15pm