The New York Review of Books - 9 June 2016

48 Pages·2016·10.065 MB·English

‘Race & Renaming’
The President of Yale Talks
to David Cole
June 9, 2016
/ Volume LXIII, Number 10
Nathaniel Rich:
In Don DeLillo’s
Icy Future
Kenneth Roth:
Noam Chomsky’s
America
HERMIONE LEE ON
STEVIE SMITH
H. Allen Orr:
‘Life’s Greatest
Annie Secret’
Sparrow:
The Epidemics
on the Way
“ A mesmerizing reimagining of

George Eliot’s accursed marriage.”
—Vanity Fair
T H E HON E Y MO ON
D i n i t i a S m i t h
“ Smith treats the men in Eliot’s life with empathy
and realism, embedding into her narrative
the myriad insights of the historical record,
which she has carefully studied.”
—Washington Post
“ Eliot fans will certainly inhale every page,
but any historical-fi ction readers will
thoroughly relish Smith’s tale of a remarkable
woman and an unlikely Victorian love.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“ Smith’s George Eliot is brilliant and bold —
as you know she is — but Smith is equally
daring and no less incisive.”
— andré aciman, author of Out of Egypt Other Press
otherpress.com
Contents
4 Kenneth Roth Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky THE
8 Hermione Lee All the Poems by Stevie Smith, edited and with an introduction
by Will May POLITICS OF
13 Nathaniel Rich Zero K by Don DeLillo
R E S E N T M E N T
15 Christopher Jencks $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America
by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer
18 Dan Chiasson Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty
by Ben Ratliff
19 Ben Lerner Poem
20 H. Allen Orr Life’s Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code
by Matthew Cobb
23 Geoffrey Wheatcroft No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money by David Lough
Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell
26 Annie Sparrow P andemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
by Sonia Shah
28 George B. Stauffer Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama, Liturgy by Markus Rathey
30 Timothy Snyder Greetings from Novorossiya by Paweł Pieni(cid:261)(cid:298)ek
Decision in Kiev: Ukrainian Lessons by Karl Schlögel
Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart
of the New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev
T H E
34 Cathleen Schine A Gushing Fountain by Martin Walser, translated from the German
by David Dollenmayer L I M O U S I N E
My Marriage by Jakob Wassermann, translated from the German
by Michael Hofmann L I B E R A L
37 Joseph Harrison Poem
HOW AN
38 Priyamvada Natarajan B lack Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein,
INCENDIARY IMAGE
and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved by Marcia Bartusiak
The Hunt for Vulcan:...And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, UNITED THE RIGHT AND
Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe by Thomas Levenson FRACTURED AMERICA
42 David Cole Race & Renaming: A Talk with Peter Salovey, President of Yale
45 Nicholas D. Kristof China’s Missing Children: An Exchange with Martin K. Whyte,
Matthew Connelly, and Jonathan Mirsky
45 Letters from Diego Gambetta, Tim Parks, and Teresa Cherfas (cid:26)(cid:4)(cid:13)(cid:14)(cid:22)(cid:1)(cid:14)(cid:22)(cid:6)(cid:12)(cid:7)(cid:2)(cid:1)(cid:19)(cid:11)(cid:23)(cid:10)(cid:18)(cid:1)(cid:10)(cid:18)(cid:23)(cid:10)(cid:21)(cid:23)(cid:6)(cid:14)(cid:18)(cid:14)(cid:18)(cid:12)(cid:2)(cid:1)
CONTRIBUTORS (cid:74)(cid:72)(cid:81)(cid:72)(cid:68)(cid:79)(cid:82)(cid:74)(cid:92)(cid:3)(cid:82)(cid:73)(cid:3)(cid:85)(cid:76)(cid:74)(cid:75)(cid:87)(cid:293)(cid:90)(cid:76)(cid:81)(cid:74)(cid:3)
(cid:20)(cid:19)(cid:20)(cid:24)(cid:16)(cid:14)(cid:22)(cid:17)(cid:1)(cid:14)(cid:22)(cid:1)(cid:16)(cid:8)(cid:6)(cid:8)(cid:20)(cid:20)(cid:4)(cid:19)(cid:24)(cid:1)
DAN CHIASSON’ s fourth collection of poetry is Bicen- NATHANIEL RICH is the author, most recently, of Odds
tennial. He teaches at Wellesley. Against Tomorrow. (cid:7)(cid:6)(cid:8)(cid:15)(cid:12)(cid:21)(cid:19)(cid:24)(cid:18)(cid:9)(cid:1)(cid:21)(cid:10)(cid:6)(cid:9)(cid:14)(cid:18)(cid:12)(cid:1)(cid:11)(cid:19)(cid:21)(cid:1)(cid:6)(cid:18)(cid:25)(cid:19)(cid:18)(cid:10)(cid:1)
DAVID COLE is the Honorable George J. Mitchell Pro- KENNETH ROTH is Executive Director of Human (cid:86)(cid:72)(cid:72)(cid:78)(cid:76)(cid:81)(cid:74)(cid:3)(cid:87)(cid:82)(cid:3)(cid:88)(cid:81)(cid:71)(cid:72)(cid:85)(cid:86)(cid:87)(cid:68)(cid:81)(cid:71)(cid:295)
fessor in Law and Public Policy at the Georgetown Univer- Rights Watch. (cid:82)(cid:85)(cid:3)(cid:77)(cid:88)(cid:86)(cid:87)(cid:3)(cid:72)(cid:81)(cid:71)(cid:88)(cid:85)(cid:72)(cid:295)(cid:21)(cid:19)(cid:20)(cid:25)(cid:17)(cid:180)(cid:3)
sity Law Center. His new book, Engines of Liberty: The
Power of Citizen Activists to Make Constitutional Law, was CATHLEEN SCHINE is the author of several novels, in- (cid:25)BARBARA
published in April. PETER SALOVEY is the President cluding Rameau’s Niece, The Love Letter, She Is Me, The
EHRENREICH
and the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology at Yale. New Yorkers, and The Three Weissmanns of Westport. Her
new novel, They May Not Mean To, But They Do, will be
JOSEPH HARRISON ’s most recent collection of poems
published in June.
is Shakespeare’s Horse.
(cid:26)(cid:3)(cid:1)(cid:5)(cid:19)(cid:4)(cid:6)(cid:12)(cid:16)(cid:10)(cid:1)(cid:4)(cid:16)(cid:7)(cid:1)(cid:12)(cid:14)(cid:14)(cid:22)(cid:15)(cid:12)(cid:16)(cid:4)(cid:21)(cid:12)(cid:16)(cid:10)(cid:1)
CHRISTOPHER JENCKS is the Malcolm Wiener Profes- TIMOTHY SNYDER is the Housum Professor of History
sor of Social Policy at Harvard. He is the author of Rethink- at Yale. His most recent book is Black Earth: The Holo- (cid:75)(cid:76)(cid:86)(cid:87)(cid:82)(cid:85)(cid:92)(cid:3)(cid:82)(cid:73)(cid:3)(cid:85)(cid:76)(cid:74)(cid:75)(cid:87)(cid:293)(cid:90)(cid:76)(cid:81)(cid:74)(cid:1)
ing Social Policy and The Homeless, among other books. caust as History and Warning. (cid:83)(cid:82)(cid:83)(cid:88)(cid:79)(cid:76)(cid:86)(cid:80)(cid:3)(cid:76)(cid:81)(cid:3)(cid:80)(cid:82)(cid:71)(cid:72)(cid:85)(cid:81)(cid:3)(cid:36)(cid:80)(cid:72)(cid:85)(cid:76)(cid:70)(cid:68)(cid:17)(cid:1)
HERMIONE LEE is President of Wolfson College, Ox- ANNIE SPARROW, a medical doctor, is an Assistant Pro- (cid:5)(cid:14)(cid:23)(cid:13)(cid:1)(cid:9)(cid:4)(cid:20)(cid:6)(cid:12)(cid:16)(cid:4)(cid:21)(cid:12)(cid:16)(cid:10)(cid:1)(cid:7)(cid:8)(cid:21)(cid:4)(cid:12)(cid:14)(cid:1)
ford. Her most recent book is Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life. fessor at the Arnhold Global Health Institute at the Icahn
School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. (cid:6)(cid:18)(cid:9)(cid:1)(cid:23)(cid:12)(cid:10)(cid:17)(cid:19)(cid:17)(cid:22)(cid:20)(cid:1)(cid:18)(cid:19)(cid:17)(cid:20)(cid:8)(cid:2)(cid:1)
BEN LERNER ’s new book, The Hatred of Poetry, will be
published in June. GEORGE B. STAUFFER is Dean of the Mason Gross (cid:41)(cid:85)(cid:68)(cid:86)(cid:72)(cid:85)(cid:3)(cid:71)(cid:72)(cid:73)(cid:87)(cid:79)(cid:92)(cid:3)(cid:86)(cid:75)(cid:82)(cid:90)(cid:86)(cid:3)(cid:75)(cid:82)(cid:90)(cid:1)
PRIYAMVADA NATARAJAN is a Professor in the De- School of the Arts and Distinguished Professor of Music (cid:8)(cid:16)(cid:6)(cid:22)(cid:22)(cid:1)(cid:7)(cid:10)(cid:8)(cid:6)(cid:17)(cid:10)(cid:1)(cid:23)(cid:13)(cid:10)(cid:1)
partments of Astronomy and Physics at Yale. Her latest History at Rutgers. His publications include Bach: The
(cid:9)(cid:14)(cid:21)(cid:23)(cid:25)(cid:1)(cid:16)(cid:14)(cid:23)(cid:23)(cid:16)(cid:10)(cid:1)(cid:22)(cid:10)(cid:8)(cid:21)(cid:10)(cid:23)(cid:1)(cid:19)(cid:11)(cid:1)(cid:1)
book, Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas Mass in B Minor—The Great Catholic Mass.
That Reveal the Cosmos, was published in April. (cid:36)(cid:80)(cid:72)(cid:85)(cid:76)(cid:70)(cid:68)(cid:81)(cid:3)(cid:83)(cid:82)(cid:79)(cid:76)(cid:87)(cid:76)(cid:70)(cid:86)(cid:17)(cid:180)(cid:3)(cid:1)
GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT is the author of The Con-
H. ALLEN ORR is University Professor and Shirley Cox troversy of Zion, The Strange Death of Tory England, (cid:25)JACKSON LEARS,(cid:1)
Kearns Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester. and Yo, Blair! He is working on a new interpretation of
He is the author, with Jerry A. Coyne, of Speciation. Churchill’s life, reputation, and posthumous influence. (cid:6)(cid:24)(cid:23)(cid:13)(cid:19)(cid:21)(cid:1)(cid:19)(cid:11)(cid:1)(cid:53)(cid:72)(cid:69)(cid:76)(cid:85)(cid:87)(cid:75)(cid:3)
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3
A Case Against America current turmoil? President George W. Chomsky writes, “was the idea that
Bush’s invasion of Iraq fits his thesis there might be a parliamentary path
of American malevolence, and the ter- toward some kind of socialist democ-
Who Rules the World? to the view that America advances rible human costs of the war get men- racy.” He goes on:
by Noam Chomsky. “universal principles” rather than “na- tioned, but Syrian President Bashar
Metropolitan, 307 pp., $28.00 tional interests,” when in fact she was al- Assad’s decision to fight his coun- The way to deal with such a threat
criticizing that perspective as part of try’s civil war by targeting civilians in was to destroy the virus and inocu-
Kenneth Roth her negative review of a book by Bret opposition- held areas, killing hundreds late those who might be infected,
Stephens.* of thousands and setting off the flight of typically by imposing murderous
It is hard to see yourself as others do, several million refugees, does not. Nor national- security states.
all the more so if you are the world’s does Russia’s decision to back Assad’s
I
sole remaining superpower. In un- n some respects, Chomsky’s preoc- murderous shredding of the Geneva Thus began the US- led redirection of
paralleled fashion, the United States cupation with American power seems Conventions, since Chomsky’s focus is Latin American militaries from exter-
today has the capacity to project its out of date because the limits of Amer- America’s contribution to global suf- nal defense to internal security, with
military might throughout vast parts of ican power have become so apparent. fering, not Vladimir Putin’s. the ensuing “dirty wars” and their
the globe, even if blunders in Iraq and When we ask “Who rules the world?” Still, it is useful to read Chomsky trails of torture, execution, and forced
Libya, unresolved crises in Syria and and take account of Syrian atrocities, because he does undermine the fac- disappearance.
Yemen, and disturbing trends in Rus- A similar rationale lay behind US
sia and China demonstrate the limits Noam Chomsky actions in Vietnam and the “domino
of American military power to shape theory” used to rationalize it. Among
world events. In an increasingly mul- its most tragic applications was Indone-
tipolar world, America’s power is far sia’s slaughter in 1965 and 1966 of half
from its dominant heights after World a million or more alleged Communists
War II, but it is still unmatched. under the guidance of then General and
Americans tend to ease any qualms soon- to- be President Suharto. Chom-
about such military supremacy with sky describes how this “staggering
self- assurances about US benevolence. mass slaughter” was greeted with “un-
Noam Chomsky is at his best in put- restrained euphoria” in Washington’s
ting those platitudes to rest, seeing an corridors of power. Suharto so suc-
America of hypocrisy and self- interest. cessfully swept these extensive crimes
Yes, there are times when the United under the rug that thirty years later Bill
States does good, but Chomsky in his Clinton welcomed him as “our kind of
latest book, Who Rules the World?, guy.” Indonesia’s current president,
reminds us of a long list of harms that Joko Widodo, widely known as Jokowi,
most Americans would rather forget. has bravely taken initial steps to expose
His memory is almost entirely negative this ugly chapter of his country’s his-
but it is strong and unsparing. tory. Obama could assist him by open-
Chomsky reminds us that parallels ing US government archives to reveal
to America’s tendency to act in its own the working relationship between CIA
interest while speaking of more global and US embassy operatives and the In-
interests can be found among the pow- donesian forces doing the killing.
erful throughout history. As predeces-
sors to “American exceptionalism”
C
he cites France’s “civilizing mission” homsky takes on the facile use of
among its colonies and even imperial the label “terrorism” to describe the
Japan’s vow to bring “earthly paradise” actions of one’s enemies but not one’s
to China under its tutelage. These past friends. Why, Chomsky asks, did the
slogans are now widely seen as euphe- US government condemn the 1983 at-
misms for exploitation and plunder, yet tack on the Marine barracks in Bei-
Americans tend to believe that their rut as an act of terrorism, given that
government acts in the world without in war a military base is a legitimate
similar imperial baggage. military target, but not the Israeli-
Chomsky’s book is not an objective backed slaughter in 1982 by Lebanese
account of the past. It is a polemic de- Phalangists of Palestinian civilians in
signed to awaken Americans from com- the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps?
placency. America, in his view, must be To describe any attack by one’s oppo-
reined in, and he makes the case with nent regardless of the target as “terror-
verve and self- confident assertion, even ism” is to endanger ordinary civilians
if factual details are sometimes selec- the emergence of the Islamic State, or ile if comforting myths that are often by blurring the important distinction
tive or scarce. the mass displacement of refugees, the used to justify US action abroad—the established by international humani-
Yet Who Rules the World? is also an answer is less likely to be the Ameri- distinction between, as Chomsky puts tarian law between combatants and
infuriating book because it is so parti- can superpower than no one. Obama’s it, “what we stand for” and “what we noncombatants. The view, as Chomsky
san that it leaves the reader convinced foreign policy has been far more about do.” His views are held not only by mockingly puts it, that “our terrorism,
not of his insights but of the need to recognizing the limits of US military American critics on the left but also by even if surely terrorism, is benign” is
hear the other side. It doesn’t help power than the exercise of that power, many people around the world who are dangerous, since most governments
that the book is a collection of previ- but this merits barely a mention by more likely to think of themselves as and groups, even the Islamic State, be-
ously published essays with no effort to Chomsky. His America is the one of targeted rather than protected by US lieve they are acting for some concep-
trim the repetitive points that pop up military adventure—the Vietnam War, military power. tion of the good.
in chapter after chapter. Nor was much the Bay of Pigs, the Central American For example, Americans are rightly Chomsky criticizes the US govern-
attempt made to update earlier chap- conflicts of the 1980s, the 2003 invasion appalled by al- Qaeda’s attacks on ment for discounting large- scale ci-
ters in light of later events. The Iranian of Iraq, the potentially suicidal reck- September 11, 2001, which killed vilian deaths that are the foreseeable
nuclear accord and the Paris climate lessness of the nuclear arms race. some three thousand people, but most outcome of a policy even if they are
deal are mentioned only toward the Chomsky’s selective use of history Americans have relegated to distant not the intent of that policy. The de-
end of the book, even though the issues limits his persuasiveness. He blames memory what Chomsky calls “the first liberate targeting of civilians is right-
of Iran’s nuclear program and climate Middle East turmoil, for example, 9/11”—September 11, 1973—when the fully viewed as a war crime, but what
change appear in earlier chapters. largely on the World War I–era Sykes- US government backed a coup in Chile of an attacker who knows that the
At times Chomsky’s book suffers Picot agreement that divided the for- that brought to power General Augusto consequence of an attack on a mili-
from simple sloppiness. For example, mer Ottoman Empire among British Pinochet, who proceeded to execute tary target will be substantial civilian
he reports that “the Obama adminis- and French colonial powers. He’s right some three thousand people. As with deaths? Chomsky cites Bill Clinton’s
tration considered reviving military that the borders were drawn arbitrarily, US actions in Cuba and Vietnam, the 1998 missile attack on Sudan’s al- Shifa
commissions” on Guantánamo when and that the multiethnic and multicon- US- endorsed overthrow of the socialist pharmaceutical plant, in the unjustified
in fact these commissions have been fessional states they produced are dif- government of Chilean President Sal- belief that it was producing chemical
operating there for most of President ficult to govern, but is that really an vador Allende was meant, in the words weapons, when the attack “apparently
Barack Obama’s eight years in office. adequate explanation of the region’s of the Nixon administration quoted by led to the deaths of tens of thousands
And in certain places it is simply con- Chomsky, to kill the “virus” before it of people” deprived of the drugs it
fused, as when Chomsky quotes from *See Jessica T. Mathews, “The Road “spread contagion” among those who was producing. As is often the case,
a review by Jessica Mathews in these from Westphalia,” The New York Re- didn’t want to accommodate the in- Chomsky gives no substantiation for
pages and implies that she subscribes view, March 19, 2015. terests of a US- led order. The “virus,” this enormous number, but the point
4 The New York Review
OSLO
J. T. ROGERS
A new play by
BARTLETT SHER
Directed by
PREVIEWS BEGIN JUNE 16
Cast (in alphabetical order):
MICHAEL ARONOV ANTHONY AZIZI ADAM DANNHEISSER JENNIFER EHLE DANIEL JENKINS DARIUSH KASHANI
JEB KREAGER JEFFERSON MAYS DANIEL ORESKES HENNY RUSSELL JOSEPH SIRAVO T. RYDER SMITH

Sets Costumes Lighting Sound Stage Manager
MICHAEL YEARGAN CATHERINE ZUBER DONALD HOLDER PETER JOHN STILL CAMBRA OVEREND
LINCOLN CENTER THEATER
150 W. 65TH ST. · TELECHARGE.COM · 212-239-6200 · LCT.ORG
OSLO was supported by a Theatre Commissioning and Production Initiative grant from The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.• This play is the recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award.
LCT thanks these generous contributors to OSLO: The Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater • National Endowment for the Arts • Laurents/Hatcher Foundation
Special thanks to The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting new American plays at LCT.
June 9, 2016 5
remains. Chomsky makes a similar Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, then cacy of boycotting goods from Israel or adversary’s conduct—and for good
observation about Israel’s bombing of a US ally at war with Iran. In neither its settlements. reason, because otherwise virtually
electrical plants in Gaza, which inter- case is there reason to believe that the any war would descend into a tit- for- tat
rupted water supply to Palestinians and attacker knowingly targeted a civilian spiral of atrocity and retaliation. US
W
helped to cripple Gaza’s economy, and aircraft, but the Western response was hile Chomsky mostly looks back in compliance with international humani-
Israel’s West Bank checkpoints, which notably different. time, he does not spare Barack Obama. tarian law is all the more important in
deprive Palestinians of timely access to Chomsky cites a New York Times re- One of Obama’s first acts as president view of America’s unique superpower
emergency medical care. port that Samantha Power, US ambas- was to order an end to the CIA’s use status, because its actions are more vis-
As for promoting democracy abroad, sador to the United Nations, “choked of torture, yet Chomsky quotes the ible and far- reaching.
Chomsky says that US support for up as she spoke of infants who per- journalist Allan Nairn to the effect That makes it all the more lamen-
it “is the province of ideologists and ished” in the Malaysia Airlines crash. that Obama “merely repositioned” the table that Obama has refused to autho-
propagandists.” “In the real world,” But he notes that the commander of the United States to the historical norm in rize prosecution of the CIA torturers or
he explains, “elite dislike of democ- Vincennes and his anti–air warfare of- which torture is carried out by prox- those in the Bush administration who
racy is the norm.” Democracy is sup- ficer were given the US Legion of Merit ies. But Chomsky gives no evidence of authorized them, thus leaving torture
ported “only insofar as it contributes award for “exceptionally meritorious torture by such proxies under Obama. as a policy option for the next US presi-
to social and economic objectives.” But conduct in the performance of out- Even before Bush administration law- dent facing a serious security threat,
what happens when the preferences of standing service” and for the “calm and yers contorted the meaning of the and setting a disastrous precedent for
a nation’s public differ from US ob- professional atmosphere” maintained prohibition against torture in the no- other countries. Needless to say, many
jectives—such as what Chomsky de- during the period of the downing. Pres- torious “Torture Memos,” Chomsky other parts of the world do not accord
scribes as the Arab public’s sense that ident Reagan blamed the Iranians for notes, the legal defense for the types these actions the presumption of be-
Israel is a greater threat than Iran? In the tragedy. Only under the Clinton of mental torture preferred by the nevolence that Americans are more
those cases, Chomsky argues, notwith- willing to embrace.
s
standing a brief flirtation with the Arab ge How does such hypocrisy persist
a
Spring, the US government tends to be m in US foreign policy? Chomsky pro-
amenable to dictatorships that favor y I vides no clear answer. He alludes to
warmer relations with the West: Gett the power of commercial interests in
/P setting Washington’s agenda. He also
F
Favored dictators must be sup- e/A notes the importance of secrecy. Gov-
ported as long as they can maintain aff ernment secrecy, he explains, “is rarely
J
control (as in the major oil states). n motivated by a genuine need for secu-
e
When that is no longer possible, ph rity, but it definitely does serve to keep
e
discard them and try to restore the St the population in the dark.” As an
old regime as fully as possible (as example, Chomsky cites the National
in...Egypt). Security Agency’s mass collection
of telecommunications metadata—a
The epitome of this policy, according deeply intrusive program in which the
to Chomsky, was the 2006 decision to records of many of our most intimate
“impose harsh penalties on Palestin- contacts have been stored in govern-
ians for voting the wrong way” and ment computers and kept available for
electing Hamas in Gaza. official inspection. Operating with the
benefit of secrecy, government officials
claimed the program was needed and
I
n the Middle East, Chomsky focuses George W. Bush on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, had stopped fifty- four terrorist plots.
in particular on US hypocrisy toward declaring the end of major fighting in Iraq, May 2003 Once the claim was subjected to scru-
Israel. Washington’s attitude toward tiny, it turned out that the program, at
the West Bank settlements is illustra- administration did the US government Bush CIA, euphemistically called “en- enormous costs to American taxpayers
tive. The Carter administration, like admit “deep regret” and pay compen- hanced interrogation techniques,” was and their privacy, had identified only
most of the world, recognized that the sation to the victims—facts that Chom- foreshadowed by the Reagan adminis- one supposed plot—someone who had
settlements violate the Fourth Geneva sky neglects to mention. tration in the form of detailed reserva- sent $8,500 to Somalia. Two indepen-
Convention’s prohibition on transfer- Likewise, the US is rightfully out- tions about the definition of torture in dent oversight bodies with access to
ring an occupying power’s population raged at Hamas rocket attacks on Is- the international Convention against classified information have found that
to occupied territory. The US govern- raeli civilians but far more reticent Torture, which were endorsed by the the phone metadata program has pro-
ment has never repudiated that view about the large- scale destruction of Clinton administration at the time of vided no unique value in countering ter-
but, since the Reagan administration, civilian property and loss of civilian ratification in 1994. rorist threats. More recently, Chomsky
it has tended to refer to the settlements life caused by Israel’s bombardment One reason often driving the US gov- notes that the details of transpacific and
as only “a barrier to peace.” While the of Gaza. Invocations of Hamas using ernment to ignore international norms transatlantic trade deals have been kept
United States has periodically pressed human shields do not begin to account is a sense of impunity. For example, secret from the public but not from “the
Israel to stop expanding the settle- for such likely war crimes as Israel’s until recently, only the United States hundreds of corporate lawyers who are
ments, that “pretense of opposition targeting of Hamas commanders’ fam- had weaponized drones, so why should drawing up the detailed provisions.”
reached the level of farce in February ily homes or its use of artillery that the US bother to articulate and respect
2011, when Obama vetoed a UN Se- had wide effects in densely populated rules governing their use? But such
I
curity Council resolution calling for areas. technological monopolies are inevitably t is perhaps unfair to challenge an
implementation of official US policy.” Or to cite another example: the US short- lived, and America’s many years author for what he didn’t write rather
Similarly, in May 2014, the United government rightfully expressed out- of using drones without articulated than what he did, but given the broad
States supported jurisdiction for the rage over the murderous attack on standards are much more likely to influ- question that Chomsky asks—“Who
International Criminal Court (ICC) in Charlie Hebdo by Islamist extremists ence how other countries behave when rules the world?”—I could not help
Syria (Russia and China vetoed the res- who killed eleven journalists. But as they too have weaponized drones than noticing how little of the world he dis-
olution) but only after insisting that the Chomsky points out, there was noth- any belated effort at standard- setting. cusses. The book is about the parts of
resolution exempt Israel from any pos- ing comparable to the “I am Charlie” Chomsky does nothing to contrib- the world where America and its clos-
sible liability. That is consistent with campaign when in 1999 during the war ute to what those standards might be, est allies, such as Israel, assert mili-
US legislation adopted under George with Serbia over Kosovo, NATO delib- lapsing into denunciatory language tary power, but Chomsky does not in
W. Bush authorizing an invasion of erately sent a missile into Serbian state about drone attacks being “the most this book seem interested in the parts
the Netherlands should any American television and radio (RTS) headquar- extreme terrorist campaign of modern of the world where US military power
or allied suspect be brought to The ters, killing sixteen journalists. Even times.” He describes “assassination” is not exercised and seemingly inca-
Hague for trial before the ICC. It is also though RTS was a propaganda outlet, in violation of “the presumption of in- pable of making much of a difference.
consistent with the Obama administra- that did not make it a legitimate mili- nocence” without addressing the ob- Africa barely appears except as a
tion’s failed pressure on Palestine not tary target, yet Washington defended vious retort—that combatants in war source of m igration—we get no sense
to ratify the ICC treaty. the attack. Chomsky introduces the can be targeted—or grappling with the of the deadly conflict in South Sudan,
Chomsky has one chapter on Ameri- concept of “living memory”—“a cat- central question of whether US drone the growing turmoil in Burundi and
ca’s selective outrage. Americans were egory carefully constructed to include attacks in places like Yemen and So- the Democratic Republic of Congo,
outraged when Malaysia Airlines Flight their crimes against us while scrupu- malia should be considered acts of war or the murderous rampage of the Is-
17 was shot down in eastern Ukraine, lously excluding our crimes against or bound by the more restrictive stan- lamist group Boko Haram. China is
apparently by Russia- backed forces, them”—to explain why there was no dards of law enforcement. largely ignored. Russia emerges with
killing 298 people. But who remembers collection of Western leaders pro- Groups such as al- Qaeda and the Is- respect to nuclear issues but little else.
when the USS Vincennes shot down claiming “We are RTS.” Even after the lamic State certainly have no intention South Asia appears mainly as the site
Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988, killing Charlie Hebdo attack, while France of abiding by international standards. of Osama bin Laden’s demise.
290 people? The Vincennes was in the was portraying itself as a champion of Yet the Geneva Conventions deliber- Chomsky does no more than touch
Persian Gulf at the time to defend the free expression, it prosecuted advo- ately impose duties regardless of an on the issue of migration—one of
6 The New York Review
Changing the Conversations that Change the World
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June 9, 2016 7
today’s most complex problems. With- haps his most interesting contribution question. Beyond asking “Who rules tique, as if he cannot envision a positive
out elaboration, he attributes Mexican in an otherwise superficial discussion is the world?” we should also inquire, role for America other than a negation
migration to the United States to Mexi- his recollection that Benjamin Franklin “What principles and values rule the of the harmful ones he highlights. Yet
can campesinos being forced under the once warned against admitting German world?” It is easy for a superpower to imperfect as the book is, we should
NAFTA agreement to compete with and Swedish immigrants to the United deviate from Kantian principles—to understand it as a plea to end Ameri-
heavily subsidized US agribusiness. He States because they were “swarthy” and avoid treating its neighbors as it would can hypocrisy, to introduce a more
takes no account of Central Americans would tarnish “Anglo- Saxon purity.” want to be treated—because it can. No consistently principled dimension to
fleeing drug cartels, or even of the con- We can hope that before long we will external power can compel a super- American relations with the world,
sequences of America’s ill- fated “war on regard today’s rampant Islamophobia power to be principled. That is the task and, instead of assuming American
drugs.” He mentions African migration with equal ridicule. of its citizens. benevolence, to scrutinize critically
to Europe with a passing, undeveloped Chomsky concludes by answering Chomsky offers little in the way of how the US government actually exer-
reference to European colonialism. Per- the titular question of his book with a prescription. His book is mainly a cri- cises its still- unmatched power.
A Poet Unlike Any Other
Hermione Lee
All the Poems s ing as a secretary to Sir Neville
e
g
by Stevie Smith, edited a Pearson, and produced three semi-
m
and with an introduction by Will May. y I autobiographical novels and eight
New Directions, 806 pp., $39.95 ett collections of poetry.
G
d/
More than with most poets, when peo- ar Some color can be added to this,
d
ple write and talk about Stevie Smith an drawing on Frances Spalding’s sym-
(1902–1971), they try to nail her down g St pathetic biography. There was her up-
n
with comparisons. She is a female Wil- ni bringing in what Stevie Smith calls “a
e
liam Blake, an Emily Dickinson of the v house of female habitation” (mother,
E
English suburbs, a mixture of Dorothy sister, aunt) after her father, an unsuc-
Parker, Ogden Nash, and the Brothers cessful shipping agent in Hull, ran away
Grimm. Her reading style, which be- to sea soon after she was born, leaving
came legendary, with her cropped hair, behind “a cynical babe.” There was
baleful expression, little- girl dresses, the death of her mother when she was
and singsong lugubrious chanting seventeen, and the consoling presence
voice, was described (by Jonathan of her Aunt Madge—“Auntie Lion”—
Miller) as a cross between Mary Pop- who moved the whole family south, and
pins and Lawrence Olivier’s Richard looked after Stevie Smith until it was
III. Seamus Heaney called it a combi- her turn to be looked after.
nation of Gretel and the witch. He also There was her dislike of her discipli-
compared her to “two Lears,” “the old narian school, North London Colle-
King come to knowledge and gentle- giate, where, however, she had a useful
ness through suffering, and the old classical education and started to write.
comic poet Edward veering off into There was her adoption of her androg-
nonsense.”* ynous writing name, taken from a pop-
She is often described as dotty, batty, ular jockey called Stevie Donoghue.
silly, odd, childish, droll, or “fausse- (Her given name was Florence.) There
naïve” (Philip Larkin’s term). Her was her opting for a dull secretarial job
English quirkiness and eccentricity so that she had time to write (on yellow
are played up, as in Stevie, the play of office paper). There was her move away
1977 by Hugh Whitemore (made into from Christianity to a troubled skepti-
a film by Robert Enders in 1978), with cism. There were a few unsatisfactory
Glenda Jackson as Stevie. Some read- love affairs with both men and women,
ers throw up their hands in bafflement, and an interesting range of literary
as she told them they would, at the start friendships (many of them wrecked by
of her 1936 Novel on Yellow Paper: her tendency to put them into her fic-
“This is a foot- off- the- ground novel... tion) including with George Orwell,
and if you are a foot- on- the- ground Inez Holden, Betty Miller, Kay Dick,
person, this book will be for you a des- Stevie Smith, March 1966 Mulk Raj Anand, Olivia Manning,
ert of weariness and exasperation.” Naomi Mitchison, Rose Macaulay, and
Other readers are indulgent and curi- eerie, shrewd, self- conscious, tricky, Authorship, it has not been an untrou- Veronica Wedgwood.
ous, but reluctant to think of her as a and uncompromising. bled path from the appearance of her
professional poet, more as an amateur All these adjectives point to a poet first novel and her first skinny, quirky-
A
folk artist, a hit- or- miss ingenue (or who is hard to categorize and not really looking book of poems in 1937, to this s Will May says, although in in-
enfant terrible). Fellow poets who have like anyone else at all. They also, often, solid production, which at last gives her terviews she liked to play “the uncon-
taken her seriously do so for different suggest a writer who has been mar- the look of a classic. Until now, Stevie nected and isolated figure,” she had
reasons. Heaney hears the accents of “a ginalized as an oddity. Now, forty- five Smith’s poetry has been as evasive of a rapid, eye- catching career as a poet
disenchanted gentility.” Amy Clampitt years after her death, bound inside this mainstream and academic acceptance and novelist from the mid-1930s to
sees in her “the desolation of the ordi- large annotated collection, she can be as her life has been resistant to biog- the late 1940s. Novel on Yellow Paper
nary.” D.J. Enright says she is “some- celebrated as a major English poet of raphers. Tellingly, her title for her first aroused much fascination. One poet-
what Greek”: austere, severe, and the twentieth century. She is a writer novel was “Pompey Casmilus,” after reader was convinced that the book,
“bracing.” In the introduction to his of astonishing skill, range, comedy, both the ruthless Roman general and with its free- associating, meandering,
edition of All the Poems, an invaluable and depth of feeling; she is inimitable, the wily, untamed messenger of the quizzical voice, was by Virginia Woolf,
and complete collection of her poems strange, and utterly original. With her gods, alias Hermes or Mercury. and wrote to tell her so: “You are Ste-
and drawings, Will May adds to the ad- poetry collected as a whole, it becomes The bare facts of the life, as summed vie Smith. No doubt of it. And Yellow
jectival pursuit. He calls her trenchant, more apparent too that though she is a up by Will May, don’t look enticing: Paper is far and away your best book.”
dogmatic, indignant, plaintive, stoic, funny writer—funny- ha- ha and funny- Certainly it became a cultish hit, and
peculiar—her work is melancholy and Stevie Smith was born in Hull in after that, books poured out of her: the
despairing, full of pain, terror, and 1902, moved to Palmers Green [a poetry collections with their quizzical
*See Seamus Heaney, Finders Keepers:
Selected Prose, 1971–2001 (Farrar, grief: “Not waving but drowning.” North London suburb] aged three, titles—A Good Time Was Had by All
Straus and Giroux, 2002), p. 421. Addi- As Will May makes clear both in and lived there for the rest of her (1937), Tender Only to One (1938),
tional footnotes appear in the Web ver- this edition and in the book he pub- life. After school, she spent thirty Mother, What Is Man? (1942), Har-
sion of this review at www.nybooks.com. lished six years ago, Stevie Smith and years working at Newnes Publish- old’s Leap (1950)—and the novels, full
8 The New York Review
THE GETTY WELCOMES ITS 2016/2017
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of angry arguments about religion, war, s Will May opts for Stevie Smith’s
n
politics, and marriage—Over the Fron- ctio final versions, notes earlier variants,
tier (1938) and The Holiday (1949). re provides brief but helpful notes to her
Di
In the 1950s, there was a slump into w wide and eclectic variety of sources
(cid:53)(cid:72)(cid:79)(cid:76)(cid:74)(cid:76)(cid:82)(cid:81)(cid:3)(cid:3) relative obscurity, neglect, and de- Ne and allusions, and gives clues to some
pression. One of the less-well- known of the characters in the poems. Though
poems in the new edition, called “They consistency must be the best editorial
(cid:43)(cid:68)(cid:83)(cid:83)(cid:72)(cid:81)(cid:86) Killed,” is savage on the subject of liter- policy, occasionally I regret his com-
ary neglect and condescension: mitment to her final choices. Here’s a
small example involving apostrophes.
They killed a poet by neglect In one of her wry retellings of fairy
And treating him worse than an stories, “The After- thought,” Rapun-
insect zel’s lover, a garrulous fellow, is wait-
They said what he wrote was ing at the bottom of her tower till she
feeble lets down her long golden hair so he
And should never be read by can climb up to meet her. This time, he
serious people says, he will bring a rope ladder with
him so they can escape, such a blin-
Serious people, serious people, dingly simple afterthought that “just
I should think it was serious to be because it is perfectly obvious one is
such people. certain to overlook.” He rambles on
about Edgar Allan Poe, centipedes,
Her haunting radio play of the 1950s, A Stevie Smith’s illustration for her poem Indian gurus, and the tendency of the
Turn Outside, dramatized a poet very ‘Quand on n’a pas ce que l’on aime, il faut human mind toward introspection, and
like herself reading and singing her aimer ce que l’on a –’ then breaks off, as if he is talking on a
work while haunted by the ever-closer bad phone line to someone who hasn’t
figure of death. She had a crisis at the Her executor, the publisher James gotten a word in edgewise. (Paraphrase
office in July 1953, an attack on her ge- MacGibbon, did his best to keep her can’t bring home the endearing absur-
nial employer that turned into a suicide work in print but made some incon- dity of this dramatic monologue.) He
attempt (with a pair of scissors) and led sistent decisions. His Collected Poems ends:
to her being fired. in 1975 varied in its choice of texts
But in the 1960s, with the rise of per- and omitted uncollected poems. In What is that darling? You cannot
formance poetry and a new interest 1978, his Selected Poems (a different hear me?
in women writers, she had a return to choice from her own 1962 selection) That’s odd. I can hear you quite
popularity, as a reciter of her own work left out many of the drawings. Mac- distinctly.
and as a reviewer and a broadcaster. Gibbon took issue with two American
There was some remarkable late work, academic devotees, Jack Barbera and Will May’s version has apostrophes
such as the poetry collections The Frog William McBrien, who published, with (“What’s that, darling? You can’t hear
(cid:36)(cid:80)(cid:78)(cid:67)(cid:74)(cid:79)(cid:74)(cid:79)(cid:72)(cid:3)(cid:88)(cid:74)(cid:85)(cid:3)(cid:66)(cid:79)(cid:69)(cid:3) Prince (1966) and Scorpion and Other Virago, an interesting new selection of me?”), less funny because less formal
Poems (1972). She made her own se- poems, stories, essays, reviews, and let- and pompous.
(cid:68)(cid:66)(cid:79)(cid:69)(cid:80)(cid:83)(cid:3)(cid:88)(cid:74)(cid:85)(cid:73)(cid:3)(cid:84)(cid:73)(cid:66)(cid:83)(cid:81)(cid:3) lection of her poems and drawings, ters called Me Again, in 1981.
published in England and America In 1985 they did a biography, with
“Y
(cid:68)(cid:86)(cid:77)(cid:85)(cid:86)(cid:83)(cid:66)(cid:77)(cid:3)(cid:80)(cid:67)(cid:84)(cid:70)(cid:83)(cid:87)(cid:66)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:80)(cid:79)(cid:84)(cid:13)(cid:3) as Selected Poems in 1962. In the last Heinemann, not welcomed by MacGib- ou cannot hear me?/That’s odd.”
ten years of her life, she became well bon, who then commissioned Frances Stevie Smith’s poems are full of un-
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known and well loved, and in 1969 she Spalding to write another life, pub- answered or unanswerable questions,
(cid:84)(cid:68)(cid:83)(cid:74)(cid:81)(cid:85)(cid:3)(cid:80)(cid:79)(cid:3)(cid:83)(cid:70)(cid:77)(cid:74)(cid:72)(cid:74)(cid:80)(cid:84)(cid:74)(cid:85)(cid:90)(cid:13)(cid:3) was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal lished in 1988 by Faber and never super- conversations that go awry, misun-
for poetry. According to Stevie Smith’s seded. Meanwhile MacGibbon allowed derstandings, cross- purposes, and the
(cid:66)(cid:83)(cid:72)(cid:86)(cid:74)(cid:79)(cid:72)(cid:3)(cid:85)(cid:73)(cid:66)(cid:85)(cid:13)(cid:3)(cid:105)(cid:42)(cid:71)(cid:3)(cid:88)(cid:73)(cid:66)(cid:85)(cid:3) version of this encounter, the queen Virago to reissue the three novels (Car- drawing of blanks. This evasiveness or
remarked that she had been told that men Callil, Virago’s founder- editor, intractability is particularly on show
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Smith lived in a house with nine rooms was a great enthusiast of Stevie Smith) when she is writing about publishers,
all on her own. Smith “thought this and gave me permission to do a small literary editors, critics and pundits, and
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remark odd, considering how many Faber selection, annotated for student unresponsive readers:
(cid:88)(cid:73)(cid:80)(cid:3)(cid:88)(cid:70)(cid:3)(cid:66)(cid:83)(cid:70)(cid:13)(cid:3)(cid:85)(cid:73)(cid:70)(cid:83)(cid:70)(cid:8)(cid:84)(cid:3)(cid:3) rooms the Queen lived in, but replied readers, in 1983, one of several selec-
that it was better for one person to live tions and anthologizings of her work, TO AN AMERICAN PUBLISHER
(cid:79)(cid:80)(cid:3)(cid:72)(cid:70)(cid:85)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:79)(cid:72)(cid:3)(cid:66)(cid:88)(cid:66)(cid:90)(cid:3)(cid:3) in nine rooms quite happily than for with her most anthologized poem being
nine people to live in nine rooms and “Not Waving But Drowning.” This You say I must write another
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not get on.” scattered publication history, across book? But I’ve just written this
four publishing houses—Longmans, one.
Faber, Heinemann, and Virago—has You liked it so much that’s the
S
corpion and Other Poems was pub- made for a long journey to this complete reason? Read it again then.
lished after her death, from a brain edition. Now we need well- edited new
tumor, in March 1971. From then on, publications of all the novels and stories, Or elsewhere:
her posthumous publishing life was the essays, and the letters.
(cid:180)(cid:39)(cid:68)(cid:89)(cid:76)(cid:71)(cid:3)(cid:39)(cid:68)(cid:85)(cid:78)(cid:3)(cid:76)(cid:86)(cid:3)(cid:82)(cid:81)(cid:72)(cid:3) not straightforward. She was in the WHO IS THIS WHO
s
habit of slightly altering her poems n HOWLS AND MUTTERS?
o
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e
(cid:68)(cid:81)(cid:71)(cid:3)(cid:81)(cid:72)(cid:70)(cid:72)(cid:86)(cid:86)(cid:68)(cid:85)(cid:92)(cid:3) drawings—part cartoons, part doo- Dir Who is this that howls and
dles, part character sketches of chil- w mutters?
e
(cid:70)(cid:88)(cid:79)(cid:87)(cid:88)(cid:85)(cid:68)(cid:79)(cid:3)(cid:70)(cid:85)(cid:76)(cid:87)(cid:76)(cid:70)(cid:86)(cid:17)(cid:181) dren or people or animals, with (Will N It is the Muse, each word she
May notes) a touch of George Grosz utters
(cid:137)(cid:43)(cid:70)(cid:84)(cid:84)(cid:74)(cid:68)(cid:66)(cid:3)(cid:41)(cid:80)(cid:81)(cid:81)(cid:70)(cid:83)(cid:13) and more than a touch of Edward Is thrown against a shuttered door
Lear—were free- floating elaborations And very soon she’ll speak no
(cid:66)(cid:86)(cid:85)(cid:73)(cid:80)(cid:83)(cid:3)(cid:80)(cid:71)(cid:3)(cid:53)(cid:73)(cid:70)(cid:3)(cid:39)(cid:74)(cid:83)(cid:84)(cid:85)(cid:3)(cid:36)(cid:80)(cid:77)(cid:77)(cid:70)(cid:68)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:80)(cid:79)(cid:3)(cid:3) of the writing. As she said in a radio more....
(cid:80)(cid:71)(cid:3)(cid:36)(cid:83)(cid:74)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:68)(cid:74)(cid:84)(cid:78)(cid:3)(cid:67)(cid:90)(cid:3)(cid:66)(cid:3)(cid:45)(cid:74)(cid:87)(cid:74)(cid:79)(cid:72)(cid:3)(cid:3) interview in 1963:
(cid:39)(cid:70)(cid:78)(cid:66)(cid:77)(cid:70)(cid:3)(cid:51)(cid:80)(cid:68)(cid:76)(cid:3)(cid:36)(cid:83)(cid:74)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:68) In his book on Stevie Smith, Will
This delightful moment comes, May talks about her tricky, slippery re-
which is the moment that I like lationship with her intermediaries and
best, in fact the only moment I her readers. She could play “fausse-
really like, when a book of poems naïve” with her publishers, but she was
is going to be published and you shrewd and self- aware and knew ex-
choose the right drawing for the actly the kind of impact her work had.
poem and you have all these draw- A letter to her American editor, James
ings on the floor, on the table, and Laughlin, in 1963, struck a warning
you think well that one will do note:
and that one and then when you’re
looking one of the drawings will I am not sure it is altogether a good
often inspire another poem, then Stevie Smith’s illustration for her poem thing to use the words whimsi-
you write another poem. ‘Croft’ cal and primitive as it is rather
10 The New York Review