The New Yorker, April 2

Alright, I received my April 2 New Yorker issue in the mail three days ago and I decided enough was enough. I am drowning in New Yorkers. I’ve been trying so hard to get through the books I’m reading that I simply haven’t had time to finish a single New Yorker since the end of February. This week’s New Yorker, which arrived a full five days earlier than it usually does, was the last straw. I am proud to say that, four days later, I have finally finished a complete New Yorker.

I decided to do something a bit different this week. Instead of reading the magazine front to back, which is what I usually do, I decided to read the articles in order of interest. So, I started with John Updike’s review of Walter Isaacson’s Einstein. In his own Picked Up Pieces, a collection of assorted prose, Updike lays out his own rules for writing reviews. One of those rules was:

Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending. (How astounded and indignant was I, when innocent, to find reviewers blabbing, and with the sublime inaccuracy of drunken lords reporting on a peasants' revolt, all the turns of my suspenseful and surpriseful narrative! Most ironically, the only readers who approach a book as the author intends, unpolluted by pre-knowledge of the plot, are the detested reviewers themselves. And then, years later, the blessed fool who picks the volume at random from a library shelf.)

It’s a good thing that Updike admits to breaking his own rules because plot summary is exactly what he did with this review of Isaacson’s biography. Albert Einstein is such an iconic figure that it’s unlikely that the new biography is fraught with suspense and “surpiseful narrative.” Only those who have read the book (I haven’t) would know whether Isaacson sheads new and shocking light on Einstein’s life and if Updike knows it, maybe he’s following his own advice and not telling us. But if it’s unknown whether Isaacson has anything new to say about Einstein’s life, it’s certainly clear that Updike doesn’t.

I don’t see how this article could classify as anything other than an elegant summary. Updike neither provides a new theory or way of looking at the man, nor does he provide any illuminating comments on the biography itself outside of calling it “thorough, comprehensive, [and] affectionate.” One wonders if, for all of its elegance, this article would have even been accepted by the New Yorker if it hadn’t come with John Updike’s byline.

The New Yorker, Anniversary Issue

At the risk of repeating myself, I love the New Yorker. Lately, however, my favorite magazine’s recent and obvious democratic political slant has been disturbing me in ways that are getting harder and harder to ignore. One of the things that initially pleased me when I began reading the magazine in 2002 was its seemingly bipartisan political stance. I liked that, while there were incredibly informative articles on politics and the current state of affairs in Washington, the magazine writers seemed content to merely provide the facts while letting you draw your own conclusions. Yet, since the New Yorker’s endorsement of the Gore campaign in the 2004 presidential election, it seems as if the New Yorker’s bipartisanship is a thing of the past and that, no matter how much of a Democrat I am, saddens me.

In The Financial Page’s “Troubled Waters Over Oil” (Feb. 16 & 26 Anniversary Issue), James Surowiecki, after arguing that threatening war with Iran makes oil prices rise through an effect called “risk premiums” which in turn only strengthens Iran and its president, writes, “Talking tough may look like a good way of demonstrating U.S. resolve, but when tough talk makes our opponent richer and stronger we may accomplish more by saying less.” It’s an interesting point, probably even a valid point, but does it have to be such an obvious refutation of the Bush administration’s Iran foreign policy? Mayhap my memory is faulty, but I recall a time when The Financial Page followed the money instead of the politics.

Immediately following The Financial Page is the article on “24,” “Whatever It Takes” by Jane Mayer. The obvious disapproving liberal slant of this article was palpable. In fact, Mayer made almost no attempt to hide or subvert her own opinion. Disclaimer: I’m an avid fan of “24,” and despite what Mayer would have you believe about anyone who watches the television show, I don’t advocate, support, or believe in torture. In the perfect fantasy world in which “24” exists, torture – and there is a lot of it – is always practiced on the “bad guy” and it always garners some key information which allows Jack Bauer to save the world at the last minute. In that perfect world, Bauer is a patriot and torture is never wrong. Yet, I’m perfectly capable of separating fact from fiction; I’m perfectly capable of recognizing that this isn’t a perfect world and that torture is never right because it often causes more harm than good and that it isn’t always practiced only on the “bad guys,” but on the innocent ones as well.

Unfortunately, it seems as if everyone isn’t as smart as I am, at least according to Mayer they aren’t, and the creators of “24” are rabid conservatives with dangerous ties to the White House. Mayer goes to considerable length to quote military opponents of the show and its tactics (“The kids see it, and say, ‘If torture is wrong, what about ‘24’,” says Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point) and conservative fanatics who support it (“They [the public] love Jack Bauer…In my mind, that’s as close to a referendum that it’s O.K. to use tough tactics against high-level Al Qaeda operatives as we’re going to get,” says Laura Ingraham, a talk-show radio host). However, at no point does Mayer even make an attempt to speak to Democrats who are also fans of the show, such as Bill Clinton and Barbra Streisand. What ever happened to balance?

What did ever happen to balance in New Yorker? I miss the magazine that assumed I was intelligent enough to draw my own conclusions. I miss the magazine that wasn’t so blatantly liberal as to offend a Democrat like me. I miss the magazine that already knew I don’t read to reinforce my assumptions; I read to broaden them.

A New Yorker Occurance on the Bus

by Me

Ah, ha! This morning I saw a man reading the January 15, 2007 issue of the New Yorker on the bus. Now I don't feel so bad for just beginning the January 29 issue. This week though, I am making a concerted effort to catch up (this week's anniversary issue has an article on the creators of "24" that I can't wait to read). However, I'm also determined not to skip ahead. I will give my New Yorkers their due respect and read them in the order they were published.

While I'm on the subject, I guess I should write a New Yorker post, which I've been neglecting to do as much as I have the magazine. --

Jerome Groopman's article on how doctors think ("What's the Trouble?") validates, sadly, my grandmother's belief that doctors don't know what the hell they're talking about. We all know that doctors are occasionally wrong - they are human, after all. But of course, the scary part is, frequently when doctors are wrong someone dies. The even scarier part is that the problems which often cause misdiagnosis are problems that seem to be the result of, well, human nature. For instance, a heuristic to which doctors may be particularly prone is "availability," which refers to "the tendency to judge the likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant examples come to mind."

If you are an overworked doctor with a roomful of patients waiting to be seen, how likely is it that, given human nature, your diagnosis will not be based on how quickly examples of the relevant symptoms and diagnosis come to mind? My guess is, not very likely. Of course, all doctors should try to be as thorough as possible, especially since not doing so could put lives at risk. But the likelihood that that will happen every time, all the time, is idealistic. Yet, as with all ideals, it is certainly something to which doctors should aspire.

Steve Martin's "Seventy-Two Virgins" was surprisingly funny. I say "surprisingly" because reading an article in the "Shouts & Murmers" section is often like reading a mystery: I'm always trying to figure out where the hell the joke is. Yet, "Seventy-Two Virgins" was entertaining and even, on occasion, laugh-out-loud funny. For instance, Virgin No. 16: "Even I know that's tiny." Or, Virgin No. 49: "I really enjoyed that. Thank you very much. Gee, it's late." Or even, Virgin No. 45, "When you're done, you should really check out how cool this ceiling is." Come on, you gotta admit, it's a little harsh but it's funny.

David Sedaris' piece "The Birds" is typical Sedaris fare - a memoir-ish piece in which he finds the funny in a situation that, in anyone else's hands, would be a typical, everyday occurance. On this occasion, two birds begin to ram themselves crazily into Sedaris' window for no apparent reason. Sedaris' plan - to tape album covers onto the windows to discourage them from attacking - strangly enough, works. "There I filled the windows with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Armatrading, and Donna Summer, who has her minuses but can really put the fear of God into a chaffinch." Only David Sedaris. Why can't my life be that crazy? Then again, maybe it is and I'm just not observant enough to notice.

What the hell is happening in Russia? In "Kremlin, Inc." Michael Specter writes, "Since 1999, when Vladimir Putin, a career K.G.B. officer, was, in effect, anointed as President by Boris Yeltsin, thirteen journalists have been murdered in Russia. Nearly all the deaths took place in strange circumstances, and none of them have been successfully investigated." And here I'd thought Russia was trying to work its way out of its Communist era. Apparently though, with the permission of his people (at least, according to Specter), Putin is working Communism back in.

Specter is quick to point out that, though the death of dissenting journalists may be placed at the feet of Putin and the K.G.B., the destruction of free media is as much the media's fault as it is their government's. In an effort to ensure that Yeltsin would win the 1996 presidential election against a pro-communist conservative, the media purposely skewered their reports in favor of Yeltsin. But, Specter writes, "...when Russia's young democrats jettisoned the rules of democracy they also forfeited their independence."

Because democracy has been a part of the United States' fabric for so long, it's easy to forget that applying its principles may not be as simple as it looks to us Americans. In fact, half the time, it's not even simple for us (see abortion rights and gay marraige) and we've been doing it for a few hundred years. Even still, the protection of the rights we hold so dear require constant viligence and clarification. If they didn't, what would the Supreme Court do with its time? So we have to ask ourselves, if we were forced to make the same choices that Russians have had to make recently, would we choose differently? "In today's Russia...stability is everything and damn the cost," Specter writes. It's a tough choice: civil liberty or stability? Which would you choose?...Are you sure?

The New Yorker, Dec. 11, 2006

Yes, you read that correctly - I have only just read the Dec. 11 issue of The New Yorker. On occassion, especially when I'm traveling, I get horribly behind in reading my New Yorkers. I have issues from 2005 that I haven't read yet - and yes, I do plan to read them, and no, I'm not throwing them out, I don't care what you say. I'll admit that when they're a month or more old, the articles aren't as relevent to the times as they were the week they were printed but that just makes the reading all that more interesting. There is an untold superior and smug pleasure in reading news-based articles with the informed eye of hindsight.

The Al Sharpton snapshot "Fifty Shots" in Talk of the Town transports me back to week an unarmed black man was shot 50 times and killed on the eve of his wedding. And although I may have predicted it, I'm able to look back with a month and half worth of hindsight with the knowledge that one week was all that unjustified over-kill recieved in the national news.

And then there's the David Denby review of "Blood Diamond" and "Deja Vu" that makes me regret not having shown either of those movies enough attention. Well, that's not particularly true of "Deja Vu", which, as Denby informs us, "makes beautiful pictures out of carnage." Intended complement though it may be, it is the very reason why I decided to pass on "Deja Vu" - carnage should never be beautiful, mindless action movie or no. The fact that this is the very case that "Blood Diamond" makes is the reason why I wonder if I can still find this film playing in a theatre. Having enjoyed - if that's the proper way to describe a movie that "breaks your heart" - "Hotel Rwanda" and "The Constant Gardener", movies "set against the background of civil wars, ethnic conflict, and Western meddling and exploitation", Denby has convinced me as all the other rave reviews weren't able to that "Blood Diamond" was worthy of my $9.00. Ah well, another benefit to reading an old movie review - I'm just in time for the DVD.

The New Yorker, Winter Fiction Issue

The Nobel Lecture
by Orhan Pamuk;
The Bible
by Marguerite Duras;
On Chesil Beach
by Ian McEwan

When I can, I try really hard to read my New Yorkers from cover to cover. It is a rare occasion when that happens. The fiction section gets me every time. Most of the time, I just don't get New Yorker fiction. It just never goes anywhere. At the end of a typical New Yorker piece I always feel as if I've wasted ten minutes of my time reading great writing that has absolutely no point. And it is great writing - that's undeniable. But what I want is a story. I get bored with reading great writing just for the sake of great writing. I read because I love a great story just as much as I love great writing - maybe more.

But occasionally, I try. I do try. I started with Orhan Pamuk's 2006 Nobel lecture "My Father's Suitcase." It was an amazing contemplation on the writing life; on how writers are shaped by their country and culture, and how they shape the world around them with their words. There are some wonderfully crafted sentences that clearly express the reason why he was the deserving recipient of last year's Nobel Prize for Literature. A sentence like, "A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is," will have me thinking for hours. That sentence is just one of many that will get written on an index card for further contemplation.

The one thing that troubled me about Pamuk's piece was that it made me question why it seems that great writers are always unhappy, depressed, and/or addictive. At the end of a beautiful paragraph on why he writes - why we all write - Pamuk says, "I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy." Is tortured unhappiness a job requirement? I understand that great writing can come from angst and pain but does that disqualify me, the chronically content and generally well-adjusted, from writing the kind of literature that will win me a Nobel Prize? I sincerely hope not.

"The Bible" and "On Chesil Beach" was typical New Yorker fiction fare, i.e. a supermodel all-dressed up with nowhere to go. "The Bible" I found bearable simply because it had a short running time of two pages. "On Chesil Beach" on the other hand, was too long with a running time of nine whole pages and ends right at the moment when things are starting to get interesting. Whatever my problems with Chabon's Thrilling Tales, Chabon and I certainly agree that the now-popular in-the-moment revelatory fiction "pieces" are an annoying turn-off for readers like myself. Maybe it's an acquired taste but it's one that I will gladly do without.