New email advert:
Spring is here, but the LRB, like cypress, pine, fir, cedar, spruce, hemlock, juniper, eucalyptus and magnolia trees, is evergreen. Which is to say that pieces and issues from a month, or a year, or a decade ago can be as riveting and unmissable as last week’s. Now you can buy back issues online and test this notion. So if you’ve misplaced an issue you wanted to read the second half of, or your dog or your husband ate pages 17-22 of the last Perry Anderson, or you’ve just realised the collection contained in your brand new LRB binders has got a couple of infuriating gaps, rejoice!
― the pinefox, Friday, 22 March 2019 12:36 (five years ago) link
This is the only time I have ever seen the LRB joke about the fact that Perry Anderson writes for it at unusual length.
It was a short article (by LRB standards) and perhaps that's why it flew under the radar, but I'm pretty shocked by Edward Luttwak's thing on Japan.
I do appreciate his stance of trying to go beyond lazy political equivalences with the West, but he treats Japan's disarmament with such contempt - seeing it as purely US imperialism or Japan deciding to be lead as opposed to leading, with no reference to how much it reflected a genuine pacifist feeling amongst the population in the post-war era. He then complains that its critics, who actually belong in three distinct groups - fascists, gangsters, tories - get lumped into the same category (within the context of defending Shinzo Abe); surely in 2019 it's not hard to see how tories strenghten fascists?
He then goes on to chide South Korea for not forgiving Japan "like France forgave Germany". Seems to me you have to apologise before being forgiven - something which Germany, for all its faults, has done quite comprehensively, and something which it has been pointed out again and again Japan has never done. Even pacifist/leftist narratives about the war tend to centre on the lives lost in Japan, not the countries invaded (cf: US movies on Vietnam, natch). Instead he suggests the reason is South Korea wanting to distract from the fact that most people collaborated (as if ppl in France didn't?).
China gets in for similar treatment, with "scaremongering" tactics being used to prevent "mass tourism to Japan", which could interfere with ideological conditioning. Seems a pretty shaky statement to me, considering Chinese tourism around the world, but anyway how can you go into Sino-Japanese relations and not even mention Nanjing?
Like I'm not averse to the idea that South Korea and China might be using anti-Japanese sentiment for their own purposes, but to write an article in a Western paper that doesn't even namecheck the very real historical reasons for these sentiments is pretty galling.
― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 13 April 2019 12:20 (five years ago) link
Yeah, the way japanese leaders keep celebrating the lives and graves of horrendous war criminals is pretty orovocative for Koreans, Manchurians, etc.
― And according to some websites, there were “sexcapades.” (James Morrison), Saturday, 13 April 2019 23:28 (five years ago) link
Just noticed it's the same guy who keeps insisting Reagan would have never pushed the button in the letters section so I guess there's not much to expect.
― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 14 April 2019 16:53 (five years ago) link
The Colm Toibin cancer piece is genuinely terrifying and starts with the wonderfully memorable sentence: “It all started with my balls.”
― o. nate, Thursday, 18 April 2019 16:38 (five years ago) link
Terrifying indeed, and written beautifully.
For a few days I comforted myself by pretending that, because of my abiding interest in the mysteries and niceties of Being, I had to see an ontologist. Nobody except one of my fellow Irish novelists thought this was funny.
― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Friday, 19 April 2019 09:23 (five years ago) link
Yeah, I loved that piece. Am planning to ask people if there was a big crowd there whenever they tell me they went to something now.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 19 April 2019 10:41 (five years ago) link
london review of LOL
Our event with Terry Eagleton on HUMOUR on 10 June is nearly sold out - last few tickets available here: https://t.co/xwReBVT2JC pic.twitter.com/L7YbWi7QqA— LRB Bookshop (@LRBbookshop) May 19, 2019
― mark s, Sunday, 19 May 2019 18:57 (four years ago) link
Thanks for the link - going to this with my partner now
― Chuck_Tatum, Sunday, 19 May 2019 22:14 (four years ago) link
I also go.
― the pinefox, Monday, 20 May 2019 10:14 (four years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1cVl7KHsGA
― mark s, Monday, 20 May 2019 10:48 (four years ago) link
what's the deal with theory *slapbass flourish*
― mark s, Monday, 20 May 2019 10:53 (four years ago) link
you-know-who is blogging GoT: i am reaching for a lanchester/lannister joke but luckily someone just rolled me out of the moon door
― mark s, Tuesday, 21 May 2019 15:51 (four years ago) link
he has also watched some other TV shows
― Captain ACAB (Neil S), Tuesday, 21 May 2019 16:09 (four years ago) link
Do you go to TE's Humour bash Mark S ?
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 22 May 2019 07:53 (four years ago) link
I dug "you know nothing, john lanchester" from a while back
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 22 May 2019 11:55 (four years ago) link
what language is the pinefox now posting in before he reaches for babelfish?
(i'm out of town that day i think, in hastings with my sister)
― mark s, Wednesday, 22 May 2019 12:01 (four years ago) link
To be fair, that Lanchester piece seemed fine. I have never seen GoT, so I may well not know what I'm talking about.
― And according to some websites, there were “sexcapades.” (James Morrison), Wednesday, 22 May 2019 23:33 (four years ago) link
Mark S I learned it from my friend R J G
― the pinefox, Thursday, 23 May 2019 08:20 (four years ago) link
The GOT piece is fine. I liked the "Tony Blair or Ladyhitler" line. But even when he's OTM, he's a bit muddy. It's not so much "John, you took the words out of mouth" as "John, you took the words out of my mouth, added some syllables, and made them a tiny bit less clear"
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 23 May 2019 10:23 (four years ago) link
Crosspost to the a "a box of ___ every month" thread?
www.londonreviewbookbox.co.uk
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 9 October 2019 10:15 (four years ago) link
Letter commissioned for the first issue:
SIR: The London Review doesn’t have, or intend to seek, an Arts Council subsidy. This means that the envious, the indolent, the mischievous must, if they wish to be damaging, take issue with the journal itself, and not with the way it is financed. Most writers believe that they are (or, given the chance, could be) terrific editors, and they are particularly contemptuous of the skills that go into producing journals from which their own works are excluded. Arts Council grants, I’ve come to see, make it all too easy for the whimper of neglect to masquerade as public-spirited dismay. The London Review won’t have to get annoyed about this kind of thing.
It will have other things to get annoyed about, but many of these can be seen as pretty well routine: the publishers will be cagey, the librarians won’t want to know, the backbiters will go on about élitism, metropolitan cliquishness, lack of compassion for the avant-garde, the sycophants will wait and see. The appalling thing about our ‘literary culture’ at the moment is that a large section of its representatives seem to get more of a kick out of seeing things collapse than they do out of seeing them survive. Sooner or later (and I would like to think that this might be the moment) they must ask themselves if they really do want another serious reviewing journal; or if, in their heart of hearts, they prefer to sit around complaining that they haven’t got one.
Ian Hamilton
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v01/n01/letters
― the pinefox, Monday, 28 October 2019 11:00 (four years ago) link
they shd commission a letter from ilx for the whateverth issue
― mark s, Monday, 28 October 2019 11:11 (four years ago) link
Thank you for your service Ian. We're gonna nationalise it now and lock all the white literary London boys now.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 28 October 2019 11:46 (four years ago) link
Astonishing letters-page controversy:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v10/n03/christopher-norris/paul-de-mans-past
― the pinefox, Monday, 28 October 2019 12:17 (four years ago) link
yeah i remember all that de man stuff very clearly :(
― mark s, Monday, 28 October 2019 12:42 (four years ago) link
Salad days
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 28 October 2019 13:38 (four years ago) link
just finally finished reading empson's seven types of ambiguity properly for the first time (only ever skipped thru bits of it before): not always crystal clear but good not bad
was a bit startled to discover it had an index, something i was convinced i had claimed that it did not here in this very thread: rereading i discover it was the pinefox who said this (his copy had an editor;s note saying not) and that i then posted a link to an on-line version which did
anyway i came to post the following line on proust as i felt it was funny and apposite, only to find i already posted it three years ago lol: "Parodies are appreciative criticisms in this sense, and much of Proust reads like the work of a superb appreciative critic upon a novel which has unfortunately not survived" -- thats right william
(i can only think that three years ago i couldn't locate my physical copy, not at all an unusual situation in my house)
― mark s, Wednesday, 6 April 2022 13:45 (two years ago) link
the unsurviving novel is proust
― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, 6 April 2022 20:04 (two years ago) link
given where the sentence comes in the book it's in, empson is kind of saying "it me, i'm proust"
― mark s, Wednesday, 6 April 2022 20:08 (two years ago) link
je suis etc
― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, 6 April 2022 20:11 (two years ago) link
CALL ME MADELEINE
― mark s, Wednesday, 6 April 2022 20:25 (two years ago) link
Some days the novel reads you.
― dow, Wednesday, 6 April 2022 23:13 (two years ago) link