Taking Sides: the TLS v. the LRB

An odd end to Michael Wood's somewhat bloodless TOP GUN: MAVERICK review. It's not totally clear whether he's just telling us the film's message or endorsing it but it looks like the latter - the message being that instinct or intuition are better than a reasoned approach because they are 'prompts of good faith', and 'prudence is always unappealing, but in a danger zone it looks like a criminal delusion.'

I agree!

Michael Wood should not be anywhere near the film column in the LRB, they should get an actual film critic to do it

my time to shine

👍

Michael Wood was a film critic something like 50 years ago for NEW SOCIETY. He also worked on at least one feature film. He has now written film reviews for the LRB for maybe 20 years. He has published at least 3 books, that I can think of, on film.

It seems logical to say that someone who has done those things is ... a ... is a ... a ... a film critic, whether one likes any of his film criticism or not.

ha ha yes, that's fair enough! I don't like his film criticism, it's true, which I think is just poor. For me he's similar to Eagleton or Sinclair, an old stager who just gets to write for the mag because he always has done. But no doubt others see merit where I don't.

Reflecting on all this, I have been formulating the thought: "After MW stops doing this, the job should be shared among multiple film reviewers".

But I've ended up cancelling this thought as I've realised I can't think of any LRB contributor whose film review I'd like to read, let alone four or six.

MW is 86, so people who don't like him probably, to be honest, don't have that long to wait till he stops.

maybe getting some younger contributors would be a good idea, and that thought applies across to their coverage the board I think.

garbled but you see what I mean!

some younger contributors

and my time to shine dims once again

Neil S: I have now posted TWO replies to your views and ILX will not post them.

I will try one more brief time and say:

When they do hire young people, they're usually bad.

But I agree that in principle they should be more open to people they don't already know, of whatever age or background.

to summarise then: more young people (but good not bad) but also mark s, is the ILX line on LRB's editorial policy

it may not be the pinefox's line :D

Mark S is correct.

I think it would be OK for Mark S to be in the LRB, if other people I know and like were also in the LRB. I don't think he should be the *only* person in the LRB. Except for the *Special Issue on Mark S Studies*.

I don't think that age should be a key criterion either for publishing or not publishing someone. I think that openness to outsiders is the thing that the LRB (by choice, I suppose) doesn't have. That could include 75-year-old West Indians as well as 22-year-olds in Inverness.

I think that if senility, laziness, being out of touch, etc, are occupational hazards of being old, then by the same token there must be occupational hazards (for a writer) of being young, which I will not now trouble to list. The list perhaps writes itself.

Different people like different LRB contributors (if they like any at all). The three that poster Neil S has listed as bad happen to be three of my favourites. Possibly I dislike his favourite three.

fwiw I do like Sinclair, even if he definitely has his (walking) schtick that he leans on rather too often.

I also like Stefan Collini on intellectual history (old-ish white bloke), William Davies on policitcal economy and sociology (middle-aged white bloke), James Butler on politics (young-ish white bloke) and Patricia Lockwood on literature and "internet culture" (youngi-ish white woman). Make of that list what you will.

yes I agree that age shouldn't be a prime determinant, it's just that for film in paritcular it would be nice to get some other perspectives now and again, regardless of the merits or otherwise of M Wood.

"Walking schtick" for IS is good.

I like reading Collini (met him once, he said the LRB was a mystery to him), Davies (often very insightful).

I don't like Butler because of some of his political statements, and I don't like Lockwood.

I agree that a pluralistic, multiple-reviewers approach would be logical and productive for film coverage in future.

It used to be the complaint about Sight and Sound, under the previous editor, that there was a predictability about assignments - ie if it was a new horror film, Kim Newman would automatically be given it to review. In general, editors like that kind of reliability, of opinion and perspective as well as actual delivery of content, so I can see why LRB have stuck with Michael Wood as the (only?) person who gets to regularly review new movies. I'm sure he turns in clean, legible copy that fulfils the basic requirement - tell us what this new film is like - and requires minimal fixing. An easy half page. But sticking with Wood alone gives the impression that the LRB doesn't really give a toss about films and film culture. In fact, a more focused column on, say, writing and cinema might be more interesting than a 'new films round-up' that you can still get from plenty of other places online or in print.

While we're talking about age, I think the one LRB writer who has truly entered a new plane of writerly existence with age is ... OK, one is Alan Bennett. But the other, that I had in mind, is Fredric Jameson. He's 88, he is perhaps now allowed to write what he wants, when he wants (well, he probably always was), and he writes quite random things that contain very little clear intellectual content.

Still, I don't really want to see someone like FJ banned from the LRB, even when he writes this way. Maybe better to let him keep going as long as he can, adding to the late record of his work, as you would have done for Freud, Adorno, Yeats, et al.

gives the impression that the LRB doesn't really give a toss about films and film culture

But this shouldn't just come down to the 'new film review' slot. If they did give that toss, as you say, then what they would and should do would be to publish much more full-length essays (of the usual kind) on books about film (of which there are of course many).

It's the fact that they don't do that much (as far as I can see) which is the bigger indictment than their film review feature.

David Thomson gets in there fairly regularly reviewing books about film:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/david-thomson
Another octogenarian white male Brit living in the US!

Yes. He's appearing a bit more, lately, than he had?

He's not as far gone as FJ, and I'd publish anything he does as long as he can still press the keys.

"But sticking with Wood alone gives the impression that the LRB doesn't really give a toss about films and film culture."

They are lazy bums! It's painful to read the LRB pretend to give a toss about stuff they clearly do not.

Has anyone bought or read the TLS lately? I believe that poster Fizzles was doing so.

I second the surprise at the EastEnders thing; it didn't fit as an LRB piece, not even in a "wow, didn't expect this in the LRB" kind of way. Wasn't there another odd piece a while ago that turned out to have been written by the editor's son, or something?

I don't recall that - does anyone? - but it sounds like something that could only happen in the LRB.

Well, or in the Spectator or The Lady.

Good too see the LRB publishing something on a writer I care about.

All My Cats by Bohumil Hrabal, translated by Paul Wilson
Michael Hofmann

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n14/michael-hofmann/goofing-off

This essay was wonderful, more of an overview of Hrabal than a review of the particular book. I love his enthusiasm for the things he loves, how he articulates it. I share it, so he is talking to the converted here.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n15/richard-taws/what!-not-you-too

Really enjoyed this piece on Jules Renard. Journalling 19th century writer.

I loved the EastEnders piece, maybe for its implausibility. It made EastEnders feel like the foundational document for understanding the collective psychic turmoil of living in modern Britain, which probably isn't something I've often thought during the several thousand episodes of EastEnders I've watched.

New LRB is really good so far.

Richard Taws on Jules Renard was a really good appreciation, a writer I've heard of but never read. Must get round. Andrea Brady on Lisa Robertson's poetry and translations of Weil was good though it tried to squeeze a bit much on all of Robertson's interests. The stuff on Weil was too brief. Emily Wilson's Diary on Artemis, loss of innocence, queerness, whether the world can be safe for her daughters hit a nerve. Anne Carson's piece was fantastic, a bit like Godot at the movies.

Now onto the non-fiction coverage.

re jules renard: the only moment where a snort of derision escaped me is when julian fkn barnes is quoted sneering at beatrix potter (and lol jemima puddleduckl) as "sentimental", fvck off barnes u useless middlebrow dullard reread the duck book its not long exactly

otherwise this was an interesting piece yes

Lanchester's piece on German corporate corruption was a story told well enough in a 6/10 sorta way once you get over his conceptions of capitalism and his stiff jokes.

I didn't think an awful lot of William Davies' commentary piece on the last few weeks of ukpol. I am getting a bit irritated with the use of that Stuart Hall piece on Thatcherism as an explainer, same goes for Anderson/Nairn. Also I don't think Edgerton's challenge on these readings was appropriately dealt with by saying things are surely getting really bad (?) when the energy crisis and inflation are being faced by all of Europe and North America, but maybe that's my weariness at ukpol in general.

The review of Alex Ross' book on Wagner was pretty good on Wagner and his afterlives although it didn't deal with the book's account of it very much. Anyway I liked the aggregation of material here.

My favourite piece was Laleh Khalili's piece on oil and the havoc it brings upon the world, and she takes the book to task for its lack of attention to the challenge posed by marginalised groups to the pursuit of land and profit by the state and corporate interests.

Publish this in the LRB

From Papua New Guinea’s London correspondent. This is epic. pic.twitter.com/bOSuctmEj8

— Barbara Sage (@ladybie11) August 8, 2022

Julian Barnes' introduction to the Renard book appears to be his 2011 LRB essay:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n13/julian-barnes/badger-claws

This already received a letter from an academic offering a different view of Beatrix Potter.

LRB 4.8.2022.

I learned some things from Lanchester who wrote clearly about money scandals.

Emma John gives yet more publicity to Suzanne Wrack, a not very interesting sports reporter and, come to think of it, a regular Guardian colleague of Emma John.

William Davies on current UK is good, though he doesn't really match this up with historical 'declinism'. I would like to know more of Edgerton's work.

Laleh Khalili on Helen Thompson, DISORDER: not a good review. Thompson's book sounds bewilderingly wide-ranging and complex. The arguments it makes (eg that oil prices caused Brexit) sound surprising and hard to understand or assess. A review needs to take all this on, slowly and clearly - as Perry Anderson would do, actually. Khalili instead spends the first half not only talking in general terms about oil, but talking about herself. That may or may not be interesting but it's not a good use of words when trying to explain a complex subject. She then spends the end of the review just complaining that Thompson didn't write a different book altogether.

Fredric Jameson on Nazi crime fiction: daft but more readable than his other recent contributions.

Wagnerism: not very interesting or surprising.

O'Hagan on Dolly Parton: I've had many problems with him but must admit, his constantly wry tone seemed to me to work here, mainly on the ghostwriter rather than Parton herself.

not happy with the thread's backsliding on lanchester and o'hagan >:(

as e.p.thompson once scolded perry anderson: "they are scoundrels! we must stiffen our tone!"

The final piece in this issue I bothered with was Rory Scothorne (who seems like an excellent commentator in general and whose twitter I follow) review a book on The North. It's pretty solid.

O'Hagan on Dolly Parton: I've had many problems with him but must admit, his constantly wry tone seemed to me to work here, mainly on the ghostwriter rather than Parton herself.

I'm not sure ghostwriter is the right term to use for the world's best-selling author whose name is emblazoned in bold type on the cover. The book is co-branded as a Patterson/Parton joint effort, and I would guess Patterson's name is for many readers as much of a draw as Parton's. Tbh, I wasn't really sure the point of reviewing this in the LRB. Patterson is kind of a critic-proof author. His readers know what to expect, and they invariably get it. Taking him to task for writing in a hackneyed potboiler style is a bit on the nose, isn't it? It seems the LRB only reviews Patterson when he has a famous co-author. The last time he was featured in its pages was a review of the novel he wrote with Bill Clinton back in 2018. Interestingly the writer of that critique blamed the books short-comings on Clinton more than on Patterson, whereas in this case, the writer lays the blame on Patterson and portrays Parton's role in the creation of the work as fairly passive. Or maybe he felt it would be ungentlemanly to criticize a lady.

i saw several ppl who i like tweet-highfiving o'hagan for this piece, which i thought was mostly glib slick lazy nonsense and the chance to write "yeehaw" and such

LRB 18.8.2022.

Jonathan Coe on 1970s UK TV and film: Coe has his detractors as a novelist, but simply as an LRB reviewer he's very good: consistent, lucid, on-topic, always producing well-shaped articles with beginning, middle and end. In this instance I think the 'magic of watching films in bad 1970s conditions' idea is overplayed but Coe does quite shrewdly, politely say that Rob Young's alternative UK canon of occult TV is actually a rather familiar list by now. (Not that I've actually seen most of the titles myself.)

James Meek on Ukraine: you could say it takes courage to go to the most dangerous place in Europe when you don't have to, and it's quite impressive that one of the best commentators on the recent state of UK privatizations is also a war reporter.

read the lanchester on the two big german frauds: bearing in mind the usual caveats abt his basically terrible financial writing this wasn't awful, bcz the two main stories are so cut-and-dried -- tho if i were his editor i would as always force him to re-structure it to foreground the idea he bumbles into very late (which is that massive eye-stretching scandals are on the whole more likely in high trust societies like germany)

there's one mildly funny bit, which he doesn't deliver especially well but it works despite him: that the real actual whistleblower who brought everything down was for wirecard was the designated whisleblower's mum

I do like Michael Wood's general method of reviewing (even if I'll never engage with his film reviews again) in trying to pick a few things around what he is looking at without saying outright whether a thing is good or bad, as in his review of a new work by Celine, and the recent study in the new LRB.

Also good was the piece on antiquity's apocalyptic visions.

Read the so-so piece on Barthelme, whose stories I've read but didn't know anything about.

Reading Tom Crewe (who has managed to get a contract for a novel - how? Because he works at the LRB?) at length on Walter Sickert reminded me of how much space the LRB gives to long essays about vintage painters. When these are by T.J. Clark I no longer bother at all. Why do they do it? I think a) the LRB people are from a cultural heritage that still thinks these old painters are obviously important and interesting (maybe they are); b) also an overcompensation for the wordiness of the LRB, a determination to say 'we're visual too'.

How to write about these painters and paintings? With Crewe (who seems determined to let us know that he is at home in the world of old painting. Maybe he studied it in the past, or maybe he has just furiously boned up on it for this assignment?) we get biographical material, but also very long descriptions of paintings: this painting contains colours a, b, c and d, in patterns x, y, z. I suspect that some people think this is good art criticism, close reading. But I find it uninformative and certainly uninspiring. Does Crewe justify the 4 large pages given to Sickert? Not really.

Meanwhile K^sia B0ddy, whom oddly I have met, gives us some facts on Barthelme's career but doesn't make Barthelme sound good, and reminds me that every time I have tried to read Barthelme I have taken little or nothing from it, the one possible exception I can think of being the nuclear-paranoia story 'Game'. Barthelme's sense of humour, if that's what it is, seems to have very little overlap with mine - a large contrast with (a relevant comparison, another 'collagist'?) Flann O'Brien whose comic intelligence for at least 15 years I find unerring.

Finished LRB 18.8.2022: that was a slog. Including an article about classical apocalypse that I couldn't follow. Michael Wood at least sharp again - to a fault, on the poor fellow whose book on Céline he discusses.

Started the next one I have: LRB 22.7.2022. This looks even more of a slog. Of note, though: David Runciman at the Blair Institute. Though detached and amused about technocrats, Runciman repeatedly expresses a degree of sympathy with and admiration for Tony Blair that I have not seen from anyone credible for a long time. I combine this perception with the fact that Runciman attacked socialists in recent years, and the fact that here he says no-one has any big ideas; 2-3 years after a party did put forward big ideas, disdained by Runciman. In short, he seems to be a bad person.

not just bad, infuriatingly glib and smug while we're at it. He also has annoying opinions about sport.

Unsure as to why he hasn't been kicked from the LRB, not sure what he brings.

DR is a contributing editor (unclear what duties this entails but certainly that he's a senior and probably an immovable contributor)

he's one of the Bad Three IMO (along with ohagan and lanch): by which i mean there's other bad contribs but the three seem to have sanction to be worse lol

he's a cambridge polprof and his full title is 4th viscount runciman of doxford and i'll thank you to call him nothing else from here on in

oh holy christ, he's that smug cunt from the Talking Politics podcast that I once accidentally listened to for about 2 minutes 34 seconds.