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Nepszabadsag | Commentary | Il Foglio | The Economist | L'Espresso |Vanity Fair | Elet es Irodalom | Le point | The New York Times
Nepszabadsag 11.11.2007 (Hungary)
The image Hungary's journalists give of their country is even bleaker than the reality, sociologist Elemer Hankiss writes: "In today's critical situation, evil must be exposed, those responsible must be denounced, and lies and corruption must be uncovered. If the press did all this in an objective, disciplined, investigative way, with serious analyses and no clap-trap, much would be accomplished. But that's not how journalists work here in Hungary, and when they try they get stuck half-way. They sketch the ills facing us, then hand the problem over to their readers. They see just the problems, but have a hard time pointing to solutions. After all, they say, that's the politicians' job. But such an allocation of roles is wrong even in countries where politicians recognise the tasks facing them and manage to accomplish them. Even there, it's also the business of the press - along with all other rational citizens, communities and organisations - to offer solutions to problems and have a hand in shaping the future. In a country where the politicians aren't efficient, this applies all the more. Of course it's not a question of promising readers a rosy future. But the presentation of problems should always be accompanied by the search for solutions. And in view of the indolence of politicians, it's up to the press and society to stop bellyaching and - no matter how hackneyed it may sound - shape the future. Because alongside the limitless difficulties we face, there are also countless possibilities. These must be championed with a new energy, serious work and a good dose of civil courage."
Commentary 12.11.2007 (USA)
Terry Teachout remembers the music critic and cricket reporter at The Guardian, Neville Cardus, whose autobiography would not be forgotten "in a better-regulated world", where it would stand alongside H.L. Mencken's "Newspaper Days" and A.J. Liebling's "Between Meals." As Teachout doesn't forget to mention, Cardus, the son of a part-time prostitute, went to school for just four and a half years: "When he writes that Arturo Toscanini's conducting of Brahms sounds like a sort of gigantic musical wheel revolving in a ruthless groove,' or that Fritz Kreisler's violin playing 'reminds me of a beautiful face that would be even more beautiful if it were lined or wrinkled,' you take his point at once, and relate it effortlessly to your own memories of the performer in question. No doubt, Cardus wrote that way not only because he could but because he had to. His musical training consisted of a year's worth of voice lessons, and the flipness with which he dismissed 'score-reading critics' leads the attentive reader to suspect that his own abilities in that line were severely limited."
Il Foglio 10.11.2007 (Italy)
Rome's mayor Walter Veltroni, chairman of the centre-left Democratic Party, has successfully used the glamour of the Rome Film Festival for his own personal advancement. Yet his cultural ambitions are dividing the left, writes Marianna Rizzini. "Rome has clear-cut adversaries: Massimo Cacciari, the mayor of Venice who fulminated against the rebellious Rome, Felice Laudadio (director of the Taormina Festival), who complained about the distribution of subsidies in Rome's favour, and finally Francesco Rutelli, the culture minister who attempted to remain neutral but in fact backed Venice. It's clear when one considers the three festivals of Venice, Rome and Turin in the context of the cities' three mayors, Cacciari, Veltroni and Chiamparino, that the confrontation is not over by a long shot."
Maurizio Stefanini sets great hopes by Egyptian media entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris, who hopes to give the top dog Al Jazeera a run for its money with his allegedly more tolerant Otv. "If a film is unacceptable because of its costumes, or because of how it deals with tradition, we don't broadcast it,' he assures. 'But once we do decide to show it, we can't then turn around and start censoring it.' A very different position from that of most broadcasters in the Middle East, which cut Western films to the point of being unrecognisable. Sawiris also promises to reduce drastically the 'high dose' of religious content."
The Economist 09.11.2007 (UK)
The magazine reviews a book by Gregory Rodriguez on the history and growing importance of Latinos in the USA. "By 2001 Latinos, most of them Mexicans or descended from Mexicans, had become the second-biggest ethnic group in America. This worried African-Americans, who were thus relegated to third place. It also alarmed some whites, who felt that Latinos were failing to conform to American mores. In an influential book 'Who Are We?' published in 2004, Samuel Huntington, a Harvard University professor, argued that Mexicans threatened Anglo-Protestant traditions. 'Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds' is a much shrewder, less paranoid work. Yet, in some ways, it reaches a similar conclusion."
This issue gives a special focus on the growing significance of technology in India and China. Topics covered include e-business in China, the growing popularity of mobile phones (coupled with a reserve toward PCs) in India, and the - to many - unexpected backwardness of the Indian and Chinese economies.
L'Espresso 09.11.2007 (Italy)
Umberto Eco's books have been translated into twenty languages. Heartened by their success, his Chinese publisher is putting together a collection of his Businte di Minerva columns from the year 2000. But there are problems of understanding, and the translator is bombarding him with questions, Eco reports. For example, who on earth are Tiscordi and Zozzogno (a corruption of music publisher Ricordi e Sozogno by the comedian Toto)? "I have the feeling that in this globalised world where it's so easy to get the impression that everyone sees the same films and eats the same food, there are still profound abysses and insurmountable gaps between individual cultures. And how are two cultures ever supposed to understand each other if one of them doesn't know someone like Toto?"
Vanity Fair 12.11.2007 (USA)
Not since Herbert Hoover led America into the Great Depression has a US president impacted the economy as catastrophically as George Bush, economist Joseph Stiglitz writes woefully. "A tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-850 billion dollar trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris -or even the Yukon - becomes a venture in high finance. And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the United States is less prepared than ever to face the future. We have not been educating enough engineers and scientists, people with the skills we will need to compete with China and India. We have not been investing in the kinds of basic research that made us the technological powerhouse of the late 20th century."
Elet es Irodalom 09.11.2007 (Hungary)
In recent months Hungary has been caught up in the so-called "little critical debate" (after the "big" one in 1996) which is a spin-off of the blogosphere "explosion". Literary bloggers and also a number of young authors and publicists are accusing mainstream criticism of talking only about itself, wallowing in jargon and of losing sight of its readers – who in turn are losing interest due to the inability of the critics to deliver clear value judgements – and who now, thanks to the blogosphere, are having their say. Critic Tibor Barny sees in this debate a chance to redefine the duties of contemporary literary criticism. "A very real problem in literary criticism is, for example, ... that no real critical debates are taking place: critics do a solid job, journalists present interesting interpretations, but there is no comparison of the rival standpoints. And it is here that the Internet public could help the situation – but for this to happen the texts in the literary blogs would have to function as quality criticism of the newspapers, and the critics would have to respond to the commentaries which reference their reviews."
Eva Cs. Gyimesi, a literary academic living in Transylvania has discovered the Romanian magazine Foaia Transilvana which started last year to focus on everything European in Transylvanian history, its ethnic diversity and its unique culture. At the same time she is surprised that the magazine has found such little currency among the Hungarian minority in Romania. "As if the image of the enemy created in the Funar era (more) was more important to us. The Hungarian magazines give the impression that the horizon of the Hungarian public has not moved a finger width. For decades suspicion and frustration and the contempt for the Romanian people have resulted in an isolation with which Hungarians in Transylvania cut themselves off from a greater whole and send themselves off the map. And to think that in the past so many Transylvanians were hugely proud of their cultural diversity and religious freedom, which is precisely what this Romanian magazine addresses."
Le point 08.11.2007 (France)
This is a book that may one day be studied as we study Plato's "Republic" today, predicts Le Point. "L'Avenement de la democratie" is the book in question, by philosopher Marcel Gauchet, the first two volumes of which ("La Revolution moderne" and "La Crise du liberalisme, 1880-1914") were published by Grasset this week. In an interview the author responds to the question of whether he has at last shed light on the secret of democracy. "Let us say that I am attempting to decode the genome of this strange organism named democracy and to determine the true substance of its dynamics. To some extent I am taking up Tocqueville's question and extending and refining it. However social equality is only one aspect of the phenomenon. The thing that distinguishes it most completely is the 'end of religion'. Not that of religious belief, but a more general shift in the organisation of the human and social world through the break with the form given to it by religion."
The New York Times 12.11.2007 (USA)
In the Book Review Neil Genzlinger presents Aine Collier's history of the condom, which he concludes, "if nothing else, will make all you condom users appreciate what a wonderful time this is to be alive. If this were ancient Rome, you might find yourself wearing a fur condom made from the mane of a she-mule. In the Islamic world around the turn of the first millennium, your device might have been fashioned of tar or liquid lead.... Birth control, a minor annoyance these days, was for centuries more akin to torture. 'You want to have sex using that?' either partner might well have said way back when. 'Are you kidding me? That thing's made of tree bark. I'd rather just have a baby.'"
Other reviews: for Richard Brookhiser Christopher Hitchens' book on Thomas Paine is actually a discussion about two books, Paine's "Rights of Man" and Edmund Burke's "Reflections of the Revolution in France". Jed Pearl reviews the third and penultimate volume of John Richardson's Picasso biography which covers the years 1917 to 1932. Jay McInerney introduces Pierre Baynard's book on how to speak about books you've not read.
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The New York Times investigates the new hunger for reality. In Salon, Andrzej Stasiuk sees only individual realities. In the Gazeta Wyborcza, the ethnologist Tomasz Rakowski describes the reality of the Polish poor mines. Sometimes you can turn reality on its head, El Pais reads in the Financial Times. Le Monde diplomatique gives the low-down on the ACTA talks. And the New Yorker dreams of less polish and a bit more grit.
In Magyar Narancs Agnes Heller demands more civil courage of the Hungarians. Mohammed Ali Atassi explains in Qantara, why conservatives in Egypt see women as candy: either wrapped or covered in flies. Oliver Roy outlines in Resetdoc, why's there not so much as a hair's breadth between the Christian right and the secular left. In Magazin, the philosopher Ludwig Haslar tells the Swiss that if they want mediocrity today, they cannot expect the superman tomorrow. Jonathan Safran Foer tells Prospect why he neither wants a chicken in his bed nor on his plate. The NYT embarks on a human-flesh search and finds a kitten killer.
The New Yorker tells the story of how corrupt podiatrists almost brought down the US health system. In Polityka, the Kapuscinski biographer Artur Domoslawski explains how he thinks the legendary reporter should be read. In Tygodnik, Zygmunt Bauman calls for more understanding for Kapuscinski. Magyar Narancs celebrates the ban on Holocaust denial in Hungary. In Le Point, Jorge Semprun asks whether Claude Lanzmann is the only person who's allowed to talk about the Holocaust. Wired describes how Google learned how to tell the difference between a hot dog and a poached pooch.
In Eurozine, the Transylvanian-Hungarian-Armenian writer Kinga Kali tells the story of a "virgjinesha". Prospect celebrates the next art superstar, Argentinian painter Guillermo Kuitca. The Gazeta Wyborcza explains how young people use the web. The New Yorker sends out a message to the depressed: stay away from psychiatric literature. Outlook Indian learns to play Carnatic music online. The London Review swims with the salmon sages.
The Atlantic finds out why the Chinese are not enemy number one in cyberspace. Elet es Irodalom asks why no one in Hungary is interested in former informers. In New Statesman, Tariq Ramadan can't tell us what a moderate Muslim is. The Guardian hearkens to the ticking bomb in Emily Dickinson's bosom and links it to the shards of crockery on the floor. And if it can't smoke, El Pais Semanal wants everything painted black.
In Prospect, Tim Berners-Lee invites the world to play with the British government's data. England, not Nigeria belongs on the terrorist list, literary Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka informs The Daily Beast. In Rue 89, Beppe Grillo explains why Sarkozy is more dangerous than Berlusconi. In Tygodnik Powszechny, Stefan Chwin mourns for the Polish idealist. Polityka reveals where a Pole turns to when he's not allowed to marry. Olga Tokarczuk walks her Polish tangle around Amsterdam for Salon. And the Guardian thinks about Armenian women rubbing their soft breasts on a stone.
In Wired, Chris Anderson celebrates the next industrial revolution - taking place in garages near you. The Boston Globe serenades the camel - Nabati style. In El Pais Semenal, the sociologist Edgar Morin complains about European lethargy. Outlook India asks why the Australians hate the Indians. Odra and Tygodnik are still debating the impact of freedom on literature. In OpenDemocracy, Salome Zourabichvili mourns for the wilted petals of the rose revolution. In Prospect, Martin Amis divides the literary sheep from the goats, according to the pleasure principle. The NYT profiles a dyed-in-the-wool jihadist from Alabama.
Das Magazin reports on the dramatic increase in the number of pupils who have threatened to gun down their classmates. The Spectator warns City bankers about gun-wielding dominatrices in Switzerland. In Sinn und Form, Marc Fumaroli remembers the man whose name shall not be mentioned: Mario Praz. In the New Humanist, Laurie Taylor remembers the holy men who sexually abused him as a child. The Guardian asks why Theo von Doesburg slipped into avant garde oblivion. And in the NYRB, Garry Kasparov asks why computer chess programmers are so uninspired?
OpenDemocracy explains why a novel called "Paranoia" suddenly disappeared from Belarussian bookshops. Prospect fears that a ban on Islam4UK could undermine British democracy. The Gazeta Wyborcza explores Polish-Jewish relations. Le Monde diplomatique watches the carving up of Africa. In El Pais Semanal, maths whizz Marcus du Sautoy explains the sex appeal of suduko. And Gerhard Richter manages to surprise the Nation.
The New Yorker buries itself in the Arab novel. In Le Monde, Bernard-Henri Levy heaps scorn on the state-run caricature of a debate. Qantara points to the person responsible for all the misery in the Arab world: Daddy. In L'Espresso, Umberto Eco takes a pin to the overblown daily paper. The Nation has earmarked 30 billion dollars to save journalism. In Tygodnik Powszechny, the writer Wojciech Albinski explains what makes Poland exotic. And the Spectator waves a tear-stained old hanky as shabby chic fades into the past.
In Merkur, art historian Wolfgang Ullrich defines a new type of artist: the contractor. In Nepszabadsag, writer Peter Nadas considers the crisis in Hungary and how it might end. In NouvelObs, Francis Ford Coppola explains why DVDs should be free. Eurozine introduces Lithuanian literature. In the New York Review of Books, Wyatt Manson asks why Pleiade is omitting Celine's anti-Semitic trilogy from the collected works. In Express, Philippe Gavi reminds us that Mohammed was not a crazed killer. A Californian marvels in NZZ Folio, at the reincarnation of an Indian factory worker. And confronted with the recent proliferation of literary cuddling, the New York Times yearns for a bit of Philip Roth.
Wired tracks James Cameron's 32-year quest to out-Lucas Lucas. In Nouvel Obs, Alain Finkielkraut and Alain Badiou tear each other apart over immigration and national identity. Tygodnik Powszechny introduces the pioneering artist Miroslaw Balka. Andras Bozoki asks why Hungarians are undermining democracy. In The New Statesman, Leo McKinstry explains why the bombing of Coventry was an inspiration to the British Air Staff.
Vanity Fair goes in search of a superpartner. Elet es Irodalom reads a new collection of essays by Imre Keresz. Outlook India complains about journalistic corruption. The New Yorker reads a new Koestler biography. Nepszabadsag foresees the next French revolution. Rue89 wonders about the provenance of prawns. And in the New Republic, Moshe Halberthal celebrates the sublime humility of Amartya Sen.
In Wilson Quarterly, the economist Tyler Cowen sings an ode to multitasking. Prospect has seen the monsters of the left. The Boston Globe follows James C. Scott to the new Shangri-La in the mountains of Tibet. Weltwoche is up in arms about the criticism of Switzerland's anti-minaret vote. In the Novel Obs, Pierre Nora applies his mind to the bestseller. New Criterion knows why the Pop art bubble won't pop. NZZ Folio examines the chicken nugget. Al Ahram asks what political Islam wants. The Walrus mourns for the first victim of the C-58. In Resetdoc, Joseph Massad explains why Arab homosexuals are an invention of the West.
Slovenian poet Ales Debeljak argues for a fusion of cultures in Eurozine. Umberto Eco agrees in Le Monde. The Nation portrays the Salvadorian author Horacio Castellanos Moya, who himself explains in Babelia why 200 years after independence there's nothing to celebrate in a number of Latin American countries. Polityka lies Poland down on the couch. La vie des idees reads a book on Jews and the resistance in France. Americans read more than Europeans, writes historian Peter Baldwin in Merkur. And in The New York Review of Books Robert Darnton makes two bold proposals for a new Book Settlement.