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The New Yorker | Polityka | Prospect | Nepszabadsag | The Economist | L'Espresso | Al Ahram Weekly | Elet es Irodalom | The New York Review of Books
The New Yorker 03.08.2009 (USA)
In a wonderfully ironic yet highly informative article the writer Nicholson Baker describes his reading experiences with Amazon's Kindle 2. He systematically examines technology, function, reading options and compares his findings with the device's printed counterpart. Initially revolted by the "greenish, sickly, postmortem gray" of the screen, he eventually finds himself being sucked in – by a book with a high-caffeine plot. "I began pressing the Next Page clicker more and more eagerly, so eagerly that my habit of page turning, learned from years of reading—which is to reach for the page corner a little early, to prepare for the movement—kicked in unconsciously. I clicked Next Page as I reached the beginning of the last line, and the page flashed to black and changed before I'd read it all. I was trying to hurry the Kindle. You mustn't hurry the Kindle. But, hell, I didn't care. The progress bar at the bottom said I was ninety-one per cent done. I was at location 7547. I was flying along. Gray is a good color, I thought."
Further articles: Joan Acocella reviews a book about Judas Iscariot: "Judas: A Biography". "Self-consciously laid-back and funky", is how Louis Menand describes Thomas Pynchon's new book "Inherent Vice", a detective novel with a private eye named Larry (Doc) Sportello. David Denby watched Judd Apatow's autobiographically-bent comedy "Funny People". There is also a short story "The Valetudinarian" by Joshua Ferris and poems by C.K. Williams and Rae Armantrout.
Polityka 27.07.2009 (Poland)
In a highly moving article the physicist Janusz Ostrowski describes (here in the German version) his experience of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as a fireman. The Polish fire brigade was hired by the Germans to ensure that the houses with people in them were razed to the ground, while those containing goods remained standing. One day the firement discovered some young girls crying for help in a burning house. "The sergeant ordered us to ascertain whether szkopy (German Soldaten) or szaulisy (a derogatory term for Lithuanian, Latvian, or Ukrainian guards) were nearby. Once we'd given the all clear, he said: 'Any one who wants to can head for the other truck, but if you're feeling brave, we going to them out of there.' Three men headed off. Jurek said: 'I'm not risking my life for a couple of Jewesses who the Germans are going to kill sooner or later, if not here then somewhere else. There's no point. And if you get them out the szaulisy will come along, rape the prettiest ones and shoot the rest! This is an idiotic risk of life.' And he left. Somewhat hesitantly, as if he was ashamed. I agreed with him in principle. But the sergeant caught my eye and then, looking up at the windows, he said: 'A fireman can't let people burn.'"
Prospect 01.08.2009 (UK)
James Crabtree reports on a full-scale media revolution in Pakistan where TV channels have multiplied from 1 to 100 almost overnight. On Pakistan's independence day in 2002, Geo became the country's first private TV channel and it has courted controversy ever since. It allowed "Pakistanis [to] see their nation's dramas live for the first time: Kashmir's deadly 2005 earthquake; the 2007 siege of Islamabad's red mosque; the 2008 shoot-out in Mumbai; and US drone strikes and numerous domestic suicide attacks... Phone-ins tackled taboo subjects, from incest to wife beating. Shia and Sunni clerics debated doctrine. Shaadi Online, a spin on Blind Date, scandalised conservatives as women quizzed potential husbands. And religious talk show Aalim Online upset liberals by letting mullahs rant about the Jews and the Hindus."
Other articles: Charles Grant fears that China's hardliners are gaining strength. Peter Popham thinks he has discovered the secret to Berlusconi's popularity: a lack of alternatives.
Nepszabadsag 25.07.2009 (Hungary)
At the beginning of July a court in Budapest pfficially banned the fascist Hungarian Guard, but it is still not clear whether the police should move in to enforce the ban. In this hiatus, poet and critic Akos Szilagyi wonders whether sympathies for the guards might not be increasing among the population. "This militarily-organised and politically-motivated private violence is not directed only against particular criminalised or mythologised 'breachers of the peace', but against the very order of society and the constitution. Democracy and the rule of law seem directly or indirectly to be the source of every form of chaos. And yet democracies know no greater nor graver breach of the peace than an attack on the rule of law. The historical catastrophes of the 20th century show that in cases where the rule of law is effectively rendered powerless by a uniformed 'ideological order' or a nationalistic or racist order, the way is paved for the most severe breach of the peace, in the form of civil wars and mass murderous dictatorships."
The Economist 27.07.2009 (UK)
Over a full 36 pages the Economist examines the state of the Arab world today, and finds a "quiet revolution" underway in society – although it will not be complete until the last failed dictatorships have been voted out. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) recently delivered a devastating report on the situation, which concludes: "They have failed to make their people free: six Arab countries have an outright ban on political parties and the rest restrict them slyly. They have failed to make their people rich: despite their oil, the UN reports that about two out of five people in the Arab world live on 2 dollars or less a day. They have failed to keep their people safe: the report argues that overpowerful internal security forces often turn the Arab state into a menace to its own people. And they are about to fail their young people. The UNDP reckons the Arab world must create 50m new jobs by 2020 to accommodate a growing, youthful workforce—virtually impossible on present trends."
(Find an overview of all articles on the subject in the top right-hand corner.)
L'Espresso 24.07.2009 (Italy)
In 2007 Pope Benedikt XVI wrote a letter to the Chinese Catholics calling for unity and stamina. The Vatican has now followed this up by publishing a compendium in the Internet (pdf) in which the Pope once again touches on all the important questions concerning the Church in China. Thank God, says the Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, Giuseppe Zen Zekiun, on his website. Because an "false translation" of the letter has been circulating in China, which has had catastrophic consequences for the Church, as Sandro Magister reports: "According to Cardinal Zen, the worst problems concern the passage which deals with the official recognition of the underground Christians in China by the Communist authorities. Many people have interpreted the Pope's letter as a summons to the underground churches and their bishops to come out of hiding and apply for official recognition from the state." In his online commentary, Cardinal Zen blames this "tendentious translation" for the splintering of the Catholic Church. "This is why we are forced to witness this painful spectacle: bishops and priests, who believe that they are following the directive of the Holy Father, are making huge efforts to forge an agreement with the government, and are retreating in the face of the unacceptable conditions laid down by the government. This process has cost the clergy much of its former closeness." Zen does not mention who might have put the misleading translation into circulation. But he does say that the Communist government blocked the correct translation. "The officially recognised 'patriotic association of Chinese Catholics' banned the [correctly translated] version of the letter. Several scholars who distributed it were imprisoned. The Chinese websites which posted the letter were forced to shut down. The full version of the letter in Mandarin, which is available on the Vatican's Chinese website, cannot be accessed in China."
Al Ahram Weekly 23.07.2009 (Egypt)
Youssef Rakha talks to the novelist Ibrahim Farghali (more here) about contemporary Arab literature and his latest novel "Abnaa Al-Gabalwi" (Sons of Al-Gabalawi) which, for Rakha, is "the closest we have come to a fulfilment of the prophecy that a home-grown magic realist movement would emerge in the new millennium." "'Of course Saramago, for me, is the literary model,' Farghali says. 'To write a long, big, subtly conveyed text through which to say everything. And with the highest degree of artistic excellency possible, to create a large idea that accommodates numerous smaller ideas, juxtaposes styles and discordant voices. My ambition is a text that could be read and enjoyed and reread and still enjoyed by an ordinary reader as well as a member of the literary elite. It's an ambition like Dostoevsky's and Saramago's, and I hope I don't sound vain when I say this. I think I had been practising since Ibtisamat Al-Qiddissin,' his 2006 novel, translated by Andy Smart and Nadia Fouad-Smart as 'The Smiles of the Saints', 'to produce a text of this level.'"
Hani Mustafa reviews Yousri Nasrallah's Film "Ihki Ya Scheherazade" (Tell it, Scheherazade), which describes male dominance in Egyptian society. "A little thinking is all it takes to realise that the title of this film is actually very accurate, implying both that the drama will depend on storytelling and that storytelling is a form of resistance to male domination. Even the structure of the film is close to the old book in that it too depends on stories such as those Scheherazade told Prince Shahraiar every night to prevent him from killing her. The lead character in the film, Heba (Mona Zaki) is a TV presenter who, when her husband interferes in what she may or may not present on her programmes, decides, like Scheherazade, to tell the stories of Egyptian society."
Elet es Irodalom 17.07.2009 (Hungary)
Hungary is engulfed in a discussion about legalising prostitution. For Anna Betlen, an economist and government advisor who also works for the Hungarian Women's Foundation MONA, it is impossible to separate prostitution from human trafficking and violence. Ultimately the punter wants a form of sex which degrades the woman as an object. This cannot happen without violence (either physically or psychologically). The connection between human trafficking and prostitution becomes clear, says Betlen, if you look at the percentage of overwhelmingly foreign and under-age prostitutes involved in legalised prostitution in Western countries. "Recently," she writes, "I received a phone call from a reporter from the Swiss channel TV2, who asked me what sort of a bizarre patriarchal subculture was at work in the North East Hungarian towns of Püspökladany and Berettyoujfalu that supplied brothels in Zurich with so many child prostitutes? So I asked him what sort of bizarre patriarchal subculture was at work in Zurich that created such a demand for so many women and girls from Eastern Hungary, instead of – say - Jonagold apples."
The New York Review of Books 13.08.2009 (USA)
"Just as the advent of printing helped break the medieval Church's hold on the flow of information, so is the rise of the Internet loosening the grip of the corporate-owned mass media," believes Michael Messing, and observes a shift from institutional clout towards individual journalists: bloggers like Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Greenwald and Mickey Kaus, or new journalistic forms like Talking Points Memo, Pro Publica, the HuffPo and Daily Kos. "The image of the Internet as parasite has some foundation. Without the vital news-gathering performed by established institutions, many Web sites would sputter and die. In their sweep and scorn, however, such statements seem as outdated as they are defensive. Over the past few months alone, a remarkable amount of original, exciting, and creative (if also chaotic and maddening) material has appeared on the Internet. The practice of journalism, far from being leeched by the Web, is being reinvented there, with a variety of fascinating experiments in the gathering, presentation, and delivery of news. And unless the editors and executives at our top papers begin to take note, they will hasten their own demise."
Adam Hochschild travels through war-torn Congo where he learns what turns people into "rapists, sadists and murderers": "Greed, fear, demagogic leaders and their claim that such violence is necessary for self-defense, seeing everyone around you doing the same thing—and the fact that the rest of the world pays tragically little attention to one of the great humanitarian catastrophes of our time."
Further articles: Hilton Als writes a rather circuitous article about Michael Jackson and homophobia in the black communities: "There's the bizarre fact that queerness reads, even to some black gay men themselves, as a kind of whiteness". Roger Cohen recapitulates events in Iran and refuses to abandon hope of democratic change.
RSS
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.
The New Yorker searches for the ultimate difference between male and female. Elet es Irodalom comments on the Imre Kertesz interview in die Welt. Prospect assesses the development of Swedish crime writing. Walrus finds out from the conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin why it's sometimes necessary to get a little rough with the score. In Polityka, the historian Jerzy W.Borejsza remembers the assimilators, accommodators and collaborators in Poland's history. In the Guardian, Zadie Smith defends the novel against the essay.
In OpenDemocracy, the Moscow poet Tatiana Sherbina tears her hair out over Russia's obsession with Stalin. Polityka celebrates a film where it's okay not to be heroic. The London Review of Books cements its friendship with Roland Barthes. In Espresso, Umberto Eco suggests removing Christ from classroom crucifixes. In the New York Review of Books, Timothy Garton Ash talks velvet and guillotines. Magyar Narancs talks candidly about the Roma. The New Yorker eats in secret with a Michelin inspector. In Letras Libras, writer Cesar Aira explains why people shouldn't be forced to read. And Newsweek sings a swansong to America, the land of innovation.
In Open Democracy, Neal Ascherson wishes that the 1989 had had more French revolutionary zeal. Tygodnik remembers that Polish dissidents wanted German unity as far back as 1954. In Newsweek, Niall Ferguson argues that 1989 was not a patch on 1979. Laszlo Borhi hurls a rotten egg at Austrian's Social Democrats in Eurozine. Outlook India travels to Arunachal. Wired visits the Henry Ford of the information age. The New Republic embarks on a Peter Zumthor pilgrimage.
OpenDemocracy tells of the Russian waves which are doing away with the Iranian sparrows. The London Review reads new books on honour killings. The Nation goes in search of the last Yugoslav, Dusan Makavejev. The Walrus weeps for the printed book. The Guardian navigates its way through Michael Haneke's oeuvre. Polityka tells the Poles that you can have ethics without Catholicism, or even God. In Dawn, Arundhati Roy defends the Maoist guerillas in India. In Frontline, the Maoist guerilla leader, Koteswa Rao, chats about revolutionary executions. In Le Monde, Vaclav Havel is still fascinated by his critics. And HVG explains why the Hungarians think capitalism comes from the communists.
When Karadzic goes on trial in The Hague, the Hungarian plague will be tried alongside him, says the Magyar Narancs. The New Yorker explains why robots are better than husbands. In the New Republic, Enrique Krauze asks why Gabriel Garcia Marquez had such a thing for dictators. Europe has a sure footing in Turkey, Orhan Pamuk assures the Nouvel Obs. History is no recipe for how to live our lives today, the historian Karol Modzelewski tells Tygodnik Powszechny. N+1 tracks the rise of the neuronovel, and the TLS reads new Trotsky biographies.