R F

O O
WILL SELF: REWRITING MY MOTHER’S DIARIES

D
W Y
F - OR
E ST
TH HI
A

HARPER’S MAGAZINE/NOVEMBER 2024 $7.99

REUNION OR REVENGE
The GOP on the brink by Lauren Oyler

Annie Dillard, Cynthia Ozick, Francine Prose,

Marilynne Robinson, John Jeremiah Sullivan,
and others REMEMBER LEWIS H. LAPHAM
 m a g a z i n e
FOUNDED IN 1850 / VOL. 349, NO. 2094
NOVEMBER 2024
HARPERS.ORG

Letters 2
Remembering Lewis H. Lapham Christopher Carroll, Annie Dillard, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah,
Ralph Nader, Cynthia Ozick, Francine Prose,
Marilynne Robinson, John Jeremiah Sullivan, and others
Publisher’s Letter 8 John R. MacArthur
Easy Chair 11
Lo-fi Beats for Work or Study Hari Kunzru
Harper’s Index 15
Readings 17
The Thing Itself Simon Critchley
Family Portrait John Berger’s flowery prose
The Specter at the Feast Xi Xi
Race Against Death Nicole Krauss on Roberto Bolaño
Opus Day School Florida’s new misguidance councilors
A Pile of Disappointments Christian Kracht
And . . . Katherine Bradford, Mike Brodie, Lorena Torres,
and the high crimes of Calvin Coolidge’s commander in mischief
Report 31
REVENGE PLOT Lauren Oyler
The GOP’s identity crisis
From the Archive 43
Conventional Wisdom Luke Mitchell
Letter from Bougainville 44
THE ISLAND KING Sean Williams
A fugitive monarch dreams of fortune and freedom
Essay 57
THE SEVENTY PERCENT Yiyun Li
On minor characters and human possibility
Memoir 63
ITHACA Will Self
Rewriting my mother’s diaries
Story 73
DISCOURSE TO SELF Rosalind Brown
Reviews 77
NEW BOOKS Dan Piepenbring
DYING IS A FORM OF EDUCATION Gabriel Winslow-Yost
On Elden Ring
Cover: Photograph from the Republican
Puzzle 87 Richard E. Maltby Jr. National Convention in Milwaukee,
July 2024, by Landon Nordeman
Findings 88 © Landon Nordeman
 m a g a z i n e
LETTERS
Remembering Lewis H. Lapham
John R. MacArthur, President and Publisher
This month’s Letters section is devoted to remembrances of Lewis H. Lapham
(1935–2024), the editor of Harper’s Magazine from 1976 to 1981 and from 1983
to 2006. Harper’s publisher John R. MacArthur’s remembrance of Lapham
Editor follows on page 8.
Christopher Carroll
Deputy Editors
Matthew Sherrill, Will Stephenson
Managing Editor
Will Augerot

I
Senior Editors
Joanna Biggs, Joe Kloc,
Elena Saavedra Buckley first worked for Lewis just out of college, having grad-
Art Director uated into the Great Recession with a degree in ancient
Kathryn Humphries
Washington Editor Greek and what could fairly be called limited prospects.
Andrew Cockburn On weekends I sometimes took the train in from Long
Poetry Editor
Ben Lerner Island, where I was living in my parents’ basement, to fill
Associate Editors
Megan Evershed, Charlie Lee, Lake Micah in for Ann Gollin as Lewis wrote his essays, taking dic-
Deputy Art Director tation and entering edits into manuscripts, watching,
Maria Dubon
Assistant Editors over the course of seemingly endless drafts, what was cut,
Clarissa Fragoso Pinheiro, Jasmine Liu, what rewritten, what moved where, what later restored.
Maya Perry, Isabel Ruehl, Becky Zhang
Production Manager and Designer That was an education, but I most looked forward to
Chloe Arnold the drinks that often followed. Part of the pleasure of
Editorial Interns
Logan Davis, Oscar Dorr, being in Lewis’s company was the sense that, spending
Emily Injeian, Sheena Meng
Contributing Editors
time with him, you’d found the other sane soul in the
Andrew J. Bacevich, Kevin Baker, room. He always had one eyebrow raised in response to
Tom Bissell, Michael W. Clune, Joshua Cohen,
John Crowley, Wes Enzinna, Tanya Gold, the news of the day or book of the moment, and delighted
Gary Greenberg, Jack Hitt, Edward Hoagland, in the puncturing of an overinflated reputation. But what
Frederick Kaufman, Garret Keizer,
Mark Kingwell, Walter Kirn, stands out more, in retrospect, is his relentless enthusiasm
Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Barry C. Lynn, for the possibilities of writing—a sense of excitement he
Richard Manning, Clancy Martin,
Duncan Murrell, Rachel Nolan, had kept alive for more than half a century in an industry
Lauren Oyler, Vince Passaro, that had been dying nearly as long as he had worked in it.
James Pogue, Francine Prose,
Ellen Rosenbush, Jeff Sharlet, He gravitated toward people in whom the lights never
Christine Smallwood, Zadie Smith,
Rebecca Solnit, Matthew Stevenson, went out—usually at least slightly unhinged, like Charles
Barrett Swanson, John Edgar Wideman Portis, a friend from his Herald Tribune days, whose short-
Contributing Artists
Lisa Elmaleh, Balazs Gardi, lived love for Nora Ephron he found so delightfully ab-
Samuel James, Nicole Tung, surd that, decades later, he would break into a fit of
Tomas van Houtryve
Contributing Designer wheezing laughter every time he recounted it. And he
Sheila Wolfe
often spoke fondly of his mentor, the writer and editor
Lewis H. Lapham, Editor (1976–1981, 1983–2006)
Otto Friedrich, a man who, as he put it in these pages,
Vice President and General Manager “wrote books in the way that other people wander off
Lynn Carlson
Vice President, Circulation into forests, chasing his intellectual enthusiasms as if
Shawn D. Green they were obscure butterflies or rare mushrooms.” What
Vice President, Marketing and Communications
Giulia Melucci he found so moving about Friedrich was in large part
Vice President, Advertising
Jocelyn D. Giannini
what made Lewis himself such good company. He was “a
Digital Manager humanist in the old, Renaissance usage of the word,”
Rachel Anne Cantor someone who believed that “among all the world’s won-
Digital Assistant
Sophie Poole ders, none is more wonderful than man.”
Virginia Navarro, Assistant to the Publisher
Kim Lau, Senior Accountant
Eve Brant, Office Manager —Christopher Carroll
Perri Smith Walker,
Advertising Operations Manager
Advertising Sales:
212-420-5773; perri@harpers.org Harper’s Magazine welcomes reader response. Please address mail to Letters, Harper’s
Permissions and Reprints: Magazine, 666 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10012, or email us at letters@harpers.org. Short
212-420-5759; virginia@harpers.org
For subscription queries and orders please call: letters are more likely to be published, and all letters are subject to editing. Volume precludes
800-444-4653 individual acknowledgment.

2 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

I met Lewis on the thirty-second floor of the Pan Am
Building. I was a wealthy business mogul’s secretary.
If you ever worked under him at Harper’s, you get
how unlikely that seems. You may not have understood
Lewis worked in a tiny office adjacent to the central much about the magazine, but you knew that its fate
room. It had hospital-green walls and no windows. was painfully knotted up with the tall man in the suit
There, on a metal fold-up typing table, he wrote a syn- and tie, smoking Parliaments and underlining Montes-
dicated newspaper column. One June afternoon there quieu quotations in his office. Surely the two, the insti-
was a birthday party in the mogul’s office. A man I’d tution and the man, would go down together. Turns
never talked to said to me: “Have you noticed that all out they survived each other.
the pictures on the walls are of dogs and horses? It’s He published my essay “Horseman, Pass By” more
like a child’s room.” I’d seen those pictures many times than twenty years ago. No other piece was more im-
a day for more than a year but had never looked at portant in my life, from a career aspect, or maybe
them or thought of them in that way. I laughed. He even from a writing aspect—who knows. I was a kid
was right. when I knew him. I learned something every time he
Months later, when he told me he was leaving to re- opened his mouth. He died in Italy—the wayward
turn to his post as the editor of Harper’s Magazine, Lewis scion of San Francisco in the Old World, where his
became uncharacteristically shy. After a few awkward soul was most at ease.
minutes, he asked me if I would consider being his assis- I remember a time in the offices on Broadway, late
tant. “I think your title would be executive assistant,” he one night in 2002, when the most enormous amber
said, trying to make the offer appealing. “You’ll meet moon rose over the city. There were only three or four
writers. You’ll talk with authors and literary agents.” I’d other people around at that hour. We instinctively
read Harper’s when I was in college. It was the best mag- shuffled into Lewis’s office to look at the spectacle with
azine in the country. We both were quiet. I said yes. him. He stood at the window with his hands in his
That was forty-one years ago. I think now of Lewis’s pants pockets. His dark-rimmed glasses and elegant
favorite Auden poem, “Many Happy Returns.” Auden slouch. Nobody said a word.
gives birthday advice to a very young boy: “Travel for I wish I had kept in better touch but did get to tell
enjoyment, / Follow your own nose.” I think now of a him, the last time we spoke, that I knew how lucky I
question Lewis asked a writer when they were deciding was to have been around him, at a formative stage. He
what piece she should write next: “Where do you want didn’t aw-shucks me. He knew I was serious.
to go?” Lewis seldom gave advice, but if he did it was I’m thinking about his family and the people who
along the lines of Auden. really loved him or were loved by him. Goodbye, Lewis.
—Ann K. Gollin —John Jeremiah Sullivan

L ewis Lapham was an elegant man, a prince in the

autonomous Republic of Letters. He was wholly confi-
H e spoke with his cigarette in his mouth, so he said
everything behind a cloud of smoke like Moses at Sinai.
dent in his understanding of quality and substance,
and ready to bring a lordly insouciance to bear in —Annie Dillard
their defense. And he was bold and gracious. Perhaps
our literature and journalism can still sustain figures
of this kind, proudly rigorous in adhering to the stan-
H ow clearly I can still see Lewis stalking the halls of
this magazine with a Parliament between his fingers,
dards the practice of letters claims for itself. If nature ashes flecking the sleeves of his coat, appearing at my
has its noblemen, culture does, too, and Lewis Lapham office door to read aloud the lede of his latest essay or
was living proof. to hand me a manuscript that had excited him. I
worked with Lewis for more than ten years, and during
—Marilynne Robinson that time our editing proceeded from a strict rule of in-

L ewis Lapham is dead. An oak has fallen. The

Henry Jamesian “real thing,” with his beauty and bag-
tellectual humility. Our readers, Lewis always used to
say, are smarter than we are. Our task was to deliver
the magazine they deserved. Editors and writers who
gage. (Like James, he lamented the moral vacuity of assumed that readers were ignorant or lazy or stupid
the Wasp pseudo-aristocracy in part as a way to remind succeeded only in producing material that conformed
you of its power.) And yet, he was a Grub Street man to those expectations.
to his fingernails, a man perpetually slumming. I had Lewis believed as a matter of principle that intelli-
somehow got it into my head that he’d decided to skip gent readers demanded vigorous, beautiful writing that
death. Maybe it was the magnificent rebuke his career conveyed clear thinking and honest reporting. That’s
offered to Fitzgerald’s line about “no second acts in what he demanded, and that’s what he delivered,
American lives.” Lewis lived to inspire a generation of month after month. He pursued the subjects that he
readers who knew him only by his second act, his rein- found interesting and important, and he trusted his au-
vention, in Lapham’s Quarterly, of the historical alma- dience to come along for the ride. Lewis extended that
nac. I’ve met fans of his who don’t even know about his principle to his staff. He told me many times that he
Harper’s days. always tried to hire people who were more intelligent

LETTERS 3
 than he was. I’m not sure he always succeeded on that Over time, after I married a writer, books became more
score, because Lewis was a very clever man, but as a important in my life. I passed along Lewis’s suggestions
rule his method and his example can’t be beat: hire the to my husband, Tom Wolfe. He, too, became enrap-
most talented people you can find; publish the best tured with their style and status details. The books
writing you can conjure up; trust your readers. Lewis had suggested greatly influenced his writing, so
much so that one of his best friends referred to Tom
—Roger D. Hodge as “Balzola.”

L ewis taught me everything I learned about maga-

zine editing. I remember the many times he held
The last time I saw Lewis, I asked him what he would
suggest I read. Empire by Gore Vidal, he replied. I just
ordered it.
court at the Noho Star, and when other editors ar-
rived told the bartender to “bring some water for my —Sheila Wolfe
horses.” Also the many times I sat or stood next to
him and delighted in his conversation and his won-
derful laugh. He was enormously generous in his
I learned from Lewis—learned especially the delicate
etiquette of interacting with the kind of writers he
teaching and extremely affectionate in his nature. I wanted (and I wanted) to publish, writers who took se-
will miss him dearly. riously their ideas and words, their sentences and struc-
tures. Being in an office next to his at Harper’s, being
—Ellen Rosenbush in meetings with him, being around him, I learned how

I first met Lewis on the page, when I started reading

Harper’s in college. I had picked up a copy of the Janu-
to compose a tactful but firm rejection letter; how, over
the phone, to encourage a rewrite, and then, weeks
later, still another; how to diplomatically reject a writ-
ary 1997 issue because I was intrigued by the cover. It er’s idea for a piece offered over lunch and provisionally
confidently announced itself, with the simplicity of that suggest something similar, or perhaps not similar at all.
black type against a white background, the only color My understanding of how difficult ambitious writing
coming from a horizontal slab of a photograph and a could be deepened: I came to care more, or care more
delicate ribbon of text at the top. I opened it up and was carefully, about writers and their manuscripts. And my
immediately hooked. The Index and the Readings sec- own ambition to spend a life editing magazine writing
tion, the long articles that blended sharp reporting deepened, too.
with the idiosyncratic voices of the people doing the
reporting—I had never encountered anything else like it. —Gerald Marzorati
I spent most of my impressionable twenties working
at Harper’s, and I learned that the man himself turned
out to be like the magazine he edited: extremely serious
L ewis Lapham taught us the difference between the
humdrum magazine article—a species of day-after dis-
yet darkly funny, coolly knowing yet insistently curi- posable journalism—and the essay as a force of wit,
ous. A familiar sound in the office was Lewis pacing judgment, satire, discovery, laughter, lastingness, art.
the halls as he worked on his Notebook each month. Whatever the subject, he made of it an idea as shapely
Despite everything he had accomplished, he was al- and meaningful and urgent as Necessity itself. He has
ways candid about the fact that writing, when you been, and always will be, our Hazlitt.
cared about it, was hard.
In all the years that I knew Lewis, I can’t say that we —Cynthia Ozick
talked about anything truly personal—he just wasn’t like
that, at least with me. We talked mostly about ideas,
about sentences, about essays, about books. In that way,
C omparisons to Mencken and Montaigne are apt
enough for Lewis Lapham’s writing, but to speak of his
even if he didn’t offer up revelations about his life, he care for other writers the best precedent may be Sam-
nevertheless changed mine. uel Johnson. Like “the Great Cham of literature,”
Lewis never sat so high as to lose touch with Grub
—Jennifer Szalai Street. The full tally of its denizens that he helped I

W hen I was art director of Harper’s Magazine, I saw

Lewis Lapham not only as the magazine’s editor, but
can’t claim to know; I can only say that he helped me
and that my debt is all the greater for my lesser place
on the list. After I wrote my first piece for Harper’s, he
also as my own literature professor. The first book he asked my editor, Ellen Rosenbush, “Where did you find
introduced me to was Balzac’s Lost Illusions. After that, him?” No one could have faulted her metaphors had
there was Père Goriot and Cousin Bette, Zola’s Thérèse she said, “Scratching at our basement door, all ribs and
Raquin and La Bête Humaine, Stendhal’s The Red and missing an ear.”
the Black. They all had to be Penguin Classics. No He gave me a home—two homes after he’d founded
other version would do. We would talk about each one Lapham’s Quarterly. As soon as I learned of his death,
at length. Johnson again came to mind, in a line he’d written on
I don’t think I was a special pupil in this regard. He the passing of a generous host: “the face that for fifteen
showered his knowledge on anyone who admired him. years had never been turned upon me but with respect

4 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

and benignity.” You want such a face in your head and ing to his band of editors and of course a keenly antici-
at the head of the table. For some of us, that’s where pated provocation to his loyal Harper’s readers.
Lewis will always sit.
—Colin Harrison

F
—Garret Keizer

Iriedn 2000, I received a call from Lewis Lapham, the sto-

editor of the venerable Harper’s Magazine, request-
or years I was wary of Lewis—always so impeccably
dressed, so easy to spot in a crowd—because I thought
that he was one of those hyper-entitled, older white
ing an in-person interview during my Green Party guys who might say something sexist and insulting. It
presidential campaign. Accustomed to reporters cling- took considerable persuasion for him to sign off on
ing to the single question about “being a spoiler” and “Scent of a Woman’s Ink,” my Harper’s essay about the
my usual rebuttals (“focus on the spoiled political sys- literary world’s discrimination against women. But after
tem”), I was pleased by Lapham’s interest in our broad the story blew up (this was shocking news in 1998),
and deep agenda, our modes of campaigning, and the Lewis was fully on board. He always encouraged me to
historical context of third parties breaking important go further, think bigger. Yes, the far right wanted to de-
new ground. He returned to New York and wrote a stroy U.S. public education. Yes, reality TV was a hot-
cover story on our campaign at the time of a near bed of proto-MAGA ideology.
blackout of our candidacy by the mainstream media. Eventually we became friends. I saw past the patrician
Seeing him as a national treasure, I offered to secure to the generous, smart, funny person who loved books
one thousand subscriptions to Harper’s if he would stop and ideas, who could quote—aptly and at length—from
smoking his several packs a day for two years. NBC’s Epicurus and Montaigne. Occasionally, we’d have lunch
Today show got wind of this exchange and put us both at an Italian restaurant he liked in Gramercy. It was
on the air. I made my case but, though his usual courte- quiet, and easy for him to go outside and smoke. Some-
ous self, he wouldn’t budge. times he called to invite me to write something for
In the succeeding years, we would exchange telephone Lapham’s Quarterly and, once, to guest-edit an issue.
calls to assess the outrages of the day. Lapham was not Already I miss him terribly. I miss his presence in the
content with opening minds to “beautiful and strange” world. I miss those lunches in Gramercy. I miss his partic-
imaginations for the world: he waded into controversies. ular mix of pragmatism and idealism. I miss what he repre-
sented: a way of life, a vivid interest in language, history,
—Ralph Nader narrative, art, argument, and thought. I feel as if something

L ewis will long be remembered for his piercing cri-

tiques of political hypocrisy. But there were two more
huge has been lost, something larger even than Lewis.
—Francine Prose
private sides to him, which I saw closely over my twelve
years at Harper’s, six of them as the magazine’s deputy
editor. The first was that he was a shrewd judge not
T he story of my writing life has two parts: before and
after Lewis Lapham. In the before, I was a writer of fic-
only of writerly talent but of editorial chops. He assem- tions in the American postmodern style. My “coach”
bled a remarkable team of editors, usually quite young, was the late John Barth. The “after” began when Lewis
who grooved on playing with language and ideas. and Roger Hodge accepted my essay “The Middle
Working for Lewis, we felt empowered to juggle the live Mind” for Harper’s Magazine, which was soon followed
ammo of words. He required ideas, arguments, and nar- by a book of the same name and six more works of so-
ratives, and we labored faithfully to provide them. cial criticism, one of which, The Science Delusion, I
Nearly all his editors went on to populate the wider dedicated to Lewis.
world of publishing, deploying the priceless skills Lewis Having worked with independent literary publishers
had taught them. like Fiction Collective Two and Dalkey Archive Press, I
The other aspect of Lewis that readers didn’t see was was acutely conscious of Lapham’s Quarterly’s need for a
how he struggled to write his column every month. I working endowment. So, Lewis and I were in Las Vegas
would go into his office as he marked up his manuscript with the late Barbara Ehrenreich at the invitation of the
and took a drag on his Parliament cigarette every min- University of Nevada, Las Vegas. One night, we strolled
ute or so, often preceded by a catarrhal clearing of the around the Bellagio casino, under Dale Chihuly’s color-
throat. When the column was going well, he would ful blown-glass ceiling. I bought ten one-dollar tokens for
soon strut a bit in his suit and tie and cuff links as he the slot machines and handed them to Lewis, saying,
exited his office, and when it was not—and that was “Maybe Vegas can do some fundraising.” It was fun to
often—he remained sunk down at his desk in his dis- see him pulling the handle, but we didn’t make any
couraged funk and cigarette smoke. He was an impossi- progress on the endowment.
bly elegant man, but in these moments he was just I’m seventy-three years old as I write this, less than a
another writer, confronting the vastness of the blank— week after Lewis’s passing. Like Barth and Ehrenreich
or, more likely, deeply improvable—page, under the (and Willie Mays), he, too, is now one of the “late.” In
pressure of a deadline. That he dependably emerged my mind, I still live in the world they helped to create,
from this struggle with a ferocious essay was ever inspir- but that world, too, seems now more late than not. But

LETTERS 5
 that just gives Harper’s editors, writers, and readers some- his posture when he smoked one of his Parliaments. He
thing to work on going forward. not only seemed stately, but gave you the impression he
started being stately around age five. But what’s always
—Curtis White stuck in my mind ever since he hired me, which hap-

I started working at Harper’s several months after Lewis

left to found Lapham’s Quarterly, but his imprimatur was
pened after a half hour of laughing and screaming about
story ideas, are his words when he sent me out his office
door. “Jump in,” he said. “Get in the game.” He meant it.
everywhere. As the new assistant to Roger Hodge, I loved At the time, Magazineland was a patchwork of war-
hearing Lewis’s gravelly voice when I answered the phone. lords. The New Yorker and the Times Magazine, GQ,
As a new smoker, I loved seeing Lewis standing outside Vogue, Esquire—all were run by aloof tyrants, typi-
this or that event, puffing a Parliament in his elegant, cally described as legendary, who made every call be-
unrepentant way. Cadging a cigarette was the perfect fore a small audience of tremulous editors. But Lewis
pretext for a nervous fangirl to venture a how-are-you, was more often a small-d democrat than not. He
and to prattle; yet Lewis was unfailingly gracious, and could be persuaded into publishing something he’d re-
generous to young people. Some years later, we struck up jected or into killing one of his darlings. As an editor,
a phone friendship, and sometimes met for lunch at Il he loved to challenge acceptable opinion or bash re-
Cantinori or a drink at Paul & Jimmy’s. “A Letter from ceived wisdom—and liked it when you did the same to
Lewis Lapham” was the subject line of all his emails. “I him. Although I might have bumped up against a
have more faith in wooden rulers than I do in plastic boundary when, out for a scotch at Temple Bar after
wrapped computers,” he wrote to me at one point. I will a close, the subject of his latest column came up and I
miss hearing his takes on the present day’s derangements somehow blurted, “What, no court jesters this month?”
and how they are informed by the wrinkles of the past. He laughed, but his warm nicotine crackle was more of
The arc of Lewis’s intellect and imagination was long. It a talk-show ha!
feels fitting that I am composing this by hand in the Lewis Lapham was sort of the Dylan Thomas of jour-
countryside, where a storm has blown out the Wi-Fi. nalists. I mean, Thomas was a great poet who, after
reading him, you realized was like no other poet—not
—Gemma Sieff really part of any genre, or movement, or generation.

L ewis and I became friends in the Nineties after his

daughter worked as an intern in my newspaper office.
Lewis Lapham was a journalist, but not like any journal-
ist I’ve ever known. He wrote in a genre that he in-
vented. He was part of a movement unto himself, and,
The great editor and essayist and I shared some similar in so many other things, was a bit of a mystery to those
interests, particularly in history, as well as a distrust of around him.
conventional wisdom and an appreciation of the absurd.
I can still hear Lewis’s smoky baritone, with a patri- —Jack Hitt
cian tone that reminded me not of San Francisco,
where he was raised before he was sent off to a Con-
necticut boarding school, but of the old East Coast
L ewis Lapham. Staunch. Old money. A Yalie. Always
insouciant. He left his heart in San Francisco, summered
Wasp upper crust. Lewis could be briefly irascible, but in Newport, but died in Rome. A child of winter, he was a
his kindness almost always triumphed. He spared little bit of a throwback, as most children of winter are. He was
effort to help writers and editors develop their talents so adoring of me. I will forever think the world of him.
as far as they could take them. His mentoring of young We went out for “Mobutus” on Lafayette. He always told
staffers at Harper’s and Lapham’s Quarterly was legend- me, “You are headed up, up, up, kid.” He wore lavish,
ary, rich with patience and idiosyncratic ingenuity, as well-tailored suits for many days in a row. For him, I
he guided them through the briar-filled woods of pub- smoked Parliaments and talked John Daly.
lishing. He was always quietly doing favors for others— I loved Lewis. Really loved him. Most editors want to
for example, making himself available to talk with replicate their minds, but their minds are simply not that
young people whom I and other friends sent to him for interesting. Lewis was a cannonball of history. He didn’t
employment advice. I was touched when he scurried to just have style—he was style. He knew sometimes you
try to find me a new job when the company I was show up in India and the Beatles happen to break up. So
working for was sold. (I kept my job.) few people are worth the feeling of admiration, but he was.
That reminds me of his oft-expressed gratitude for The Harper’s internship paid no money. I never said
those famed journalists who had helped him become a anything, but it was a hardship to do it even though my
great magazine editor, such as Otto Friedrich and Jack college gave me credits. Right before we left, Lewis sold
Fischer. Lewis was a very gracious man. And such fun! some Muhammad Ali memorabilia he had and gave four
fat checks to our internship group. I needed that money
—Robert Whitcomb so badly; I’ve never gotten over the feeling that he knew

Y ou might be forgiven for thinking Lewis Lapham was

something of an aristocrat, given his prose style, his
that. But as ever, Lewis never let people feel apprehension
about their right to exist in the world. He never treated
people coarsely; he just treated everyone equally. Every-
family background out of some West Coast oil barony, or one was a discovery, a new conversation to have, another

6 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

person to listen to and smoke with. Lewis was aloof but lucci e Vino, around the corner from the Quarterly’s office.
warm. No one but he and my mother have given me such We discussed, among other things, his view of time and
a deep, unshakable understanding of class: a fading sen- space, which Lewis summed up in a simple way: “It’s all
sibility but one that he had in droves. Thank you, LHL. one place.” That is: all the world’s history, as disparate as
it may seem, exists together, in “one place,” one conversa-
Love, tion among voices in time—or at least the Quarterly made
it so. I believe that it was this grand sense of the immedi-
—Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
acy of the past and the freedom of imagination it allowed

O ne afternoon that first year of the pandemic, at two

o’clock, I walked past a flower shop and a pharmacy to
that motivated Lewis to keep reading, writing, editing—to
keep making magazines—for as long as he could.

the deli on Third Avenue. Lewis, who even in his late —Will Augerot
eighties never shook the habit of working from the of-
fice, had asked me to grab him lunch. I remember the
man behind the counter always lifted his mask as he
O nly at the end of his life did Lewis and I speak on
the phone. Before that, beginning in 1978 and through-
said, “The usual?” out our work together and later friendship (I met him as
“Yeah, the usual.” a student at Columbia, and he hired me to work at
Liverwurst with butter and mayonnaise on rye, and a Harper’s as an assistant editor), we talked in offices, over
chocolate milkshake. That evening at six o’clock, like drinks, at lunch or dinner, after golf, and in emails and
every evening at six o’clock, we decamped to a restaurant letters (I wrote; he answered succinctly). But until he
on East 18th Street, where Lewis asked for a Bloody Mary, moved to Rome for what turned out to be the last
in a wine glass, and I asked him to tell me stories about round of his life, we had never spoken much on the
the past. (Months earlier, he’d told me about playing Bee- phone, except to arrange meetings.
thoven in Thelonious Monk’s apartment, then offered me Once we got the hang of these calls, we talked about
a job.) After work, I always liked to ask about the past, everything—his books in storage in Brooklyn, moving
because often when I asked about the present, he’d say his beloved office desk to Italy, the novels of Alan Furst
something like, “You know, I’m still struggling.” Lewis was and the histories of Philip Guedalla, whether he would
not yet speaking about his health so much as whatever it die abroad, Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir
was he was writing—a letter to an old friend, another Putin, my recent trips to Mexico and Cuba in search of
essay. Every word was dashed off longhand, scrawled in the imperial battlefields, his own visit to the Bay of Pigs for
blue ink of his Montblanc, then dictated into a digital tape his 1989 television series, America’s Century, and, end-
recorder, which was transcribed and printed and edited, lessly, whether he had the stamina to write one more
over and over and over again, until one night, he might essay for Harper’s—on democracy.
smile and say, “Goddamnit, it’s done.” In his Roman twilight, Lewis could not move about
easily. He didn’t have his desk, nor could he write in
—Adam Iscoe longhand with a fountain pen while propped up in his

L ast year, Lewis wrote what was, to my knowledge, his

final essay, the Preamble for the Energy issue of Lapham’s
bed, but he never lost his abiding curiosity about the
world or his determination. In brooding about democ-
racy, he reread the Aubrey–Maturin novels of Patrick
Quarterly. I was, somehow, his editor, and I could see O’Brian, plus Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Upton Sin-
him at work all summer inside his glass-walled office clair’s Lanny Budd series. Lewis just didn’t know how
overlooking Union Square. On one such day in June, as he would start the piece until he came upon this quo-
forest fires raged in Quebec, the smoke outside darkened tation from Justice Louis D. Brandeis (in effect, his fi-
the Manhattan sky, which turned orange in the after- nal words to me): “We must make our choice. We may
noon; the building smelled of campfire. Lewis kept writ- have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated
ing at his desk, as he always did. On his way out that in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
evening, he offered me a drink—“in consolation,” Lewis
said, because his essay was late. —Matthew Stevenson
In the fall, I visited Lewis several times on the Upper
East Side, picking up the day’s newspaper and a coffee
on the way. He was rereading Moby-Dick, a novel he
I n 2017, I met a man in Washington Square Park who
was homeless but in possession of a handsome desk set.
had loved since childhood. Lewis appeared to me oddly He had it on dollies, he explained, so the park police
youthful, as though the reading itself had turned the couldn’t harass him for setting up furniture. The desk’s
clock back by half a century. “I have swam through li- only contents were, in one drawer, a handle of vodka,
braries and sailed through oceans,” Melville wrote, and and, in another, a copy of Lewis’s Pretensions to Empire.
so had Lewis. I thought he might live forever. Perhaps Both were indispensable, he said. I told Lewis, who was
the rules had been suspended and invincibility attained. delighted at my new friend’s fine taste and wanted to meet
Lewis had been a hero of mine since I was a teenager him. We never found him.
in North Carolina, and I remember the first time I met
him, many years later, for a job interview at Taral- —Rafil Kroll-Zaidi

LETTERS 7
 P U B L I S H E R ’ S L E T T E R

By John R. MacArthur

L
ewis H. Lapham wanted to be of superficiality—of being unorthodox derous legacy, however, was alive and
remembered as a literary man just for the hell of it. The Lewis I talked well in the person of Henry Kissinger,
and an essayist, and no one with day in and day out burned with whose malign and cynical influence on
should begrudge his lofty ambition to anger at what he viewed as the ongoing American foreign policy never really
be compared with the novelist Honoré betrayal of the founding promises of ebbed after Nixon left office.
de Balzac, the brilliant French chroni- the Republic, particularly concerning It was much more daring and news-
cler of nineteenth-century class, money, freedom of speech and thought, self- worthy for Lewis to publish, as the cover
and status in a society torn between its government, and a foreign policy tilted story of the May 1979 issue, an excerpt
revolutionary heritage and its desire for toward enlightened and sensible re- from William Shawcross’s deeply re-
royalty and aristocratic privilege. Lewis straint. He took George Washington’s ported exposé of Nixon and Kissinger’s
never published a novel (though he did and John Quincy Adams’s anti- Cambodia policy, which Shawcross
have a youthful attempt in the drawer), imperialist admonitions to heart; he convincingly argued had led to the
but he probably got closer than any spoke passionately about the devotion murder of some two million Cambodi-
writer of his generation to piercing the to free expression of Thomas Jefferson ans by the Khmer Rouge. With due
mysteries of the analogous American and Thomas Paine as if he’d known respect to Seymour Hersh’s and Chris-
paradox: a republic born of violent them personally; he evinced a direct topher Hitchens’s later work on the
revolution that hasn’t yet shed its wish connection to Mark Twain’s ironic lib- subject, Shawcross’s Sideshow: Kissinger,
for kings. eralism and anti-imperialism that could Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia
Lewis was also a courageous and make it seem like he’d just come from a remains the best portrait of Kissinger at
often radical journalist who guided drink with him at a bar near our New his worst. And Kissinger evidently
others, and when I think of his twenty- York office, on the corner of Broadway knew it, which seems to be why he
eight years as editor of Harper’s Maga- and Bond Street. launched a charm offensive against
zine (because of his two separate Lewis rather than a counterattack.

I
tenures, he jokingly called himself the n its largely admiring obituary, the Kissinger was due to publish the first
Grover Cleveland of American editors), Washington Post attributed editorial volume of his memoirs that October
I place him in the ranks of the finest “blunders” to Lewis, most notably and needed to prepare the ground for
twentieth-century reporters and opin- his refusal to its critical reception. In June 1979,
ion writers, alongside H. L. Mencken, Lewis and Kissinger met for lunch, and
I. F. Stone, A. J. Liebling, and Walter excerpt All the President’s Men, the for more than a year afterward there
soon-to-be bestseller by Carl Bernstein
Karp. It was his boldness that drew me was nothing in their correspondence to
and Bob Woodward about the Water-
to him, at a young age; it was his radi- gate break-in that led to President suggest that Kissinger had been insulted
calism that illuminated the editorial Richard M. Nixon’s resignation. by the previous month’s publication of
project that we launched at Harper’s— dr. kissinger goes to war, the head-
literary though it is and will remain. The Post attributed this decision (Lewis line of the Harper’s excerpt from Side-
Despite his instinctive belligerence was then still the managing editor of show. Kissinger was well known for
toward illegitimate power, Lewis was Harper’s and could have been over- seducing journalists with flattery, access,
sometimes caricatured as a renegade ruled by Robert Shnayerson, the editor) and scoops, never losing his composure
against his patrician upbringing—as if to his objection to “the book’s many when something in the press displeased
he were posing as a rebel without ever unnamed sources.” A commercial him. So, as was his tendency, Kissinger
renouncing his elitist roots. But this blunder, perhaps. But Lewis had a asked Lewis to send him, as Lewis put it
was an oversimplification and a misun- certain contempt for not-for-attribution in a July 30 letter, “the essays in which
derstanding of the man I knew. To be journalism—he favored what he called you expressed an interest.” But the en-
sure, he maintained and defended cer- “investigative reading”—in part be- closed essays included an unexpected
tain accessories of high Wasp culture, cause he suspected corrupt collusion barb. On December 17, after Kissinger
but a focus on these accoutrements between self-interested, anonymous finally got around to reading them, the
distracts from the substance of his best sources and journalists with axes to self-styled twentieth-century Metter-
work. Iconoclastic, skeptical, and con- grind. Anyway, by late 1974, when the nich replied with studied ambivalence:
trarian were other descriptions of Woodward–Bernstein book was pub- You have the unusual ability to write
Lewis that, while also true, had the ring lished, everyone knew the Watergate articles which I read with enormous
story chapter and verse, and Nixon had approval until you manage to get in an
John R. MacArthur is the author of several been safely packed away down the ad hominem dig at me. Which is all
books, including The Selling of “Free Trade.” memory hole. His villainous and mur- the more disconcerting as when I read

8 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

 an article I consider myself on the side our society is to restore itself there must I can only hope that many more con-
that you are praising. Be that as it may be the possibility of a serious dialogue temporary readers will find it in them-
I will have my secretary call your office between philosophical opponents and a selves to support this forum— this
for breakfast. modicum of mutual respect. To publish temple of free thought and inquiry—in
Despite the demotion from lunch to an article culminating in a charge of the same spirit.
war crimes goes beyond the limits of de-
breakfast, Lewis maintained a civil dia- cency. To pretend that a national trag-
In the years following his duel with
logue with Kissinger, even dining with edy was a personal villainy is a form of Kissinger, Lewis performed numerous
him and his wife, Nancy, in early Feb- escapism and moral abdication. You acts of journalistic defiance with my
ruary 1980. On July 11 of that year, he cannot escape your responsibility for full support. Two stand out: his profile
thanked Kissinger for his “support” for publishing a charge so offensive and and endorsement, in 2000, of Ralph
what was, in fact, my successful effort dishonorable against someone you Nader’s independent presidential cam-
to “rescue Harper’s Magazine from had no hesitation to use when it paign, and his early opposition to
oblivion” after it was closed by the served your purposes. George W. Bush’s disastrous and men-
Minneapolis Star and Tribune Com- dacious invasion of Iraq.
pany, the magazine’s former owner. But As I read this for the first time, just Lewis’s essay opposing the inva-
Lewis never forgot his obligation as an a week after Lewis’s death, I felt that sion appeared in the October 2002
editor or his hostility toward the Amer- there could be no higher praise for issue, more than five months before
ican ruling class. On September 23, him as a journalist and editor; it re- it occurred. Once again, he flouted
following the establishment of the non- confirmed that I made the right deci- political convention and family ties
profit Harper’s Magazine Foundation, sion in restoring him to the editor’s when it would have been so much
he sent Kissinger the galleys of a forth- chair in 1983. Lewis was the ally easier to go along with the crowd.
coming Harper’s review of Kissinger’s whom I wanted, whom I needed, to Born like Lewis to Wasp privilege
memoir White House Years, along with preserve and prolong the Harper’s and educated at Yale, Bush was as
a letter that contained surprising news: legacy; his is the inspiration I still worthy and as villainous a target for
draw on as the magazine enters its Lewis as was Kissinger.
You will notice that it is an extended re-
view . . . written by William Shawcross, 175th year. As I consider Kissinger’s Nader, born to Lebanese immi-
a critic about whom you have ex- breathtaking hypocrisy, I think of grants of modest means, deserved ad-
pressed feelings of revulsion and dis- the task ahead: exposing, explicating, miration and a proper hearing for
trust. Mr. Shawcross worked on the and contradicting in these pages the both his principles and his concrete
review for the better part of a year, contemporary disciples of his treach- actions to safeguard the much-sullied
and Harper’s Magazine has been at erous and duplicitous methods. (by Bill Clinton and so many other
some pains to verify the accuracy of smooth talkers) American dream.

L
his quotations and chronologies. Even ewis, by the way, had the last For Lewis, Nader was the exemplar
so, I expect that you will find his ar- word. In a letter dated No- of a complete American devoted to
gument distasteful, and you may want
to respond to it at considered length.
vember 24, 1980, he reminded the best interests of his country.
Kissinger of In both instances, Lewis was on
Kissinger’s campaign of seduction Machiavelli’s distinction between the the “wrong” side of history—Nader
had failed—indeed, it had backfired— morality of the city and the morality was widely denounced and discredited
and he dropped the veil of diplomacy. of the soul. As a National Security by Democrats, liberals, and the media
His October 10 reply, headlined not Advisor or Secretary of State you as nothing more than a spoiler. Bush’s
for publication, declined the invita- have no choice but to make decisions, war, on the other hand, enjoyed the
tion to contradict or correct Shawcross many of them undoubtedly ambiguous support of a grotesque coalition of
in public. Within the safe confines of or unpleasant, according to the mo- Democrats, neoconservatives, and the
a private letter, Kissinger allowed him- rality of the city, but then you ask to foreign-policy and liberal media estab-
be judged according to the morality of
self certain fatuous remarks about the the soul. How then could I, or anyone
lishments. But through it all, Lewis
“vicious critics” of his and Nixon’s else, possibly satisfy you? was on the right side of wisdom—and
Vietnam policy and, of all things, their I could ask the same question with of the U.S. Constitution. He detested
alleged role in prolonging the war. regard to your intercession in the mat- pseudo-constitutional piety in politi-
Then, rather strangely, this: “But while ter of Harper’s Magazine. I asked for cians and other journalists, espe-
I consider Shawcross’s argumentation your testimony not on my own behalf cially when they spouted clichés in
mendacious and misleading, I have but rather on behalf of a magazine defense of “American values.” The
always granted the good faith and es- obliged to publish free and independent First Amendment, Lewis used to say,
sentially moral underpinning of the opinions, some of them unpleasant. wasn’t conceived to help in the writ-
antiwar movement.” As for Lewis, Kiss- Given my responsibility as the editor of ing of sermons about liberty—it was
Harper’s, I cannot use the magazine to
inger had lost patience: flatter my own political advantage.
created to be used. Thank God he
I have had high regard for your views, What you were asked to rescue was not knew how to use it. Q

painful as they have occasionally been, Lewis Lapham’s career but a forum in
and I have given tangible proof of that which people like Mr. Shawcross could Lewis H. Lapham’s correspondence with
respect. Our meetings had a signifi- say what they think about the events Henry Kissinger can be read online at
cance for me because of my belief that if that shape their lives. harpers.org/lapham-kissinger.

PUBLISHER’S LETTER 9
 NEW & FORTHCOMING

Lumen Ancient Thrace and Sensing the Future

The Art and Science the Classical World Experiments in Art
of Light, 800–1600 Treasures from Bulgaria, and Technology (E.A.T.)
Edited by Kristen Collins Romania, and Greece Edited by Nancy Perloff
and Nancy K. Turner Edited by Jeffrey Spier, and Michelle Kuo
Sumptuously illustrated, this pub- Timothy Potts, Sara E. Cole, This volume tells the story of how
lication explores the ways art and and Margarit Damyanov the groundbreaking arts orga-
science worked hand in hand in Richly illustrated, this volume is nization Experiments in Art and
the Middle Ages and the Renais- an examination of the profound Technology brought artists and
sance. impact Thracian art and culture engineers together to pioneer
had on the ancient Greeks and technology-based artworks and
Looking at Fashion the entire northern Aegean performances.
A Guide to Terms, Styles, region.
and Techniques Legion
Debra N. Mancoff
Gustave Caillebotte Life in the Roman Army
Painting Men Richard Abdy
Spanning the centuries and rep-
resenting a global point of view, Edited by Scott Allan, Follow the life of an ordinary
Looking at Fashion is a guide to Gloria Groom, and Paul Perrin soldier—from enlistment to the
the elements that make clothing An exploration of the complex battlefield—in this intimate look at
practical, wearable, stylish, and and varied aspects of Impression- everyday life in the Roman army.
distinctive. ist Gustave Caillebotte’s oeuvre,
this abundantly illustrated volume
paints a fascinating portrait of the
artist, masculinity, and identity in
late nineteenth-century France.

Getty
© 2024 J. Paul Getty Trust

Publications
getty.edu/publications
 EASY CHAIR
Lo-fi Beats for Work or Study
By Hari Kunzru

I
’ve written in many places, some shared with my girlfriend, also a nov- I put on a blindfold and lay down
wonderful, others makeshift or elist, and for a while we wrote books on the springy wire floor. The abso-
uncomfortable. I’ve written on at tables facing opposite directions in lute absence of sound was disconcert-
trains and in hotel rooms, at ergo- the tiny space. We were on the sev- ing. Soon enough, I heard a high
nomically perfect desks and on laptops enth floor, high enough that the traf- tone. I surmised from reading about
balanced on my knees. I once spent a fic noise wasn’t oppressive. At night, Cage that this was probably not the
few days working at a table in the fire trucks would roar down 23rd music of my nervous system, but
middle of a vast, empty factory in Street, the sound of their sirens rip- rather a sign of minor hearing dam-
France. I still dream about a hut on a ping through the darkness. I think it age. I also began to hear a whooshing
remote Scottish island with no inter- took me two or three years to start noise, as my heart pumped out blood
net access or cell-phone reception, sleeping well in New York, and I was and pulled it back again. It was reve-
where I sat at my desk and watched the lucky that I had research to do in the latory but also odd. I could imagine
sun set over the sea. Mojave Desert, where the silence felt my brain “flipping” and processing
Wherever I am, one constant pres- precious, almost magical. this absence of sound as something
ence is noise. I don’t believe I’m un- positive, a pressure that was crushing,
duly sensitive to it, though I certainly
will hunt for a mysterious electrical
hum in a hotel room or end up nod-
ding my head to the off-kilter rhythm
J ohn Cage once visited an anechoic
chamber at Harvard University,
among the most quiet spaces in the
world, designed for acoustics research.
bearing down on my skull. I began to
understand why extended sensory de-
privation is a form of torture.

I
of a washing machine. For several “In that silent room I heard two n the real world, there’s always
years in London, I lived next door to sounds, one high and one low,” he re- sound. The goal for a writer— or
a boy who made terrible techno music counted in a lecture. Asking the engi- anyone trying to concentrate—is
in his bedroom studio. As I tried to neer what they were, he was told that not achieving absolute silence but
concentrate on my work, the walls of “the high one was your nervous system finding or creating an acoustic envi-
my study would vibrate with bass. It in operation. The low one was your ronment where you can get into the
was the music’s ineptness, as much as blood in circulation.” Craving this zone, what some psychologists refer to
its volume, that made it unbearable. experience, I persuaded someone to as a flow state. So I mute all notifica-
The sweltering summer I first moved give me access to an anechoic chamber tions; I close the door; I indulge elab-
to New York, I lived near ground level at a university in Berlin. It was an al- orate arson fantasies about the Mister
in the East Village. When I couldn’t most monumental space, designed for Softee truck as the mindless ice-cream
stand the elderly air conditioner blast- testing engines. Bathed in warm yellow jingle pierces my sensorium like a tod-
ing in my ear, I opened the window, light like a Seventies science-fiction dler jabbing me with a popsicle stick.
and it was as if the street leapt into set, it was essentially a large cube lined On days when my concentration fal-
the room. I was, it transpired, trying with baffles and a wire-mesh floor sus- ters, everyday neighborhood sounds
to work next to the only sittable stoop pended across it, the drop underfoot can be enough to throw me off—
on a busy block. Day and night, peo- being the same as the clearance over- people moving around, talking in
ple argued, broke up with their part- head. The chamber’s engineer was go- the garden next door, a car alarm at the
ners, made drug deals, howled at the ing on his lunch break and said that I other end of the block.
moon. I might as well have dragged could spend an uninterrupted hour In a devil’s bargain for the loss of
my desk out onto the sidewalk; at inside. He showed me the trick to tranquility, the modern world has
least it would have been cooler. opening the door in case the experi- offered us headphones. At the mo-
Later, I moved out of that place ence got too intense. Sometimes people ment, hanging under my desk is a set
and into a studio in Chelsea that I didn’t even last a few minutes, he said. of closed-back cans that are almost

EASY CHAIR 11
comically substantial, the sort of thing less “background music” than it is Of course, what I’m describing
a pilot would wear. When I’m inside multilevel music, something that has a relationship to meditation or
them, I’m sealed off, perhaps slightly creates a perimeter if that’s what I trance. There are various primal
more than I’d like. The question is want, but which doesn’t suffer from scenes for this kind of music. The In-
what to play through them. What requiring my sustained attention. I dian classical singer Pandit Pran Nath
kind of sound will help me focus when don’t think of ambient music as a arrives in New York and teaches a
I am scattered and distracted? genre, except in the most vague way. generation of avant-gardists about
When I’m working, I do not listen It’s not a particular set of sounds; it’s the spiritual effects of the tanpura
to music in the normal way, in order to more a practice of listening, of using drone. Brian Jones of the Rolling
find entertainment or stimulation. music as a tool to induce a particular Stones visits the Berber village of Jou-
Or at least that’s the theory. I cannot mental state. When it’s functioning, jouka in the Rif Mountains of Mo-
pretend that I do not occasionally the music recedes, leaving a space rocco, carrying a reel-to-reel tape
put on a banger. But in general, I do for thought. And though I’m not recorder. Debussy hovers around the
not want my focus drawn to the aware of it, I’m still listening. I have enclosure of the Javanese village at
sound. I need something that is stable a high tolerance for repetition, but the International Exposition of 1889
enough to think inside, something kitsch and banality quickly begin to in Paris, his mind expanded by the
that feels still, or at least continuous, force themselves to the front of my gamelan ensemble. The wide streak
something more like a space than a mind. Clicking on a playlist titled of hippie-trail Orientalism in ambi-
narrative. It must be present enough lo-fi beats to relax/study to ent music (all those sitars!) is almost
to substitute for the noise of the brings me little relaxation or sense structural, a product of messy, un-
world, but not so insistent that it of studiousness. Since I am also a equal encounters between European
compels my attention. The term degenerate record collector, this modernism and the rest of the world.
“ambient music” often conjures up suits me fine. Yet at their best, these meetings have
unchallenging electronic washes. been authentic and revelatory. “I

T
Who among us has not cracked jokes he need to find the perfect would like to see,” Debussy once said,
about whale song and massage thera- work music has inevitably be-
pists? I have bad memories of a pe- come an excuse for extended and I will succeed myself in produc-
riod in the Nineties when you could flights of procrastination. My search ing, music that is entirely free from
motifs, or rather consisting of one
have a global hit by playing Grego- has taken me from ethnographic field continuous motif, which nothing in-
rian chant and some rainforest sam- recordings to New Age cassettes and terrupts and which never turns back
ples over a slow breakbeat. In the contemporary electronic music. The on itself.
liner notes to Ambient 1: Music for idea of sound as space, or perhaps ar-
Airports, the 1978 album that is usu- chitecture, has threaded through all The music that induces a state of
ally the starting point for any discus- sorts of places and times. In 1917, Erik concentration in me might well not
sion of these matters, Brian Eno Satie wrote a chamber piece called work for you— or the person at the
draws an important distinction: “Carrelage Phonique” or “phonic tilt- next table in the noisy coffee shop.
ing,” four bars of a simple figure, There are pieces that are as central
Whereas conventional background played by strings and woodwind in- to my writing life as the office chair I
music is produced by stripping away struments, intended to be repeated ad sit on and, in some ways, as little re-
all sense of doubt and uncertainty
infinitum, as background for an event. garded. They can jump-start me from
(and thus all genuine interest) from
the music, Ambient Music retains In notes, he suggested a luncheon, or distraction to focus, but I suspect that
these qualities. And whereas their in- a civil marriage. It was what we would their power is partly a function of
tention is to “brighten” the environ- now call a loop, one of a handful of how—and how much—I’ve listened
ment by adding stimulus to it (thus similar pieces he referred to as musique to them. They have carved channels,
supposedly alleviating the tedium of d’ameublement, or “furniture music.” reinforced neural pathways that allow
routine tasks and leveling out the nat- Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, me to access the mental space I want
ural ups and downs of the body Harry Bertoia, probably best known as to occupy. Looking for this music
rhythms), Ambient Music is intended a furniture designer, made resonant has, as a sort of byproduct, intro-
to induce calm and a space to think. metal sound sculptures. In the Eight- duced me to so many cultural sub-
Ambient Music must be able to ac-
ies, Japanese brands commissioned currents that I will probably spend
commodate many levels of listening
attention without enforcing one in talented contemporary composers to the rest of my life exploring all the
particular; it must be as ignorable as it make background music for stores and tributaries. As I write, I’m listening to
is interesting. offices. In 1988, musicians in Wash- a heavy analog drone produced by a
ington State calling themselves the French composer called Éliane Ra-
The idea of music that can “ac- Deep Listening Band descended into digue, a serious practitioner of Ti-
commodate” multiple levels of atten- a vast abandoned cistern that had a betan Buddhism. And I’m also really
tion without “enforcing” any one is natural forty-five-second reverb time. distracted, even disturbed, because I
the most precise definition I’ve I have a record of one of the same just discovered that some sicko has
found for the kind of music that musicians playing slow tones on a posted a twelve-hour loop of the Mis-
helps me to work. As Eno says, it’s trombone in a Gothic abbey. ter Softee jingle online. Q

12 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

S TA N F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S

Queering Reproductive
Justice
Stolen Fragments An Invitation
Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Candace Bond-Theriault
Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts
Roberta Mazza

An entertaining and infuriating account A call to action that opens the door to an
of the illicit trade in papyri that examines inclusive, radical, and safe future for all
the boundary between protection and families
exploitation, scholarship and larceny

Compton in My Soul Hot Flash

A Life in Pursuit of Racial Equality How the Law Ignores Menopause
Albert M. Camarillo and What We Can Do About It
Stanford Studies in Emily Gold Waldman, Bridget J.
Comparative Race and
Ethnicity Crawford, and Naomi R. Cahn

Lessons and inspiration from a lifetime of More than half the population will
teaching about race and ethnic relations experience menopause; it is time for the law
to acknowledge it

The Cancel Culture Panic Near and Far Waters

How an American Obsession The Geopolitics of Seapower
Went Global Colin Flint
Adrian Daub

An important, clever book that analyzes the Colin Flint explores the history of seapower
global spread of cancel culture discourse as it relates to geopolitics, with ramifica-
and investigates the powerful hold that the tions for anticipating the potential for war
idea of “being cancelled” has on readers in the present
around the world

Passionate Work American Apocalypse

Choreographing a Dance Career The Six Far-Right Groups Waging
Ruth Horowitz War on Democracy
Rena Steinzor

An exploration of the major dimensions A thorough analysis of the right-wing

of professional dancers’ creative careers – interests contributing to the downfall of
passion, precarity, and rupture American democracy

sup.org | stanfordpress.typepad.com
 READERS LIMITED TIME OFFER

Imperial
FINEST BRITISH

MOLESKIN
Pine
PANTS
only

$95 SAVE $10 buy 2 for $180

Loden
Classic British moleskin pants; soft as a baby’s
bottom and rakish as a guardsman’s smile,
tailored with a slimming flat front from 100%
brushed cotton. Plus they feature our hidden,
expanding comfort waistband which gives
up to 2 extra inches of flexibility. Brought
to you by Peter Christian, traditional British
gentlemen’s outfitters.

Indigo - FREE Exchanges - 100% cotton moleskin

- French bearer fly front - Machine wash at 30˚c
- Hidden, expanding comfort waistband
- 2 buttoned rear and 2 deep side pockets
Waist: 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52"
Leg: 28 30 32 34"
Colors: Imperial, Pine, Loden, Indigo,
Mulberry, NEW Beige, Chocolate

Mulberry
“These pants are
FREE
SHIPPING *
of exceptional
quality. Fit is
true and fabric
from the UK to the
United States & Canada
is first class.”
+ Free Exchanges** Robert, Virginia

use promo code

NEW Beige 25V42

Use code 25V42 for FREE SHIPPING

to order Moleskin Pants (ref. MT20)
Chocolate

MT20
peterchristianoutfitters.com
Loden Call us 24
hours a day (631) 621-5255 Local call
rates apply

Model: Go Online or Call for a Free Catalog

Height: 6'1" *Free shipping from the UK to the US & Canada, of 5-10 working days, ends midnight GMT
Wears: 34/30" 12/14/24. $50 minimum spend applies. We do not accept cheques. dŚŝƐŽīĞƌŵĂLJŶŽƚ
ďĞƵƐĞĚŝŶĐŽŶũƵŶĐƟŽŶǁŝƚŚĂŶLJŽƚŚĞƌŽīĞƌ͘Sales taxes charged at checkout if applicable.
ΎΎ&ƵůůZĞĨƵŶĚΘdžĐŚĂŶŐĞŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶĂǀĂŝůĂďůĞŽŶůŝŶĞ͘
 HARPER’S INDEX
Factor by which Americans are more likely to disapprove of a woman’s election to the presidency than a person of color’s : 3
Portion of U.S. partisan races in 2022 that were uncontested : 1/2
Estimated percentage of these in which the sole candidate was a Democrat : 22
In which the sole candidate was a Republican : 74
Average number of minutes of daily housework done by married American men who identify as liberal : 99
By married American men who identify as conservative : 88
As moderate : 70
Percentage of Americans who say they try to be polite when interacting with AI chatbots : 44
Who believe their treatment of AI chatbots “will one day be taken into account somehow” : 39
Estimated percentage increase since 1980 in the portion of homicides in the United States that go unsolved : 64
Estimated ratio of pets to children under the age of 4 in China : 1:1
Year in which this ratio is projected to reach 2:1 : 2030
Percentage of global net growth in renewable-energy capacity last year attributable to China : 63
Amount that the average American believed they would need to save for a comfortable retirement in 2020 : $951,000
In 2024 : $1,460,000
Percentage increase this year in the number of Fidelity 401(k) accounts worth more than $1,000,000 : 39
Number of points by which the average credit score drops in a U.S. state after three years of legalized online sports betting : 7
Average percentage by which the rate of personal bankruptcy increases in such states : 28
Percentage of American families traveling to a Disney theme park in 2022 that took on debt to do so : 30
In 2024 : 45
Average debt taken on by such a family for their trip : $1,983
Percentage of Americans who view fast food as a “luxury” : 78
Portion of Americans who have worked at McDonald’s : 1/8
Who have worked at any fast-food restaurant : 1/3
Portion of U.S. college seniors who are interested in becoming a corporate executive : 1/2
Percentage decrease since 2022 in mentions of diversity on S&P 500 earnings calls : 52
In mentions of climate change : 74
Percentage change this year in the portion of Democrats who say that businesses should take public political stances : −14
In the portion of Republicans who say so : +29
Factor by which the number of sanctions imposed by the United States exceeds that of any other country : 3
Estimated percentage of the population of Cuba that has emigrated since 2022 : 18
That emigrated in the four years following the 1959 revolution : 5
Percentage decrease since 1983 in the portion of American 19-year-olds with driver’s licenses : 21
Percentage of Americans who in 2019 preferred to watch movies in theaters : 58
In 2024 : 35
Rank of cleanliness among Americans’ grievances with movie theaters : 1
Portion of single American adults who have sent a nude photo of themselves to someone in the past year : 1/4
Average number of photos stored in an American smartphone user’s camera roll : 2,795
Estimated percentage of these that are selfies : 58

Figures cited are the latest available as of September 2024. Sources are listed on page 61.
“Harper’s Index” is a registered trademark.

HARPER’S INDEX 15
 READINGS

[Essay] life, which was compared persistently to the life of

the gods— divine life. This idea can be found
THE THING ITSELF throughout the works of Plato, at the end of Aris-
totle’s Nicomachean Ethics, in Epicurus and Ploti-
By Simon Critchley, from Mysticism, which was nus. It arguably echoes down to Spinoza, whom
published last month by New York Review Books. Novalis famously described as “the God-drunken
man,” and down to Hegel’s trinitarian dialectic, in

“M
which God becomes us in the form of a commu-
nity of spirit.
ysticism” is the word for what we modern, Many practices of reading and scriptural herme-
critical philosophers are meant to distrust in the neutics associated with mysticism arose within the
name of enlightenment. It is all that is weak- context of medieval Christianity, particularly
minded and lazy, a pseudophilosophy that avoids monasticism. The same can be said of the affective
the labor of proper philosophical thinking. This and subjective characteristics that we associate
view is why philosophers like to identify them- with mystical experience: inspired speech, intense
selves with workers: Locke sees the philosopher as emotion, the heights of ecstasy, and the depths of
the under-laborer to science; Husserl has a bizarre dereliction. But what happens when that context
conception of philosophers as civil servants; and is dramatically weakened or even erased, as it has
the one really good joke in Heidegger’s work (not been in much of Western Europe after the Refor-
intended to be funny) suggests that philosophers mation? What becomes of mysticism in

I
are the police force in the procession of the sci- the burgeoning modern world?
ences. By contrast, mysticism is suspicious and
possibly criminal. All claims to visions, inspired n his 2009 essay “Mysticism, Modernity, and
visitations, ecstatic experiences, and spirit-seeing the Invention of Aesthetic Experience,” Niklaus
must be rooted out from philosophy and, even Largier tells the story of how, increasingly isolated
more importantly, from public life. To let mystics from its institutional context, mystical practice
into this realm leads to error, disorder, and reemerges in a new realm of enchantment, namely
insurrection—to government by fanatics, mani- a world of aesthetic experience. Concepts like
acs, and despots claiming divinity. love, suffering, sweetness, and pain move out from
Philosophers’ bloodless duty of critique in the the institutional confines of the church to a feeling
service of enlightenment blinds us to what is rich, of wonderment often connected with the experi-
strange, and provocative about the tradition of ence of nature. It is no longer intimacy with Christ
thinking and experience that we label as mystical. but poetry that gives an ecstatic experience of self
The obsession with rigor ossifies into rigor mortis, and world—a foretaste of heaven.
an inflexible unwillingness or an obsessional rigid- Examples of this transformation are legion.
ity that refuses to acknowledge vast swaths of Think of Blake’s childhood vision of a tree full of
human experience that are felt to be undeniably angels, Wordsworth’s intimation of the sublimity
real but cannot defend themselves readily in the of nature in the ascent of Mount Snowdon in The
tribunal of reason. This stubborn insistence on Prelude, Emerson’s perception of himself as a vast
the sobriety of thought blinds us to the kind of “transparent eyeball” absorbing the all of nature
intoxication we find in mystical texts. We forget while crossing an open field, or Whitman’s vision
that we become mystics every time we fall asleep, of the flood-tide crowds on the Brooklyn Ferry.
when our visions are experienced as dreams, which Think too of the way in which the word “mystical”
call not for legislation or medication, but narration pops up in Melville’s Moby-Dick, from the opening
and interpretation. scene of the water-gazers who come down to the
Philosophy, in its ancient form, recognized this. edge of the “insular city of the Manhattoes” and
Its aim was the bios theoretikos, the contemplative on throughout that oceanic book. Melville goes

READINGS 17
 on—as only Melville can—to ponder the connec-
tion between human beings and the sea: “Why did
[Zoology] the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the
Greeks give it a separate deity. . . ?” He concludes
FIRST RACCOON that we witness something mysterious about our-
selves and our origins in the contemplation of the
sea, something vast, sublime, and incomprehen-
By Katherine Rundell, from Vanishing Treasures: A
sible. “It is,” Melville writes, “the image of the
Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures,
ungraspable phantom of life.”
which will be published this month by Doubleday.
Notably, this translation of the mystical to the

R
aesthetic domain has come at a considerable cost.
Consider the case of Martin Luther. He opened
ebecca was an unusual White House inhab- the Pandora’s box of the Reformation and made the
itant for two reasons. The first was that she arrived Bible available in the revolutionary new medium
as prospective dinner. The second, and most im- of print. But Luther was deeply worried about the
mediately obvious on meeting her, was that she consequences of free and inspired Bible reading
was a raccoon. In 1926, a citizen of Mississippi sent and the way in which mystical tropes and visions
the raccoon to the First Family in time to be can have dangerous political consequences. A case
cooked for Thanksgiving. Calvin Coolidge instead in point was the German Peasants’ War of 1524–25
kept her as a pet. Later, the First Lady, Grace and what Luther saw as the revolutionary excesses
Coolidge, wrote of Rebecca: We “had a house of the Radical Reformation—in particular with
made for her in one of the large trees, with a wire figures like Thomas Müntzer and movements like
fence built around it for her protection.” When she that of the Anabaptists, a subset of whom be-
was inside, the First Lady wrote, she lieved that the end of the world was at hand and
that ordinary people had the sacred right to take
had her liberty. She was a mischievous, inquisitive up arms and violently overthrow the existing
party and we had to keep watch of her when she structures of power. Faced with the problem of
was in the house. She enjoyed nothing better
than being placed in a bathtub with a little water
political enthusiasm informed by free Bible read-
in it and given a cake of soap with which to play. ing, particularly the apocalyptic visions of the
In this fashion she would amuse herself for an Book of Revelation, Luther sided with the princes
hour or more. and notoriously wrote a pamphlet in 1525 called
Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants,
She was, as befitted the First Raccoon, exquisitely in which he argued that the peasants be struck
accessorized: she wore an embroidered collar. Clad down like rabid dogs. Against this insurrectionary
in her finery, she roamed the White House, playing threat, Luther argued that a Christian is “free
hide-and-seek. She participated in the Easter egg inside” but “bound outside,” free in faith and in
roll on the White House lawn, a bow tied to her the reading of Scripture but bound by the worldly
collar. President Coolidge, the press reported, liked legal order.
to have her in his study, sometimes draped around Luther’s division between the spiritual and the
his neck, stroking her as he worked late into the secular is echoed in the distinction between
night. And so she lived a life of luxury until she private and public reason in Kant’s 1784 essay
did a thing many of her fellow Americans have “What Is Enlightenment?” Kant, especially in
dreamed of but very few have achieved: she bit the late texts like “On a Newly Arisen Superior Tone
president of the United States. At least, some as- in Philosophy,” sees the adaptation of mystical
sumed so: Coolidge was seen in public with a tropes to public life as a “pretension of philoso-
bandaged hand; Rebecca was temporarily sent to phy” born from “natural laziness.” When reason
a zoo. The Baltimore Sun reported: from white falls back on enthusiasm there is the risk, Kant
house to zoo is rebecca’s sad story. says, that governments “misunderstand their own
She eventually made her return, and efforts function” and veer toward fanaticism. Mystical
were taken to provide her with a companion. At practices are thus excluded from the prosaic and
one point, a White House police officer captured public use of reason. Their authority can be no
a wild male raccoon and offered him as a playmate: more than aesthetic. This perfectly prefigures the
the male, named Rueben, ran away, and Rebecca great compromise of the modern liberal order:
lived on in stately solitude. Grace Coolidge wrote: privately we can do and think pretty much what
“Rebecca had lived alone and had her own way so we want, but publicly we have to obey the ruler
long that I fear she was a little overbearing and and the rule of law.
dictatorial, perhaps reminding her spouse that he There’s the rub: in moving from the narrowly
was living on her bounty.” religious to the broadly aesthetic, mysticism is both
generalized and marginalized. In losing its institu-
tional and political power, mystical practice be-

18 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

COURTESY THE ARTIST, PRIVATE COLLECTOR, AND KAUFMANN REPETTO

Pool Under Thalo Green Sky, a painting by Katherine Bradford, whose work was on view last month at Kaufmann Repetto, in Milan.

comes peripheral to socioeconomic and commer- devotee of no god, the uninitiated mystic or epopt:
cial life. Artists can do what they like because, to spend one’s day meditating on a paradise in
ultimately, it does not matter. We might expect to which one does not believe—all those things please
be moved by a work of art and perhaps even be the soul, if the soul knows what it is not to know.
encouraged to see artworks as quasi-sacred objects. The silent clouds drift by high above me, this
body trapped inside a shadow, just as the un-
We might also expect or tolerate visions and hal-
knowable truths drift by high above me too, this
lucinations in artworks of which we might other- soul captive in a body . . . Everything is drifting by
wise be skeptical. The religious visionary thus high above . . .
becomes the Romantic poet. Yet poets are side-
show entertainers. Of course, they can be influen- Pessoa’s words give voice to a metaphysical pessi-
tial and attractive figures—genial geniuses—but mism, being the devotee of no god, yet at the
they are ultimately harmless and marginal. same time gazing at the silent clouds drifting
I propose something less depressing: to accept high above as they convey a feeling of environ-
the thought that mystical experience lives on for mental ecstasy. I think of Stevens’s seemingly
us in art and poetry but to refuse the privatization gnomic remark that the way to get beyond
and secularization of aesthetic experience. Art is nihilism is to look through a window

T
never just art. What if poetry did not just give us and see what is really there.
ideas about the thing, as Wallace Stevens puts it,
but was the thing itself? o write is to try to set oneself on fire. Either
A sense of what I have in mind here is cap- the writer’s life goes up in flames in the work or it
tured by Fernando Pessoa in The Book of Disquiet: does not. If it does not, then the work is a failure.
A life of writing is a nonlife devoted to the pos-
To receive from the mystic state only the unde- sibility of fire. To write is to get yourself out of
manding pleasures of that state; to be the ecstatic the way, as much as possible, in order to reveal

READINGS 19
 COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GOST
“Khan Shatyr Building, Astana, Kazakhstan, 2017,” a photograph by Andrew McConnell, from his monograph Some Worlds Have Two
Suns, which will be published next month by Gost.

Stevens’s thing itself: the moth, the herring, the [Correspondence]

peregrine, the rose garden, the godhead.
Put another way, T. S. Eliot insists that the poetry FAMILY PORTRAIT
does not matter. What matters is what the poem
points at, allows us to see, feel, and most of all, From letters exchanged by John Berger and his son
hear: “ . . . but you are the music / While the music Yves, collected in Over to You, which will be pub-
lasts.” If poetry were ever to reach its goal, find lished this month by Pantheon Books.
what it aims at, then this would lead to the an-
nihilation of poetry. The thing itself can find voice
only when words break. Yves,
This idea can be connected to Artaud’s mystical I send two “postcards.” One is a photo taken by
notion that what is at stake in art is the breaking Iona Heath of a terra-cotta by Andrea della Rob-
through of language in order to access the naked bia, and the second a watercolor by me of a white
flame of life. It is a question of burning off the rose from the garden. The della Robbia family
patina of civilization and moving toward an inten- produced so many tender terra-cottas of Madonnas
sity of experience, the vitality of existence. and angels offering gentleness and consolation to
Artaud has a nice formulation: “To chew others in the face of the cruelty of life, but this one
flowers = to philosophize.” Modern philosophy has suffered such cruelty itself, because it was burned
spent far too much time chewing flowers and too in a fire in Berlin in 1945. When Iona sent me her
little watering them, cultivating them, watching photo, I found it very touching, and put it where
them grow, and breeding new, strange, and gor- I could see it when sitting at my worktable.
geous hybrids. For Artaud, true culture operates Later, Nella said, “Can you do a white rose?” And
through exaltation and force, an extremity of after a day or two, I made this sketch. After it was
experience that breaks through the tedium and “finished,” I noticed the next day that it had a
wakes us up. We have to learn to signal through certain echo of the photo of the Madonna. Some-
the flames that consume us. thing a little similar in mood and rhythm. Neigh-

20 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

bors on the same table. The rose doesn’t offer and where there’s no spontaneity), each time, he
consolation but resists by itself the cruelty of life. put it into a glass vase—or, once, into a cham-
And in this “collaboration” between the two pagne glass. And these glass vessels function like
images there is a colossal difference of timescales: crucibles in the painting—that’s to say, what is put
the drama of della Robbia’s painted terra-cotta into them is transformed, and Manet needed that
spans over five centuries; the drama of the white transformation. He was as fascinated and spell-
rose takes place within five days. And perhaps the bound by what he saw through the glass, within
irrelevance of regular linear time to what our the glass, as by what he saw blossoming out of it.
imaginations seize upon has something to do with Within the glass, the natural forms—their ar-
presenting as an explanation the steps or stages of ticulated space, their colors, their proportions—
a work in progress. are decomposed. They become nonfigurative.
Perhaps when we are working, and particularly We are looking through the glass at antecedent
when we are drawing, we operate not in a present raw material. And Manet painted what he saw
but in a future? there as vividly as he painted the flowers, the
With all my love, John leaves, or the crystal of his favorite glass vases.
In each of the paintings, thanks to this, there
John, is a section that beckons our eyes into a domain
Yes, to some extent, time makes no difference. of the nameless, of forms that are still coming into
The light varies but still falls upon this sheet of being or, perhaps, disappearing. They evoke a past
paper on which I’m writing, as it did on the white or a future, both of which surround the present—
rose you drew, and as it did on della Robbia’s Ma- the present that is entirely filled by the flowers.
donna and Child, when it was still in his studio in As you so justly say, Manet placed the flow-
Florence over five centuries ago. We, living with ers he was about to paint on the edge of the
the background of darkness, receive in lighted world. Behind them, there is nothing. They are
subjects a message of confirmation: “What stands appearing at a first or a last moment, and they
does so forever.” fill that moment as if it were the whole of life.
Day after day, I’m looking at the reproductions He paints their coming-into-being with such
in this book called The Last Flowers of Manet. The immediacy that we cannot but think also of
beauty of these images becomes more and more their transience. “Maybe these paintings por-
extreme as time passes, and I gaze at them fasci- tray the dialectic between life and death.” They
nated. Manet painted them when he was suffering address whatever it is that precedes and follows
the final stages of an illness that finally killed him existence. They address the raw material that
at the age of fifty-one—some days after having a surrounds existence.
leg amputated. Once you are aware of that, you What I want to add is that a reference to this
can’t forget it when looking at or thinking of these raw material is there in these last paintings; it’s
small nature morte works. Nevertheless, the flowers there in what he saw and painted within the glass
stand for themselves, and I don’t think someone vessels, within the crucibles. It’s there in each
would guess “where” they come from just by receiv- canvas. And this reminds us of something, among
ing their gift. I think Manet forgot himself while many other things, that painting is about: the
painting these bouquets. recuperation of the invisible. Am I that far out?
There is something dramatic about them: they
With my love, John
stand on the edge of the world. The glass vase has
been placed at the extreme limit of visibility. Be-
hind the flowers, there is nothing, not even a dark
void. Just nothing. Following that, the bouquets
present themselves as the last—or first?—thing
vibrating in the light of our world. Maybe these [Carcinology]
paintings portray the dialectic between life and
death. Not Manet’s only, but all. In that sense, THE SPECTER
they are gigantic! Don’t you think? AT THE FEAST
Love you, Yves
Yves, By Xi Xi, from Mourning a Breast, which was pub-
You’re right, those small, last paintings by Ma- lished in July by New York Review Books. Translated
net of flowers are gigantic. And they are so for the from the Chinese by Jennifer Feeley.

E
reasons you say. I have just one observation to add,
and it’s this.
Each time he was given a sprig or a bunch of very fall, my friends and I get together
flowers (the word “bouquet” is too formal, implying to admire the lanterns of the Mid-Autumn
something that has been elaborately composed Festival and go mountain climbing during the

READINGS 21
 Double Ninth Festival. There are two special distinguished guests who’d just arrived by plane
activities we always do: eat snake and eat crab. were different from those sold in the shops:
The former is relatively simple. We join an they were free and unrestrained, without any
organized snake banquet, occupying one of the bands around their claws. As soon as the lid of
dozens of tables that fill the restaurant floor. the basket was opened, all six legs moved in
Two bottles of medicinal wine are placed on unison, each giant claw stretched high.
the table, and a large dish of snake soup is One friend claimed to be a crab-catching
served first. Everyone has two helpings, and be- pro, with abundant experience as a child
fore we know it, our bellies are half full and our catching shrimp and crab along the coast in
faces flushed. Since we live in different neigh- the rural New Territories. As he stepped forth
borhoods and have to go to work every day, just to show off his skills, everyone was skeptical,
a few of us meet up regularly for coffee or beer. wondering how this scholar—frail as a feather—
Only the snake banquet draws the whole group would conquer these gutless gentlemen. Sure
together. The black goat, soft-shell turtle, stir- enough, he caught each creature with his
fried snake slivers, sticky rice, and wild game, hand, pressed his index finger on its back, and
even muntjac venison— the Cantonese truly with his thumb and middle finger lifted the
are barbarians when it comes to eating. What edges of the shell, holding the crab hostage as
can’t we stomach? his right hand picked up some straw twine
While eating snake is a festive affair—the and, with the help of his teeth, wrapped it
banquet is, after all, in a public place—it doesn’t round and round.
compare to the comfort of a friend’s home. We were tipsy with wine and the crabs had
Thus, all things considered, we’re more enthu- just finished cooking when someone suddenly
siastic about eating crab. We indulge in a few asked why crab was so delicious and thus was
crab feasts each autumn, abiding by the old say- eaten by people. If crabs were rats, their lives
ing and eating female crabs in September, male would be spared. Furthermore, in our zest for
crabs in October. We also follow the tradition crabs, we should beware the karmic wheel—one
of incorporating a few chrysanthemums. After day, they would return to exact their revenge.
setting a date over the phone, we head out at This was prophetic, as I myself was pinched
dusk, taking various routes to gather the provi- by a crab. The English cancer derives from the
sions. Some select the crabs, purchasing four or Latin word for crab; the creatures are hard
five kilos, along with perilla leaves; others buy and tyrannical, taking a sideways approach and
wine (one rice, one a high-grade huadiao); still running rampant and unbridled. The Chinese
others buy the dried tofu, brown sugar, ginger, character for cancer, ബ, has no special mean-
and scallions. ing but is a terrifying pictograph, comprising
Some friends’ apartments only have a small “products” (Ȟ) atop a “mountain” (ͫ). When
round table, so they open up a folding table, traveling to the countryside, you’ll often find
place the two side by side, and cover the whole sacrificial offerings arranged in such a shape
thing with a tablecloth. The culinary experts on wild mountainous terrain. Demons in fic-
among us assume their posts as chefs, packing tion practice their formidable martial- arts
the air with fragrant steam. Most of my skills with skeletons, stacking skulls in a Ȟ
friends savor each bite, dissecting the crab formation. Thus, from a pictographic view-
inch by inch: truly outstanding deconstruc- point, ബ evokes the spine-chilling image of
tionists. There are also some friends who eat white bones piled upon mountains

M
quickly, barely touching the legs and claws, and hills.
casting them aside, whoosh. They crush the
shells into bits with their teeth, all while com- y friends were all wonderful. They acted
plaining of the inconvenience. While you’re just as they always had, all of us eating to-
still tackling the legs with a cracker, they’ve gether. When I felt tired, they let me lie on
already devoured the contents of their beds to rest. Since the autumn began, no

W
five shells. one had mentioned eating crabs again. Indeed,
many things had happened this year, a heavy
e laud crab as the best delicacy in the feeling weighing on our hearts like a stone. A
world, yet we lament its increasingly steep friend in Shandong province wrote to inform
price. If we see fresh crab that has just arrived me that he’d been appointed president of a ru-
by air and is priced low, we place an order at ral cancer-prevention association. The locals
once. Through a friend who works at the air- had sculpted a stone statue of a woman wield-
port, we ordered a basket that had just been ing a sword and stepping on a crab, symbolizing
flown in and distributed the crabs on the spot. I the conquest of this terrible disease. Now that I
brought home a dozen or so and invited a few wielded a sword every day, could this vicious
friends over to enjoy them with me. But these “crab” be conquered?

22 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

[Reminiscence] rumors the wizened youth spread in a single storm-
lit night to sully my name.
RACE AGAINST
DEATH What enthralled me was the fever pitch and
propulsive rhythm of the language, its staccato
that alternates with winding, virtuosic passages,
By Nicole Krauss, from the introduction to a new like Schumann mixed with a house beat. Its mu-
edition of By Night in Chile, a novella by Roberto sicality felt entirely intuitive, as in the prose of
Bolaño that was published in 2000 by Editorial Thomas Bernhard, so that the internal clock-
Anagrama. The book was translated from the work of the language spontaneously seemed to
Spanish by Chris Andrews and reissued in September conjure meaning rather than the other way
by Picador. around. The further I read, the more supple

Y
Bolaño’s prose became, supported by a playful in-
telligence that could spin on a dime from night-
outh, whatever else it may be, is always a mare to absurd laughter, from the monstrous to
search for liberation from the restrictions foisted
on us by the past. Yet there are only so many ways
of trying to throw off the shackles, and most are
given up by adulthood. Most, but not all, that is,
because certain forms of youthful rebellion can
endure, and those who discover an early freedom [Letter]
through the offerings of literature tend to get
hooked and become writers who go on looking for OPUS DAY SCHOOL
the sentence or phrase that will spring open like
a lock and deliver a rush of freedom or a stomach- From a letter sent in August by Rachel Chambliss,
lurching view of infinity. And though unlike the executive director of operations for the Satanic
other, more sordid, addictions, literature can sal- Temple, to members of the Osceola County school
vage, through its constant renewal of life—its board in Florida.
bestowal of many more lives than one—it also can

D
return the writer, again and again, to that original
state of restless, agitated searching.
It was in such a state that, in December 2003, I ear members,
first bought a copy of Roberto Bolaño’s By Night
in Chile, translated from the Spanish by Chris On behalf of the Satanic Temple, I am writing to
Andrews. I’d become stuck in my own writing, acknowledge the critical vote you are taking to-
which often happens between novels. The most I night regarding the authorization of volunteer
could do was read, and yet nothing was right, school chaplains in the Osceola County school
because the thing I was searching for wasn’t a good district. We are enthusiastic about the opportunity
story, or characters, or a well-turned sentence; it this policy presents for our ministers of Satan.
was language alchemized into a freedom explosive We have carefully reviewed the proposed
enough to blast a hole in the walls around me, guidelines and note with interest that counseling
creating not just a means of escape, but a vitality consistent with a chaplain’s religious beliefs will
passed on to the reader, too. not be considered proselytization in the school
Immediately, I was swept into the book’s raging district. This understanding ensures that the
current that begins—and, for some 130 pages, ministers of Satan can offer guidance aligned
sustains—the final testimony of Father Sebastián with our satanic beliefs while remaining fully
Urrutia Lacroix, a failed Chilean poet and con- compliant with the board’s rules. Additionally,
servative Jesuit priest who became a famous liter- we acknowledge the board’s commitment to pro-
ary critic, a member of Opus Dei, and finally a viding chaplains with visible and accessible office
silent bedfellow of Pinochet’s murderous regime. space on campus, ensuring that all students are
“I am dying now, but I still have many things to aware of our satanic clergy.
say,” he begins. The response from Floridians interested in be-
coming ministers of Satan and satanic chaplains
I used to be at peace with myself. Quiet and at has been overwhelming. With hundreds of members
peace. But it all blew up unexpectedly. That wiz-
ened youth is to blame. I was at peace. I am no
of the Satanic Temple already in Osceola County,
longer at peace. There are a couple of points that we anticipate a significant increase in satanic clergy.
have to be cleared up. So, propped up on one el- We look forward to working with you to introduce
bow, I will lift my noble, trembling head, and rum- the nation’s first satanic school chaplaincy.
mage through my memories to turn up the deeds
that shall vindicate me and belie the slanderous

READINGS 23
 COURTESY THE ARTIST AND HUXLEY-PARLOUR, LONDON
El Secreto (The Secret), a painting by Lorena Torres, whose work was on view last month at Huxley-Parlour, in London.

a sudden limning of the soul. Beyond that, there and grandest measures, their beautiful gestures and
was Bolaño’s gift for associations so strange, then often tragic failures to survive with age.
so strangely inevitable, that in their flash of illu- This was particularly true of The Savage Detec-
mination the reader could believe herself to have tives, the autobiographical epic that shot Bolaño
seen the world’s hidden order come to light: a fa- to fame in Latin America in 1998, which chroni-
ther’s shadow slips down the corridors of the cles the lives of two young self-proclaimed avant-
house as if it were “an eel in an inadequate con- garde poets, Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano (the
tainer”; from the window of an airplane at dawn author’s punk kamikaze of an alter ego), and their
the horizon is “marked with a red line, like the search for Cesárea Tinajero, the poet and founder
planet’s femoral artery, or the planet’s aorta, grad- of the movement “visceral realism,” from which
ually swelling”; automatic doors open “suddenly, they claim inheritance. While the first and last
for no logical reason, as if they had a presenti- sections of the novel consist of another young poet’s
ment of God’s presence.” diary, written in a breezy first person, the middle
In the twenty-one years since its English- four-hundred-plus pages unfold from the perspec-
language publication, much has been written tives of individuals who compose an eccentric and
about how By Night in Chile grapples with the international chorus, offering their impressions
overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government in of the young Lima and Belano from the van-
1973 and exposes the complicity of the Catholic tages of different points in time, often cutting
Church and the literary establishment in the them down to size. Perhaps they weren’t really
heinous crimes of Augusto Pinochet. But with poets at all, or not very good ones; perhaps they
the flood into English of Bolaño’s many other were just petty criminals or drug dealers. An ac-
books, readers also became acquainted with what quaintance of Lima’s from Tel Aviv claims that
emerged as one of his most abiding subjects: the the importance of the poets’ lives never had any-
twinned souls of poetry and youth, their wildest thing to do with visceral realism: “It has to do with

24 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

life, with what we lose without knowing it, and
what we can regain.” Quoting this line in his
review of the novel, James Wood asked, plain- [Horarium]
tively, “Can we?” At an earlier point, another
poet, old and failed, seems to provide an answer: SISTER ACT
“What a shame that time passes, don’t you
think? What a shame that we die, and get old, and By Hervé Guibert, from Suzanne and Louise, which
everything good goes galloping away from us.” will be published this month by Magic Hour Press.
By Night in Chile was written while Bolaño was Translated from the French by Christine Pichini.
waiting for a liver transplant he would die before

L
receiving. Every sentence is perfect. Perfect com-
posure resting atop a volcano. I’ve often taught
By Night in Chile to my writing students and ouise and Suzanne, old ladies, sisters: short,
watched their expressions shift from excitement gray-haired, stooped, unremarkable to any who
to awe to disquiet as they try to work out how to might pass them in the street. Women who’ve lived
stay afloat in the flood of words, and consider the some forty years in a hôtel particulier in the fifteenth
implications of Bolaño’s sui generis, unremitting arrondissement, a garden overgrown in summer,
gift on the question of their own. It isn’t just Ur- miserable in winter, fenced in. Women guarded by
rutia, but also Bolaño, and even language itself, a dog, a fat German shepherd, Whysky, bought to
that all seem to be in a race against death. Could guard the money of these two women, a guard dog.
my students possess, be possessed by, such mo- Suzanne, the elder, is the one with money. Louise,
mentum in their own writing? They have yet to a former anchoress, is her humble, tyrannical maid.
experience much of what they will eventually Suzanne tells tales of stinginess, remembrance, suf-
lose through the hemorrhaging effect of time. fering. She says: “I’ve never loved anyone but myself.”
And yet, for all its vitality, isn’t a break into She says she’s never cried, never known how to
freedom—whether youthful rebellion, or artistic smile, never danced. Louise tells tales of drunken-
innovation, or its many other possible forms— ness, asceticism, death. They don’t speak to each
always also an escape from death? From an im- other, except when their grandnephew comes to see
passe that threatens to close us down, shut us in, them, every Sunday. They perform, for him, a dra-
keep us below, in a place of anxiety, claustropho- matization of their relationship.
bia, failure, and regret? From believing that what Their life is ordered by a terrible, calculated
we have lost cannot be reinvented or regained? precision. Nothing must upset their routine, a ritual
of waking up, breakfast, bath, exercise, dressing
Suzanne, Louise’s shopping, lunch, a walk in the
park if the weather is nice, dinner, then bed. Every
night, around six, Louise leaves for mass. She re-
turns around seven-thirty to prepare dinner (soup
[Fiction] and a compote for Suzanne, Camembert and choc-
olate for herself). It’s the only time she escapes, save
A PILE OF for time devoted to errands each morning.
DISAPPOINTMENTS On Saturdays at noon, it’s time for horse steak.
Louise eats it raw, not ground, covered in powdered
sugar. They drink champagne at every meal. They
By Christian Kracht, from Eurotrash, which was say champagne, but really it’s sparkling wine. Louise
published last month by Liveright. Translated from is in a state of perpetual drunkenness, imperceptible
the German by Daniel Bowles. because constant. Religious intoxication: Louise

U
attributes a healing episode from childhood to the
ingestion of champagne, miraculous potion.
p and up we went, into the ever-thinning air. Louise hasn’t cut her hair since she left the Car-
On each side, the craggy rock faces sped back melite order, in 1945. Her body, which has never
down into the valley below us, as though merely been touched, and which she does not look at, but
a trick of the light or of perspective. My mother immerses in boiling-hot bathwater (“Burning herself
had taken half an Ambien down in the valley is her vice,” Suzanne says), will be offered up for
station, and then the other half when the gondola disembowelment and dismemberment. Suzanne has
began swinging with particular intensity. She followed her lead, has also bequeathed her body to
asked me to hurry and tell her a story, very quickly the Faculté de Médecine. They tell each other what
please, because she was so terrified. She clung to will happen to their bodies. They do not know, but
my arm, I rummaged around in my memory, and they imagine.
what appeared to me first was a glass cockpit,
and then the tale of Roald Dahl.

READINGS 25
 “As you know, Mama, Roald Dahl was trained My mother exhaled; her brow had become
as a fighter pilot, in Nairobi and Cairo.” moist, in spite of the Ambien. I had not known
“In the First or Second World War?” she suffered from such a severe fear of heights, and
“In the Second, of course.” I dabbed her forehead with a crumpled paper
“Yes, and then?” napkin I took from my pocket.
“Well, he’d written down the coordinates for “Where did you put your walker?”
a rendezvous in the Libyan desert, but not the “It’s being kept by the friendly man in the taxi,
correct ones, apparently, and so there he was, down in the valley parking lot. He also has our
flying over the desert in his Gloster Gladiator, luggage, you know. Or did I leave the thing back
alone, with nothing to see except sand, sand, and at the restaurant? You’ll just have to support me
more sand beneath him. It grew dark, and he was now. It’s about time you supported me. You’ve
running out of gas . . . ” haven’t done so in years.”
“ . . . fuel . . . ” We were led outside through an automatic slid-
“Yes, of course, fuel. At some point, the display- ing door onto a sundeck with wooden tables—an
needle thing was at zero, and he hadn’t found the observation platform.
other planes, so he decided to make an emergency Aside from three older Indian ladies sitting
landing. He put down, rather hard, but a stupid there pensively before three bottles of soda pop,
rock was in his way, the landing gear snagged on it was empty. A deep ravine gaped to our right.
it and sheared off, and his plane came to a halt, The glacial panorama directly in front of us
instantly catching fire.” stretched southward for kilometers, all the way
“Oh no.” to the Dents du Midi, over in the canton of Va-
“Yes, and since he couldn’t find the seat-belt lais. Only snow, ice, and rock were visible as far
release, he couldn’t climb out of the burning air- as the eye could see, an unreal wilderness in black
craft and get himself to safety. He pulled and and white, with a clear, sunny, enormous sky in
tugged and tore, and after interminable seconds in purest sapphire above it, stretching up into the
the fiery cabin, he remembered the pocketknife midnight blue of space.
in his uniform, and he used it to cut the belt apart, “So where are these edelweiss fields?” my mother
crawled out of the cockpit, and fainted beside the asked. She put on her hideous Bulgari sunglasses.
airplane from pain. He saw the ammunition ex- The Indian tourists shot us a brief and inscru-
plode from his aircraft machine gun from the vio- table look, smiled, and then turned their atten-
lent heat of the flames and the bullets strike the tion back to their soft drinks and mobile phones.
sand next to him, but after that, nothing.” We took a seat on one of the wooden benches.
“And what happened then?” The lack of oxygen up here went to my head.
“He lay unconscious for a long time that night, My mother reached into a plastic bag with a
next to the blazing wreckage of his plane. Since bottle inside and took a large swig. A trace of
he hadn’t shown up at the rendezvous point, his vodka trickled from the edges of her mouth as
pilot friends had taken to the skies again to look she swallowed.
for him. One of them spotted the flames in the “The edelweiss fields? I have no idea.”
desert below, landed, hopped out, and ran to him, “But why come up here to this horrid wasteland?”
dragged him farther away, gave him some water to “Maybe they sell edelweiss in the souvenir shop.”
drink, and Dahl woke up.” “But I want to see them in nature. You promised
“Luckily.” me they were here. I would never have traveled
“And his friend told him he looked horrible. He with you if I’d known I wouldn’t get to see any
asked what do you mean, felt his face with his edelweiss.” She took another gulp of vodka.
hands, and where his nose had been he found only “I can’t do anything about it, Mama. Perhaps
a squishy clump of melted flesh.” there’s edelweiss over on the other side of the
“Roald Dahl had a fake nose?” glacier, down in Valais. You just can’t get there
“Yes, they patched him back together at the from here.”
military hospital in Cairo or Alexandria or wher- “I can’t believe it. You’re not serious?”
ever, but he always had a nasal prosthesis later.” “You know, I don’t think we’re going to see
“Ha, yes, that’s a good one. I didn’t know that. edelweiss up here.”
He was a very handsome man. A fake nose is a bit “It’s always the same thing,” she said. “I could
like an artificial anus.” scream. I could really scream. My life has been
“Uh, if you say so.” an absolute pile of disappointments. Are you
“The stoma just isn’t as visible to everyone. even aware how horrible my life has been? And
What do you think? As the nose is.” you said we’d travel to Africa and I could see

A
I nodded and smiled. zebras one more time before I die, but I put that
out of my mind when I realized it wasn’t ever your
t that moment, the gondola pulled into the intention to go to Africa with me. Only to spend
refuge of the mountain station with a sudden jerk. my money on senseless, completely gratuitous

26 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

 experiences, without zebras or anything. And yet ruptcy. I once read that in Daniel Kehlmann
for years I’ve been hoping that my son, my dear somewhere. The century wept blind. That captures
son, would do something with me again, like that it quite well, very precisely, in fact. This is my
time twenty-five years ago when we went some- century, wept blind and empty and dead. You ought
where on the Eastern and Oriental Express. to write things like that, like Kehlmann. Now, he’s
Where did we go then?” a good author. Not the sort of trivial nonsense you
“From Bangkok to Singapore.” write that no one wants to read anyway.”
“Yes, exactly. And then you only read your “May I say something for a change?”
books in our compartment the whole time, too. If “This isn’t about you at all. You always twist it
you’d at least read something proper, Flaubert or so that it’s only ever about you, because you’re an
Racine, or even Camus or God knows what else— egotistical monster. It’s always just you, you, you.
but you just had to read your John le Carré, your Such an unbelievable wimp. You shouldn’t sit
trashy spy novels, instead of talking to me.” there like a shadow of yourself and always agree
“Well, you were always drinking a lot on with everything; say what you think. Be a man for
the train.” once, not such a baby.”
“Ha! I only did that because you paid no atten- “What I think? Nothing, really. Wait. Yes, I
tion to me. Those rubbish books of yours were think I’ve been hearing the same sermon from you
apparently more important to you than talking to for thirty-five years.”
me. Plus, you were always putting on makeup on “Oh sure, of course. Not to worry. Soon you’ll
the train. Can you believe that? Makeup. And now only hear me in your memory anyway, because I’m
we’re here at this godforsaken place, and there’s moribund as it is. But you, you ought to follow the
nothing, no edelweiss, no zebras, no nothing, and example of, uh . . . what’s his name . . . of Knaus-
you know what, Christian? That’s just what it gaard or of Houellebecq or Ransmayr or Sebald.”
looks like inside me, too, in my soul. There’s noth- “Please. Sebald is dead.”
ing. Nothing left. A blank white nothing.” “I mean follow the example of really good lit-
“Yes. You’re right.” erature. Of books that last, not the sort of hor-
“You know what this is? It’s a sign of mental rendous guff you write. Go and read Flaubert.
bankruptcy. And it’s a sign of your mental bank- You’d see how it’s done. Learn from the masters.

douglas clegg l sweet hope

“An adept multi-instrumentalist with just plain good music, performed
well and without gimmicks.” L The Boston Globe

“Clegg’s writing is excellent — focused, understandable, and universal —

highly recommended.” L Victory Review, Seattle, Washington

Following the success of Above the Din,

KLVZLGHO\DFFODLPHG&HOWLF¿GGOHDOEXP
Douglas Clegg now offers us Sweet Hope, a
compelling new release. This unique
collection of airs, laments, and tunes, arranged
in a style he calls Folk Baroque, features
pieces composed to honor those dear to
him. Lindens of Kyiv is dedicated to
the people of
Ukraine.

w w w.d o u gc l e g g . n e t
Sweet Hope, Above the Din, and other recordings are
available on CD from the website, and can also be found
on iTunes and all streaming platforms.
 But monsieur wouldn’t dream of it. Monsieur is I hadn’t thought this through. Perhaps this trip
conceited and obtuse, and then monsieur travels had been given too much to chance; perhaps we
to some glacier with his mother in the hope it’ll shouldn’t have simply traveled off somewhere, at
all work itself out. Preferably to the very glacier random; perhaps I should’ve just booked us plane
near the very chalet in which he was born, to tickets to Africa, and we shouldn’t have set out
conjure up some sort of catharsis.” through Switzerland, just because; perhaps that
“I . . . ” really hadn’t been very wise at all.
“You think I don’t know what you expect I told myself again and again that she was not
from this journey? You said it yourself last night, well read, that she only pretended she was, that
in your sleep. Catharsis is what you said; there’d she hadn’t ever read anything by Flaubert or
be an expurgation between us, you said, if only Stendhal, either—it was all just a bluff, but it was
you remained on the move with me. Your enacted so well that I fell for it over and over. She
mother. He takes her along to some saccharine knew nothing of Houellebecq or Ransmayr; she
melodrama, tragedy, comedy, whatever, starring only read Bunte and occasionally watched quiz
yours truly. Promises her who knows what, see- shows on television. She was an expert manipu-
ing that she’s got to drink herself to oblivion lator. That was her epic, incredible art, which I
constantly and choke down pills for her unen- had known for decades; she lied and twisted
durable pain. And then he blames everything on things in such a way that everyone believed ev-
Switzerland, the Nazis, and the erything she said.

W
Second World War.” I had no idea what to say or think, except that
my mother certainly needed a new colostomy bag
hat could I have said to that? There was soon. I touched her arm softly. Perhaps she was
nothing, truly nothing. She was right about every- crying. I faced her. No tears. I turned back to the
thing, in her delusion. She was right. I had been glacier before us.
afraid of being unable to stop the juggernaut. At that moment, we both saw, as did the In-
dian tourists, a small russet fox running about on
the ice at some distance. It stopped, turned to-
ward us, and looked at us—looked directly into
our eyes.
None of us moved, in order not to scare off the
[Poem] fox. It was still staring at us. Its tail, with a white
tuft at its tip, stood straight up as my mother
LOREM IPSUM whispered that it was hard to believe people
would kill such an animal for its fur. I held my
By Kate Colby, from Thingking, which was pub- breath and didn’t mention her sable furs scattered
lished in August by Factory Hollow Press. about various storehouses in Zurich. The fox
turned away and continued trotting onward,
across the glacier’s sun-drenched, lucid-cold ice
One third of Pompeii remains sheet, toward the south.
interred, preserved for future One of the Indian women took a pair of bin-
oculars from a rucksack and homed in on the
methods of discerning it. disappearing fox, and I saw before me a scene
Should I too leave a few from a Werner Herzog film about Antarctica, in
which a king penguin walks off into the icy
things unheeded in interest waste all alone, toward certain death by starva-
of finer picks and sieves, tion. The penguin had left on a lonesome pil-
grimage, solus rex, and no one had the slightest
even when of same clue why.
my bones are made? As was my mother’s wont with her denuncia-
tions, half a minute later she’d already forgotten
A cast of space, my empty she’d spouted certain truths with such hyperbole
form, arms thrown open that mostly you just wanted to kill yourself. Of
course, it could’ve been the fox who made her
to what would bury and be see that her fit of nastiness was unbridled and
then with me. Intact amphora, inappropriate, but this wasn’t very likely. In any
case, she grew pensive once the fox had gone, and
vitrified face. Content is a pane she closed her eyes. Her hand, almost atremble,
through which to see its ruin. moved toward the bag with the vodka, and the
glacial sun shone from above, unceasing and re-
lentless, upon our little tableau vivant.

28 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

“Towing a tractor to Boise, Idaho” and “Christina’s World,” photographs by Mike Brodie from his book Failing, which will be published this
month by Twin Palms Publishers.

Courtesy the artist and Twin Palms Publishers READINGS 29

 Voices from the
Middle East on
/#
Ɵ
"#/
!*-
. '!DZ
determination.
“An exciting, informative
collection of graphic journalism.”
—Peter Dabbene,
Foreword Reviews

“This is comics journalism

you cannot turn away from—
visually stunning, urgent, and
devastating.”
—Andy Warner, author of
Spring Rain

“This is an essential book for

anyone who wants to learn about
the world.”
—Sarah Shay Mirk, author of
Guantanamo Voices

Now available for pre-order

Available November 19th
ISBN 978-1-63779-078-6
Illustrated by 160 pages | paperback: $21.95
Tracy Chahwan,
Ganzeer, Ghadi
Ghosn, Omar
Khouri, Sirène
Moukheiber,
Hicham Rahma,
and Enas Satir.

graphicmundi.org
 R E P O R T

REVENGE PLOT
The GOP’s identity crisis
By Lauren Oyler

I
n the seventh hour of my flight to though the time at our destination was news was breaking I wanted to actu-
the Republican National Conven- a sunny afternoon; I vibrated like a ally experience the experiencing of
tion, I received a text message from cell phone. In between time zones, it, to remember “where I was when”
a friend saying that the piece I was en high above place, I was alone in my and to observe the reactions of the
route to write had just gotten “way knowledge that, miles below, some- others who were there, too. The older
crazier.” I bought the expensive Wi-Fi. thing had actually happened. Al- woman next to me kept her bifocals
Photographs said to be making history though I’ve watched every current fixed on the large font of her Kindle,
circulated: striking, well composed. I event of my adult life take place unaware. In the liberal custom, though
texted my friend, half a dozen others, through the smudged screen of social one forged after her time, I asked if she
my editor. The lights were dimmed, media, it was not at that moment would be comfortable hearing break-
enough. I could see where Don ing news; she might not like the sight
Lauren Oyler is a contributing editor of
Harper’s Magazine. She is the author DeLillo was coming from: the crowd, of blood, even if it was just a bad cut.
of Fake Accounts, a novel, and No the broadcast, the clip you watch over “Is that real?” she whispered, looking
Judgment, a collection of essays. and over, Hitler studies, LHO. As the at my phone. She turned around to tell

Photographs from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 2024, by Bruce Gilden © Bruce Gilden/Magnum Photos REPORT 31
her daughter, whose regional accent was
annoying. Only Frances McDormand,
playing a character whose funny sim-
plicity belies a profound knowledge of
what she has seen, should be allowed
to have it. “This lady’s a journalist,”
the mother said. “She says Trump has
been shot.”
I went to the bathroom. News spread.
“Oh my God, what?” I heard a woman
my age say. “Yeah, I saw that,” her hus-
band replied, not looking up from his
phone. “Tot?” the German flight atten-
dant asked me. No, I replied, just in-
jured. And barely. The speed with which
the plane processed history’s happening
should have signaled that the assassina-
tion attempt would merit a forty-eight-
hour news cycle, max, but all it did then
was make things more surreal. Atten-
tion soon turned to the baby wearing a
sleeping cap in the next row; Lufthansa
offered a bassinet that attached to the
bulkhead. Wasn’t that great, the mother
and daughter agreed, eyes glassy with
hormonal memory. Wasn’t that just so
cool. They were standing in the exit row,
blocking my stretch. The presence of a
baby was pacifying; the baby had be-
haved well the whole trip, lulled by its
ingenious crib. Another flight attendant
paused to appreciate it while preparing
the cabin for landing. “Bye, baby!” he
said in his German accent, patting its
little head. “Have a good life!”

F
or the next week the Republicans
would exist in a time outside time,
a crowded fantasy world cruising
above reality, in which their future vic-
tory had been “all but” assured by what
they called an act of God. Joe Biden,
who could barely string together a sen-
tence except to insist that he would not spoke and moved with the weightless me get my shoes” as Secret Service
drop out of the presidential race, was optimism of young lovers meeting in a agents tried to rush him out suggested
asked if he had been briefed on the news summer town, or junkies who have fi- calm in a crisis, though perhaps not
as he left a church service, and re- nally scored. “He’s not gonna have post- presence of mind. Why they were off, we
sponded, simply, “No.” Eventually, he traumatic stress from this,” a doctor on may never know; one remembers, barely,
extended prayers, condemned violence, Fox & Friends declared, citing Trump’s the rumor that he was afraid to walk
and paused his television ads. Might good spirits. “It’s either fear or courage, down stairs. During the convention, it
this, liberals wondered, be an opportu- guys, either fear or courage.” To the was emphasized that the phone calls and
nity to push for gun-control measures? murmuring disappointment of the Dem- messages he exchanged in the wake of
Also no. It was not the time for politics, ocrats, Trump had displayed the latter; the shooting were heroically selfless. He
which meant the shooting was all any- he had insisted on pausing his escape asked Steven Witkoff how his kids were
one could talk about on air. “This is the from danger not only to improvise a doing. He told Tucker Carlson that he
only news in the world right now,” a moment of political theater—raising his was proud of the crowd in Pennsylvania,
Scottish journalist said apologetically fist in the air and exhorting his audi- because they didn’t run. “A leader is the
into her phone, in Milwaukee’s mostly ence, with his Simpsons mouth, to bravest man,” Carlson said onstage, hav-
empty Fiserv Forum the night before the “Fight, fight!”—but also to get his shoes. ing forgone a script. “The first thing I
convention began. The Republicans Even the nebbishy way he repeated “Let thought was, ‘Well, of course they didn’t

32 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

 than any people probably in the his-
tory of the United States.”
On top of it all, they had to spend a
week in Milwaukee. A “horrible city,”
Trump had reportedly said in a closed-
door meeting with congressional Re-
publicans. Before the shooting, as their
cigar-smoking foot soldiers podcasted
endlessly about Biden’s cognitive
decline—to the point that they were
actually threatening to put their oppo-
nent’s name too much in the news—
this is what the Democrats, who were
at the time still completely hapless, had
been pushing: Trump hates Milwaukee.
He tried to take it back. In fact, he loves
Milwaukee. “I picked Milwaukee,” he
wrote on Truth Social, the “alt-tech”
platform he set up after he was banned
from Facebook and Twitter in 2021.
“This is false, a complete lie, just like
the Laptop from Hell was a lie, Russia,
Russia, Russia, was a lie, and so much
more.” Would he really say something
so offensive to the people of a state that
had helped determine his win in 2016
and his loss in 2020? Not that his loss in
2020 was legitimate. That’s what he’d
meant by the “horrible” comment—
that the city was ridden with crime and
voter fraud—a spokesperson clarified.
Milwaukee did not want them there,
either. Sixty-one percent of its residents
are people of color, and the city votes
blue. The city government is nonparti-
san, but you can imagine which way
they tend to lean. Republicans, how-
ever, control the Wisconsin state leg-
islature, one Senate seat, and three
quarters of the state’s seats in the House.
Discussions concerning the decision to
pursue hosting the convention were not
entirely easy. The gotcha question was
run!’ His courage gave them heart. A had no motive except to shoot a posed as to why the city had been happy
leader’s courage gives courage to his powerful political figure, obsessed by to have the Democrats just four years
people. And the second thing I thought neither candidate nor by a particular ago—that convention was conducted
was ‘This is the selfish guy I’ve been systematic view. The left had dis- mostly online because of COVID-19—
hearing about for nine years?’ ” missed the concept of the lone wolf in but resistant to hosting the other side
They had been finally, actually, vic- the hopes of advocating for gun- now. It was hypothesized that Demo-
timized. Here was proof of what they’d control laws, so the right was free to crats are more likely to seek out local
always known: that their children gleefully perform the role liberals had bars and restaurants, and maybe even
were ostracized on university cam- written for themselves. Hosts on Fox to carve out some time to patronize the
puses and their rich were dwindling in News decried the dangerous rhetoric municipal offerings, such as the city’s art
number. See what happens when you against their man. Did no one even museum, housed in world-class build-
compare a man to Hitler? they cried. care, they wondered, that he had sac- ings designed by Eero Saarinen and
See what results when you call him a rificed his salary to serve this country Santiago Calatrava, set on the lake.
rapist and a threat to democracy? No for four years? That he had lost money The beautiful lake! It was suggested
matter that the shooter’s search his- on the deal? That his family had suf- in response that the 2 percent sales tax
tory seemed to reveal only the con- fered, too? As Trump himself pointed the city might have needed to levy in
temporary mode of nihilism, that he out, his sons “got subpoenaed more order to avoid bankruptcy might meet

REPORT 33
difficulties in the state legislature if the
city did not open its doors to those
across the aisle— and that the bill
should probably include some stipula-
tions, such as that the revenue should
not be used to fund positions dedicated
to promoting diversity, equity, and in-
clusion, or spent on “the streetcar.” It
was suggested that the city might at
least be able to temporarily ban the
carrying of guns in the security perim-
eter downtown during the four-day
event. It was emphasized that this would
be against state law. It was argued that
they might as well institute the ban, let
themselves get sued, and by the time the
case went to court the convention
would be over, weapons prohibited.
Such a scheme would not have cost the
city any money, but it was agreed that
this was wishful thinking. Unani-
mously, the city approved the conven-
tion. A temporary ordinance permitted
bars to stay open until 4 am. So there
we were, eating fried cheese.

M
ilwaukee is similar to an Ital-
ian city in that, if you walk
into a restaurant off the street
without purpose or conviction, more
likely than not you will find on the
menu a set of about five regional varia-
tions on the national cuisine. In Mil-
waukee these are: butter burger, cheese-
burger, cheese curds, bratwurst, and
frozen custard. A butter burger is a
burger with butter on it; the cheese is
from Wisconsin. Sometimes there is a
Caesar salad. I’m sure the city has res-
taurants and bars that would satisfy a
dedicated reader of Google restaurant
reviews—Wisconsin was the theme of
this season’s Top Chef, concluded just
weeks before the convention—but I
didn’t have time to find them. “Our
black colleagues on the council thought
this was going to be a big boost to small, restaurateurs were instructed not to take “hard perimeter,” where all the actual
black-owned businesses and black- reservations for nights during the con- convention stuff happened, required a
owned restaurants and bars in Browns- vention and to expect a stream of walk- stroll through metal detectors. They
ville and on the north side,” alderman ins; this probably did not materialize, confiscated lighters; to smoke a cigarette
Robert Bauman told me in his office at and what’s more, at least part of the local within the inner perimeter during each
City Hall. Very messy; papers every- restaurant-going population had wisely day’s official convention sessions, you
where. “And I thought, ‘That is truly a chosen to take their vacation days that had to first locate someone already
stretch. That is highly unlikely.’ ” He week. Even on foot, navigating sucked. smoking, and more often than not
had been trying to prevent the conven- Downtown Milwaukee was deserted but they’d hand you the Marlboro from their
tion from coming there, but the optics mazed with concrete barriers and high own mouth so you could light yours.
were bad: “It’s four white liberals that are metal fences. A wide security footprint The thousands of out-of-state cops who’d
putting up the stop sign from the city was restricted to vehicle traffic—guns been brought in often gave conflicting
receiving all this benefit and the na- were permitted here, even after the as- information about where you could walk
tional attention.” I heard a rumor that sassination attempt— and an inner and why, and sometimes they scared you

34 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

 Carlson pointed out, himself there on
what was said to be a kind of revenge
tour after getting fired from Fox News
last year, “Peter Navarro is back . . . suf-
fering the fate that has happened to so
many who are friends with Donald
Trump. . . . They literally let Navarro out
of prison.” The former director of the
former White House National Trade
Council, which quickly became the
former Office of Trade and Manufactur-
ing Policy, neither of which existed
before or has existed after the Trump
Administration, had indeed flown to
Milwaukee directly from prison to give
a speech. He was swimming in his suit
and missing a tooth. The crowd went
nuts. You can’t blame him if he rambled,
warning that if they could come for him
they could come for you, and used too
many times the phrase “my girl,” refer-
ring to his fiancée, who eventually came
out and gave him a war hero’s welcome
before yanking him offstage.
The assassination attempt was seen
as advantageous not only because it
could sway uncommitted voters in the
direction of the candidate who was
not about to keel over even when in
the line of fire, but also because it
made the party fall in line. The week
before, when the party platform was
announced, aged evangelicals used to
being treated like valued customers had
realized they couldn’t harangue their
way into a stronger position on “the
unborn baby.” (“They rolled us,” Gayle
Ruzicka, an eighty-one-year-old mentee
of Phyllis Schlafly who was once known
as a power broker in Utah state politics,
told reporters as she left the platform
committee meeting in dismay.) The
platform is generally understood to be a
bullshit document, but it did point to
the likelihood of a New Right vice
presidential pick in J. D. Vance, who
with jokes like “Hey! You can’t yawn make america great once again grew up periodically attending Pente-
here.” On the second day, some of them was the slogan displayed throughout the costal churches and, in the years since
shot and killed a homeless black man, Fiserv Forum, and the convention’s the upsetting success of his memoir,
known to the community, who had themes were reconciliation, resurgence, Hillbilly Elegy, in 2016, has heard the
been lunging at someone with a knife return, revenge. If the redundant “once” call of glossolalic bloggers urging him
about seven blocks from the perimeter. signaled the fundamental awkwardness to retire all government employees.
This seemed to vindicate the liberals of a party threatening to fracture on I was eating a burger with some young
who’d warned against hosting the con- ideological and generational lines, for Republicans when the news that Trump
vention, though the security plan for the the time being most everyone on the had announced Vance as his running
2020 DNC had also involved out-of-state floor had donned rose-colored Oakleys, mate reached the convention; Vance’s
law enforcement. The cops responsible grooving to a cover band and, on special speech would be on day three, but be-
released their body-cam footage that occasions, eighty-one-year-old Lee cause Republicans had been instructed
same day and hightailed it back to Co- Greenwood. They had been through a not to dwell on the assassination at-
lumbus not long after. lot, and they felt they’d earned this. As tempt, Vance, and not Trump, seemed

REPORT 35
to be the biggest story of the conven- What should I ask him? I asked the reality, for both the actor and those
tion. Not that anyone I spoke to ex- delegate as we waited. This was nice around him. I think Trump was genu-
pressed huge praise for or doubts about of me, I thought, to let this guy par- inely out of sorts, maybe even authenti-
Vance specifically; it’s just that Trump ticipate in the reporting process. He cally emotional, after the shooting, and
was boring and subdued, though he told me to ask him what he thought of he allowed that to show because it was
dutifully emerged from a VIP tunnel J. D. Vance. Great idea. politically useful. Vance’s problem is
every day, usually accompanied by “Incandescent intellect,” Gaetz re- that he doesn’t know how to act at all,
“Y.M.C.A.” and a video montage of plied. “America-first foreign policy. Con- but for a week everyone trusted Trump’s
him dancing like a dork. Only on night nects with middle-class voters. Connects decision-making, blessed as it had been
one, Trump’s first public appearance with voters in America’s heartland. He’s by God, and awaited the premiere of
since he could have died, did he do gonna help us win this election.” Revenge of the White Working Class 2:
anything interesting: he looked like he Somehow prescient, because this Chinese Fentanyl at the Southern Border.
was about to cry during the entirety of would not become a major source of

L
“Proud to Be an American.” Still, internet mockery until the following ighting on the floor produces ex-
DeLillo, the power of the crowd: I day, I followed up: What about his cellent photographs. Face to face,
would find myself in a mosh pit sur- beautiful blue eyes? I’d just read an ar- when one is leaning in close to
rounded by pushy cameramen angling ticle that mentioned Trump’s praise for hear a subject speaking, it highlights
to shoot the former president, and I Vance’s beautiful blue eyes. Gaetz’s whiteheads, eczema, plaque, and the
would want to see him, too. I had to stop bearing changed. (Although images saliva that collects in Invisalign braces.
myself from reflexively joining in The smell of the arena’s concession
on certain rounds of applause. At stands, where the regional variations
one point, I ran into the podcaster were served, occasionally wafted
Mike Pesca, bright with journalis- onto the floor as we circulated; ev-
tic success, who had managed to
get five minutes with Lauren Boe-
S INCE TRUMP WAS ELECTED IN 2016,
erything was loud and red, but at
least not hot. Things got rowdier,
bert. He sent me in her direction, IT’S BEEN FASHIONABLE TO THINK OF physically pushier, and more disturb-
but she was tiny and maneuvered ALL PUBLIC BEHAVIOR, COMMITTED ing as the week progressed. Day two
too quickly through a thickening was dedicated to the also-rans—
crowd near the VIP entrance. BY ANYONE, AS AN ACT when Nikki Haley took the stage,
“She’s quite a critter, isn’t she,” a she was met with some interruptive
delegate I’d met the previous day boos and a post-internet pink back-
muttered in my ear. “Trying to get drop that complemented the flowers
a glimpse of Trump as he walks by.” on her dress. In the days before the
Floor whips—participants deputized to that later circulated online made his shooting, she had communicated, with
perform traffic control during higher- face seem pumped with filler, he looks the regulation dignity of an age-
security moments, who act like this is relatively normal in person.) He replied appropriate first wife, that she was not
the most important thing they will ever immediately, as if he’d been waiting to invited and “fine with that” because
do in their lives—pushed me into a talk about this all day. “It’s the lashes,” Trump “deserves the convention he
really good spot. Eventually J. D. Vance he said. “Anybody can fall for the eyes. wants.” Mortality puts things in per-
emerged; I got some good iPhone pho- Only J. D. Vance has those lashes.” spective. When she said, over the heck-
tos. As I was walking out the door to The frat-boy familiarity of this osten- lers, that Trump had invited her after all
bum a light from someone, Trump sibly flirtatious line was unsettling. Al- to drive home the new, death-brushed
came out right where I’d been standing. though Vance’s speech later in the week message of party unity, Trump was seen
Back inside I saw Matt Gaetz, the really pissed me off, I also wondered if possibly fact-checking her in his royal
congressman from Florida who would they were kind of fucking with him. box, mouthing to Vance something that
be the subject of quiet protest among a Pundits and loved ones claimed that looked to one internet lip-reader like
few delegates when he took the stage Trump had “softened” since the assas- “She asked. I didn’t want her to speak.
later. When I asked them why they had sination attempt; skeptics suggested to Here we go.” She established that you
turned their backs during Gaetz’s me that this was all an act for the fa- don’t have to agree with him one hun-
speech, one of them said, “Instead of mous reality-TV star. Regardless, the dred percent of the time to vote for him.
serving in the U.S. Congress, he should serendipitous timing has made Vance When Ron DeSantis took her place, the
be prosecuted for child molestation.” In seem like a charity case benefiting from backdrop changed to big-boy blue. The
Gaetz’s photo line, I stood next to a vis- Trump’s new, more generous personality, only former candidate to get a passion-
ibly nervous young alternate delegate and so even more in danger of falling ate audience response was Vivek Ra-
from Tennessee. He asked if I’d take a out of favor than any other precariously maswamy, the tech billionaire with
photo of him with the congressman employed Trump adviser. Since Trump whom the convention was on a first-
when it was his turn. Of course I would. was elected in 2016, it’s been fashionable name basis despite his opening bit: “I’m
But it became clear that neither of our to think of all public behavior, commit- proud to say that I achieved the impos-
turns would come unless I took some ted by anyone, as an act, and to forget sible, which is that most of you actually
decisive action for us as a team. that these acts are also what produce a know how to say my name by now.”

36 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

(They can barely pronounce “Usha.”) name to freedom.” Other athletes at- Hogan’s reception on the floor was
Throughout the week he would be tending included Riley Gaines, the not particularly rapturous.
spotted traversing the arena in his former college swimmer who has

D
skinny suit, never breaking his striding made a little media career out of fail- emocrats have a monopoly on
smile, even when a mother in a photo ure, in a Wildcat blue going-out top, celebrity; the famous people
line just had to tell him that her son and an older man on the floor in who attend the RNC are real
had really wanted him on the ticket, sweatpants, with skin the color of rust losers. The message of the week was
and she’d had to console him by saying and hair that survived the Eighties, that, as long as you’re not trans or
that it “just wasn’t his time yet.” I came who appeared in an aisle as we impa- fleeing a persecutory foreign govern-
to recognize the Vivek guys: entrepre- tiently waited about half an hour for ment without offering us some rec-
neurial, clean, and as one twenty-two- Hulk Hogan to take the stage and rip ompense in the form of elite athletic
year-old heir to a regional liquor-store off his tank top. Ezra Klein, the influ- ability, “you’re welcome here.” Like
empire told me, deeply concerned ential liberal podcaster, claimed Ho- Democrats, Republicans have come
about tariffs. gan’s was the best speech of the night to care a lot about not being per-
Young women not stressfully em- on the grounds that “it understood ceived as racist, with many speakers
ployed were scarce, save for one I saw that the root of Donald Trump’s poli- lamenting that illegal immigrants are
in a pink MAGA hat queening out tics are as a showman, as a reality- stealing what Trump calls “black
with a friend upon the appearance of television star, as a WWE Hall of jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” and em-
Tucker Carlson. Hot guys could be Famer.” Klein was watching the con- phasizing that, as South Carolina
found among the photographers, for- vention from home, and also living in senator Tim Scott declared, “America
eign journalists, and imposing func- 2016; these things do not matter any- is not a racist country!”
tionaries of square jaw and evil hair. more. We would all love a new show- In the driveway of the Saint Kate
Spotting a beautiful giant gently plac- man, someone who tapped into and hotel I smoked a cigarette with Amber
ing his huge arms on admirers’ shoul- so defined our unarticulated collec- Rose, of blue-white teeth and Lucite
ders, I asked his handler who he was tive media needs, someone whose odd heel, but she didn’t want to do an in-
and was told “NBA player.” “Enes appeal journalists could buzzingly terview before she gave her speech,
Kanter!” a sporty friend replied when clarify, but the guilty pleasure of bad which, promoting unity, would fall
I sent him a photo. “Nicknamed penis television is beyond stale. No one into the popular genre of conservative
cancer by disgruntled fans on some can kid themselves that poor people conversion story. “I believed the left-
former team, maybe Utah? Criticized enjoy watching this kind of thing wing propaganda that Trump was a
erdogan and now can’t go back to anymore— everyone watches short racist,” Rose said onstage that night,
Turkey. Apparently changed his last clips on their phones. Needless to say, hissing sweetly through her veneers,

38 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

sounding a little like her crazy ex. In myself next to my home state’s delega- about the hard hats. Many delegations
fact, Trump is “kind and generous and tion, in their matching hard hats deco- treat the convention like senior week
funny as hell.” As we smoked, a protest rated with stickers. Miraculously, I saw and wear matching outfits—Hawaii’s
across the street was dispiritingly con- someone I recognized. “I’m sorry,” I were obviously the best, but the Wis-
tained, following the weekend’s huge said, bending down. “Were you my AP consin delegates had their traditional
blow to left-wing morale and pro- World History teacher?” postmodern tricornes shaped like
tracted debate with the Milwaukee If you didn’t know better, you might cheese. I overheard one chair say that
city government about whether pro- have thought he taught drama. it was easier to corral a delegation
testers could march within shouting Mr. Higginbotham’s face changed grad- when they all looked the same, but the
distance of the action. The main is- ually from confusion, to hesitant rec- general approach to stepping out made
sues being fought for— Palestinian ognition, to ironically scandalized clear that it was more about crafting,
liberation and rights for women and shock. He had been the faculty sponsor and possibly latently supporting the
LGBTQ people—barely came up at for the Teen Age Republicans, but my freedom fighters at Hobby Lobby,
the convention, though there was a memories of whatever specific political which won the right to refuse to cover
“salute to pro-Israel elected officials” opinions he held had since been over- employees’ birth control in a Supreme
event on the last day. I skipped it; I taken by those of a different teacher, Court case ten years ago. Anyway,
thought I was already attending a sa- who once passed around an essay he’d what did the hard hats represent?
lute to pro-Israel elected officials. written arguing that gay sex was mor- “We are, of course, in West Virginia
A Harper’s Magazine credential was ally equivalent to bestiality. (To be coal country,” Herridge said. “We are
a soft asset on the floor, and not only clear, I was the president of Hurricane fans of the fossil-fuel industry. We
because any interviews I conducted High School’s chapter of the Young know it provides a lot of great jobs.
wouldn’t come out for about three Democrats of America.) I reminded We believe in clean energy, but we
months and would after that live be- Mr. Higginbotham of my name; he also believe that we want energy inde-
hind the secure borders of the paywall. stood up; we hugged. “My former stu- pendence for this country.” They didn’t
If Republicans didn’t know the maga- dent!” he told the curious delegation. want what happens in Texas— the
zine, I could explain that it was the “So how are you?” he asked, looking grid failures, the rolling blackouts—to
oldest general-interest monthly in me up and down, and then at my left happen there.
the country, institutional and stal- hand. “Are you married?” “What about water?” I asked.
wart, and elide my own political be- “No!” I said, waving my ring finger. “What do you mean?”
liefs by saying I don’t usually write “Me neither!” “Well,” I said, “where my family lives,
about politics, which is true. If they We laughed conspiratorially. I re- we can’t really drink the water.”
did know the magazine, they were membered he was always talking about “Oh, really,” Herridge said.
fans. “Of course I know Harper’s,” at not being married. “Yeah.”
least two older men replied when I For about a day, I was the darling of Since the 2014 Elk River chemical
asked. “They endorsed Abe Lincoln!” * the West Virginia delegation, and they spill dumped about ten thousand gal-
Lincoln heads tend not to like Trump looked at me like I was a famous ac- lons of coal-processing stuff into the
and respond to questions on this point tress who was dating their nephew. water supply, more and more people I’ve
as did Al Taubenberger, a delegate and They gave me a Babydog sticker— spoken to while visiting West Virginia
a member of the Philadelphia Parking Babydog is the governor’s sixty-two- say they do not feel comfortable drink-
Authority Board, with some version of pound bulldog, who was onstage with ing the water in most of the state, which
“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” him during his speech— and called is, like so many things about the place,
More useful was my dormant re- out “Putnam County!” when I walked ranked among the worst in the country.
gional accent. I often use it to flirt with by. I would soon betray them, but for The contamination problem (PFAS,
men, though I understand that its the moment we all reveled in the arsenic, and other chemicals) is in part
erotic appeal is that it makes me sound smallness of the world. believed to be the result of hydraulic
stupid, and softens what I’m told is an fracturing, or fracking, to extract natu-

D
intimidating . . . let’s say frankness, ay three, themed Make Amer- ral gas, and mountaintop removal to
which, I realized rereading Hillbilly El- ica Strong Once Again, was mine coal. Plus, shitty pipes. In 2006,
egy, is possibly something I inherited dedicated primarily to yelling then-governor Joe Manchin tried to
culturally. Smiling nicely, with a bright- at people on the floor for standing still change the state slogan to open for
red manicure, I flattened my vowels and in the wrong places or moving to business, and people got so mad that
transmogrified my r’s. “Hi,” I drawled, places they had been directed to but the government had to quickly back-
over and over. “I’m a reporter from West weren’t supposed to go. Agitated by pedal, removing costly signs. I remem-
Virginia, and I was wondering . . . ” Just the floor-is-lava situation, I passed my ber but cannot find documentation of
as the standing ovation for a single proud aunts and uncles in the West complaints that the proposed new slo-
mother who lost her husband to “the Virginia delegation and talked to Matt gan made us sound like prostitutes.
drug epidemic” caused by “Democrats’ Herridge, the chair of the West Vir- “Yeah, yeah,” Herridge said. “Well, I
open border policies” finished, I found ginia Republican Party. He had just mean, clean water is extremely impor-
*
The endorsement, in 1864, came from sold his Burger Kings, though he was tant. . . . Absolutely. Absolutely clean
Harper’s Weekly, not the monthly magazine. still a Qdoba franchisee. I asked him water is . . . we’ve got to have that as our

REPORT 39
population grows, and we want it to describe as horrible, but Vance does so vegetables, an observation I’ll cosign.)
grow in West Virginia.” with a desperation to belong that rivals Erratic and addicted to pain pills, and
The crowd cheered loudly in response that of teenage girls and elicits similar later heroin (“the Kentucky Derby of
to something happening onstage. responses. Since the convention ended, drugs”), his mother bounced from boy-
“Well, I think I’m missing some- Vance has been on a humiliation tour friend to boyfriend, house to house, and
thing,” he said. in the liberal media, mocked for, among Vance lived an extremely peripatetic
other things, drinking Diet Mountain life, surrounded by fights at home and

V
ance is not technically from Dew, making unfunny comments, be- fights in the neighborhood, developing
Appalachia, but he really wants ing “weird,” being a self-mythologizing what they call “behavioral problems”—
to be. “I do not identify with phony, reading Joan Didion, whiffing it and dental problems—as he sometimes
the WASPs of the Northeast,” he with a doughnut purveyor, wearing eye- went along with his mom and some-
writes at the beginning of Hillbilly liner, and fucking a couch (someone on times decamped to his mamaw and
Elegy. “Instead, I identify with the the internet just made that up). That papaw’s house. The book dramatizes his
millions of working-class white Amer- some of these things mark him as of success afterward—from the Marines
icans of Scots-Irish descent who have authentically shithole origin doesn’t to Ohio State to Yale Law to acolyte of
no college degree.” He was born and matter. The governor of Kentucky, Peter Thiel with a book deal—which
raised in Middletown, Ohio, which his which Vance considers “home” and has nothing to do with his own innate
detractors describe as “suburban” and where he experienced “the fondest abilities, but the work ethic he devel-
he describes convincingly as a hillbilly memories” of his childhood, rejected oped because his grandparents, while
enclave, the product of generations of him, saying, “He ain’t from here.” The also fighty, took good care of him. He
migration from ailing mining towns to writer Tracy Moore, who lives in Los frequently cites moments that illustrate
the manufacturing jobs of the Rust Belt Angeles and posts on X using the han- how they “saved” him, as well as mo-
along “the hillbilly highway.” Before dle @iusedtobepoor, complained that ments that would have “consumed”
factories closed, too, companies courted Vance “cosplayed” the hillbilly role after him or when he was on a “precipice”;
workers from the holler, who brought rolling her eyes and saying that “we are the book is written with a great deal of
their values and customs with them. knee-deep in the pig shit of essay after narrative drama, and his is the rare life
According to Vance, these include “an essay about Appalachia and hillbillies.” story that can handle it, though of
intense sense of loyalty, a fierce dedica- A person from this region doesn’t tend course the prose, a combination of ac-
tion to family and country,” a distrust to have much social capital—a “profes- tual vestigial coarseness, put-on folksi-
of outsiders, an intense pride and con- sor’s term” Vance spends a little too long ness, and intentional dumbing down
comitant shame, a defensive quickness explaining in Hillbilly Elegy—so when- that you also get in his “weird” speeches,
to anger, a tendency to “blood feud,” ever the book returns to the news cycle, leaves something to be desired. Still:
and a lack of agency, which sometimes the national media’s four secret red- this is a man who, in high school, was
he attributes to “a culture that increas- necks fire up their laptops to remind the coerced into pissing in a jar so his
ingly encourages social decay” and “a world that they do have teeth, actually. mother could pass a drug test, just
feeling that you have little control over And dignity! weeks after she nodded off on him at a
your life and a willingness to blame I personally would not challenge Chinese buffet.
everyone but yourself.” Accepting the Vance to a past-life poor-off, though I Must we let him speak? What agitates
vice presidential nomination eight usually get knocked out in the quarter- the liberal commentariat so much about
years after he published the book, he finals anyway because there’s no drug Vance is that, in using his personal
invoked his lovably murderous mamaw, addiction in my immediate family. experience to justify a political program,
whose Kentucky roots justify his fierce (They have other problems, if you’d like his book is a classic example of millen-
and only partially self-serving identifi- to take this outside.) If you haven’t read nial identity politics; what has always
cation with the region, and extended Vance’s notoriously reviled best-selling been the problem with this is that you
an emotional acknowledgment to his autobiography but are familiar with can use personal experience to justify
mother, ten years sober up there in the left-wing criticism of it—that Vance any belief you want, and the only way
royal box, before burying identity caricatures Appalachia and argues that for an opponent to object is to question
politics once and for all in his family the region’s suffering would not be ame- that personal experience. While left-
cemetery plot in the deep dark hills of liorated by extreme governmental in- wing critics tend to ignore Vance’s sto-
eastern Kentucky. “When, as I hope, tervention, but is rather the result of ries of drugs and abuse, glossing over
my wife and I are eventually laid to rest backward cultural norms, including them as “problems” in the region, they
there, and my kids follow us,” he said laziness, that must be addressed with have questioned, or just ruefully made
onstage that night, “there will be seven bootstrapping—you might not really fun of, the details Vance includes of his
generations just in that small plot.” know that Vance endured a particularly Podunk introduction to the wider world.
You never leave Harlan alive. He traumatic and abusive childhood, with In one passage that was very popular
mentioned the cemetery plot one too few consolations in the form of the online, Vance attends an informal in-
many times; it almost seemed as if he idealized pleasures of a rural existence, terview at a fancy restaurant with an
was in a hurry to get there. There’s an like quilting or bluegrass or the bucolic elite law firm and his classmates at Yale;
easy political explanation for why some- picking of green beans. (The people facing a classic class dilemma, he doesn’t
one would “identify” with a place they Vance writes about don’t eat tons of know the difference between sauvignon

40 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

blanc and chardonnay, nor which fork
to use, and furthermore he orders spar-
About Vance, they were enthusiastic
but not insane. “I hope that he will Unforgettable
kling water, which he has never encoun- make aware that we are here and help
tered before. He thinks the adjective us to get more development,” Margitta gifts, intended
must just be a “pretentious” advertising Mazzocchi, a brightly blond “legal im-
ploy—“like ‘sparkling’ crystal”—but
reasons the fancy water probably has
migrant” from Germany and member of
the state House of Delegates, told me.
to last a
“fewer contaminants.” I don’t remember
the first time I had sparkling water, but
“We need more jobs, more education,
more opportunities for our people.”
lifetime
I also didn’t grow up drinking it; I can When I spoke to her in German, she
certainly remember a period of wariness, responded in English, though Germans
of being offered it in restaurants and do that in Germany as well. She and her
declining out of unfamiliarity and the husband had read Hillbilly Elegy aloud to
needless cost. I’ll admit I sort of disliked each other, which is interesting because
all the conversation around this point. in that book Vance is specifically against
Nevertheless, it’s unlikely that I would the government providing more oppor-

Fe n n
ever in a million years have “literally spit tunities for the people of Appalachia.
it out” at a group job interview at the What’s so “weird” is that like many

ek 8"
Union League Cafe, because I’m not a formerly essential tenets of the Re-
fucking dumbass. publican platform, the straightforward

It a li a
Anecdotes like this are canny ac- anti-welfare stance Vance advocates
knowledgments of Vance’s audience: in Hillbilly Elegy is disorientingly out

n
not fellow “hillbillies,” or even fellow of fashion in Trump’s party; now, in-

o
Cl
upwardly mobile secret rednecks like stead of spending much time decrying as

sic
myself, but people for whom the kind of government programs, they just call

oK
dull isolation experienced in Appala- your attention elsewhere. One of the

it c h
chia is literally unimaginable. This is major issues at the convention, dis-
the book’s appeal, as Gaetz suggested: cussed over and over, is what “every-

en
not relatability, which is the goal of so day American” Anne Fundner called
many liberal identity-politics texts, but onstage “the tragic reality of open
real talk. It’s clearly the product of urg- borders,” which the party has sought
ing from professors and classmates at to use as a scapegoat for the third
Yale Law, where Vance felt, “for the first wave of the opioid crisis, during
time in my life, that others viewed my which overdoses have become the
life with intrigue.” leading cause of death in Americans
It’s not common for a vice presiden- between the ages of twenty-five and
tial candidate to have widespread na- forty-four. Fundner’s son Weston died
tional name recognition; Vance does. when he was fifteen; he took some-
He was not chosen as some kind of thing a friend gave him. “This was
representative of the white working not an overdose,” Fundner said
class—though his stories will be familiar through tears. “It was a poisoning.”
to people from Appalachia, even if The idea is that eleven to thirty mil-
they’d like to pretend otherwise—but lion “illegals” have brought Chinese
rather as someone who has already es- fentanyl over the southern border on
tablished himself as a public figure, fa- “border czar” Kamala Harris’s watch. In
mous for having the kind of background order for this critique to work, the con-
you want a politician to have. It’s hard servative Overton window on drug use
to imagine an undecided voter from has had to shift significantly, or maybe
Wisconsin caring, or understanding, crack, over the past twenty years; the
that Vance is not “really” from Appala- suggestion here is that a fifteen-year-old
chia, home to a contingent the Repub- should be able to try a drug given to
licans already have in the bag. When I him by a friend and not immediately
asked the West Virginia delegation how die. The crowd agreed; they cried and
they’d managed to get such good seats chanted Fundner’s dead son’s name,
on the floor—they were just stage left, watching with the transfixed focus of
with as good a view as Wisconsin— people who actually do have PTSD.
someone told me he didn’t know for While I agree that’s true, the timeline The world’s
sure, but he thought it was because West of the opioid epidemic, and Vance’s most beautiful scissors
Virginia had had a very high plurality personal experience of it during the
of Trump voters in both elections. Clinton and Bush Administrations,

REPORT 41
suggest a problem that first must be excuses for someone else’s gaffes. The the United States? I don’t really think
dealt with at home. As Vance spoke vice president has “virtually no im- so, nor, apparently, do the Republicans,
onstage of “Joe Biden’s economy,” in pact,” he had to say. “You have two or who obsess over the “radical gender
which “dreams were shattered, and three days where there’s a lot of com- ideology” being taught in schools and
China and the cartels sent fentanyl motion . . . and then that dies down and decry the overdoses that are one of the
across the border, adding addiction to it’s all about the presidential pick.” leading causes of death in people under
the heartache,” he sounded like an- eighteen. If Vance has done one good

I
other piece of white trash pointing began the last day of the conven- thing in the short time he has been
fingers at his problems, too proud to tion possibly more tired than I have scrutinized not merely as a public figure
admit he lives in a horrible place. Many ever been, eating a banh mi across but as a vice presidential candidate, his
such cases, as his new daddy would say. from a booth advertising a VR experi- resurfaced comments on “childless cat
In 2016, Vance tried to use his book to ence of the Holocaust and swatting ladies” have provided much-needed
promote the Never Trump campaign, away an alternate delegate from Texas perspective on the inane conversations
and even referred to him at one point who wouldn’t stop asking me about the about having children that have been
as “cultural heroin.” Because of my boyfriend I’d made up to get him to go a feature of left-wing discourse for the
background, I struggle with political away. Why wasn’t the boyfriend here past few years. As vocal support for
correctness sometimes: It would be in- with me? I’m a modern woman, I ex- abortion access waned and the Su-
sensitive, right, to call Vance a junkie? plained, and escaped to the Dove Hy- preme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,
Although he’s young and maintains dration & Wellness “relaxation suite,” bobos wrung their hands about how
his conservative values despite his mul- where I paid $30 to take a fifteen-minute broody they’d become. is it ok to have
ticultural family—Usha is pronounced spin in a massage chair. The day before, a child? the headlines wondered, in-
as it’s spelled—Vance doesn’t represent Biden’s face had appeared on a televi- voking imminent climate collapse,
progress for the Republican Party, but sion in a bar under the headline tests among other problems. This is not a
rather another kind of reconciliation positive for covid-19, and rumors cir- question that occurs to normal people,
with 2016. By the time Vance ran for culated among smoking journalists that and it occurs to the liberals who might
the Senate, in 2022, he’d changed his it was possible he would drop out debate it at a wine bar only as a thought
mind on Trump. “J. D. is kissing my ass, that night. One guy’s plan to write experiment that has news value. As
he wants my support so bad,” Trump about how lighters were the most cov- concerned studies proliferate on Amer-
said at an Ohio rally, after he’d endorsed eted merchandise at the RNC was prob- icans’ waning desire and willingness to
him in the Senate race. Though it’s ably unnecessary now, but we agreed make babies, pronatalism remains
Trump who’s not a crook, Vance has that dropping out would be an amazing creepy to those of us who don’t like too
become his personal fall guy, a desper- move to distract from Trump’s speech. much government influence in our
ate young Nixon to Trump’s bizarro Ike. Unfortunately, Biden waited until private lives. Have children if you want
While Trump’s blatant lies have be- Sunday to step aside, so we endured the them; most people still do. While Ra-
come so customary that they are para- longest acceptance speech ever given maswamy and others wrote op-eds with
doxical indications of authenticity—of by an American presidential nominee titles like “A Baby Shortage Threatens
how many people do we say, “Oh, that’s at a convention, beating his own previ- America’s Future,” liberals ambiva-
just how he is”?—Vance’s congenital ous record by around twenty minutes. lently produced more future college
inability to think for himself strikes the The first fifteen minutes consisted of graduates who will not want to assume
consumer of the American political the story of the shooting; he was only caretaking jobs for the aging popula-
system as affected. He pauses in the going to tell it once, just then, he ex- tion. I heard that, at the DNC a few
wrong places, raising his eyebrows plained, “because it’s actually too pain- weeks later, access to fertility treat-
slightly as he wonders if you’re going to ful.” His doctor had told him the ear ments was “like the main thing they
laugh first at what he might think is bleeds more than any other part of the talked about.”
funny. Worse for the Republicans, his body, “so we learned something.” (Ap- A person who moves away from
earnest striving is so noxious to average parently this isn’t true.) After that, Appalachia is said to have “gotten
American voters, who want to be ma- delegates looked at their phones; I sat out.” At the airport, it’s wonderful to
nipulated while still imagining they are on the floor, fluorescently bored, tex- be child-free. As I stood in line for se-
making a sophisticated choice in- ting with four other journalists, one of curity, my flight was delayed by four
formed by insider knowledge, that he whom was on acid. Trump seemed hours. Drinking a margarita, I tried to
detracts attention from an actual po- tired, unable to stop talking though rebook through the United app, but it
litical star. If they lose this election, unenthusiastic about being there; he was frozen, and the cell network was
Vance will find another club that will promised he’d refer to Biden by name working at a pace that would alarm
have him as a member, not because he just the one time, which was a mistake. conspiracy theorists. A friend had
is a son of privilege but because he is The balloon drop is actually really cool, texted with the news at four in the
privileged with unique reserves of but as I overheard some women in the morning, when I was busy with other
willpower unencumbered by critical- ladies’ room say, “That’s not Pavarotti things, but only now did I have to ac-
thinking skills. For now, they’ve some- singing the national anthem.” cept that it affected me, too: a global
how gotten themselves into a situation Is it possible for a baby who flies system had crashed, and the screens
where Donald Trump is the one making coach to grow up to have a good life in were all blue. Q

42 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

 F R O M T H E A R C H I V E

2 0 0 4

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
By Luke Mitchell

W hen I left the Republican Na-

tional Convention, I was in awe
and a little depressed, as if someone had
message, radiating from the podium
and echoing through the rafters, was
that there was no message.
in the constant circling of those rings
by the thousands of reporters, politi-
cians, and bagmen gathered there to
told me to go fuck myself, and had told That soul-negating echo was terrify- do their work.
me with a kind of meticulous exactitude ing to me, and all the more terrifying In the weeks leading up to the con-
that was overwhelming, irrefutable. No because it was clearly the result of so vention, I’d formed an unconscious and
particular words had done it. It was their much effort. Witting or not, everyone somewhat naïve conception of it as a
reckless profusion, the ceaseless tide of there was a participant. The Garden theatrical performance in which some
pointless language churning through and its surrounding streets had been kind of story—likely offensive to me,
Madison Square Garden, crashing converted into a monstrous echo but a story nonetheless—would unfold
against the walls, losing meaning with chamber, ring upon ring of technology- upon the stage. Certainly that was
each dyslogic wave. Politicians have laden humanity: protesters with their where a story ought to have taken
spoken self-serving nonsense since the signs and their chants, New York City place. There was the brightly lit po-
beginning of time, but this was differ- cops with radios velcroed to their dium, with its odd cruciform moldings;
ent: larger, more calculated. Whereas shoulders, Treasury agents talking into there was the massive video screen, a
John Kerry at his convention had strug- their sleeves, the crush of delegates waving flag one minute, a gospel choir
gled to create meaning—no matter how with their BlackBerrys—and reporters, the next; there were the orators them-
stupid, dishonest, or clichéd—George fifteen thousand of them, writers with selves, foreheads shining in the bright
Bush seemed to be plotting its demise. their wireless laptops, radiomen sere- lights. But no story. The rest of the
Certainly the speeches meant noth- nading their outsized microphones, show was no different. Before I could
ing. Yes, the president, with his “calling surly camera crews, bright lights in tow, process one cheap symbol, the produc-
from beyond the stars,” spoke in the connected by winding cable to rows of ers were on to the next. Even the bio-
coded language of the Rapture, but idling vans outside on Seventh Ave- graphical video, typically a narrative
the code once broken contained only nue, the microwave dishes on top send- high point of political conventions,
a single message, which was in fact a ing signals to satellites miles above only lacked momentum. Indeed, it was com-
meta-message: “I am speaking in code to be sent right back down again, into posed entirely of still images, panned
to Christians.” Other combinations of countless thousands more speakers and in the manner of a Ken Burns docu-
words slipped the bonds of meaning screens, bouncing, reflecting, blending, mentary. Setup, climax, resolution—
entirely. Did Arnold Schwarzenegger an overwhelming vortex of absurdities. all the elements of narrative—had
somehow end the Cold War in Austria? All of it had been orchestrated with become superfluous.
Was Bush a war hero? Did Kerry want ruthless precision, and you couldn’t say Up along the outer rings my thoughts
to destroy America? These were half- a word about it because if you did it turned naturally, if dismally, to Yeats
narratives, made up of questions so wouldn’t mean a thing. and his “Second Coming,” with its
preposterous as to end discussion and rough beasts and its center that failed
possibly even subvert our understand-
ing of what it means to mean some-
thing. The real message was not “I
T hat spinning sensation was not
merely symbolic. It was manifest
in the very form of the Garden, itself
to hold. After a few constricted circuits
of the skyboxes with no real story in
sight, I even began to envy the falcon
care,” or even “vote for me.” The real a massive bowl of concentric rings, and his widening gyre. Q

From “Grand Old Inquisitor,” which appeared in the November 2004 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The complete article—along with the
magazine’s entire 174-year archive—is available online at harpers.org/archive.

ARCHIVE 43
 L E T T E R F R O M B O U G A I N V I L L E

THE ISLAND KING

A fugitive monarch dreams of fortune and freedom
By Sean Williams

O
ne morning last November, I the interest of an American maga- singku of plotting to overthrow the
boarded a plane from Port zine. In October 2023, I booked a trip ABG. An ABG minister told me that
Moresby, the capital of Papua to Buka to report on these develop- Mu sing ku was just the excuse, or
New Guinea, to Buka, the capital of ments, budgeting some days at the “thorn,” that Papua New Guinea needed
the Autonomous Region of Bougain- end to interview leaders of the Au- to forestall independence. Not since
ville. A collection of islands and atolls tonomous Bougainville Government 2012, it seemed, had a foreign reporter
the size of Puerto Rico, Bougainville is (ABG), the formal authority that set foot in the Royal Kingdom of Pa-
located some six hundred miles east of expects to secure self-rule for its peo- paala, Musingku’s name for his com-
Moresby, across the Solomon Sea. Its ple. But over the previous months I pound in the village of Tonu. Nobody
southern shore is just three miles from had become transfixed instead by the entirely knew what he had been up to
the politically independent Solomon strange tale of Noah Mu singku, a in the intervening years, but they were
Islands, and its people share a culture, Bougainvillean scam artist who had sure it wasn’t good.
linguistic links, and dark skin tone made a fortune, lost it, then retreated Which is all by way of saying, I
with their Solomon neighbors. But to a remote armed compound in the wanted to meet the king. But after sev-
thanks mostly to European colonizers, jungle, where he declared himself eral months, the best lead I had was an
who drew the borders, Bougainville is the islands’ king. He wore crowns of obscure YouTube channel offering
the farthest-flung province of Papua brass and cowrie shells that, lest there shaky videos of U-Vistract events. It
New Guinea, whose lighter-toned be any ambiguity, spelled out king. belonged to a man named Nawera
inhabitants Bougainvilleans often An academic who has described Mu- Karrenna, who claimed he could intro-
call “redskins,” betraying a sense of sing ku as “Bougainville’s Bernie duce me to Musingku—though when I
otherness in their own country that Madoff” wrote him off as an “irrele- revisited these messages at my hotel bar
partly explains why I am writing vance,” while a diplomatic envoy to in Moresby, I realized that most of them
about them here. Papua New Guinea told me he was a were just his replying “yes” and generally
I say partly because if not for the “fucking joke.” dodging my increasingly desperate and
islands’ having fought a bitter, decade- Bougainvilleans had other ideas. long-winded proposals, which made me
long war against the Australia-backed Musingku’s purported con—a vast, suspect that the entire thing was some
Papua New Guinea—which remark- millenarian Ponzi scheme called sort of hoax.
ably they won—and demanding Papua U-Vistract—had, since the late Nine- So I was more than a little relieved
New Guinea allow Bougainville’s in- ties, raked in some $232 million dol- when, in the early afternoon, I landed
dependence by 2027, the story I am lars, perhaps far more, and near as I and, having sweat so quickly in the heat
about to tell would likely never have could tell, it was still plodding on. In that I felt as if somebody had thrown a
happened, nor would it have piqued 2006, a militia allegedly aligned with pail of water over me, spotted my royal
the ABG stormed Musingku’s hideout envoy in a crowd outside Buka Airport’s
Sean Williams is a journalist based in
New Zealand. His last piece for Harper’s and almost killed him. One man told rusting corrugated-steel terminal. Short
Magazine, “Purple Haze,” appeared in the me that U-Vistract was “just like a and broad with sepulchral eyes,
October 2023 issue. Mafia”; police have also accused Mu- Karrenna wore a bucket hat, polo shirt,

Illustrations by Daniel Liévano LETTER FROM BOUGAINVILLE 45

shorts, and flip-flops. We shook hands. ville’s great, bushy-bearded war hero,
He told me he’d once spent several Francis Ona, at the tail end of the
weeks in Manchester, England, trying conflict, in 1998. Tonu and its elusive
out for various professional soccer leader, Musingku, were nestled in the
teams. But he didn’t look like a sports- center of this zone. With any luck I
man. Given the scant number of me- would be shaking the king’s hand in
dia visits to Papaala, I remarked glibly, a day or two.
he hardly had his work cut out as a If I really believed that at the time—
media rep. He shrugged. “HM is a busy and I think I did—I was no more de-
man,” he said, using a royal honorific luded than most outsiders who have
(His Majesty) that I would hear a lot visited Bougainville.
in the ensuing days. Together we rode

T
a taxi five minutes into town, ex- he maritime historian Samuel
changed some cash at a Chinese-run Eliot Morison once noted that
convenience store, and, paying the Bougainville possessed “wilder
equivalent of fifty American cents, and more majestic scenery” than he’d
hopped aboard one of the dozens of encountered anywhere in the South
brightly painted banana boats darting Pacific. The islands offer almost every
across the narrow Buka Passage that geographic feature imaginable, from
cleaves its namesake island from the mountains and volcanoes to coral
far larger island of Bougainville. It’d be reefs, waterfalls, and a sparkling, pris-
at least another day, Karrenna told me, tine coastline. Almost everything is
before we reached the king. quilted in a dense canopy of palm
On the other side of the water was fronds. Copra—the dried white flesh
Kokopau, a town that doubles as a cab of coconuts—was Bougainville’s prime
stand for vans and 4x4s headed up- export long before copper or gold.
country, and triples as Bougainville’s In part owing to this wild abun-
premier live-music spot. Australia’s dance, Bougainville and its neigh-
primary legacy on Bougainville is boring isles have enticed a succession
Panguna, a colossal, open-pit copper of fair-skinned cads, colonizers, and
and gold mine that, while dormant, is crazies. The French explorer Louis-
still one of the largest on earth, and Antoine de Bougainville lent the
whose controversial operation kin- island his name after an eighteenth-
dled the Bougainvillean uprising. The century voyage, and he named Buka
secondary is a taste for heavy metal after a word bellowed at him from
music. Seemingly every other person the shore (most agree that it likely
dresses in denim shorts and band means “who”). Later, at the end of
T-shirts— Slayer, Megadeth, Pantera, the nineteenth century, a wayward
AC/DC, Metallica, Judas Priest, Van Breton nobleman, Charles Marie Bo-
Halen, Black Sabbath. You’d be hard- naventure du Breil, dreamed up his
pressed to find a difference between very own empire nearby, promising
many Bougainvilleans and a convoca- “paradise” to the hundreds of Euro-
tion of Midwestern roadies if not for pean colonists he recruited. But the
the band names that recalled Bou- effort— opposed by Italy, Spain, and
gainville’s darkest days: Crisis Survi- France itself—was a disaster. No col-
vors, Trouble Zone, Dooms Vein, ony awaited the four starving ships,
Mortal Revenge. Almost everybody hundreds died, and the few survivors edly found dead on the beach seven-
who climbed into our taxi, a tattered mostly moved to Australia or made teen years later, legs covered in ulcers
Toyota Land Cruiser, was a metal- the long journey back home. and weighing sixty-six pounds.) By
head, it seemed. Karrenna wasn’t Soon afterward, Germany swal- this time Australia had wrested con-
keen; “white music,” he called it. lowed Bougainville and incorporated trol of Bougainville from Berlin after
We left Kokopau by means of a it into its empire, forcing locals into the outbreak of the First World War.
shoreside highway cradled by coconut labor on the copra plantations. In But in 1942, Japan captured the is-
palms. It was around two o’clock. By 1902, a German named August Engel- land and incorporated Bougainville
early evening, we would reach Ar- hardt established a cult on nearby into its so-called Greater East Asia
awa, Bougainville’s former capital, Kabakon Island, based on the holy Co-Prosperity Sphere— a prosperity
which was built by the Australians to trinity of sun, God, and coconut. enforced under penalty of islanders’
service Panguna. Not coincidentally, Engelhardt demanded his acolytes re- rape, torture, or beheading. U.S. troops
it was also the gateway to a sprawling main unclothed, and he ate only the landed on Bougainville a year later
“no-go zone” established by Bougain- palm-proffered fruit. (He was report- and constructed a Quonset-hut and

46 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

corrugated-metal city that soon housed dence of a large deposit containing siz- counting for nearly half of Papua New
some seventy thousand GIs, including able quantities of porphyry copper, gold, Guinea’s exports. Conzinc Riotinto
a thirty-year- old Navy lieutenant and silver. By 1972, Bougainville Copper connected it to Arawa via a vertigi-
named Richard Nixon. The Ameri- Limited (BCL), a subsidiary of the con- nous, sixteen-mile road and filled the
cans and Japanese proceeded to bomb glomerate Conzinc Riotinto of Australia town with rows of whitewashed, two-
each other and the island as Bougain- Limited (later simply Rio Tinto Lim- story apartment blocks the likes of
villeans looked on, powerless. As ited), had dug one of the largest man- which Bougainvilleans had never
much as a quarter of the population made holes on earth—wide enough to seen. Aussie roughnecks and their
was killed. After Japan surrendered, fit the span of the Golden Gate Bridge families arrived en masse, bringing
Australia resumed control. twice over, and deep enough for more beer, pies, and music. Arawa was an
In 1961, a colonial geologist named than five Statues of Liberty to be stacked unlikely boomtown.
Jack Errol Thompson visited a site in on top of one another. Those days are long gone. Visitors
central Bougainville, near the sacred The Panguna mine soon became to Arawa today are greeted by great
mountain of Panguna, and found evi- one of the world’s most profitable, ac- braids of rusted pipelines that encircle

LETTER FROM BOUGAINVILLE 47

the city, ducking belowground and rocks into the Pacific Ocean. “Money to sow chaos in Bougainville. He was
rising above like huge, mechanical is just a belief system.” quiet but persuasive, writes the anthro-
boas. Smokestacks and substations “If HM delivers on what he says,” he pologist John Cox, in possession of “a
have been overtaken by ferns and added, “everyone will run to him.” kind of anticharismatic charisma.” Ta-
creepers. It reminded me of Cher- When will he do that? I asked. Karrenna nis encountered his old friend Mu-
nobyl. His Majesty, our driver told me, ignored my question. The morning singku again in 1986, at university in
as we approached the city, “helps heat was stupefying. We walked back Papua New Guinea’s second-largest
many people.” Bougainvilleans were to my guesthouse, and I packed my city, Lae. Musingku was studying ar-
suffering from a cost-of-living crisis, things. The Land Cruiser would de- chitecture, attending classes in full
and the ABG “doesn’t have enough part at midday, head into the moun- army uniform, and he ran distance
money even for the roads.” Just then, tains and the no-go zone, and deliver races holding a wooden stick as if it
the Land Cruiser jolted across the us to Tonu. were a rifle. “It was not strange to me,”
broken tarmac. He smirked at his own Tanis told me. “It was just a continua-

H
good timing. Bougainville, he said, “is is Majesty was born in 1964, tion of his childhood fantasies.”
a wrong-way place.” far from Arawa, in a village Musingku says his father planted in
We arrived at Arawa at dusk, an in southern Bougainville. He him the idea to found an alternative
orange sun disappearing beneath the says he is the last of eight children— banking system “with very high inter-
ridge of a mountain range. Families in fact, he claims to be “the lastborn ests.” He claims to have traveled across
scurried home from school and work, of the lastborn of the lastborn” going Papua New Guinea, then to Australia
and plumes of woodsmoke filled the back no fewer than fourteen genera- and the United States, in search of
air. Karrenna, who grew up in Arawa, tions. But the truth is unclear. What’s suitable business models. Somewhere
was keen to see his folks. I was during this period, God appeared to
grateful to be alone. We agreed to him. “You are the answer,” the Lord
meet the next day for an early walk told Musingku. “You are the solu-
and parted ways. I checked into a NOAH MUSINGKU tion.” And so Musingku returned to
guesthouse and ordered fish. They WAS QUIET BUT PERSUASIVE, Port Moresby.
didn’t serve coconuts. IN POSSESSION OF “A KIND OF Bougainville was, by this point,
Arawa’s painted homes and gar- mired in conflict. In 1975, as Papua
dens shimmered in the light of ANTICHARISMATIC CHARISMA” New Guinea prepared for indepen-
dawn. But night had obscured its dence from Australia, Bougainville
many scars, from pocked streets to declared itself the Republic of the
improvised war machines that looked certain is that, as a young boy, he North Solomons, but the next year
like armored tractors and sat rusting in joined the island’s Pentecostal move- settled for increased autonomy and
bushes and culverts. The city’s focal ment, a fundamentalist faith that abandoned the name. Meanwhile,
point is still a three-story husk nick- put as much emphasis on financial Francis Ona, aged twenty-three, joined
named the White House, which Papua reward as on liberation from the daily BCL as a surveyor before switching to
New Guinea Defense Force soldiers trials of life. Musingku was a “myste- driving dump trucks. But over the
allegedly converted from an adminis- rious kind of student,” James Tanis, a years, Panguna had swallowed Ona’s
trative center into a torture and execu- schoolmate of his and future ABG home village of Guava, and he dis-
tion chamber during the war. Karrenna president, told me. He’d reveled in trusted BCL. He took on night shifts
guided me around town, pointing out rags-to-riches tales about “a beggar as a cleaner, which gave him access to
streets where major battles had been who became a millionaire.” company files, which he photocopied.
fought. He was thirty-four, and his When Musingku was young, Tanis The files confirmed that the company
memories of the Crisis, as it is known, recalls, he boasted that his father had was lowballing landowners; soon, Ona
were vague. But envisioning the priva- spied for the Japanese during World began to spread the word, including
tion that followed, with Panguna shut War II, and that he had taught his son the extent of Panguna’s ecological de-
down, requires little imagination. We to read palms. “He would grab us,” struction. In 1988, BCL commissioned
passed a row of apartments that once Tanis said, “and tell us we were bad . . . an environmental inquiry, but Ona,
housed BCL’s foreign staff and were he would make us feel guilty.” Mu- puckish and with a talent for political
now gutted and inhabited by squatters. singku once told Tanis he could mix theater, stormed out, declaring it a
Beside them was a modest globe limestone and herbs into an invisibility sham. He demanded ten billion kina
erected as a peace memorial but which potion. When the boys drank the po- in damages, local ownership, and con-
had long since been stripped down to tion but got caught anyway for stealing sultation on all future projects in the
its wire frame. Karrenna pointed out equipment from a school lab, Mu- region. “Land to us is our lifeline and
homes whose owners, he claimed, had singku complained that they should we cannot be separated from it,” he
invested in U-Vistract: “He’s invested, have stirred in some crow’s feathers. wrote. “We are fighting to save our
they’ve invested, this one has in- Musingku is thought to have served land from foreign exploitation.”
vested,” and so on. Investors are still briefly in the Papua New Guinea De- Not long afterward, local men used
expecting payouts. The poverty is the fense Force after graduating from high stolen dynamite to blow up transmis-
ABG’s fault, he told me, as we hurled school; some suspect he was groomed sion pylons in the pit of the mine. Re-

48 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

gional fighters created the Bougain- along; he just never had the tools to
ville Revolutionary Army, or BRA, make full use of them. “In some ways
with Ona as its commander in chief. the war’s been good to us,” the photo-
Papua New Guinea sent in police of- journalist Ben Bohane recalls Ona
ficers at what it claimed was BCL’s telling him. “We’ve gone back to our
behest, but the sabotage continued. customary ways. There’s no more meat
Moresby dispatched the Papua New pies and beer . . . we don’t need money.”
Guinea Defense Force, which burned The BRA’s homemade guns weren’t
homes and fired on civilians from very accurate, but they didn’t have to
Australian-made helicopters that had be. Guerrillas ambushed enemies, one
been repurposed as gunships. In 1989, former rebel told me, and finished
Panguna shuttered, and its rough- them off with axes or knives before
necks fled from Arawa. “We are the stealing their weapons. He added that
‘sacrificial lamb’ for the few capitalists he’d salvaged U.S.-made rifles, machine
whose hunger for wealth is quenchless guns, and an M79 grenade launcher
and unceasing,” read a November from just a single raid on Buka.
1989 communiqué by Ona. The Cri- In 1997, Papua New Guinea’s prime
sis had begun. minister, Julius Chan, secretly hired a
In 1990, Papua New Guinea block- group of South African mercenaries to
aded the islands with gunboats, but storm Bougainville in a desperate bid
the BRA’s numbers swelled nonethe- to win the war. The deal leaked. New
less. They squared off against a mod- Guineans rioted in protest, and
ern, Western-backed military armed PNGDF troops took the mercenaries
with little but slingshots and weapons hostage, forcing Chan’s resignation.
left behind by the Japanese. After Eight previous peace efforts had failed,
centuries, they’d finally had a chance but the ninth, held at a military camp
to defend their home, fighting primar- near Christchurch, New Zealand, was
ily, Ona told a documentarian, “for successful, thanks to a tarout, or “vom-
man and his culture . . . land and iting session,” that might be under-
environment”—and independence. stood today as an extreme form of
The blockade took a grim toll on radical honesty. These discussions
Bougainville. Thousands died from paved the way for the signing of the
lack of medicine, as the occupying Bougainville Peace Agreement in
force herded many people into make- 2001, in which Papua New Guinea
shift “care centers,” where rights promised to enact in Bougainville,
groups recorded revenge attacks and among other things, a disposal of
“disappearances.” Fuel reserves ran weapons, the formation of the ABG,
low. The rebels who’d worked at and within fifteen years of that forma-
Panguna— miners, turners, fitters, tion, the right for islanders to vote in
forgers, joiners, plumbers, painters, an independence referendum. But by
smelters, glaziers— scavenged pipes then, nearly a tenth of Bougainville’s
and vehicle parts and refashioned population had been killed, and Ona
them into more than fifty hydroelec- had refused to take part in the peace
tric generators. They also made weap- talks. “He’d already declared indepen-
ons from the mine’s twisted wreckage. dence,” Shane McLeod, an Australian
But the most extraordinary aspect reporter who covered Ona, told me.
of the BRA’s resistance was the use it “He didn’t really need to go through
made of Bougainville’s erstwhile staple the hoops of this crummy Bougainville
crop: the coconut. Islanders ate its peace process.”
flesh, drank its milk, and sealed their Ona sealed himself and several for-
wounds with its leaves. They wove it mer BRA men inside a no-go zone
into baskets and homes, burned it to surrounding Panguna, rebranding
ward off mosquitoes, and even made themselves the Me’ekamui Defense
music from the husks. They cooked Force, or MDF, using a local word
with it and cleaned their guns with its meaning “Holy Island.” People flocked
oil, boiled it into soap, and when they to the hero’s new enclave. But he
fermented and cooked it, they distilled needed money. Fortunately, he’d just
a fuel that yielded double the mileage met a Bougainvillean man in Moresby
of regular diesel. August Engelhardt who was about to make more than
had been right about coconuts all anybody there could imagine.

LETTER FROM BOUGAINVILLE 49

 The next time that James Tanis have paraded with American flags Ona had broken “the covenant he
heard Noah Musingku’s name was in and bamboo “rifles” since the Second signed with God and his people,”
1997, when Bougainville leaders trav- World War. Others venerate the late one former BRA soldier told me. So
eled to Moresby during the peace talks. Prince Philip of Britain.) when, at a bizarre coronation cere-
What was the old trickster up to this For U-Vistract, Musingku courted mony near Guava, on a drizzly morn-
time? Tanis wondered—had he turned foreign investors, including the archi- ing in May 2004, Musingku placed a
lead into gold, or finally perfected his tects of similar frauds elsewhere. Re- crown of cowries upon Ona’s head
invisibility potion? Apparently not. ports circulated of his lavish spending and declared him “King Francis
Instead, a friend told Tanis, Musingku on private jets and events. Senior po- Dominic Dateransy Domanaa, head
had come up with “a clever way of litical figures in Papua New Guinea, of state of the Royal Kingdom of
making people rich.” the Solomon Islands, and Fiji were Me’ekamui,” even a onetime leader
believed to have invested. Some of in Ona’s militia called it “bullshit.”

Y
ears before, Musingku and his U-Vistract’s early investors saw returns, Bougainville’s revolutionary hero,
brother had devised a scheme but the vast majority never did. Within stripped to the waist, looked less like
they called the Pei Mure As- a couple of years, Papua New Guinea, a monarch than a tired, vulnerable
sociation, spinning a wild, picaresque Australia, and the World Bank moved old man standing in the rain, sur-
tale that might have been torn from to freeze U-Vistract’s assets, which rounded by con men.
the diaries of one of Bougainville’s were estimated at almost a quarter of Me’ekamui and Papaala would be
early European interlopers. Pei Mure— a billion dollars. Musingku responded “twin kingdoms,” Mu sing ku an-
“the law of King Pei”—had been forged by folding the scheme into his bogus nounced, and would open a new Cen-
at an ancient, Edenic kingdom tral Bank of Me’ekamui. He moved
called Papaala, whence he claimed the U-Vistract headquarters to Tonu,
the island’s first ancestors had come. where unpaid “helpers” brought him
A conclave of chiefs had revived the WHAT WAS THE OLD TRICKSTER food, built homes, or did yard work.
law in 1922, Mu singku said, and UP TO THIS TIME? HAD HE TURNED The whole thing was a farce—but
added plans to implement a new LEAD INTO GOLD, PERFECTED still it threatened the legitimacy of
world banking system. the ABG. In April 2005, Musingku
Musingku then tried, and failed, HIS INVISIBILITY POTION? hired five Fijian mercenaries to pro-
to insinuate himself into the Bou- tect him, and said that eight hun-
gainville peace process, offering dred more were on their way. “God
leaders a ten-step plan, the last step of Kingdom of Papaala, crowning himself has bigger plans for Bougainville and
which was to pay him and his brother King David Peii II. (Musingku claims the region,” he wrote, “and no one can
more than a million dollars. While the that Papaala’s first king, David Peii, change or stop it from happening re-
scheme proved unsuccessful, it won “used to rule the world.”) U-Vistract’s gardless of his education, position,
Musingku a meeting with Francis Ona missives blamed Papua New Guinea’s power, or authority.” It looked to any-
that would prove fateful. Then Mu- poor economy on the country’s godless- body outside the no-go zone as if Ona
singku aimed higher. ness, and in 2001, a promoter told an- and Musingku were preparing to take
In 1997, a financial crisis rocked gry investors at a U-Vistract event that Bougainville by force. Their bizarre
Asia and destabilized the Papua New only born-again Christians would re- partnership “could utterly destroy the
Guinean economy. Schemes with ceive payouts, a provision that would fragile social fabric of PNG,” read a
names like Bonanza, Windfall, Gold preclude adulterers, gamblers, and 2004 editorial in The National. “We
Money, and Money Rain proliferated smokers. The payments would come call upon the Government to take im-
across the nation, promising investors “soon,” the promoter vowed—but they mediate action to kill-off this pyramid
fantastical returns. U-Vistract, which would be made according to “God’s menace once and for all.”
promised up to 100 percent returns will and timing.” Then, late that July, Ona died at
per month, was different. Musingku As authorities liquidated U-Vistract’s the age of fifty-two. Some suspected
positioned himself as a man of deep accounts, Musingku fled to the Solo- foul play. Mu sing ku declared that
faith, preaching a prosperity gospel mon Islands. But in 2003, under legal Ona had recently granted him con-
that resonated with people crawling pressure, he returned to Bougainville, trol of Me’ekamui, and he quickly
from war to deprivation. He sermon- where he hooked up with his old ac- conscripted more than two hundred
ized to U-Vistract investors for hours, quaintance Francis Ona. The war people as security personnel, training
and demanded their unalloyed loy- hero had changed. He now claimed them at Tonu under the Fijians. Mu-
alty; he created a government, renam- that he could cure cancer, AIDS, and singku quickly grew into the role of
ing months of the year for gemstones, other illnesses, and traveled to Arawa mad king, spending entire days in his
a move that drew comparisons to and Buka on the bed of a truck, tell- office hammering away at a laptop or
the cargo cults prevalent across the ing crowds that he was Bougainville’s talking on a satellite phone. His
Pacific. (Inhabitants of the nearby king. More ominously for his follow- subjects lived by a strict regimen of
Vanuatuan island of Tanna, for ex- ers, Ona shaved off the Garibaldi fasting, church, and military drills.
ample, worship an apocr y phal beard that had been the emblem of Mu singku would emerge only if ac-
U.S. soldier named John Frum, and his arcadian struggle. companied by security, his helpers

50 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

sweeping the ground before him. He
would fast for long periods and, when
the suffering that his people had en-
dured in the war. ABG leaders de-
No
he did eat, allowed only close family
members to prepare his meals. He re-
portedly believed in sorcery, like
nied they’d sanctioned the raid but
had already lost credibility with the
public. They had come for the king
wrapping
many Bougainvilleans. (He has de- and missed. Worse yet, they had cre-
nied this, writing: “My Spiritual
Power is too high for it. Sorcery only
catches those who operate at its level
ated a living martyr, a man con-
vinced it was God’s plan for him to
revive U-Vistract and lead Bougain-
paper
of power.”)
Musingku spoke to his followers via
a weekly paper called the Papala
ville to independence. He hasn’t left
Tonu since. required.
T
Chronicles. He inveighed against a he skies above Arawa darkened
“conventional international” finance as we left town, and by the time
system like those of we reached a roadblock at the
border of the no-go zone a half hour
the Commonwealth of England, the later, rain was falling in ropes. Be-
United Nations, the Colonial Masters, neath a tarp on the side of the road, I
the G7, G8, G10, the Rothschilds, the
Rockefellers, illuminati, the world reli-
paid sentries three hundred kina, or
gions, the Moslems, Hindus, the con- around eighty dollars, for a Papaalan
ventional Christian churches, you “visa”; it resembled a dry-cleaning
name it. ticket. We trundled over the moun-
tain ridge soon after, the rains subsid-
He didn’t much care if outsiders ing as we descended along a gravel
thought him a fraud, either. “Bill Gates track into Panguna. It is an eerie place.
earns money,” he allegedly told a Solo- Vast factories and processing plants
mon Islands minister. “I create money.” slumped into the earth, stripped bare
In May 2006, the local police clashed like knotted jungle gyms. The pit itself
with members of the Me’ekamui De-
fense Force and two of Mu singku’s
extended almost to the horizon, its
stepped ramparts sinking below the Give the
Fijians. The rebels reportedly stabbed earth like an upturned pyramid.
a policeman and torched three police
stations, and authorities captured two
Panguna is believed to still possess
a bounty of some sixty billion dol-
perfect gift,
of Musingku’s lieutenants as they at-
tempted to flee. “This is the beginning
lars’ worth of minerals. It could be a
key instrument in someday securing Adopt-A-
of more arrests to come to make sure the finances of a Bougainvillean
at the end of the day we totally get
U-Vistract out of Bougainville,” said
state. But since it would cost a pro-
jected six billion dollars to resume
Manatee®
ABG leader Joseph Kabui. Then, one extracting the mine’s estimated
November morning at around four 5.3 billion tons of copper ore, its pri-
o’clock, one of the Fijians, a former mary yield today is gold, which is
U.N. peacekeeper named Maloni panhandled by an estimated three to
Namoli, heard a dog bark around four thousand people, some of whom
Tonu’s King Square. Moments later, a have built shanties in the rubble and,
column of ex-BRA combatants and unlicensed, sell their finds to the
two police officers burst into the vil- many would-be Fitzcarraldos who
lage and fired on Mu singku’s royal drink the bars of Buka and Port Mo-
guards. Amid the ensuing raid, the resby dry. The local Jaba River still
attackers reportedly killed four men runs a shrill, toxic blue, and some lo-
and lost one of their own. Musingku cals have to walk hours for fresh wa-
tried to escape, but an M16 round tore ter. Only in 2021 did Rio Tinto agree
through his jaw, spraying blood all to undertake a “legacy impact assess-
over the floor of his royal office. ment” of the mine’s environmental
According to Namoli, he grabbed destruction, an effort many Bougain-
the wounded king and sped into the villeans say is an empty gesture. “At
surrounding jungle. He had feared the end of the day, it’s corporate pol-
the worst, but Musingku survived— itics,” Theonila Roka Matbob, an 1-800-432-5646
and after around a month in hiding, ABG minister from the area, told savethemanatee.org
he returned to his bamboo casbah, me. “This is just another report—it’s Photo © David Schrichte
his battle scar serving as a symbol of not going to do anything.”

LETTER FROM BOUGAINVILLE 51

 Beyond the mine, the road disap- He meant the leaders of Papua New read John Perkins’s Confessions of an
peared altogether, and we spent the Guinea. In 2019, Bougainville held a Economic Hit Man, and added that
remaining four or so hours crawling referendum in which nearly 98 percent the mainstream media was all lies. I
through wet, cleft tongues of mud. It of voters chose independence. But attempted to make a case for it, but it
was dark when we rolled into a tiny Moresby has drawn the ABG into a was pointless: to him, the enterprise—
village that housed around fifty people legal battle since then, threatening and myself, as its representative—was
in a dozen thatch residences. My audi- not to ratify the poll’s results. The freighted with centuries of colonial-
ence with His Majesty would have to stalemate plays into the hands of the ism and bloodshed. And perhaps we
wait until tomorrow. Our accommoda- “U-Vistract faction,” as politicians were. I wondered again why he’d
tion for the meantime was a dilapidated have called Musingku’s rogue king- agreed to bring me here.
guesthouse run by Philip Mapah, a gray- dom. In 2009, Musingku minted his Karrenna told me that we would be
haired man with jaundiced eyes who own Bougainville kina (BVK) to com- summoned to Papaala at any moment,
had been U-Vistract’s long-serving fi- pete with the official currency, the but that HM had “his own priorities.”
nance minister, and his wife, who went Papua New Guinea kina (PGK), be- I told him that, as I’d traveled more
only by “Missus.” The storm returned as lieving that whoever controls the cur- than three days to meet him, I hoped
Karrenna and I ate chicken and rice rency controls the islands. He should I’d be one of them. He gave me a non-
in his halogen-lit living room, their also pay back his investors, I suggested. committal nod. Lunch came and
cats mewing and chasing tarantulas Mapah chimed in. “HM will come went. Karrenna warned me not to
down the hall. In Mapah’s home interview the villagers, who were
was the Bougainvillean flag that wary of foreigners, and left to charge
flies from almost every building on his phone. By three o’clock, when
the islands, on which a red and I REREAD MY NOTES AND storm clouds drew near, he still
white upe— the phallic, wound- SMOKED CIGARETTES, BUT I hadn’t returned. Missus counted
straw headdress that Bougainvillean COULDN’T SHAKE THE FEELING I’D coins in the dining room. I reread
boys wear to mark their passage into my notes and smoked cigarettes, but
manhood—is circumscribed within BEEN FOOLISH TO COME AT ALL I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d been
a bed of ocean blue. Here it hung foolish to come at all. Musingku
beside the flags of Papua New was a con man and a cult leader
Guinea and the Solomon Islands and good,” he said, raising his eyebrows who had no real incentive to speak
a photo of Queen Elizabeth II. These emphatically, a local tic. I began to ask with me. Mapah was one of his most
were strange bedfellows in the only another question, but he cut me off. trusted followers. I was trapped in a
lodging in a secessionist kingdom, I “Yes,” he reiterated. The eyebrows re- village miles from anywhere else.
told Karrenna. He seemed upset. “Me mained motionless. “He’ll come good.” Karrenna told me months ago that I’d
personally, I don’t like the Papua New It was late, and the guesthouse had have to invest in U-Vistract before
Guinea flag. I really hate it,” he said. no cell service. I asked Karrenna, who meeting the king, and I was now in a
Then, pointing to the queen, he added, had had enough of my inquiries for the pretty bad negotiating position.
“Some people are big on symbols. day, whether there was a way to con- Surely—surely—I was at best a mark
Some people, they just . . . ” He tailed tact my family. There was, he replied— in his eyes.
off, taking another bite of his food. but the only Wi-Fi belonged, of course, Around four o’clock, Karrenna re-
“We have our own flag,” he said after a to HM. We traipsed via flashlight to a turned and told me that we should
while. “Maybe you will see it up there.” hut on the edge of Tonu where a half have sent a slip of paper with Mapah,
“Up there” meant the king’s resi- dozen men stood, lit only by the glow explaining the purpose of my visit to
dence, about a twenty-minute walk of their phones. When the village’s HM. I sulked. “You know,” he
from the guesthouse. Rumor suggests generators howled to life, at 6 pm, two clucked, “people have been waiting
there was friction when a notorious networks appeared on my screen: twenty years, not just a few hours.”
scam artist and his cabal of armed ex- PEII1 and PEII2. Everyone bowed their Nonetheless, he added, we should
combatants showed up in Tonu almost heads and scrolled. Noah Musingku head down to the king’s headquar-
two decades ago. Thanks in part to may well be a financial genius with ters and see if we could get lucky. I
Mu singku’s largesse, however— and magic powers, but in Tonu his greatest threw on a shirt and had sweat
perhaps the realization that they were gift may be wireless internet. through it by the time we reached a
completely powerless—the locals fell roadblock beside a sign announcing

I
in line. According to Karrenna and rose early the following morn- the border of tonu city; papaala
Mapah, the villagers all invested in ing. Mapah left for Tonu, a tat- meekamui; twin kingdom; u vis-
U-Vistract. Was this really the king- tered satchel tucked under his tract protectorate; ophir peace
dom Francis Ona had envisaged? arm like a Willy Loman of the tropics. zone . (Ophir is another name for
Again Karrenna retorted defensively: Karrenna showed me YouTube videos Bougainville.) A wiry man of about
Ona “put everything in HM’s name by anti-Western influencers and a late sixty, wearing dark fatigues, a wide-
before he died.” The ABG, he contin- Bulgarian mystic named Baba Vanga, brimmed hat, and an MDF armband,
ued, “are puppets. If you follow the who had predicted a great economic beckoned me into the compound.
money, who’s at the top?” shift from the West. He told me to We walked past a couple thatch huts

52 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

to the immaculately mowed King strike me. I backtracked, seeing that
Square. Skirting the square’s bamboo in Karrenna’s eyes I had finally be-
fence, we passed the squat, olive- come the duplicitous foreign hack
painted headquarters of the “Central bent on bad-mouthing HM that he’d
Bank of Bougainville” (closed) before suspected I was all along. Ten min-
reaching a sky-blue chapel, twelve utes passed before I was saved by the
pews deep and bathed in late-day bearded man and his clipboard. It
sunlight that crept through an upe- was Maloni Namoli, the Fijian sol-
shaped cutout in the rear wall. In dier who’d arrived in Tonu almost
front hung a banner with a para- two decades before and helped save
phrased extract from Philippians 2: Musingku’s life. He told us that HM
was ready, and that I’d have thirty
u-vistract vision minutes with him. It was dark now,
and bugs tangoed in the halogen
every knee shall bow and every light of a small hut tucked behind a
tongue shall confess that the word chain-link fence. Namoli escorted
of god is the lord of lords king of me through. I signed a guest book,
kings and emperor of emperors removed my shoes, and stepped into
the king’s office.
Within moments, a stranger in- I had spent the past few months
troduced himself as a Papaala gov- watching so many videos of Noah
ernment minister. He was tall and Musingku, reading about him, hear-
broad, with a kind smile. “All of us ing of him from others, that when I
are going to pray,” he said. “Then finally entered the citadel of the King-
we can release you.” I hadn’t quite dom of Papaala and shook the hand
realized until that moment that I of the short, smiling man before me,
had been a captive. A larger man I was stunned into silence. The
with a thick beard paced back and room was about the size of a studio
forth outside the church. The old, apartment. Its walls were decorated
thin soldier and the minister then with woven coconut leaves, canes,
placed their hands on my shoulders fans, and other traditional items.
and petitioned the Almighty in a Mu sing ku’s Acer laptop sat at the
combination of English, pidgin, and center of his desk, which was
tongues, marking my purification crowded with strange ornaments
with a growled, guttural Amen. and gewgaws: potted plants; per-
Karrenna played soccer with a cou- fume jars; plastic bottles filled with
ple other guys in King Square—he scented oil; business cards; maps;
didn’t play like somebody a profes- loudspeakers; a globe; several smart-
sional would scout. phones and tablets; towers of well-
It was now five-thirty, and the sun thumbed paperwork; and stacks of
was setting. The king was ready for illegal blue, green, and purple Bou-
me. Musingku, however, would not gainvillean kina notes. The king’s
check my credentials until the inter- throne was draped in a purple satin
net came on at six. I had submitted throw. Behind him was a plastic
them weeks ago, I told Karrenna, los- banner in blue and green that read,
ing patience. Didn’t he see through in what looked like Comic Sans, hm
all this? I asked him, unwisely. Had king david peii ii government of
he himself invested in U-Vistract? bougainville island. Below it was
“I’m not poor,” he snapped back. “I the Papaalan flag, a more stylized
can eat.” All well and good, I replied, version of the Bougainvillean one,
but it’s pretty rough to rob some- with colored rings and a rainbow
body’s home and then tell them they and stars, and a clip-art-style upe.
should feel lucky to have food. He The king smiled as I scanned the
bristled. “You cannot use that word,” room in near disbelief.
he said. “I’m gonna let these guys And here was Musingku himself.
know you said that. I think you A little tighter in the belt than he
wasted your time coming here. The was in the videos I’d played on re-
king is busy. So I think it’s bad luck, peat, his eyes were still wide and
the wrong timing.” His mouth curled unyielding, half hidden beneath
into a snarl. I thought he might cowries that hung like bangs from a

LETTER FROM BOUGAINVILLE 53

 beaded crown that read king along Namoli, who had joined us, nod-
the band and clacked quietly as he ded approvingly. Karrenna hitched
spoke. He smiled giddily the entire his phone to a tripod and filmed
time and wore the red coat of an the scene. “Money answers all
eighteenth-century British soldier, things,” he chirped. It was the hap-
with a gold aiguillette and a powder- piest he’d looked the entire trip. I
blue sash. motioned to the piles of Bougain-
He looked a little like a combina- villean kina: people had told me
tion of Rick James and Adam Ant. that Mu sing ku was stealing gold
Why the red coat? “Every country is from Panguna, I said. “We don’t
ruled by someone,” Mu singku told need to dig it up,” he replied. Bou-
me. “We talk about a kingdom. A gainville itself is the reserve. “We
kingdom encompasses everybody— don’t need to disturb it.”
all religions are part of the king-

I
dom, whether you are Muslim or asked Musingku whether he
Christian or Hindu.” A lot of an- feared a repeat of the 2006 at-
swers went this way— wordy, with tack. He didn’t. “Everyone just
references to history and religion wants payouts,” he told me. “When
“America’s most that might better have been summed
up with a shrug. How, I asked him,
they get payouts, they will be united.”
Nonetheless, he added, he would “not
interesting did Papaala fit into Bougainville’s
independence movement?
surrender” his claim to the islands,
arguing that they should break the
magazine.” “Everyone in Bougainville is fight-
ing for independence—we’ve been
control of a global “serpentine sys-
tem.” Musingku spoke in platitudes
— THE NEW YORK TIMES fighting for it for the past forty- and riddles so plainly preposterous
eight years,” he said. “But under the they were almost cleansed of mean-
ABG it’s independence. Under ing. I suppose this is part of the con;
Me’ekamui it’s sovereignty. There’s a to pour on such grandiloquence that
big difference between independence you convince everybody you’re a sa-
and sovereignty. Independence: some- vant. Like a televangelist, say. Affin-
body grants it to you. Sovereignty is ity fraud, experts call it: appealing to
by declaration—you proclaim it, and the commonality of religion, ethnic-
you make it work. Just like the ity, or culture to squeeze money out of
U.S. became independent by its own a huge number of people. Bernie
declaration. England did not grant it Madoff did it. Noah Musingku does
to the U.S. Sovereignty is under it, too—and he does it well.
God Almighty. Independence is at I didn’t say any of this, of course.
the U.N.” Karrenna signaled that it was time to
The ABG’s protracted negotia- wrap things up. “There’s so much more
tions with Papua New Guinea were I’d like to ask you,” I said to Musingku,
tantamount to litigating the terms of assuming we’d never speak again. “Is
Bougainvilleans’ serfdom; no wonder there any way I can contact you after
Francis Ona had rejected them out- today?” Musingku produced a pen and
right. Mu singku described his rela- paper. “Of course,” he told me, scrib-
tionship with Ona as “connecting bling down a number. “Here’s my
the software and hardware”— the WhatsApp.” I shook the hermit king’s
Subscribe now and get a year hardware of Ona’s no-go zone and hand and left.
of Harper’s Magazine in the software of U-Vistract’s accounts. Namoli escorted us back beyond
He told me that U-Vistract had the fence to King Square. He referred
print and online, including
930,000 clients until Papua New to his time as a U.N. peacekeeper—
174 years of archives Guinea shut it down. Nonetheless, deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran,
to explore. “everyone invested” since then, he Timor-Leste— and claimed he was
said, chuckling. “Even the ABG the only Fijian to remain in Tonu.
SIGN UP ONLINE AT president invested.” (A spokesperson “I told my comrades, ‘You can go,’ ”
HARPERS.ORG/TIMES denied this.) Claims that U-Vistract he said, running his fingers through
was a Ponzi scheme or a cult, he told his thick gray beard, “ ‘but let me
me, were simply born of ignorance. fulfill my contract.’ ” He meant his
“It’s ready for me to just touch the U-Vistract contract. “There were so
trigger,” he said. “When we kick off, many investors in Fiji,” he added,
nothing will stop us.” “and I invested a lot of money for

54 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

them.” He told me that the Kingdom the throes of nationalistic fervor, but his brothers and the brothers’ wives
of Papaala was well armed and ready it was a sleepy place, and few people and people who surrounded that king
to defend herself: Namoli even had a wanted to discuss politics. will slowly put him out.”
spy network across Bougainville. Ishmael Toroama, who had been Tanis wasn’t so sure. He’d never
When a PNG official arrives in Buka, one of Francis Ona’s military com- come across anybody who was “dead
he told me, “we know exactly where manders, became the ABG’s president against” the king, he said. “Noah
they are.” in 2020 pledging to deliver indepen- Musingku did not hold them at gun-
That evening at Mapah’s guest- dence and to vanquish corruption. point and take their money; they in-
house, Karrenna and I talked about More recently he has sought to reopen vested because of their own greed.”
soccer, mostly. He seemed glad that Panguna. Rio Tinto divested from the Why hadn’t one of U-Vistract’s
Mu sing ku had deflected my feeble mine in 2016, reportedly leaving an conned investors tried to kill him? I
mainstream-media attempts to trip Arabian-horse breeder, a former Aus- asked. People have died in Bougain-
him up. The next morning we headed tralian government minister, and an ville for far less.
back to Arawa. In the Land Cruiser I American investment banker and “Killing him will shut the door that
sat next to a middle-aged man named novelist as its prospective saviors. they ever get paid,” said Tanis. “Keep-
Thomas, who claimed he worked for Many Bougainvilleans fear that Pan- ing him alive continues to keep the
the king, processing spreadsheets of guna’s revival could rip open the cul- hope alive.”
investments in U-Vistract. He was con- tural wounds that had precipitated the

A
cerned that Musingku hadn’t linked Crisis. But an independent Bougain- fter I left Bougainville, I con-
the system to Visa or Mastercard, villean government would require an tinued my conversations with
mea ning t hat Bougainvillea n s estimated quarter billion dollars to Musingku. He impressed upon
couldn’t withdraw their funds. He function, a sum nothing except the me his belief that he wasn’t a danger
added, exasperated, that the king mine could come close to matching. to the ABG or Bougainville, and that
had stolen gold. “Francis Ona gave Bougainville has become an un- everyone should work together—
him gold in two-hundred-liter drums,” likely pawn in the struggle between that U-Vistract would be the software
he said. “About four drums. Then he Washington and Beijing for hege- to Papaala’s hardware, as it were. In
smuggled it overseas to Australia . . . mony in the Pacific. Papaala and January, a U-Vistract source leaked to
he’s a bloody fucking millionaire, the ABG “have to resolve and find me a letter from Musingku to the ABG
Noah Musingku.” a compromise,” Aloysius Laukai, that proved he’d kept at his scam. “I
It was hot when we reached the no- the manager of a local radio sta- have heard that there are outstanding
go-zone checkpoint, where I sat with tion, told me. Otherwise, Bougain- bills and invoices owed by the ABG to
its guard, a bald, sixty-year-old man in ville could be “like North and our lovely citizens, service providers,
wraparound sunglasses who intro- South Korea.” James Tanis, too, frets business houses, institutions, schools,
duced himself as Alex. He had worked that Musingku could join a growing hospitals, etc,” Musingku wrote in the
the roadblock for decades—first for a archipelago of non- state actors, missive, “dating back to many years and
limestone firm, then for Francis Ona, “like Houthis and Hamas . . . I’m worth many millions.”
and today for Musingku. He’d invested not saying he’s dangerous now, but
in U-Vistract “when it started,” he I’m worried about the potential. Be- Please, compile and send to my
said. “Most of us who work here are cause he has access to weapons. Crown Administration a complete
investors.” He has eight kids. Mu- What if he decides to become a list of their names, companies, na-
singku hasn’t paid him a kina in years. proxy for Iran? This man is about ture of payment and the amounts
“But I still stay,” he said. “Because I creating an alternative system to owed. My office will immediately in-
struct the Governor of CBOB (Cen-
believe we will come out in the end. If the Western one. So in terms of tral Bank of Bougainville) to release
we move out without seeing what we doctrine and ideology, he’s already the needed funds as a priority. Note
fought for . . . ” He trailed off, thumb- where the Iranians are.” that all cheques, bank drafts & in-
ing the visa I’d paid for a couple days It seemed to me that the ABG was struments from our sovereign banks
earlier before clearing his throat. “I caught in a double bind: try to liqui- are denominated in BVK, not in
don’t have any doubts.” date Musingku again, and risk Papua PGK. Also, note that although PNG
New Guinea’s insisting that Bougain- banks ceased dealing with cheques at

K
arrenna and I parted the next ville isn’t ready for statehood; leave the end of December 2023 under
day, and I returned up the him untouched, and he just might IMF instructions, our sovereign
coast to Buka. The indepen- contrive another scam or foment a banks are not affected in any way. I
now look forward to your prompt re-
dence process was faltering. That violent secessionist movement. “To sponse so we can together address
week, Papua New Guinea had de- suggest that probably we’ll go and and resolve the manifold cries, wor-
clared that the 2019 referendum was smoke him out,” Ezekiel Masatt, the ries, sufferings and lamentation of
nonbinding, prompting anger among ABG’s attorney general, told me, our people soonest.
ABG officials. (This September, both “that’s not our intention. He’s a Bou-
parties agreed to fresh negotiations gainvillean. But we say his time will Yours Sincerely,
that would again be mediated by New be up shortly. This scheme that he
Zealand.) I expected to find a town in operates will die a natural death. All HM King david peii upeii 2nd Q

LETTER FROM BOUGAINVILLE 55

 NEW FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS

The Earth That City of Wood Taking the Land to The Burning Plain
Modernism Built San Francisco and the Make the City BY JUAN RULFO
TRANSLATED BY
Empire and the Rise of Architecture of the Redwood A Bicoastal History of DOUGLAS J.
Planetary Design Lumber Industry North America WEATHERFORD
BY KENNY CUPERS BY JAMES MICHAEL BY MARY P. RYAN
BUCKLEY

¡Ay Tú! Band People Why Sinéad O’Connor The Claremont Run
Critical Essays on the Life and Life and Work in Matters Subverting Gender in
Work of Sandra Cisneros Popular Music BY ALLYSON MCCABE the X-Men
EDITED BY SONIA BY FRANZ NICOLAY BY J. ANDREW DEMAN
SALDÍVAR-HULL &
GENEVA M. GANO

Ida Lupino, Forgotten Constructing Cuban Sports through the Lens Rehab on the Range
Auteur America Essays on 25 Iconic A History of Addiction
From Film Noir to the Race and Identity in Florida’s Photographs and Incarceration in the
Director’s Chair Caribbean South, 1868–1945 EDITED BY MAUREEN M. American West
BY ALEXANDRA SEROS BY ANDREW GOMEZ SMITH, DANIEL A. NATHAN BY HOLLY M. KARIBO
& SARAH K. FIELDS

un iv ersity of texas press

www.utexaspress.com | @utexaspress
 E S S A Y

THE SEVENTY PERCENT

On minor characters and human possibility
By Yiyun Li

A
t the beginning horrible man!” Another
of the COVID-19 attendee pointed out
pandemic, I led that I was peddling an
a virtual discussion of outdated canon written
War and Peace, with the by dead white men. “My
thought that someone job is to dismantle your
else might enjoy reading canon,” she said, to
the novel with me. Three which I replied that per-
thousand people ended haps in order to disman-
up following along, tle something, she might
which seemed to me a want to know a little
good way to connect about it in the first place.
people in isolation. But Emotions escalated; an
there were disagreements. Someone with my reading time; it was as though impassioned and teary speech was given,
complained to a friend of mine that someone took personal offense that I pointing out my wrongheadedness.
she didn’t see why I bothered to read often eat broccoli. The sentiment of both young peo-
Tolstoy, who was a “patriarchal figure.” Later, at a writers’ festival, I gave a ple was this: How dare I—a woman
An acquaintance told me that I did talk on what I’d learned from reading who is not white—keep reading Tol-
not need to read Tolstoy to feel like a War and Peace. Afterward, someone stoy, a flawed man who would not
writer. Feel, I marveled: What did she who had been in the audience asked live up to contemporary moral stan-
mean? It was baffling that people me if I knew anything about Tolstoy’s dards? A more public outcry has bro-
would feel strongly about what I did life. I did, as I had read his biography ken out recently regarding the writer
and visited Yasnaya Polyana, his estate Alice Munro, who failed her daugh-
Yiyun Li is the author, most recently, of
Wednesday’s Child. This essay is part of a outside Moscow. “He was an aristo- ter after she had been sexually abused
series supported by the John Templeton crat!” the woman said. “He had ser- by Munro’s second husband. Readers
Foundation. vants. His wife served him. He was a and educators expressed ambivalence

“Ute’s books, Odessa,” by Alec Soth, from his series I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating © Alec Soth/Magnum Photos ESSAY 57
about reading or teaching Munro or an idea is never that precious. have a bit of Pierre in us, or a bit of
again. There is something mind- People have thoughts and ideas all Andrei, or a combination of both.
boggling about this rush to censure. the time, many of them preliminary. Many of us would like to believe that
One has the urge to tell these people, Sometimes people mistake their feel- we, the protagonists of our own sto-
Not everything is about your feelings. ings for thoughts and ideas, which ries, are also the protagonists of some-
One wants to question those educa- are in turn mistaken for absolute thing far grander. (Years ago, when I
tors about their syllabi: Do you teach truths. The point of writing and was in the Chinese army, Gone with
only those writers who are saintly reading fiction is not to stay with the the Wind was a popular novel among
and flawless human beings? first thought or idea, nor the third or my fellow teenage soldiers, and I was
When I was growing up in China, the fourth, but to push further until shocked to find that nearly everyone
writers and educators were often one says to oneself, Even though I in my platoon thought herself a
called the engineers of human souls. haven’t thought through everything, Scarlett O’Hara.)
Once, infuriated by her unruly stu- I have brought myself as far as I can Andrei comes into War and Peace
dents, our second-grade teacher gave within my limited capacity. Without with a fully formed self, and he
a speech on building our “personal thinking through, thoughts are no spends the rest of the novel refining
dossier.” On the day we were born, more than slogans. that self, always reaching for higher
we each had been assigned a dossier ground in both the spiritual sense

I
by the Communist Party, into which have been thinking recently and the worldly sense of power and
everything that happened in our about Nikolai Rostov, Tolstoy’s fame. Pierre comes into the novel
lives would be recorded. She out- young hussar. Even as a longtime with a vague but ambitious vision for
lined what would be included in the reader of War and Peace, I’ve been sur- a better world, and he spends his
dossier: the backgrounds of our prised by this preoccupation. Though time bumbling around trying to un-
grandparents, parents, and relatives; he is an important figure in the novel, derstand the falsity and the limit of
all the grades on all the exams we Nikolai is a lesser character than the each rendition of that vision. Both
took; things we said to one another; book’s two protagonists, Pierre Bezu- have their moments of epiphany:
our good and bad deeds. Everything, khov and Andrei Bolkonsky. Andrei while lying on the battle-
she assured us, would go into the One could describe Rostov as ground under the lofty sky of Auster-
dossier. And through every turn of handsome, cocky, athletic, reason- litz; Pierre while looking up at the
our lives, she stated with gravity, ably artistic (he sings and dances Great Comet of 1812.
“Someone will be checking your dos- well), unintellectual (he is seldom Andrei and Pierre are more ex-
sier. Remember, your entire history is seen reading a book), deeply roman- traordinary men than Nikolai. And
known. You have no way to hide tic (he experiences some of the most yet, the longer I read War and Peace,
anything.” What my second-grade intense and thrilling romantic feel- and the older I get, the more I appre-
teacher outlined, it turns out, was ings that occur in the novel: his ciate the space Tolstoy has given
not just a Communist hell, but a vi- one-sided pining for the tsar and Nikolai, not Andrei or Pierre. Niko-
sion of our world today. his falling in love with Sonya, his lai is introduced as a young man
If someone decides not to read cousin and childhood sweetheart, who enlists in the Russian army in
Munro because she enabled an after she dresses up as a young man, imitation of his best friend, Boris.
abuser, or Tolstoy because he was complete with a mustache drawn on His first few months in the military
an aristocrat and a patriarch, I would with burnt cork). He is a brave sol- resonate with any fledging young
understand. What doesn’t make dier, a loyal friend, a prodigal son person seeking a loving home. After
sense is the idea that, because one (who nevertheless matures and a fellow officer steals from one of
has denounced Munro or Tolstoy, takes on the family debt), a loving Nikolai’s friends, Nikolai, who raises
others must agree that it would be brother, a minor scoundrel toward the alarm, is punished for smearing the
wrong to read them. When writers Sonya, a solid family man for his reputation of the regiment. At his
confront me in these situations, I wife and children. first encounter with the French,
tend to shrug them off: some people The problem with these descrip- Nikolai is shocked to find that the
have a natural tendency to police tions is that they might lead readers enemy really means to kill him.
other people’s thinking. But I admit to dismiss Nikolai as predictable— “Who are they?” he wonders. “Why
that I worry when the younger gen- there is nothing transcendent about are they running? Can it be they’re
erations use language that they have him. To make the case for Nikolai’s running to me? Can it be? And why?
taken from public circulation with- significance is to make the case for To kill me? Me, whom everybody
out thinking it through first. Phrases minor characters. In fact, I would loves so?” Nikolai, Tolstoy writes,
like “dismantle the canon” may like to argue that most of us in life “seized his pistol and, instead of firing
sound fabulous, but if you were to are in positions close to those occu- it, threw it at the Frenchman, and
press the students to elaborate, you pied by the minor characters in War ran for the bushes as fast as he could.”
would get a string of grandiose and and Peace (and there are nearly six A masterstroke from Tolstoy: the loss
empty words. hundred of them). Very few of us are of innocence in wartime is a cliché.
Thinking through—rather than just the Napoleons or Kutuzovs of our Instead, Tolstoy describes Nikolai’s
thinking—is important. A thought time—a comforting fact. Some of us return to innocence, throwing a pis-

58 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

tol and running for the base like a heroes! martyrs! villains! oppressors!— they have an exchange about the
boy on the playground. are turned away. Hemingway’s characters failure of their marriage, among other
After Nikolai is injured, he briefly wouldn’t pass Woolf’s audition, and things. A student called the first-
questions why he has chosen to join vice versa. person narrator a passive character.
the war effort, but the doubt does An interviewer asked me about Passive, Paley’s narrator? I tried to
not linger. He is one of those men my story collection recently: “You suppress my shock and asked how the
who do not seek an elevated under- bear down beautifully on the interior impression of passivity was conveyed.
standing of life, and he will remain lives of your female characters. Do The student replied that the narrator
free from that urgency. In a sense, he you find male characters more chal- does not fight back when her ex-
is a man without an epiphany. lenging? If so, why?” I replied that I husband blames her for the divorce;
Nor does Nikolai think much have written novels with male pro- she even agrees! Another student
about the political environment in tagonists and that, no, I don’t find pointed to the sentence in which
Europe, as Pierre and Andrei do. male characters challenging; it just the ex-husband says to the narrator:
While on leave, he goes out carous- happens that the stories in my latest “I wanted a sailboat . . . But you didn’t
ing, gambling, visiting prostitutes, collection are primarily about care- want anything.”
not necessarily because those behav- takers: mothers, daughters, sisters, There: if a man says that a woman
iors are his essence, but because ev- and nannies. wants nothing, then she must want
eryone in his circle is doing the Most writers have a system of audi- nothing; if a character does not
same thing. Pierre engages in those tioning their characters. But some want anything, she must be passive.
activities, too, but he yearns to be The student failed to notice that
elsewhere. Nikolai blends in. He the narrator goes on to list all the
is not idealistic enough, dreamy things she does want:
enough, perceptive enough, or N EVER HANKERING FOR
imaginative enough to want a THE IDEAL OR THE PERFECT, NIKOLAI I want, for instance, to be a differ-
different life. ent person. . . . I had promised my
ACHIEVES SOMETHING ESSENTIAL: children to end the war before they
Many other things happen to grew up. I wanted to have been
Nikolai, as life happens to a per- HUMAN POSSIBILITY
married forever to one person, my
son. He blunders, he hurts others ex-husband or my present one.
and himself, he protects a few
people within his power, he accepts writers are less stringent about what This was a crystallizing moment
some consequences and moves on kind of characters they admit into in my teaching career: what afflicts
from others, he adapts to his envi- their fiction. Tolstoy, Balzac, and literature, more than book banning,
ronment as it changes, and eventu- George Eliot are a few who come to is this rapid loss of the ability to read
ally, he makes relatively good use of mind. One can expound upon their for deeper meanings, to grasp sub-
the life he chooses, taking on re- auditioning systems, but I want to re- tlety, and to understand ambiguity. If
sponsibilities, becoming the best turn to Nikolai Rostov. Would he suc- conviction—instead of clarity, the
possible version of himself. Never ceed in his audition for a place in kind of clarity that arrives via mud-
hankering for the ideal or the per- contemporary fiction? dled thinking, repeated questioning,
fect, Nikolai, in the end, achieves Once, a student of mine turned in and a tolerance for not knowing and
something essential: human possibil- a story featuring a young husband in a not understanding— is the goal of
ity. Put in a realistic perspective, most dispute with his wife. Quickly some of reading and writing, then much is
of us are likely the Nikolais of the the students gave their verdict on the already lost.
world, so it’s important to ask: What husband: toxic masculinity. Was that For this reason, I’m afraid Nikolai
happens to Nikolai Rostov in our it? I tried to find different ways to talk Rostov may not have a place in con-
contemporary setting, both in litera- about the character, but once the ver- temporary literature. He is not ambi-
ture and in life? dict was given, the case was closed. tious enough to be Andrei; he does
This tendency to issue a judgment not suffer the spiritual and intellec-

L
et’s suppose that literar y seems to be on the rise. Stories are re- tual struggles that beset Pierre; he is
characters— protagonists, an- duced to situations: this story is about heroic in the war but does not show
tagonists, secondary and ter- grief, or trauma, or injustice. Characters any signs of trauma; he is aware of
tiary characters—have to audition to become types or categories: a mourn- his not being entirely honorable to-
enter a writer’s work. (I’m borrowing ing mother, an abusive spouse, a trau- ward Sonya, but he doesn’t seek re-
this concept from the novelist Kazuo matized child, a struggling artist, a demption. In short, putting him in a
Ishiguro, who talked about having his marginalized soul. The word “identity,” contemporary novel may confuse
characters “audition” to be the narrator which haunts the discussion of litera- readers: What kind of message does a
of a novel.) For Henry James, charac- ture, has done some damage. man like Nikolai convey?
ters lacking Jamesian subtlety are likely Recently I assigned “Wants,” a One can imagine that Nikolai
to fail the audition. For Maxim Gorky, short story by Grace Paley, to my un- might fare better as a minor charac-
characters who don’t comfortably in- dergraduates. In the story, the narra- ter, though he would have to make
habit their designated garments— tor runs into her ex-husband, and do with showing only a small part of

ESSAY 59
himself, instead of the whole given boy who becomes an undistin- meets or exceeds expectations on
by Tolstoy. He could be what my guished professor of literature. Like any one dimension: the heroic, the
students call a character of toxic Nikolai, William Stoner is too seri- romantic, the exotic, the adventur-
masculinity, or a teenager singing ous about living out his share of life ous, the wealthy, the carefree, the
the tune of Werther, or the fellow to be made into a laughingstock; good, the right, the triumphant,
soldier of a protagonist who has ex- too earnest to be a cynical protago- the hopeful, the loving, the virtuous.
perienced wartime traumas and nist who can be shielded by being Fiction thus written, catering to some
epiphanies; or a farmer plowing in prematurely disillusioned; and of readers’ need to dream or to escape, is
the field, whose only salient trait is course there is no chance for him to necessarily entertainment.
that he loves his dogs and his chil- be a banner-bearing hero. An author can also write about
dren. The fact that he is all of the Characters like Nikolai and Stoner, the 20 percent on the opposite end
above does not necessarily help him. who react to life more often than of the spectrum. When something is
If Alice Munro, a real person, can they “take action”—whatever that obviously bad (think about what
face only a polarized judgment be- term means—are often labeled by my we’ve read about in the news over
tween being a saint or a sinner, what students as passive characters. Some- the past decade or two: wars, atroci-
chance does a character stand? times a student is advised by his or ties, corruptions, privations, injus-
In a sense, what causes Nikolai to fail her peers to give characters “higher tices of all kinds), verdicts are readily
his audition is his verisimilitude. He is stakes” or “more agency.” This tends available, and readers will not suffer
an everyman. Tolstoy has a passage to lead me to groan internally. Isn’t confusion. I’ve seen fiction written
that summarizes Nikolai’s position: living from day to day enough of a in this way, with the quality of a
stake? Isn’t living itself the most im- composition in C major: certain and
A soldier in movement is as hemmed portant action, if you really pay close decisive. (There are, we know, mas-
in, limited, and borne along by his attention to the world? terpieces written in C major.)
regiment as a sailor by his ship. How- A more successful formula than

W
ever far he may go, whatever strange, hen I was young, my father the previous two: one can draw
unknown, and dangerous latitudes he taught me that one needs from both the top 10 percent and
gets into, around him— as for the to eat, at each meal, only the bottom 20 percent. Here adver-
sailor always and everywhere there until one is 60 to 70 percent full. I sities can be easily defined and dis-
are the same decks, masts, and rig-
ging of his ship— always and every-
suspect this advice was rooted in his played, and protagonists can occupy
where there are the same comrades, frugality and practicality: he came the top 10 percent in their various
the same ranks, the same sergeant from a stock of poor mountain peas- traits. Well-written books with this
major Ivan Mitrich, the same com- ants in southern China. I followed this formula are likable and admirable:
pany dog Zhuchka, the same superi- advice without question until I met my they offer a taste of real life that
ors. A soldier rarely wishes to know husband, who, also from a poor back- one wouldn’t call escapist; they offer
what latitudes his whole ship has ground, was horrified. “You’ve never opportunities for triumphs, hopes,
gotten to . . . eaten one full meal?” he asked me. But and epiphanies.
is 60 to 70 percent full not full? We can When my students demand more
Nikolai lives in a novel set in one only say it’s not 100 percent full. agency and higher stakes, it feels to
of the most dramatic moments in My father also taught me some- me that they are hoping for such a
history. He goes where that ship thing else, which I later recognized in story, geared toward the 10 percent
takes him, without any intellectual a Song-dynasty poem. He estimated and the 20 percent on the opposite
curiosity about what is happening that we find life—people, situations, ends of experience. Not all books
beyond his immediate apprehen- conditions—below our expectations written with this formula are propa-
sion. Perhaps what makes Nikolai 80 percent of the time. The two lines ganda, but clear-messaging fiction be-
fail his audition is his being among from the poem, roughly translated, gets clearer-messaging reading.
those characters who don’t particu- read thus: “Eight or nine out of ten The writers I read and reread, how-
larly aspire to revolutionary, rebel- things in life won’t be to your lik- ever, belong to the group who write
lious, or transcendent heights; all ing, / and yet you can speak about no about the 70 percent in the middle.
he wants is to make life a little bet- more than two or three with others.” Chances are, they themselves are
ter for himself and for the people It feels to me that the Song-dynasty complex figures; for instance, Tolstoy
around him. Things happen, and he couplet makes an effective argument or Munro. But they are also writers
reacts, either by not changing or by for how different kinds of fiction can who understand my father’s two les-
changing just enough. be written and read. (A disclaimer: sons. Being 60 to 70 percent full can
It is hard to find a companion the scientist in me is acutely aware be considered somewhat full. Sup-
character for Nikolai in contempo- that this discussion is a simplification pose that a fraction of those who
rary literature. The closest example of a complex issue, and that the num- approach any situation with an all-
I can think of is William Stoner, bers I use are hypothetical.) or-nothing mindset understand the
the protagonist of John Williams’s Let’s suppose experience falls into importance of being somewhat full;
1965 novel, Stoner. The book fol- three categories. An author can write suppose that a fraction of those in
lows the life of a Midwestern farm about the 10 percent of life that the habit of demanding that things

60 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

and people meet their expectation lai Rostov, who is among those in the
understand that 80 percent of the middle, an easy verdict does not
time, they will be disappointed, their make the world any better. It only
feelings potentially hurt. That does grants the 10 percent who hand out
not necessarily elevate their moral such verdicts the illusion of power
authority or give them the right to and righteousness.
hand out easy verdicts. Suppose a Long before Natasha and Andrei
fraction of them learn something fall in love, Nikolai meets Andrei at
from my father’s two lessons. The the front. Andrei, knowing that he
world may become a more civil place himself is the superior man, holds
than it is now. Not a civil place—the Nikolai in contempt, and yet Niko-
world may never achieve that—but lai “was surprised to feel that, of all
more civil. the people he knew, there was no
Let’s return to Nikolai Rostov, one he so wished to have for a friend
who has failed his audition for a part as this hateful little adjutant.” Niko-
in contemporary literature. But liter- lai will never reach Andrei’s heights,
ature is only one reason that his fail- and yet it’s highly unlikely that
ure should worry us. If teleported to Nikolai will stoop to the level of
this moment, where would the char- Anatole Kuragin, a depraved man,
acters of War and Peace find them- or that of Ippolit Kuragin, a brain-
selves in America? Andrei would less creature. The 70 percent in the
likely become a leader of a progres- middle have the potential to shift
sive or revolutionary movement. toward something better, so long as
Pierre would be an intellectual and the 10 percent do not hold them in
an activist. Natasha, Nikolai’s sister, utter contempt because they don’t
who in the novel has much more meet their expectations.
modern ideas as a woman than oth- If, in every class I teach, one out
ers do (for instance, she insists on of ten students leaves with a habit of
breastfeeding, to the horror of her asking themselves, Can I live with
milieu), would remain herself; she the fact that 80 percent of the time
would not be out of place in the life will not meet my expectations?
twenty-first century. Boris, an adept Can I tolerate this ambiguity, both in
opportunist, would need to change literature and in life?, I shall say to
only his outfit to become a modern myself, I have done my job. If in every
politician. Bilibin, a witty and cyni- class I teach, one out of ten students
cal diplomat who in the novel spends leaves with a deeper understanding of
much of his energy inventing “mots” Nikolai Rostov, with a realistic recog-
for circulation, would be a quintes- nition of human possibility, I shall
sential influencer. But where would say to myself, Well done. Q
we find Nikolai? He would be among
the population in the middle who
decide the result of every presidential
election in America. November Index Sources
1 NORC at the University of Chicago; 2–4
Here again let me turn to the Contest Every Race (Middleton, Wis.); 5–7
70 percent rule. For any society, re- Institute for Family Studies (Charlottesville,
garding any proposition, the popula- Va.); 8,9 Talker Research (Brooklyn, N.Y.); 10
tion will spread out on a spectrum: Murder Accountability Project (Alexandria,
20 percent will strongly disagree, Va.); 11,12 Goldman Sachs (NYC); 13
International Renewable Energy Agency
70 percent will be more ambivalent, (Masdar City, United Arab Emirates); 14,15
and 10 percent will be in total agree- Northwestern Mutual (Milwaukee); 16 Fidelity
ment. Someone falling into that Investments (Boston); 17,18 Brett Hollenbeck,
10 percent may feel that the rest of University of California, Los Angeles; 19–22
LendingTree (Charlotte, N.C.); 23 McDonald’s
the population fails to meet their ex- Corporation (Chicago); 24 YouGov (NYC);
pectations. Those 20 percent on the 25 Handshake (San Francisco); 26,27 FactSet
other side, one suspects, will not (Norwalk, Conn.); 28,29 Gallup (Washington);
change their minds, and we are 30 Washington Post; 31 Juan Carlos Albizu-
hemmed in by them. And yet it may Campos, University of Havana; 32 Harper’s
research; 33 Federal Highway Administration
not be wise to treat the middle (Washington); 34–36 National Research
70 percent as though they were the Group (Los Angeles); 37 Dynata (Shelton,
same as the 20 percent. Giving Niko- Conn.); 38,39 Talker Research.

ESSAY 61
“Viktor Frankl gives us the gift of looking
at everything in life as an opportunity.”

-EDITH EGER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF 7+(&+2,&(

Named One of Barnes and Noble’s

“Most Anticipated” Books of 2024
0WFS

.JMMJPO
$PQJFT
4PME “Offers a path
A highly anticipated, rediscovered to finding
collection from Frankl, published for the hope even in
first time in the United States, exploring these dark
“This is a book I freedom, responsibility, and how we can times.”
reread a lot . . . draw meaning from the temporary nature —7KH1HZ
it gives me hope.” <RUN7LPHV
of our lives
—Anderson Cooper

´8JMM
TUJDL
JO
SFBEFST³
NJOETµ
—3XEOLVKHUV:HHNO\

beacon.org | available in print, audio, and ebook connect with us

 M E M O I R

ITHACA
Rewriting my mother’s diaries
By Will Self

S
omewhere, Freud remarks that many other favored children can con- That’s right—another one. When I
he who is his mother’s favorite firm, the victory is almost always a embarked on writing this second novel
will carry that victory with him Pyrrhic one. How do I know this? about my mother, Elaine, my wife re-
to the end of his days. I believe this Well, in part because I’ve spent the marked laconically, Well, finally you
may well be the case for me—but, as past two years both contemplating get to sleep with her. But even if Oe-
Will Self’s most recent essay for Harper’s the possibility of my imminent de- dipus is never far behind once Freud
Magazine, “Letterman,” appeared in the mise and writing another novel about has been invoked, it’s not his incestu-
October 2022 issue. my mother. ous role that I’ve assumed this time,

Collages by Lauren Peters-Collaer. Source images of Elaine Rosenbloom and her diaries courtesy the author MEMOIR 63
 for the novel is written from her point mother who had likely been born in
of view—my mother’s. the Pale of Settlement, she was a
Which implies that I get to be her week short of her sixty- seventh
having sex, rather than—in an ob- birthday when she died from meta-
solete locution that she, nonetheless, static breast cancer at the Royal Ear
at one time preferred— have her. I Hospital, which is a few hundred
accept the emotional realities of yards from Gordon Square, where
this, and in what follows, I am as Virginia Woolf established herself as
willing as I’ve ever been to expose the cynosure of her first little talking
myself. Yeats’s father, the painter shop. Would it have pleased Mother
John Butler Yeats, stated that “a to die in Bloomsbury, if not as one
Not sure where work of art is the social act of a soli-
tary man”—how much more solitary
of the Bloomsbury Group? Well,
there are no counterfactuals— the
to start with 174 still is the novelist, who invents the
social worlds he frequents. I’ve al-
world is simply “everything that is
the case,” according to no lesser an
years of archives? ways worried I wasn’t quite solitary authority than Ludwig Wittgenstein.
enough, given the amplitude of my And although it’s the case that if I
ambition, but as my illness has in- make it through this year, my life
SUBSCRIBE TO tensified and my symptoms have be- will have been saved by a stem-cell
Our “From the come more troubling, I’ve found the
social realm inimical to me as never
transplant performed in the hospital
(University College) down the road
Archive” newsletter before. The formication beneath my from the one where she died, I find
skin, together with a tight, burning this coincidence as serendipitous to
sensation on its surface, is the result me as a writer as I find it minatory
It’s a curated selection of
of the cancer: myelofibrosis, which, as a man.
excellent writing that helps while doing its thing, somehow Indeed, as I walked toward the
put the week’s events messes with the histamine content bright and shiny cancer center at
into greater context, in my skin. University College Hospital and
delivered to your inbox. How exactly? How the hell should noted the gaunt old Royal Ear on the
I know—I’m a writer, not an oncol- next block, I felt . . . well, perhaps as
ogist, and as of now, a pretty irrita- the poet or poets we call Homer did,
SIGN UP AT ble one. The formication seems just, when he/she/they, after many hex-
HARPERS.ORG/ though, in a ghastly, Book of Job ameters, miles, and years, finally tied
way: the objective correlative of the plot threads of Odysseus and
NEWSLETTERS that disaffection from one’s fellows Telem achu s toget her i n t h at
and their finagling that goes with narrative-resolving swineherd’s hut. I
the job of satirizing them on the heard yet again my mother’s voice in
page. Be that as it may, the artist my inner ear, as I have myriad times
must gain more from chance than in my writing career: “That’ll make
he loses— and just as my illness has good copy.”
gifted me with insight I wish I’d had I hope so. Yet the truth is, it was
ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, really Mother herself who provided
when I was trying to realize the me with some of my best copy over
lives of others with as much youth- the years, as well as hung around,
ful verve as empathy born of emo- like a revenant with a library card, to
tional maturity, and when my eldest read it.
brother and I found my mother’s di-

S
aries, while she was dying. It was far he had had a lumpectomy, but
too great a donnée to pass up. Jum- we knew that after the surgery,
bled up in a brown cardboard box in the radio- and the chemother-
her North London apartment were apy, there was a possibility—indeed, a
over thirty different notebooks, in likelihood—the cancer would recur.
which she’d kept diaries between Yes—you try hanging on to bits
the years 1949, when she was of yourself, and then you lose the
twenty-eight, and 1986, two years lot. While many would also sub-
before she died. scribe to Philip Larkin’s life lesson—
Born Elaine Rosenbloom in Mid- “Get out as early as you can, / And
dletown, Ohio, in 1921, the daughter don’t have any kids yourself”— I’m
of an advertising man, himself the still here, and I’ve had three mar-
son of an itinerant cantor, and a riages and four kids. Which sur-

64 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

prises me, given how fissiparous my time accompanied her equally awful drama is the Cornell faculty milieu
own family was: Mother proceeded premenstrual tension. within which her first unhappy
through life from the Midwest, via I have based my novel Elaine on marriage subsisted, and beyond that
New York, to London, like some these pages—and, in the process of the environs of Ithaca and the psy-
charged emotional particle, smash- parsing them exhaustively, have tried chic penumbra of New York. Its
ing into this person or that family, to absorb Mother’s style. Not that themes are love and its lack; the so-
and fissioning them in turn. Wilde’s the novel is an attempt to reproduce cial world and its vicissitudes; neu-
great biographer, Richard Ellmann, it, but at times I nevertheless felt as if rosis in all its most vomitous hues.
said of the writer that he lived his my own hand were gloved in Moth- The drama begins when the Adam-
life twice, first as a scapegrace, then er’s while she guided me from one ses meet a new colleague at Cornell—
as a scapegoat. The same could be line to the next. For, just as I have a sociologist and his wife— and be-
said of Mother, whose first marriage— written the first drafts of at least ten come fast friends. So fast, indeed,
to the American academic and lit- of my books on one or another of the that Mother thinks this may well
erary critic Robert Adams— played Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriters I in- be it, that at last she has fallen
out in the leafy environs of Ithaca, herited from her, so, with this book, properly in love. What follows is
New York, and whose second —to I joined with Mother in writing the breathless, giddy, silly, sad, and
my father, the English political sci- entire first draft longhand. tragic, as the two couples are at-
entist Peter Self—reached a grim fi- She never completed a novel of tracted to each other first as cou-
nale in the equally bosky byways of her own, though the diaries are in- ples, and then as individuals, a
the Hampstead Garden Suburb in terspersed with the occasional effort movement Mother expresses on the
North London. at fiction. But her own marginalia page by treating them first as types—
Each liaison lasted around then as characters.
fourteen years, the first producing Do the diaries have literary
an only child— my much older merit? It’s debatable, but they have
half brother—and the second my- IT WAS REALLY MOTHER HERSELF definite value as documents detail-
self, as well as my immediately WHO PROVIDED ME WITH ing an important phase of social
older full brother. Each of these SOME OF MY BEST COPY change: the return to gender-
marriages was unhappy, but con- stereotyped domestic roles of edu-
tra Tolstoy’s dictum, both were OVER THE YEARS cated women who had experienced
unhappy in much the same way, a degree of autonomy—financial,
having been contracted by Mother emotional—during the Second
out of neediness rather than love, expresses her dissatisfaction with World War, an experience many iden-
and therefore, in their anfractuous what she knows falls far short of her tify as the crucible within which
courses, displaying a passionate ambitions, vaunted on the same second-wave feminism was formed.
turbulence, successively checked, pages. A few detail a young woman’s Or do they? As I typed those
dammed, and in full spate. I wit- reactions to her host at a party, and words, I thought how pious and sen-
nessed the collapse of the second of a few more essay the same in respect tentious they sounded to my inner
these marriages live: it constituted of a young woman being introduced ear: just the sort of thing a sixty-
the very circumstances in which I to some chic New York bohemians, three-year-old valetudinarian male
came to consciousness. It took me bearing evidence that their author novelist might be expected to write
another half century to learn more was unable to resolve one of the ba- about his troubled mother’s diaries,
about the course and collapse of sic issues involved in writing fiction, thereby molding the emotional
the first— and even then, it’s been one I conceptualize as “What’s on mess of lived human life into the
only Mother’s version that I’ve had the floor?” In order to create the bricky quantifications of the dust
to go on. lifeworlds of others, you have to be we all become, and in the process
In the diaries, her account of the there in advance—you have to al- placing himself on the right side of
end of that marriage, between the fall ready know what’s on the floor, so history. The truth is that, while the
of 1954 and the fall of 1956, runs to to speak, before your character content of the diaries may have
well over five hundred pages. Most swings their feet out from under the some significance, it’s their style
of these, written in Mother’s prop- covers and places them on that sur- that’s arresting, because in its very
erly schooled, regular, cursive hand, face. Which means, in turn, that waywardness it embodies Mother’s
are perfectly legible, despite their you don’t have to describe, or even own divagating life course. For her
being often interspersed with all consider it. sons, who surely were in the best
sorts of lists, minor essays, and at This noted, what Mother is bril- position to experience the particu-
times outbreaks of mad doodling, liant at is showing us the rug being larity of her being, the last thing
her frenzied scribbling seemingly an yanked from under her feet, again and the diaries can be seen as is the jus-
unconscious (or, possibly, perfectly again, in terse, breathless prose— tification of her abuse and neglect
self-aware) representation of the aw- sometimes girlishly purple, at others by reason of her life in mid-Fifties
ful migraines that plagued her for brusque with the idioms of the era. America being in some sense typi-
most of her life, and which at this The setting of one simple three-act cal for women of her type. Mother’s

MEMOIR 65
behavior cannot merely be translit- brary books and Valium. There was ence, fancied him. When I was a
erated into social history. quite a bit of drinking, too—although child, she told me she used to see
not nearly as much as there had been Nabokov stalking across the Cornell

W
hen, after she died, we re- Stateside in the Fifties, if the diaries campus en route to his classes, occa-
turned in the small hours are to be credited. My father wasn’t a sionally skewing off the path to fence,
to her small apartment and fighter, but there were fights. The whimsically, with some shrub or tree,
saw all those old American spiral- marriage had been contracted in using his cane. Arrogating to myself
bound college exercise books scattered haste, and was repented not at leisure, (since no one else will ever do it for
about the place, my eldest brother said but over a series of frenzied and hys- you) the powers of the imagination,
something to the effect of: “Now it terical moments—moments that ex- I’ve built this recollection of the great
feels wrong to be reading these . . . ” tended over a decade. Was she worse fabulist—whose celebrity was, at that
However, read them he did—and at bringing up me and my immedi- point, still inchoate—up into an en-
when I visited him at his house in up- ately older brother than she had been tire scene in the novel, then extracted
state New York in the early Aughts, bringing up my eldest brother a de- from it a motif.
he gave me a complete photocopied cade or so earlier? Well, if you’re a That’s what fabulists do, isn’t it?
set. I’d tried to read them myself a few moral consequentialist, probably not: And in so doing, we gain control—in
times before that, but committed the by the time I was sixteen, I was sit- the loathsome modern parlance —
error of beginning near the end, ting in the upstairs bedroom fixing of the narrative. First literally, then
where Mother’s entries were beyond amphetamine—and as a young teen- metaphorically, then literally again.
heartbreak, especially the ones about ager, my brother was sexually abused In the diaries, Mother writes that
me, who, in between the lumpectomy by two teachers at his school for a she’d like to be the author of an un-
and the soulectomy, had to be settling story, one the macabre
put— by her—into rehab for my character of which slowly im-
heroin addiction. Guilt and shame pinges on the reader, to devastat-
were enough to keep me away from LIFE CAN ONLY EVER BE ing effect. Sometimes I think my
the things, except to fillet a few EXPERIENCED DE NOVO, life is this story—indeed, that like
bits and pieces for How the Dead BUT ONLY EVER UNDERSTOOD, i n some B orgesia n conceit,
Live (2002), the first novel I wrote Mother created not the unsettling
featuring a Mother-alike. IF AT ALL, IN RETROSPECT story, but the unsettled individual
When I asked my brother for his who writes the stories in her stead.
overall impression, having read her What was Mother reading at
entire Nachlass with the zeal of the couple of years at least. The family this time? For read she always did,
scholar and completist that he is, he hadn’t been operating effectively for and voraciously. Not much discus-
replied with characteristic pith: “She more than five years at this stage. sion of it enters the diaries— but
got better.” These three words Can bad parenting be judged cu- then, there is absolutely masses about
served both to definitively patholo- mulatively? Somehow, I doubt it— her emotions. The intersections be-
gize her and to place her mental and this applies to Odysseus and tween cultural assay and quotidian
health on an ascending scale, one Penelope quite as much as to Mother life must have been all around her as
that coincidentally meant that mine and her husbands. The moral charac- the wife of an English literature pro-
and our other brother’s childhood— ter of the Odyssey’s protagonists is es- fessor jockeying for tenure. She men-
being cared for by this troubled if tablished not by their intentions, nor tions some books she’s been reading,
charismatic woman—was also, in his by what they actually do, nor even but the revelations of her literary
opinion, necessarily . . . better. yet by the results of what they do, but mind are in asides: “I like Henry
Can this be true? My eldest brother by their own intrinsic virtues, which Green novels—I am read [sic] Loving; I
certainly seems to have had some of in turn derive from attributes that liked Back + I shall look up others.
the troubles you’d expect from a are innate, fixed, and immutable. I’ve read Party Going and Living I
childhood in an unhappy family, Mother had her virtues—quite a few think.” Elsewhere: “V Woolf’s Jour-
witnessing its radical disincorpora- of them—but they were all double- nal, she hated Katherine Mansfield.”
tion, and then his being transported edged: she had great wit, but as There’s an obvious inference to be
across the Atlantic so that his Proust, a writer she loved, rightly ob- drawn from Mother’s premise—
mother could marry the English aca- served, a writer’s transcriptions of “Women could not write the sort of
demic who, while on sabbatical at great remarks, heard extempore, are books men can. I do not mean there
Cornell, had impregnated her with always rather more labored than are not good women writers; there are
the child who was to become our those they invent themselves. simply no great ones”—to this self-
other brother. laceratingly honest conclusion: “I

D
But better? Mother seemed to uring the period covered by want to write to be famous & think
spend much of my childhood having my novel, Mother met literary I cannot write because I must punish
her migraines and what she styled her people. She entered into a this mean desire.”
“crises de nerfs,” which entailed re- correspondence with William Carlos Because, of course, what writing
treats to bed for long sojourns with li- Williams—and withal the age differ- she has been doing besides the diary

66 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

is typing for her husband, who’s pre- the Communist Party— and so had ing between them, thereby evoked
paring his first book, a study of criti- Mother’s husband. the plait of the human symbolic
cal responses to Milton. She remarks Or at least you would have to con- mind, and together with it, its eter-
not at all on the author of Paradise clude so from a diary passage from nal plaint: that life can only ever be
Lost and, arguably more significantly, 1956 that I’ve transcribed verbatim experienced de novo, but only ever
Areopagitica, although she’d studied in my own account, but which I won’t understood—if at all—in retrospect.
English, first at Queens College, in reveal here. True, I wouldn’t say that To judge from the tapestry she
New York City, then at Penn State, my novels are exactly page-turners— wove—that is, her diaries—Mother
where she was taught by— and was they’re certainly not intended to was a near-psychotic Penelope, con-
friendly with—Theodore Roethke. be— but anything I can do in this fined as she was to Ithaca, spending
In the first of Mother’s diaries, instance to compel the reader, I will, each night for long years beside a
from 1949, Mother and Robert are for reasons that should be self- husband whom she was so far from
staying with the recently bereaved evident. Besides, this is surely only truly trusting and being intimate

widower Kenneth Durant at his the interplay between analepsis and with that he might as well have
farm in East Jamaica, Vermont. Du- prolepsis that propels the plotting of been on a decade-long picaresque,
rant, who at one time headed the most narratives (and, indeed, con- making his way home from the war.
U.S. bureau of TASS, the Soviet sciousness itself), expanded to in- Although not the Trojan one. Rob-
news agency, was a wealthy Phila- clude a further mode of presenta- ert Adams had served in the mili-
delphian who, besides mourning his tion: this essay, “Ithaca.” Certainly, tary as a logistics officer, resolving
wife (the poet Genevieve Taggard, the poet or poets who composed the to enroll (according to his own un-
who had died a year earlier) and ap- Odyssey had a good command of published memoir, Winter Arches)
parently fending off Mother’s ad- these techniques, and by parting after the attack on Pearl Harbor, al-
vances, was thinking at this time of their tale into two strands— one of though he’d been diverging from
setting up some sort of project for which begins near the chronologi- the party line since the Molotov–
disadvantaged kids. Durant and cal end of the tale, and the other at Ribbentrop Pact was announced. By
Taggard had been connected with the beginning— and then alternat- his own account, he spat contempt

Source photograph of books © Vincent O’Byrne/Alamy MEMOIR 67

toward those he’d formerly traveled and, indeed, if such a thing were seems right— I think she was dis-
with, and whom he now saw as de possible, the underlying etiology of placed and deracinated, and that
facto fascist sympathizers. Mother’s fundamental neurosis—lie this sense of being pasted onto
How far had he traveled? In his beyond the scope of her pages and backgrounds like some sort of decal
memoir, Adams animadverts at any living recall. Yet, in her diaries, followed her through life. She
some length about the Marxist cir- we have at least an eyewitness ac- wanted to be a writer, because she
cle he was involved with at Colum- count, albeit one distorted by a seem- desperately required a consistent
bia, where he studied as both an ingly limitless sense of grievance and narrative, but all she ended up with
undergraduate and a graduate stu- loss, the dark shadow thrown back was a series of disconnected scenes.
dent. He goes on to place himself into her consciousness by the over- I know the feeling.
adjacent to a number of a prominent whelming anxiety that always clouded Was Mother justified in her gripes
Communist academics of the period, her life. Mother was both agorapho- about her husband and, beyond
one of whom— Oscar Shaftel—first bic and claustrophobic, and I can re- him, the whole patriarchy? She was
introduced him to Mother, who member times when she hesitated at certainly psychoanalyzed, and the
studied under Shaftel at Queens the doorstep, unable to either exit or diaries that cover the period of her
College. Shaftel fell afoul of New return home. marriage’s disintegration begin with
York’s Rapp– Coudert witch-hunting Perhaps that’s why she returned to a copy of the letter she wrote to her
committee that attempted a purge Ithaca a second time, with a second former analyst. The analyst—Robert
of Communist inf luence in the husband, and a second family. My fa- Seidenberg— practiced in Syracuse,
public-education sector. Adams, be- ther took a second sabbatical there in an hour’s drive or so from Ithaca. He
ing a graduate student at Columbia, 1966, while I attended grade school was one of the earliest psychoana-
didn’t, although he changed his for a couple of semesters. We lived in lysts to hang out his shingle in upstate
name (his birth name was Krapp) a duplex in a small development New York. By Mother’s account, he
when he enlisted for the army. somewhere in Cayuga Heights—I was seems a purblind sort of Freudian,
Quite possibly, he was seeking to five and, for a kid from the London of one who ascribes much of her neu-
distance himself from his radical the era, a city still pitted with bomb rosis to penis envy, together with
past as much as rid himself of a sites and cloaked in the cold wet flan- her guilt about what seem to have
name at once Germanic-sounding nel of austerity, going to America was been juvenile sex games with her
and risible. like time-traveling to the future. older brother.
Was Mother lying when she When one of the kids in class was Seidenberg’s papers are deposited
claimed that she married a Commu- sick, our teacher, Miss Hansen, at Northwestern University, and it
nist? And when she claimed, more- pushed a button on the public-address would be fascinating to read his ac-
over, that the contortions involved system in the classroom and spoke count if—and I don’t know the eth-
in hiding this past during the Fifties, through it to the school nurse. It was ics of this— he preserved his notes
as he ascended the academic ladder, like Thunderbirds! from his sessions with Mother. Given
were also intrinsic to his character, But why, after a decade, did that he went on to become a promi-
and played out in the confines of Mother return to the site of the con- nent feminist and the president of
their relationship? Lying to whom? flagration that had destroyed her the Syracuse chapter of the National
Herself? Because the entry represents first marriage—beyond the fact that Organization for Women, Mother’s
an inflection point: not just between my eldest brother was by then an take seems curious—unless, that is,
fabulism and fact, or love and hate, undergraduate at Cornell? When I she was just one of the furious mid-
but between left and right, man read the diaries, I came across the Fifties women he had on his couch
and woman, gentile and Jew, black and backstories of characters— sorry, I who radicalized him.
white, and who knows—gulp!— mean “people”—whose homes I re- Mother was as fond of Yankee
maybe even that most unfashionable membered visiting a half century facticity as she loathed what she saw
of contemporary dichotomies: the earlier: a tony-seeming couple in a as the legerdemain of the ironizing
one between right and wrong. modernist house beside Cayuga English middle classes. But life isn’t
Lake, for instance, who had an elec- an ideal of the real, any more than

T
hroughout the diaries, Mother tric carving knife and an inflatable novels are a further idealization. It
ruefully acknowledges that plastic chair. It happens that this was my eldest brother who was in a
Robert has had to look after was the woman whom Mother limns position to point out to me how
her in all sorts of ways because of her as a sort of faculty femme fatale in good a novel this would-be adulter-
poor mental health: going to the her diaries—the one who’d had an ous episode in Mother’s life would
drugstore at night to fetch sedatives affair already with the man Mother make, given its plot-propelling mis-
and, on one occasion, having to stop had set her cap at. understandings, confusions, and
the car and find a doctor in order to Was Mother— as someone vio- evasions— plus the sex. Or, was it
calm her down. She is, in the diaries, lently unsympathetic might put rather that he wrote an essay of his
grateful—but resentful. The princi- it— a bitch returning to her own own about this period in her life—
pal events that establish this nega- vomit , or was she compelled by and his and his father’s lives— and
tive dynamic in their relationship— some sort of nostalgia? Neither showed it to me?

68 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

 A NATION DIVIDED
by Joseph Adler
At any rate, I have the essay brother and I returned from the hos-
still— titled “Mother”— and it sets pital in the early hours, and he made
out the fundamental plot dynamics his remarks about how “wrong” it
well; although, when I came to write felt to be reading the diaries, now
my own, more Mother-centric ver- that she was gone.
sion, on rereading it I found myself Which might seem an odd inver-
dissenting from Adams’s portrayal of sion if you didn’t know Mother, or an
her as a leftist fangirl when he was invocation of transcendent human
introduced to her at age twenty-six being if you didn’t know my brother.
(she was five or six years younger), No, the truth is that she was so psy-
the imputation being that she was chically troubled— and troubling—
more sexually experienced than she an individual that her translation
should have been— and quite cer- into inexistence potentiated a strange
tainly more than him. sort of afterlife. For the writer, death
Then, while he was away in the is always a career move, and as she
army, she had affairs— ones that died, Mother, being a writer manqué,
dogged her. The climactic final made a different sort of career move: A Nation Divided in 1861 provides
eighteen months of their effective having long since trained up an ap- understanding of the consequenc-
marriage (it limped on for a while prentice, I was charged with having es of a people disunited. Abraham
afterward, as these zombies do), com- the career she never did. Lincoln dealt with a country at
menced with her attempting to re- She trained me first by teaching war with itself. Discussed are cur-
kindle a liaison with her wartime me to read and write before I went rent issues unresolved by the Civil
boss in Manhattan: Harry Abrams, to school, at age four. Concurrent War. Enjoy this unique book with
who worked at the Book of the with this, she read aloud to me and links to songs of slaves and soldiers
Month Club. There was also a my immediately older brother—a incorporated into the narrative.
young artist, Jimmy, whom she went lot, as I recall. And with reading
979-8-233-23590-3 • Paper; $18.00
on idealizing in a girlish way, almost aloud came exposition—a lot of this
right up until her death. Both men too, and it was often very funny. Li- History • Available for purchase
were, of course, married. And, if the brary books were changed weekly— at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and
Mother I k new went along to six at a time. Mother inaugurated other major online book retailers
consciousness-raising sessions in the what she called “reading suppers”
Seventies, and never ceased remind- when I was a little older: no talking,
ing her sons of the iniquitous in- except references to the books be-
equalities to which women were side our plates. We didn’t have a
subjected, the one revealed in her television, of course—and this, per-
diaries remains almost timelessly haps, was the most segregating fac-
girlish—as suspended as her beloved tor, since it meant I couldn’t offer
Proust in an endless, seemingly Ele- my own bad version of a Monty Py-
atic contemplation of an inamorata thon sketch seen the previous eve-
that will never be attained. Yet the ning, alongside the other girning
recto to this histrionic verso (and be- boys outside the school gates. I’d
lieve me, she could moan, she could seen bubkes.
kvetch, she could rant, she could em- I could go on enumerating the cul-
broider; she was a mistress of the put- ture Mother introduced me to, or the
down and, when animate herself, of ways in which she encouraged my in-
DISCLAIMER: Harper’s Magazine assumes
the lightning quip) had an enor- creasingly ambitious literary and artis-
mous, seemingly boundless capacity tic projects—but this wouldn’t be to no liability for the content of or reply to
for intimacy. grasp the point at all. I think she any personal advertisement. The adver-
knew she had a smart kid on her

A
tiser assumes complete liability for the
t least, seeing now perhaps hands—but she’d had those before, as
content of and all replies to any adver-
the wider ambit if not the full the diaries attest. It’s more that with
compass of my life, I realize each of us she managed to impart a tisement and for any claims made against
that my own affective disposition dangerous sense of exclusivity: “You’re Harper’s Magazine as a result thereof. The
was not only forged in the white heat my favorite!” she’d hiss to me, after advertiser agrees to indemnify and hold
of my mother’s intense need for there’d been some sibling contretemps
closeness, but that it has remained or other. Of course, we all knew she Harper’s Magazine and its employees
there. The evidence lies in her dia- said it to all of us— and, of course, harmless from all costs, expenses (includ-
ries, which I began to read as she lay long before we reached puberty, we ing reasonable attorney fees), liabilities,
dying a couple of miles away. On realized she was being ironic—but is
and damages resulting from or caused by
the night she actually expired, my that necessarily a good thing?
the publication placed by the advertiser
or any reply to any such advertisement.
MEMOIR 69
 No—it’s neither necessary nor of nurtured so effectively that almost When I returned to New York, we
any benefit to children growing up in four decades after she died, I’m still arranged to meet at the Wave Hill
already confused circumstances. at it: attempting to project my inner- gardens in the Bronx, a near two-
That “bubkes” was out of place: most thoughts and feelings into the hour subway ride from where I was
Mother never used any Yiddish psyche of another, through the me- staying in Brooklyn— and a two-
words, nor really acknowledged her dium of literature. hour car ride from where he lives up-
Jewish heritage beyond using it as a Are readers and writers lovers, state. These were the lengths he was
heuristic: “In the States,” she’d say, then? Why, yes, of course— and in prepared to go to in order to avoid
“they hate you because you’re a common with all lovers, we become offering me xenia. At the gardens,
black, or a Jew, or a woman; but here nakedly interconnected, as we are having arrived before me, he’d al-
they hate you personally, and you shorn of all contingencies of iden- ready bought his lunch: a salad bowl
just incidentally happen to be a tity; and because, in the depths of covered in polyethylene. I doubt
black, a Jew, or a woman.” It’s the the night, under the covers, in the we’ll ever see each other again alive.
“personally” that’s of course key— warm flashlight of sensual intimacy, His position during this period
Mother took things very personally the words lift from page to eye as lip seemed to be that I should realize
indeed, because what she craved touches ear. Thoughts, feelings, sen- the extent of his trauma as a result of
most of all was to be loved entirely sations: all are shared, just as when his parents’ breakup and not trespass
for herself as she saw it, which she we make love, the other’s skin be- on this territory, which remained
felt she never really experienced. comes our own. As I contemplate mined, and could still detonate, with
I’m certainly not the first son to my potentially imminent demise, I potentially bad psychic consequences.
have spent the greater part of his life consider the discourses of intimacy His final communication with me on
responding emotionally to the woven by my mother in Ithaca, and the matter was to say that, as with
woman who bore him— and what’s in London, and how, over the de- my ow n autofictional memoir,
that if not being someone’s lover? cades, they have beautifully, and Will— and indeed all of my other
Mother always told me that she was awfully, unraveled. works that draw on my own biogra-
being psychoanalyzed by Anthony phy and family—I should leave him

I
Storr while she was pregnant with t took me a long time to get around out of it.
me, that it was he who persuaded to writing this second novel about I’d already put stuff from Moth-
her not to abort me. Yes, that was Mother— and by the time I was er’s diaries in How the Dead Live,
Mother in a nutshell, or a caul: an ready, my relationship with my eldest which includes a scene also de-
overemotional territory with no brother had undergone all sorts of vi- picted in Elaine— one relating to
boundaries whatsoever. Anyway, af- cissitudes: the novel wasn’t the proxi- my brother that he would no doubt
ter she died, I came across letters mate cause of our eventual rupture, find upsetting if he ever read it,
from Storr that confirmed she had but it became the gravamen. Having which I don’t believe he has. But
been his analysand— so I went to been prepared, initially, to go so far as that’s not the point: it’s the social
see him, and asked him if Mother’s to send me helpful briefing notes on aspect of that act of the poet— or
story was true. He confirmed it, and the environs of Ithaca, and the milieu novelist—that he fears, not the inti-
on the same occasion told me that if of his parents’ marriage when he was mate one. He’s a published author
he could have— metaphorically a child, he later retrenched radically. himself— as is our other brother,
speaking—removed from his waiting Before the pandemic, we had planned who wrote his own memoir of our
room all the people there who were to take a trip to Ithaca together in dysfunctional upbringing and his
having relationships not with their order to scout locations, but when I sexual abuse. But their social acts
ostensible partner but with one of finally went, in May 2022, I went are quite different from my own—
their parents, alive or dead, his prac- alone, and discovered from the univer- rather more discreet, to begin with.
tice would have dwindled away to sity librarian that he had been there So, I’ve defied my eldest brother:
almost nothing. without me the previous fall. no writer should be censored in this
Has my entire literary career been Our meetings on that trip were way, by another’s fiat, let alone
a desperate attempt to reach out to frigid affairs: I wasn’t invited to his barred from writing about his own
my miserable mother and so comfort house upstate, which would’ve been mother. Moreover, this fiat couldn’t
her? Quite possibly. Because what, in a logical stopping-off point on the be construed as anything but per-
the final analysis, is effective writing? way to Ithaca. Instead, my elderly sonal and punitive; after all, the dia-
I don’t make an evaluative judgment brother and I walked painfully ries are available both at Cornell and
here, only a practical one: if the task around a few blocks in Midtown at the British Library, where my own
of the fiction writer, in particular, is Manhattan one day before I went, literary papers are archived— so,
to re-create the lifeworlds of others carefully observing any number of freely available to anyone who
from the inside out, then this isn’t no-talk rules. While I was in Ithaca, should wish to novelize their moth-
simply the social act of the solitary unable to locate the development er’s life. Or, indeed, their own.
man, it’s an intensely intimate one. where we’d lived when I was a child, My brother never has to read my
At least, that’s the idea of écriture I asked him—and he denied know- novel— or anything at all, really.
that Mother inaugurated in me, then ing, which I thought disingenuous. That’s one of the important aspects

70 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

 World’s Finest Eye Cream

AIRBRUSH
of literature, as opposed to the spec- a “selections” product in Oprah magazine
ular media that so dominate our
age: you need to make an effort; it
doesn’t just get upside your face. I
need to make a different effort, one
summoning the uncanny crunching
sound of my spine being com-
pressed as I slowly turn my head Airbrush eye cream reduces
from left to right in the prescribed puffiness right away, especially when
way. I’m exercising—of course. How cold.
fit do I need to be to have the best
chance of surviving the stem-cell
Promotes new collagen which
transplant? I asked the consultant: reduces fine lines and wrinkles.
Reduces dark circles, is soothing,
Reg $68 $54.40 hydrating and promotes a youthful
As fit as a boxer, he said. Who knew
cancer could both enjoin—and
entail—such vigor? I exercise now
pretty much constantly, inasmuch as Now onAftlyer Discount healthy glow!
my symptoms allow. Hypo-allergenic and natural
“Vigor”: a word Mother liked to Compare to: containing emu oil serum, green tea
apply to or remove from men, de- La Mer Eye Balm @ $200 extract, aloe vera, collagen and elastin.
pending on her approbation. Toward Shiseido Solution LX @ $130
the end of her own life, she wasn’t La Prairie Swiss @ $240 Use am & pm for best results and the jar
vigorous, but faded fast: on the last
Free Shipping will last about 3 months!
outing we took together, to the
grounds of Kenwood House on Use 20% discount code: HARPNOV at
Hampstead Heath, she told me, “The www.dremu.com
best thing about being a pessimist in
life is that you’re never wrong-footed or call 800-542-0026 – Open 24/7
when shit happens.” It was vintage
Mother—and, if I recall rightly, she
lapsed into a coma only days later.
“Lapsed” sounds like this episode
was lacking in vigor: it wasn’t. My
immediately older brother and I SOLUTION TO THE S U N K E N C I T I E S
were present as the cancer metasta- OCTOBER PUZZLE
sized into the meningeal fluid of her D E C E I V E H H A U N C H
spine and then into her brain. She NOTES FOR “DOWN AND R A Y O N O P A S T I C H E
went from languishing but compos OUT” U B A N G K O K L A W Y E R
mentis to a sort of bellowing stuck- M O R O S E R R A M H C M A
pig woman in no time at all. We The unclued Down entries are
B I C O A S T A L I A L E C
called an ambulance, and the wait, SUNKEN CITIES: ATLANTIS,
E L G A R I R S E R M O N L
and then the strange clamorous ALEXANDRIA, HERACLEION,
ride to the hospital, was, indeed, and PORT ROYAL (Jamaica); the V E R T I G O E X A M P L E
that cliché: “seemingly unending.” unclued Across entries are cities Y R O L P H Y L A M I A M I
But actually, there’s no similitude, that are at risk of sinking in the J A K A R T A V N S E E T O
because it’s still continuing: it is f ut u r e: JA K A RTA, MI A MI, A I N N O L L A D E S D I N
the discourse between intimates, BANGKOK, and AMSTERDAM.
B O O T M I N G R S F I L L
whether they be parents and chil-
S T R I P N O E I L L A D E
dren, siblings, lovers, or writers and Note: * indicates an anagram.
readers. It’s what the patient in the A M S T E R D A M O N E
Royal Ear Hospital says to the one
in University College Hospital, and
ACROSS: 9. Dec-e(I)ve; 10. h(a)unch; 12. [c]rayon; 13. *; 16. la(W.)yer; 18. *; 20. two mngs.;
what he says, even thirty-six years 22. bi(c)oastal*; 24. Ale-c; 25. double anagram; 28. *; 30. *; 31. ex-ample; 32. hidden; 35. hom-
after her death, to her: I have re- ophone; 39. lad[I]es; 40. boo-t; 41. (for)Ming; 42. homophone; 43. two mngs.; 44. O.(eillad*)E.;
turned. I am Odysseus—yet also 46. neo[n]*.
Telemachus, because I never left. I
am your favorite—I will slay all
DOWN: 1. two mngs.; 2. ne[ls]on; 3. kin-G; 4. first letters; 5. ch(a-k[eystone])ra*; 6. T-a-ta-
those suitors, the ones you find trou- m”I; 7. *; 8. sch-em(rev.)-e; 9. murd[er], rev.; 14. B-oiler; 15. [m]arc[h]; 17. *; 19. hidden;
blesome. I am your only reader— 22. be[ve]ry; 23. cite-line, homophone; 26. Gr-OK; 28. SE-LV-aged; 29. R(amse*)s; 32. prom-PT;
just as you are mine. Q 34. first letters; 36. hidden; 37. [b]iota; 38. n-or-m; 42. homophone.

MEMOIR 71
The Perfect Pairing of Luxury and Utility

+++++ +++++
The Cordless The Aficionado’s Sliding Door
Reading Lamp 1,044 CD/468 DVD Library
Item #79613 $249.95 Developed for Hammacher Schlemmer,
this is the Mission-style media library
that stores up to 1,044 CDs, 468 DVDs,
or 240 VHS tapes.

Item #95177 $499.95 (+$150 S&H)

+++++ +++++ +++++

The Hammacher Schlemmer The Rotating End Table The Best
Turkish Luxury Bathrobe Item #97839 $249.95 Floor Standing Magnifier
Item #74035 $139.95 Item #96040 $219.95

Hammacher Schlemmer
The BEST, the UNIQUE, and the UNEXPECTED for over 175 Years.

Order at hammacher.com or call 1-800-543-3366

Use promo code HAR2411
Offer ends 1/31/2025
*Prices subject to change.
Visit www.hammacher.com/terms for full terms and conditions.
On Orders of $99 or More*

Every Purchase Backed By Our Rather Famous LIFETIME GUARANTEE 24-HAR-1101-HAR2411

 S T O R Y

DISCOURSE TO SELF
By Rosalind Brown

T
ry, start here, try bringing a pot the coffee something slightly intensely over and ask them for it back. Remem-
of coffee out into the sun in sweet: not slightly sweet but slightly ber, for instance, that telling people
despite of the hot weather, and intensely, since all intensities only you are reading Tolkien late at night
sit at your chair and table ready for all need to be slight at this point. Sit and fatally alters the chemical composition
possible assimilations. Include with drink the coffee and eat the chocolate, of doing this. Also, stop celebrating.
and here is the thing: stop making the Or, qualifying that a little, remember
Rosalind Brown grew up in Cambridge,
England. She is the author of Practice, mistake of trying to show other people that celebrating can also be very pri-
which was published in June by Farrar, that furthermost corner of yourself, it vately sitting drinking your coffee on
Straus and Giroux. is good for one thing only, walk calmly a sunny morning, watching people go

Exit (iii), by Gabriella Boyd. Courtesy the artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam, London, New York City STORY 73
past in the street and reading a book possibility, and feel how water is unat- you do not need to be enforced to
you may not finish. Yes you have been tached to any of these bought and sold be effectual.
blessed and baffled with success lately, objects, how water wishes most of all

H
and also god yes there is the ferocity to collapse into itself yet depends on onestly your power of forget-
of having a new lover, but what about its own surface tension to resist this ting all these things or at least
behaving as if none of these things until the very end. Or you could no- of living as if you didn’t know
were relevant to your own strict proj- tice how your lover’s skin requires no them is quite impressive. You are in the
ect? Sometimes accuracy must take accoutrements to be warm and lightly running to become a campus perpet-
the place of expansiveness. haired, or how the pleasure of their ual, the amount of time you luxuriously
So leaving all these things not fingertips on your lower back loops spend there drinking tea with friends
where you can see them but all and bunches and builds until the word in the shade outside the café, modeling
right where you can just about feel pleasure ceases to make sense, like a for others the long-form delight of hav-
the light-brown confidence of them, bursting of the idea of pleasure in fact, ing finished a Ph.D. The class of cam-
take yourself off into another room. into smithereens. Afterwards, yes, you pus perpetuals is not a bad one to
They must not be useful even to cast can sit up in bed and read Walt Whit- belong to, they like you there, they
your thoughts towards in moments of man while they sleep. ought to, you’ve hung around now for
hesitation. Instead the finger of the Then going into the office the years—but perhaps it is like drinking
mind must be poised to run down a next morning you can take an unre- only the water vapor which rises from
skirt of dusky-pink satin, or over ligious but still fairly pious joy in the the earth, rather than water in the
a white tablecloth embroidered in answering of emails and the making form of actual water. At least (if you
blackwork, or yes must curve and of phone calls, because there is a can be persuaded of one thing) take to
thrill at the strong coffee drunk out- satisfaction here that can be trick- heart that summer is nearly over, there
side in the sun. Or picture a gorge led out like sand, and because you is a tide of knitwear and teacakes mak-
worn in English limestone, grassy at can feel how each of those other ing its way towards you, and you had
the top and then rocky as it winds realms is kept steady and will wait better make sure you can still think
downhill, with moss and trees and for you to come back. Try taking on and read and write in complete para-
water bubbling: this entirely mean- the buttoned-up calm of someone graphs, since that is or at least ought
ingless place get you there and gaze. who has pledged their life to a ser- to be the cooling effect of autumn. On
This is what is so difficult to learn, to vice and forbidden themselves from the other hand, your problem is that
stop talking, stop anticipating, stop ever doubting their choice. So what you often keep your present too sharply
being vigilant in your ancient un- if— all that? One day you will find a angled towards the future: one success
necessary way. The time as it passes cotton sundress that fits you beauti- and you are writhing with it, as if all is
isn’t it cool, and exquisitely textured fully, it cannot be doubted. In the coming. Remember, for instance, that
like linen? meantime you have a committee to wearing mascara is always an invita-
circulate papers for, and you must tion for the mascara to run.

W
hat else? Rather than an- adjudicate on your team’s annual And indeed stop trying to be the
nouncing various refusals leave, and your boss is relying on clear cool voice of truth, however
in the name of your own you to keep at bay someone who has compassionate like rain. (Yes, we are
well-being, you would do better to find been trying to get a meeting for finally having rain after a long
things to say yes to. Sometimes do weeks. Indeed there is a certain drought.) You have only one person’s
make yourself tremble by agreeing to benefit in having a boss: someone capacity for life, and things run over
everything that is suggested, tremble you can serve without having to be by the tongue always feel bigger than
at everything you yourself have the grateful to them: which is a restful they really are. There are different
potential to do. Then you can reinstall and low-risk experiment in true sub- schools of thought on whether it
the proper curtains which divide the mission, and which also explains would be a waste of a day just to sit
possible from the actually impossible, the ubiquitous narrative gesture watching the rain. But whatever the
and perhaps choose a new pattern or consisting of the sudden command conclusion, try to refrain from enthus-
style for them or insert additional Turn around, the wordless lifting of ing in anything other than the nar-
pleats where there were no pleats— the skirt, the being bent forwards rowest most central part of yourself—
though all the same, remember you are over the varnished mahogany desk, and there enthuse day and night,
not designing a hotel, you will have to and so on. The fantasy of compre- ignore sleep, enthusiasm is a project
live here. Likewise it is almost certain hensiveness, is the thing, that the which cannot rest. Reverence the rain
that neither aubergine roasted with remit of the boss could be infinitely as something we have all needed, in-
harissa, nor a navy T-shirt bought for enlarged across your whole life. Re- cluding you, and summer rain above
three pounds from Oxfam, nor a book member, though, that like most all as the blessing no one is able to
about the history of Baghdad, will people you would only wish to serve bestow on themselves or anyone else.
entirely solve the problem because the someone who wanted from you the And remember how you and your
problem exists elsewhere, as if in flow- things you already want from your- friend once sat under the awning of
ing water while you are sitting on the self: so, what would be the point? the café while it rained and rained,
bank. Dip a hand in, would be one Whatever you may wishfully think, and were treated with special friendli-

74 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024


    
  
   

    
ness by the staff, partly (let us assume) notion—than the making of actual    
because it was raining and you were plans. What is this rule you’ve absorbed    
nonetheless choosing to sit there and that you are not allowed to lie on your  
buy things, but also seemingly because bed reading a book in the middle of the
  
they liked you both, they enjoyed the day? You cannot be serious.      
air of playful discussion you gave off,    

W
the two of you drew people in with hat else, then? It seems you   
your obvious chemistry and affection, do at least understand that   
and from that alone you can deduce there is no point in trying   
   
(what you know already) that such to do too much, and the main thing
friendships are rare like whales, you now is making sure you don’t do too
could travel your whole ocean life and little. The slack in the line should only
never encounter one. be very slight, perceptible more to you STORiES OF LiFE
than to anyone else. Or perhaps what The Nature, Formation and Consequences of Character

W
hat you want—now we come you must convey is that if your time Davidson, a modern Renaissance man, blends Gibran and Dr.
Phil with brilliance, humor, and a unique life story—
to it—is style that comes appears like a dress cut quite loosely,
from a very full and consid- with room to move, that is its deliber-
ered embrace of everything, except the ate cut, it’s not that you have bought
idea of evil, which you must not credit. the wrong size. Or your time is a lawn,
The world is wonderfully everything requiring nightly watering to produce
that is wonderfully the case, something its densest lushest green, though of
like that. But a warning: the more you course you must be wary of any meta-
are like this, the younger people will phor that depends on a monoculture.
think you are, because it is considered Or your time is a paragraph, which
abnormal to plunge with an absolutely whatever it does in the middle must
cheerful and fixated eye. The more you have its beginnings and ends placed
are like this, the better you will write quite carefully.
and the worse you will dress. So now returning to the question of musician, combat photographer, scholar and minister.
Wisdom-flavored life-giving inspiration.
One thing you might experiment how to celebrate, tend towards auster-
with further is lending out certain ity. You adore the sitting praying, the 978-1649905581 Biographies & Memoirs›Memoirs
Spinetext Publishing Available in
permissions of yourself. Did not your obedient getting up early, you cannot Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other Bookstores.
friend say a few months ago, Fill some forget the solemn hymn tune in its
notebooks, and have you not been ancient minor mode. Last night you
slowly putting this into practice and woke your lover up to cry, that is all THE VEILED WORLD
finding it gratifying? Your notebooks right, but in the morning you must by Terence Alfred Aditon
are filling! with thoughts that some- quietly say goodbye to them and go to
times are clean and sparkling, and your desk. And there anything can be Alyssa Craig, a young
other times burrowing and twisting extended or pressed down on itself or scientist, kidnapped
by mercenaries in the
like fox tunnels in the earth. So per- pleasurably kneaded, anything. Take neutral waters of a
haps allow another friend to decide your copy of one of the lesser-known divided world, is res-
whether you should have a beer with plays, perhaps All’s Well That Ends cued by a king from
lunch, or to press a book on you which Well, and read it carefully with atten- the Veiled World.
you will actually undertake to read, or tion to each obscure phrase, solving Living as his concu-
ELQH D̆URQWHG E\
to choose the color you will paint your one Shakespearean problem after an- her loss of freedom,
bathroom. Allow your timetable to be other. Or else go to the world, by which she struggles against
gently pulled out of shape or wiped Shakespeare means, get married. her magnetic attraction to her captor.
blank, as a way of allowing yourself to And armed with these techniques Ironically, her captivity will produce
be gently pulled out of shape or even and precepts you will be able to think, changes in his kingdom that no one
could have foreseen.
wiped blank. Spend a day with your my god, every time I sit down to write
lover in which there are no plans, in I might discover anything at all. Re- 979-8886857856 • Paper; $23.95 •
fact come to treat the idea of plans member that your whole life is like a eBook; $9.99 • Literary Fiction / Romance
with deep suspicion, as if irreversibly diary of life, indexed to various long Available to purchase from Amazon
corrupted: not always, just sometimes. novels you have read and various cups
You need time to notice that the grass of coffee you have drunk with friends.
is a little greener again and the trees a Some of this must be kept: be patient:
little fuller after yesterday’s rain, this is there is never any rush. Soon, soon it
the second half of the joy of rain which will be time once again for Henry
has its own unquestionable structure, James, and his paragraphs each one
a better structure indeed for deciding like a new civilization: autumn is com-
how to fill time— fill time, what a ing: which is to say, all. Q

STORY 75
THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, SHOW YOUR FRIENDS
AND FAMILY JUST HOW MUCH YOU LOVE THEM.

STORE.HARPERS.ORG

Use code 2024GIFT30 for 30% off your entire order

The Harper’s store is full of great gifts for readers: sturdy totes,
cool T-shirts, and books. While you’re there, be sure to
pick something up for yourself, too—it’s been a rough year.
Illustration by
OFFER VALID THROUGH DECEMBER 31, 2024 Lorenzo Conti
 R E V I E W S

older Americans clamor not for better

public health care or a universal basic
income but for “private-sector solutions
to the problems of senior living,” Chap-

NEW BOOKS
pel writes. Chief among those problems
has been the perception of seniority
itself. The AARP emphasizes lifestyle
By Dan Piepenbring over public policy. Its message, as Chap-
pel hears it, is: “Anything young people
can do, you can do too—ideally, by
using AARP services!”
The heart of AARP Nation is, of
course, Florida. Burnished by the senior
citizens of yesteryear into a gleaming
mecca of early-bird dinners and palm-
fringed shuffleboard courts, it is today a
hub for pickleball and Hard Mountain
Dew “Definitely Over 21” launch par-
ties. A 1972 article published by the
AARP opined that, had Ponce de León
remained in Florida, he would’ve aban-
doned his quest for the fountain of
youth, “preferring retirement in its
sunny clime to eternal youth elsewhere.”
The conversation around aging used
to be more heterodox and more de-
manding. To juice the economy during
the Depression, a doctor named Francis
Townsend proposed a payment of two
hundred bucks a month (roughly $5,000
in 2024 dollars) to every American
over sixty on the condition that they
spend all of it within thirty days. The

T
he AARP stands for nothing. In which welcomes everyone eighteen and Townsend Plan launched a thorny de-
1999, the group announced that over. It’s an interest group that has bate over the purpose of old age in an
its four-letter initialism, which achieved a state of ascetic disinterest. industrial society. His slogan was
for more than forty years had denoted Still, the AARP has flourished while “Youth for Work, Age for Leisure.”
the American Association of Retired other old-age advocacy groups have Across the country, some two million
Persons, would thenceforth have no withered on the vine. Nary a mailbox people joined Townsend clubs, agitat-
defined meaning. What once was a in this country has not bulged with its ing for the passage of the plan in Con-
name became a vacuum. According to onslaught of membership cards, bro- gress; the press followed around a
the AARP’s website, this cavity “re- chures, insurance policy notices, and, sexagenarian man and wife as they
flects the full diversity of our member- above all, with AARP The Magazine, proved that parting with two hundred
ship,” a significant percentage of which whose readership is roughly sixty-five dollars was easy.
is not retired. It also reflects the organi- times that of this magazine. For de- Had he lived to see the first great
zation’s impossible desire to distance cades we’ve been living in AARP Na- retirement communities in the Sixties,
itself from itself. The first boomers were tion, as James Chappel calls it in Townsend might have smiled to learn
heading over the hill in ’99, and for GOLDEN YEARS: HOW AMERICANS that one of them was called Leisure
them, one newspaper columnist wrote, IN V ENTED A ND R EIN V ENTED World. Behind its rotating thirty-foot
“AARP might as well mean RIP.” The OLD AGE (Basic Books, $32). globe, retirees rode oversize tricycles
name change catered to their denial- This is a place where a fifty-year-old and took up woodworking or the ka-
ism. No old people here—only older and a ninety-year-old are both expected zoo. (“Leisure World seems to have
people, approaching oldness asymp- to be vital and optimistic, in search of been a genuinely fun and inviting
totically. You may not realize you’re an elusive dignity that derives from place to live,” Chappel writes, his
looking at an older person until there’s access to good weather, reasonable shock wafting from the page.) But only
a younger person beside him. And both prices, and pharmaceutical interven- the rich could afford to live there.
of them might belong to the AARP, tions for erectile dysfunction. Here, Townsendites had found some succor

“Sun City: Couch Potato,” by Kendrick Brinson, from her series Sun City: Life After Life © The artist REVIEWS 77
in the Social Security Act, but most about a subject whose pathos is all in
felt that it didn’t go nearly far enough. the close-ups. Even so, there’s a pro-
This is not a view we’ve heard lately. In found loneliness skulking around his
Chappel’s telling, Social Security and book. “This story is not a tragedy,” he
Medicare are the bedrock of the Amer- writes— and yet it always ends in
ican concept of old age, and yet few death. His more leaden sections finally
old-age advocacy groups do much to land on grim reality, as in this one
acknowledge or bolster them. Even The about a study of nursing homes from
Golden Girls—a liberal sitcom, espe- the early Seventies:
cially by the standards of the Reagan A full 39 percent of the time, residents
years—hardly mentioned the programs were doing nothing at all, what the in-
in its many episodes on financial pre- vestigators called “null activity,” and
carity. Make no mistake: the girls were which included sleeping, sitting alone,
getting a little help from Uncle Sam. or staring into space. Another 17 per-
The elderly no longer know how to cent of the time was classified as “pas-
refer to themselves. “Older Americans” sive activity” . . . as when smoking or
may summon a wide horizon and a rocking in a chair. “Thus,” they con-
plump sunset, but it’s terminally inclu- cluded, “56 % of the residents’ time dur-
sive. “For decades,” Chappel writes, “the ing the day, from morning to evening,
was spent doing nothing.” Much of the
central idea had been that ‘the aged’ or rest was spent watching television.
keep a rocking chair from rocking”
‘senior citizens’ were a distinct identity and what a feat it would be
group with distinct needs, and that I’ve just understood why the AARP
those needs should be met by the state.” hollowed out its name. to place rocking chairs in groups, that
Today, no one can meet the needs of is, rocking toward each other. It would

“N
take a great deal of space, and in the
older people, because no one knows ull activity” is fiction’s raison,
long run it might be tiresome. Of
who they are. The closest thing we the seething, ruminant life of course the original, the natural idea
have to Townsend clubs now are boom- the mind. You might call it was a single rocking chair in motion in
ers in Mustangs blasting Pete Town- “staring into space.” I call it The Loser, an otherwise static room.
shend, hoping they die before they get by Thomas Bernhard. I wouldn’t have
old, not accepting that this means they pegged Tove Jansson—a Finnish writer There’s not much to do in Sun City.
would already be dead. It’s easy to resent best known for children’s books about A novel about null activity doesn’t go
them for this, especially as they con- a race of rotund, huggable trolls called in for plot. Jansson just gathers her
tinue to hoard their wealth. You look Moomins—as a master of null activity, oldsters and makes a spectacle of their
for the tan lines they get from keeping but she was. Visiting Florida in 1972, segregation. “What a clever idea to get
their heads in the sand. But I feel for Jansson was amused and alarmed us all together in the same place where
them. Should I get the chance to age, I by St. Petersburg, a city dominated by we can enjoy ourselves without being
have no confidence I’ll do it gracefully. sunny silence. “The peace was almost in the way!” says one character, sin-
Chappel delves into statistics and sinister,” she wrote. “Everything has cerely. They grouse and gripe their
academic conferences more than he been prepared for rest and old age, way toward the Spring Ball, with its
inexorable and ideal.” Cavalcade of Hats, at which the mayor
The stereotypes of retire- dies mid-dance. A closeted old vaude-
ment had not yet ossified: ville star, the exquisitely named Tim
AARP Nation was a new Tellerton, comes to town, both to out-
territory, undiscovered if run and relive his glory days. There’s
not fertile, and Jansson the sudden appearance of an irascible
explored it in SUN CITY ex-wife; a trip through Silver Springs
(New York Review Books, State Park on a glass-bottomed boat
$16.95), now reissued in and a misadventure in the forest; the
Thomas Teal’s 1976 trans- deaths of the Pihalga sisters, who were
lation. The novel en- so quiet that no one knew their first
sconces us on the veranda names. And cigarettes by the carton—
of St. Petersburg’s Berke- this is back when seniors still lit up.
ley Arms, a well-kept re- It can be hard to tell Jansson’s
tirement home where the characters apart. They all mourn and
days pass in breezy, satur- nurse their private grievances. The
nine, sometimes bracing blur may be intentional: the sun
idleness. Here there’s seems to dry the distinctions out of
does the psychology of old age, which time enough to get some thinking them, and they know it. The women
he can’t quite bring to life. He’s what done about rocking chairs, how “it outnumber the men, who have, of
you’d call a big-picture guy, writing took a certain amount of attention to course, died, leaving a fraught mass

Left: Summer Sisters, by Jessica Brilli © The artist. Courtesy Maddox Gallery
78 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024 Right: A photograph of Tove Jansson in Pellinki, Finland, 1956 © Per Olov Jansson
of Hannah Higginses, Elizabeth written it. Jansson knew she’d be re- 2009: a tribute to the idiomatic ingenu-
Morrises, Evelyn Peabodys, Cathe- tiring to the ample bosom of the ity of the social-media age, or just the
rine Freys. Their bickering is amus- Finnish welfare state, not hacking it pissiness in the air. Fuck “just feels good
ing, particularly with Jansson’s arch out with clipped coupons and wrap- to say,” Sheidlower writes in the
timing, but it’s when they’re quiet around sunglasses. The St. Peters- introduction— emphasis his. I worry
that the novel soars. Frey, wandering burg press was not kind to her. One about the home life of someone so
the hot streets on a quest to get her critic complained that Sun City steeped in profanity. Does he start ev-
hair done, sees old ladies by the hun- would have you think that the city’s ery fucking day brewing a piping fuck-
dreds in salon chairs: “So much old whole population was elderly, when ing hot cup of fucking coffee? Or does
hair being washed and set, dyed, in fact only 27.3 percent were sixty- he, like Proust, sleep in a cork-lined
sprayed, and back-combed, so much five or older. Another critic faulted room to keep the noise out?
white and gray down being brushed her for having “carelessly misnamed” Fuck, commonly assumed to be an
up across balding heads!” Soon she is “the familiar Senior Citizens Club Anglo-Saxon oath, is of Germanic
one of them, sunken near The Pier” as the “Senior Club.” origin; not until the age of Middle En-
The critic made no comment about glish do we begin to meet men with
under plastic shrouds deep into a the sign that Jansson hung in her Se- names like Ric Wyndfuk (of Sherwood
world of damp terrycloth and the nior Club: members dance at their Forest) and Roger Fuckebythenavele,
humming greenhouse warmth of dry- who may have tried to fuck someone by
ers, a world promising forgetfulness for the navel. The word was rarely put in
several peaceful hours. Everything in
the crowded room was pink, even the
ink for centuries, so heavy was its curse.
telephone. It was a closed, feminine Its first appearance in American print
sanctuary where Miss Frey fell asleep, resulted from an 1846 Missouri court
massaged at last with Silver Spray case in which a man stood accused of
Number Five. copulating with a horse. “Special In-
structions to Players,” a memo circu-
The Berkeley Arms overlooks a lated among major-league ballplayers
placid harbor, the home of a replica of in the 1890s, reproduced phrases such
the HMS Bounty, a tourist attraction as “A dog must have fucked your
on which wax models of sailors reen- mother when she made you!” but only
act their famous mutiny. Visitors re- to prohibit them.
ceive plastic hibiscus blooms. The By then, fuck was well off to the
mutineers have been tamed. Whatever races, proliferating in inventive, apo-
gave rise to their unrest is just a mem- plectic, demotic ways. It’s a beautiful
ory. There are only two young people thing to watch it ripple through the
in this novel, swept up in a passionate, language, expressing what had been
naïve romance. One of them is con- inexpressible. New to this edition are
vinced that Jesus will return any day brainfuck, fuckton, fuck around and find
now—to the beach, probably, in Mi- own risk. Was that really there? I out, and thank fuck. Sometimes the
ami. “If they only knew!” he thinks believe it was. pleasure is in seeing how early a fuck
about the old. “If they only realized variant was used: “even minor antedat-

“I
that time had run out and their whole am very old indeed and cannot ings represent a meaningful advance-
ruined world didn’t matter any more.” understand why the younger gen- ment of our knowledge,” Sheidlower
Someone could’ve gotten this message eration, instead of knocking at the writes. Fuckstick, formerly belonging to
to Joe Biden before the primaries and door, should bash the fuck out of it,” 1973, has now been traced to 1904,
saved us all a lot of grief. Noël Coward wrote in a 1957 diary. when Aleister Crowley used it in “The
I thought of Biden a lot while Apparently this expression of senescent Futile Fuck-stick; or, The Distiller’s Di-
reading Sun City, and also of Dick contempt is the earliest documented lemma.” Over five hundred fucking
Van Dyke, who, now ninety-eight, usage of the construction to __ the fuck pages, the only omission I noticed is a
has been old (still ha ndsome, out of, meaning to do something “to an sterling coinage from William Fried-
though) for the entire time I’ve been excessive, violent, unpleasant, or pow- kin’s 1995 movie Jade, in which David
alive, and who has taken to intro- erful extent.” The citation is one of Caruso, sniffing around where he
ducing himself at public appearances thousands in THE F-WORD (Oxford doesn’t belong, nudges open a mini
by saying, “I’m what’s left of Dick University Press, $22.99), a dictionary fridge in an opulent bedroom: “Cristal,
Van Dyke.” This book’s original dust dedicated to the word fuck “and every beluga, Wolfgang Puck . . . it’s a fuck
jacket called it “an indictment of the compound word or phrase of which house.” But there is, on page 309, fuck-
American way of old age,” which is fuck is a part,” now published in a rous- you money, which The F-Word dates to
too strong an assertion for such a ing fourth edition edited by Jesse 1969 and defines as “sufficient money
wistful tale, though it has notes of Sheidlower, an expletive expert. He’s to give one personal freedom, esp. the
well-deserved condescension. Proba- expanded the book by more than 150 freedom to quit one’s job.” In other
bly only a Scandinavian could have pages since its previous edition, from words, to retire. Q

Pink Telephone, by Aglaé Bassens. Courtesy the artist and HESSE FLATOW, New York City REVIEWS 79
DYING IS A FORM battle grief.” These are video games in
the gamiest sense—violent, repeti-
tive, grandiose, silly. In fact, they are
OF EDUCATION probably the most influential video
games of the past decade, inspiring a
new subgenre of “Soulslikes” and
On Elden Ring changing how designers approach sto-
rytelling, level design, combat, and
By Gabriel Winslow-Yost failure in all sorts of ways. But at times
they can seem, for their tens of mil-
lions of players, more like a strange
kind of interactive scripture to be pon-
Discussed in this essay: dered, parsed, defended, and used to
understand the world.
Elden Ring, developed by FromSoftware. Bandai Namco. $59.99.

T
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, developed by FromSoftware. hey certainly didn’t start that
Bandai Namco. $39.99. way. The first, Demon’s Souls
(2009), was developed with lit-

V
ideo games, even when played by a frenzy of commentary and reaction. tle oversight by a team led by a young
alone, have to be understood There are endless, sometimes vicious designer named Hidetaka Miyazaki.
communally. Each game is a arguments over which of the games, Miyazaki knew his ideas for Demon’s
little different for every player—not levels, bosses, weapons are best or worst; Souls would seem unsalable, so he hid
just understood differently, as with over how their influence has changed them from his superiors until it was too
other art forms, but literally different. the rest of the industry— or how it late to change the design. The game
Different things happen in them, big should. Thousands of videos document was released without much fanfare, and
or small, as each player plays it in their moments of surprise: people reacting to exclusively in Japan; it was exported to
own way, makes their own choices, a boss discarding his robes to reveal his the West only after a few enterprising
provokes different outcomes. So the true identity, to a wall dissolving at a critics and fans got their hands on the
only way you can really come to know touch. Moments of triumph: someone game and raved about it. It sold slowly,
a game is by finding out how it went beating the game without dodging; or then less slowly. The Dark Souls trilogy
for other people, and by telling other someone using bongos as a controller, (2011–16) followed, along with Blood-
people how it went for you. From every or brain waves, or Morse code; someone borne (2015) and Sekiro (2019), and by
game that is dropped into the world, simply beating a boss, at last, however now the Soulsborne games (as fans
such accounts ripple outward: anec- they can; someone, somehow, beating refer to them collectively) have sold
dotes, analyses, debates, and rumors, all the games, back-to-back, without well over eighty million copies. The
these days mostly online, in the form ever being hit. Moments, above all, of newest and most ambitious, Elden Ring,
of wikis, Twitch streams, YouTube vid- failure: a relentless series of slapstick was the second best-selling game of
eos, and Reddit posts. shorts, in which the punch line is al- 2022—which, if it were a movie, would
No games have demonstrated this ways you died—crushed by a trap, lured make it Top Gun: Maverick.
more clearly, or more extravagantly, off the edge of a cliff, incinerated by a They are all, in a general sense,
than the recent works by the Japanese dragon, slashed by some baffling, blade- conventional action games. You con-
studio FromSoftware—Demon’s Souls, wielding monstrosity, beaten up in a trol your character from a close third-
the Dark Souls series, Bloodborne, corner by a couple of raggedy soldiers. person perspective and spend most of
Sekiro, and, most recently, Elden Ring. One might find failure more particular your time fighting. Most of the games
They are complex, idiosyncratic action and sustained: after spending a few are set in a horror-tinged version of
games, at once dour and ridiculous, dozen hours trying to beat the final Western high fantasy: there are knights
maddening and mesmerizing. Playing, boss of Shadow of the Erdtree, the re- and dragons, giants and monsters,
you might find yourself guiding your cent expansion of Elden Ring, Kai swords and spells, and the occasional
sword-wielding warrior into battle Cenat—a Twitch streamer so popular club made from an enormous, magical
against a giant dragon who throws he accidentally caused a riot in Man- severed finger. (Bloodborne turns in-
lightning bolts at you while the hattan last year— consulted with a stead to Victorian horror, Sekiro to a
soundtrack swells. Or you might send therapist about his waning confidence fantastical sixteenth-century Japan.)
him creeping through a dark sewer, only as the camera rolled. As you fight, you acquire new weapons,
to fall into a pit filled with giant googly- Or matters might turn academic: increase your character’s abilities, and
eyed lizards, choke on the black gas they emotive, hours-long retellings of the find more and bigger monsters to fight,
emit, and lose an hour of progress. Each games’ stories; analyses of their archi- until you reach one last enemy, kill him
of these games has been accompanied tecture, symbolism, and art-historical (or it), and the credits roll—the usual.
inspirations; accounts of how playing The closer you look, though, the
Gabriel Winslow-Yost is a contributing editor them helped someone deal with de- stranger the games get. Where most
of The New York Review of Books. pression, or understand “what it is to action games want you to hurtle through

80 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

them, all speed and momentum and
ever-changing spectacle, the Soulsborne
games are ponderous and frustrating.
Your character moves slowly, and even
minor enemies can kill you within sec-
onds. You creep along—progress comes
in dribs and drabs, earned through pain-
ful repetition. Where most video games
try to seem vibrant and alive, hiding
their simulated nature beneath as much
movement and variation as they can,
these make no effort to conceal the fact
that the worlds they present are pre-
programmed and artificial: enemies,
though visually elaborate, move in
clear, repeated patterns, and they often
stand perfectly still when left alone. It
is not an imitation of the complexity of
real life but an intricate, hostile mecha-
nism that creaks into action as the
player approaches.
Many of the features of this
mechanism—basic facts about how
the game works—are kept deliberately
obscure. The player is left to stumble
about, guessing at things that any nor-
mal game would explain immediately.
Why is my health cut in half after I die,
but only sometimes? Why is there a
number tracking my “Humanity” or
“Insight,” and what does it do? (And
what, for that matter, is my “Human-
ity”?) Why does my character just sort
of flop to the ground when I try to roll?
Large areas of the games—including
several of the best in both Dark Souls
and Elden Ring—are tucked away in
hidden corners, and the games can be
completed without your ever even real-
izing they exist.
With the exception of Sekiro, the
games are also a peculiar mix of single-
player and multiplayer: though you
generally play by yourself, the games of
other players bleed into yours if you are
connected to the internet. Their trans-
lucent ghosts flicker into sight; blood-
stains show where they have died and Much has been made of the diffi- panic and blunder, and be forced to
function as warnings, or comic relief— culty of these games— it has been repeat it. Especially in the earlier
you might watch a ghost blithely run criticized as exclusionary, lauded as a games, saving was heavily restricted,
through the door to the next area, then return to gaming’s roots, used as a sell- and progress could be easily lost—one
come tumbling back through to die in ing point. (prepare to die, declared brain-dead stumble can set you back
a panicked heap at your feet. Messages the slogan of the first Dark Souls.) But an hour. But the bar to progress is not,
left by other players appear in your “difficulty” is an elusive concept, one in the end, so very high. Soulsborne
world, offering hints, encouragement, word standing in for a number of ways games do not require great dexterity
jokes, or bald-faced lies. (There are also in which a game can resist its players. or reflexes, or the processing of large
systems, intentionally a bit cumber- The Soulsborne games are obtuse and amounts of complex information, as
some, for entering other players’ games unforgiving, cruelly willing to discard some games do. They are a test, in-
to help or attack them, and for inviting your progress—and waste your time. stead, of patience and understanding—
them to enter yours.) Each encounter is an invitation to of will, not skill.

Stills from Elden Ring. Courtesy FromSoftware/Bandai Namco Entertainment/IGBD REVIEWS 81

 Another way to put it is that the Soulsborne games slow this rhythm worlds and complex plots, little of either
games can be, for the wrong person, or down to a lingering, luxurious ex- is communicated directly. Instead,
someone in the wrong mood, simply amination of failure for its own sake. much of the narrative is concealed, and
unpleasant. It is not always clear why They do not return to a previous sim- large parts are erased entirely. The
one would want to spend one’s leisure plicity but take a route through the old player is tossed a few proper nouns and
time swearing at a screen, lost, stuck, to the new. vague declarations (in Dark Souls,
dying over and over in the dark. More Often this involves teasing out the players are told that they are the
often, though, they provide something emotional possibilities of game-design “Chosen Undead” in the cursed land
much more complicated: a paradoxical contrivances. For instance, in all these of “Lordran,” and must ring the “Bell of
mix of joy and outrage, relief and de- games, your character is notably smaller Awakening”; in Elden Ring that they
spair. The repetitive drumbeat of failure, than the enemies you fight. Even other are a “Tarnished” who has returned to
occasionally punctuated by success or humans generally tower over you. Part the “Lands Between” to try to mend the
disaster or revelation, batters you into a of this is simply convenience: since the “Elden Ring” after the “Shattering”)
kind of gleeful serenity. Failure and dumped into the game. The
becomes funny, even soothing. traditional means of video-game
The games are full of jokes at the storytelling— cutscenes, voice-
player’s expense—traps and dead over narration, and conversations
ends and carefully orchestrated with other characters—are pres-
aggravations. Game after game ent only in the most attenuated,
runs variations on the comedic enigmatic forms. The significance
setup of an enormous stone ball of what you’re told, and all the
rolling at you down a slope, for other details of the setting and
instance. It’s there in the opening story and your role in it, are scat-
level of Dark Souls, to teach you tered in a vast heap of hints and
about dodging, and about the fragments: in the brief textual de-
game designers’ malevolence; then scriptions attached to weapons
it appears again and again in more and items, in the few sparse inter-
complicated arrangements. By El- actions with other characters, in
den Ring such traps have become the visual details of landscapes,
familiar, even comforting—until buildings, and enemies. These are
the moment when a boulder rolls all easy to miss if you aren’t paying
past you, stops, and then rolls back, attention. You could make it to
seemingly of its own free will, to the end of the game without any
crush you from behind. The only real idea of what is going on, let
possible response is to laugh or alone ever quite figuring out what
give up. a “Tarnished” might be.
Miyazaki has said that part of Even if you are paying attention,
the original idea for Demon’s Souls it isn’t easy to piece it all together.
was to get back to basics, to make Elden Ring’s story, especially, is
a game “the way games used to complicated and ambiguous, and it
be.” But his is a selective, even often seems intentionally hard to
perverse memory of those olden follow. The Lands Between is a
times, with the gaps and limita- dense, deranged rendition of a tra-
tions of earlier games turned into ditional fantasy continent, its very
deliberate features, their accidents and games are played in third person, a name like a garbled machine transla-
oddities now ingrown, alien. Before smaller player character makes it easier tion of “Middle-earth”: rolling grass-
there was so much information about to see past them to the rest of the lands, misty forests, enchanted lakes,
them available online, video games world, and larger enemies are less likely snowy mountains, deserts, castles, a
often accumulated rumors—of secrets to be obscured in close-quarters com- magical school, even a volcano, all
hidden at the edges of the map, myste- bat. But it also means that the world mashed together and filled with mon-
rious features slipped into the code. itself feels more threatening and alien, sters. From shards of narration and
FromSoftware deliberately cultivates the player more fragile, triumphs more other clues one can learn that it has
those mysteries, demanding that players tenuous and unlikely. The architecture been ruled—formed, deformed, and
sort through rumors as they play. Back often reflects this, with doors and stair- fought over—by a series of gods, demi-
when games were still played mostly in ways clearly made for much more mas- gods, and the even more powerful ab-
arcades, they were usually based sive beings than you. stract forces that choose and empower
around a staccato interplay of repeti- Even more unusual is the games’ ap- them: the “Greater Will” holds sway, as
tion and progression— the faster a proach to storytelling—or, rather, the shown by the enormous glowing
player failed, the sooner they could be near absence of traditional storytelling. “Erdtree” that looms over the world,
lured into putting in more money. The Though they have elaborate fictional and various “Outer Gods” lurk. Every-
The Twisted City, an illustration by Timothy Kelly. The artwork depicts a character of Kelly’s invention,
“The Weaver,” in the Northern Limit, an unfinished level discarded early in the development
of Demon’s Souls. Kelly’s work is included in the book Soul Arts, a collection of fan art
82 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024 curated by VaatiVidya and published by Tune & Fairweather. Courtesy Tune & Fairweather
one you encounter is aligned in some which he could understand only par- chaeological’ mode of fandom, which
way or other with one of them. tially. (For Elden Ring he actually hired denotes attention to environmental
This history swarms with vexingly one of his favorite fantasy authors, clues and an emotional investment in
similar names: Radagon, Radahn, George R. R. Martin, to help write the the material history of the game
Rykard, Rennala, Rellana, Renna, underlying mythology, which was then world,” and these online debates can
Ranni, Roderika, and Rogier; God- duly obscured.) It does have that often feel like a warped, counterfac-
frey, Gowry, Godrick, Godwyn, and feel—a few names and spots of clarity tual form of academia. (One popular
Gurranq; Margit, Morgott, Mohg, shining through a mist of uncertainty— YouTube exegete, in fact, posts as “The
Marika, Miriel, Malenia, Millicent, but if anything, this understates how Tarnished Archaeologist.”)
Miquella, and Maliketh— many of puzzling and enigmatic even fundamen- Caracciolo also invokes Umberto
whom are related to one another, tal events and concepts are in his games’ Eco’s “influential understanding of the
only some of whom are human, de- stories. It is impossible, really, for any ‘open work’ as an experimental text
pending on your definition, and some individual player to piece everything that is co-constructed by the audi-
of whom turn out to be the same be- together on their own, in a normal play- ence,” which certainly seems apt. But
ing under different names. (You through, and some major questions are Eco’s examples—the music of Stock-
meet—and kill—most of them by the left completely unanswered. hausen and Boulez, the writings of
end of the game.) To unlock these mysteries, a large, Mallarmé and Joyce—point to a cru-
Piecing together an actual narrative energetic online community has de- cial difference. The work of those art-
around those names is not easy. You voted itself to combing through the ists is often forbidding and abstruse,
might wonder, for instance, about games and compiling discoveries, and, for all their influence and longev-
Marika. That she is the reigning deity theories, and counter-theories. Con- ity, none was ever accused of being a
of the Lands Between is fairly clear troversies can hinge on the exact bestseller. Elden Ring and its predeces-
from the ubiquitous statues of her like- meaning of a single phrase, on possi- sors are extremely popular, despite
ness strewn across the landscape and ble mistranslations from the Japanese their narrative withholding; the expe-
various scraps of narration. But other original (was the Great Tree meant to rience of playing them is immediate,
seemingly basic facts—how she is re- be distinct from the Erdtree, or not?), not esoteric, and people seek them out
lated to the other demigods, how she on subtle details of costume and stat- by the millions. Somehow, the absence
came to power, why she apparently set uary. Unused material dug up in the of a clear story never makes the game
off the Shattering, an apocalyptic code serves the role of apocrypha, il- itself feel muddled or meaningless.
event that left the entire continent in luminating, say, the possible signifi- This is because video games don’t
chaos and a state of civil war—emerge cance of the God of Frenzied Flame actually need stories, in any normal
only in stray lines of dialogue or a few through a storyline that was cut sense. No matter what a game does or
seconds of gnomic cutscene, or are from the game before its release. A does not tell you, the primary experi-
never answered at all. It’s not a narra- few of these explicators even make a ence is always your own progress
tive you simply “experience”: you either living doing it— the most promi- through it—your mistakes, your dis-
ignore most of it, or you go a little in- nent, an Australian named Michael coveries, your victories. Everything
sane, poring over minute details and Samuels who posts under the name else, all the plot twists and backstories
message-board speculation like a con- VaatiVidya, has pursued it as a full- and characterization a game might
spiracy theorist. Do eye colors have a time job since 2015; his YouTube contain, is layered on top of that base.
deeper significance? (Yes, of course.) videos, on subjects like “The Lore of Mainstream big-budget games tend to
What’s up with all the giant fingers? Elden Ring’s Dragons” and “Elden slather it on thick, with plenty of hero-
(An essay in itself.) And what could it Ring’s Demigods Explained!,” are ism and pathos, but many other games
possibly mean that Marika (spoiler slickly produced, often over an hour have no explicit narrative at all (Tetris,
alert) is the same person as Radagon, long, and viewed by millions. Bejewled), or one so thin and derivative
her second husband, especially since Consulting such sources is the only as to be essentially vestigial: classics
they seem to have been on opposite way to get a solid grasp on the story: like Doom and Mario Bros. have stories
sides of the Shattering? That baffling the shared exegesis, though external that might as well have been written
answer is revealed only if you use a to the game itself, is integral to the on a napkin.
specific spell in front of a specific statue, experience of playing it. Marco Carac- The Soulsborne games never ob-
or through an otherwise extremely ciolo, a professor of English and literary scure that fundamental, moment-by-
confusing cutscene near the end of the theory at Ghent University in Belgium, moment experience. It is clear and
game, and itself requires further expla- recently published a brief academic sharp: an intense, carefully controlled
nation that is never provided. monograph about this odd way of story of exploration, intimidation, and
telling a story, under the slightly cum- struggle. Every detail of the landscape

E
verything comes that way: im- bersome title On Soulsring Worlds: is made significant, for what it might
plicit, incomplete, out of order, Narrative Complexity, Digital Commu- offer or threaten or allow: paths curl-
deliberately unclear. Miyazaki nities, and Interpretation in “Dark Souls” ing back on themselves, unexpected
has said that his approach to narrative and “Elden Ring.” These games engage glimpses of distant areas, items placed
was inspired by his childhood experi- in a form of “environmental storytell- just out of reach, enemies lurking in a
ences reading Western fantasy novels, ing,” he writes, that creates “an ‘ar- perfectly inconvenient spot—a precise

REVIEWS 83
interweaving of curiosity, anxiety, frus- realm so huge that its distant ceiling those ruins, of course. Every structure
tration, exhilaration, and relief. sparkles with stars. you encounter is, at best, abandoned,
The architects Luke Caspar Pearson and more often choked with weeds and

I
and Sandra Youkhana devote an early n any other medium, Elden Ring’s corpses, or haunted, or actively on fire.
chapter of their lovely, astute Videogame shadowy, archaeological anti-epic Many are not just ruins but ruined
Atlas (2022) to Dark Souls, noting the would be alienating and experi- memorials—decrepit graveyards, dese-
way its landscapes derive from both mental. If told conventionally, its remix crated catacombs, vandalized monu-
eighteenth-century Western principles of fantasy tropes might seem jumbled. ments. The biggest, most threatening
of the picturesque—“the prized scenic But as a video game, it works—in many enemies you fight are often the most
views, unconventional pathways and ways feeling more cohesive and natural pathetic as well, once-mighty heroes
architectural motifs such as ruins [that] than the rigid, cinematic storytelling so who’ve long since been overtaken by
communicate a symbolism of deep time many other games pursue. One of the madness and decay, towering monsters
and mythology”—and an even older insights underpinning FromSoftware’s now aged, sick, or injured. A few even
Japanese focus on “the power of ruin- games is a recognition of the opportu- thank you as they die. (In Shabriri’s
ation.” Much of it is spectacular, but nity that the medium presents—an Blinding Light, a slim, self-published vol-
nothing is ever pristine. As you play, you opportunity not for narrative simplic- ume laying out a gnostic reading of El-
move through crumbling shrines, ity, as it has been seen in the past, but den Ring, the psychotherapist Matthew
drowned cities, abandoned palaces, rot- for a new kind of complexity, a center- Burdo notes that the long process of
ting sewers, fields of ash—it couldn’t be less, centrifugal form of storytelling, learning how to defeat especially chal-
clearer, no matter how murky the story defined by discontinuity and uncer- lenging enemies is, “in a strange way . . .
gets, that this is a world long since fallen, tainty and yet, at the same time, pro- a labor of love and attachment.”) You
and from a great height. Its derelict gran- pulsion and accessibility. are always too late, arriving long after
deur is also in a certain amount of ten- This dispersed form also means that the true crisis has passed, at the tail end
sion with the constraints on the player, the games’ most powerful effects come of a cycle. The civilization you explore
which are many—the game suggests not from explicit statement, or from any has already wound down, its flame just
immensity, rather than actually provid- turn or climax in the story, but from a about to go out (quite literally, in Dark
ing it, confining your movements to a slow accretion of mood and symbolism. Souls). And there’s never much you can
limited array of predefined paths be- Action games, especially difficult ones, do about it: at best, you might, with
tween generally small locations. provide an emotional experience some- great effort, prolong the sunset a little,
Elden Ring, on the other hand, is the where between aesthetics and exercise. or bring about night a little earlier, but
first of FromSoftware’s games to be They teach you things about yourself— nothing more.
centered on a nonlinear open world. about the limits and possibilities of your Caracciolo devotes a subchapter of
Here, the biggest surprises often come reflexes, dexterity, memory, and pattern his book to the many online discussions
from the reverse: how much can be recognition; about how you respond to of how playing these games has helped
accessed, the surfeit of landscape open your own failures. The texture of this people cope with depression. The games
to the player. It is enormous compared experience varies from game to game. insist upon your smallness, the many
with the previous games—Dark Souls The relatively long, slow animations of things you can’t fix, can’t change, can’t
might take you a few dozen hours to the Soulsborne games, especially the know—and, at the same time, never
complete, Elden Ring well over a hun- early ones, and the inability to cancel an stop providing opportunities for smaller,
dred. The shock is not the expanse action once you’ve started it, mean personal victories, a combination that
alone but the density, the way every that their fights are punctuated by tiny can, indeed, be surprisingly comforting.
hillock and cavern is filled with inci- bursts of regret—you watch helplessly This may be part of the games’ broader
dent and variety. Much of the drama as an attack fails, or an attempt at appeal: in a time of widespread anxiety
of the player’s progress through the evasion delivers you to doom. You can and pessimism, a grand vision of how
landscape is provided by the periodic feel yourself oscillating between play- to find meaning in the end of things,
revelation of new vistas—a lowland of ing the game and observing it, rooting how to accept it without accepting your
misty lakes and waterlogged ruins for your own success or bemoaning own defeat, might make more sense
stretching out beneath you as you reach your incompetence. than another blithe rendition of saving
the edge of a cliff; a narrow, unassum- This experience lies outside, or per- the world.
ing hallway that suddenly opens out haps beneath, the other aesthetic as- It also is in tune with the deep struc-
above a vast, mazelike royal city—all pects of the game—you don’t care how tures of video games. The endless cycle
of which you can, in fact, explore. Per- beautiful a castle is, or what it’s called, of failure and repetition that playing a
haps the most celebrated moment in when you’re trying not to die on the difficult game entails is not something
the game involves neither combat nor ramparts. But the intense, intimate to be vanquished but simply part of the
narrative, but one of these sudden dis- engagement it involves also heightens experience, something to be accepted
closures of space: a seemingly modest everything else. Each flickering detail and enjoyed. So, too, with the extraor-
stone building tucked away in a forest of the world feels significant because, dinary profusion of death in these
turns out to be an elevator that in this more immediate sense, it is. games—all those catacombs and mau-
descends—lingeringly, unexpectedly, That larger significance is remarkably soleums and, of course, your own re-
inexplicably—into an underground unheroic and fatalistic. It starts with all peated deaths. Part of this, again, is

84 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

formal: death is how your failure is mirror reflections of real practices. Hill-
communicated to you, as it is in many sides are dotted with crucifixions, but
games; dying is a form of education, as the victims hang from curving arcs, not
Miyazaki has said. crosses. One character is a “deathbed
But the worlds that his games de- companion” who lies with the dying, a
pict also take death as one of their practice possibly based on a medieval
foundational assumptions. It is not, as Japanese ritual. The treasure-filled
it is in so many other works of fan- graves of a civilization of “beastmen” are
tasy, something that can be defeated clearly inspired by the prehistoric Varna
or transcended—the most grotesque Necropolis; the Golden Order’s cycle of
monsters in the Soulsborne games are death and rebirth draws from Bud-
often the result of attempts to do just dhism, even as its iconography looks
this—but an inescapable, ubiquitous mostly Catholic; the various cremation
fact. It can be lamented, resisted, em- sites and funerary jars, meanwhile, use
braced, but one has to come to terms Roman symbolism; there is even scat-
with it one way or another. Dark Souls tered evidence of something like
is not just an immensely popular ac- Viking-style boat burials.
tion game but also an intricate, inter- Death is the basic grammar of
active memento mori: prepare to die pretty much every action game; killing
is more than a taunt. and dying are how they organize your
Elden Ring deepens and complicates play, a fictional gloss on your success
this preoccupation. Its landscapes are and failure. In some sense, Elden Ring’s
littered with death in just about every treatment of it is just another example
form: graves, catacombs, and monu- of FromSoftware’s particular kind of
ments, of course, along with pyres and reflexivity: its incorporation of its
funerary jars, half-buried skeletons, piles games’ formal elements into the fiction
of corpses, hill-size skulls, torture cham- of their worlds. The world of Elden
bers, temples to bloodletting and rot and Ring is built on death because the
immolation, giant mausoleums that game itself is. But the persistent echoes
walk around on huge stone legs. The of real-world death, and the insistence
plot, once you piece it together, turns not just on death and dying but on its
out to be largely that of a conflict be- aftermath and cultural responses to
tween different relationships to death, it—on the basic question of what to do
competing understandings of it, in many with the bodies— make it all much
cases literally between different funeral more serious and strange. It is a game
rites (or an unnerving lack of them). that seems to have decided that death
The prevailing Golden Order returns is simply too important to be relegated
corpses to the roots of the great Erdtree, to a matter of game design. If you’re
so they can be reborn; earlier civiliza- going to play with it, you need to
tions, largely suppressed, burned their think about it too—to look at it, feel
dead in holy flames, or buried them in it, sit with it, and, perhaps most im-
various elaborate ways; and as the Order portant, appreciate it.
has broken down, corpses have begun

I
reemerging, wandering the landscape as n Elden Ring’s recent expansion,
“Those Who Live in Death.” Shadow of the Erdtree, death is, if
In The Dominion of the Dead, Robert anything, even more foundational—
Pogue Harrison’s eloquent consider- sometimes quite literally. The architec-
ation of the effects that the dead have ture of its final area, a spiraling holy
on the living, he writes that “humanity city leading to a monumental “Divine
is not a species” but “a way of being Gate,” is built of corpses, with thou-
mortal and relating to the dead. . . . As sands of petrified, writhing bodies
human beings we are born of the dead.” somehow mixed into the stone itself.
Elden Ring operates from a similar as- Most of FromSoftware’s games have
sumption, pushed a little further: “From received expansions that generally act
death,” as a bit of in-game text puts it as distillations of the themes and chal-
(found on an item you can acquire by lenges of the original game. Their nar-
defeating an ancestral spirit, hidden rative relationships to the original
away underground), “one obtains games have varied. Some have func-
power.” All the ways of relating to death tioned as an epilogue or finale, others
found in the game’s world are funhouse- as backstory to the main plot—a kind

REVIEWS 85
 INCREASE AFFECTION of playable flashback— or even a com- to putrefy. In the very first area you
Created by mentary upon it. Shadow of the Erdtree encounter, called the Gravesite Plain,
Winnifred Cutler, is the latter, an alternate vision of you can find a “suppressing pillar,”
Ph.D. in biology from
monstrous ambition that complements which declares that this is “the very
U. of Penn, post-doc
Stanford.
and complicates Elden Ring. It is set in center of the Lands Between. All
Co-discovered human the “Land of Shadow,” an area of the manners of Death wash up here, only
pheromones in 1986 Lands Between that the god-queen to be suppressed.”
Marika cut off from the rest of the All our ways of dealing with death
Effective for 74% in
two 8-week studies, continent and magically concealed, inevitably fade and lose their meaning
68% in 3rd study. and that has undergone a war of geno- over time, Harrison writes, and if they
cidal retribution. It is a zone of repres- are not replaced with new cultural
FORMULA PROVEN EFFECTIVE sion, a holding pen for the people and forms, we can “find ourselves sur-
IN 3 DOUBLE-BLIND STUDIES places that don’t fit in her kingdom, or rounded . . . by death without knowing
Athena Pheromones increase that don’t align with her divinity: her how to die.” That is the crisis this
your attractiveness. Worn daily past, her enemies, her secrets. game depicts. If Elden Ring’s world is
lasts 4-6 mos, or use it straight.
Athena 10X tm For Men $99.50 Shadow of the Erdtree’s story is more one riven by competing rhetorics of
Unscented 10:13 tm For Women $98.50 straightforward than Elden Ring’s, a death, none of them sufficient, Shadow
Fragrance Additives Cosmetics 2+ vials ship free to US little more conventionally delivered— of the Erdtree’s is one in which they
♥ Matt (WY) “I am a physician in family practice. we follow in the footsteps of the demi- have all been abandoned, unreplaced:
I think 10X is a wonderful product. I tell everyone god Miquella, who is frequently men- a world where death is meaningless—
that it works. It just makes people more atten- tioned in the original game but never and life with it.
tive. I get better service in restaurants.” actually seen, as he journeys through Descend deep enough into the pu-
♥ Brigitte (TX) “It sure boosts my confidence. the shadowlands, discarding various trefying underworld and you can meet
Because with the Athena, there just seems to
be men flocking around everywhere. My aspects of himself in an attempt to as- St. Trina, an alter ego of Miquella’s. A
age? I am 61. Thank you.” cend to godhood—but the land itself representation of his kindness and
SAVE $100 on a 6-Pak is even more convoluted. It is dizzyingly love, which he has discarded, she begs
Not in stores 610-827-2200 vertical, with mountaintops and ele- you to kill Miquella, to keep him from
Athenainstitute.com vated cities arranged over rolling becoming a “caged divinity,” impris-
Athena Institute, 1211 Braefield Rd., Chester Spgs, PA 19425 HP plains, which are then cut through by oned in immortal godhood. As anyone
deep valleys and caverns, as if a tradi- who has lost a loved one knows, love
tional open-world map had been torn and death are not opposites. The one
FOR CLASSIFIED RATES AND and crumpled up. illuminates the other—makes it hurt,
INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: And everywhere you look, you find which is another way of saying it
Perri Smith Walker death gone wrong, the dead dishon- makes it meaningful. You do not ex-
perri@harpers.org, (212) 420-5773
ored and abused. Enormous coffin pect to be reminded of that by a video
TEXT ADS: Minimum ten words. ships are beached along the shore, the game, still less one that lets you wield
hills are dotted with bodies impaled a hammer the size of your torso and
SPACE RATES: One-inch, $270; Two-inch, on spikes, the roads are patrolled by get clawed to death by a giant lobster.
$530; Three-inch, $765; Five-inch, huge “furnace golems,” ambulatory But this strange mix of the silly and
$925. Frequency discounts available.
cremation pits stuffed with flaming the absolutely serious is what makes
PLUS COST per word: 1X rate $4.50; corpses. A “specimen storehouse” is these games—and video games gener-
3X rate $4.40; 6X rate $4.30; full of strung-up giants, and deep un- ally, the silliest and strangest of art
9X rate $4.10; 12X rate $4.00. derground the “impure” dead are left forms—so powerful. Q
Telephone numbers, box numbers,
URLs, and email addresses count
as two words. ZIP codes count as Harper’s Magazine is owned and published monthly by the Harper’s Magazine Foundation, 666 Broadway,
one word. New York, N.Y. 10012. Tel: 212- 420-5720. Jackson Lears, Chairman; John R. MacArthur, President; Rosa
Brooks, Elizabeth D. Samet, and Rosanna Warren, Board Members. Copyright © 2024 by the Harper’s
CLOSING DATES: 1st of the 2nd Magazine Foundation. All rights reserved. The trademark Harper’s is used by the Harper’s Magazine Foundation
preceding month. For example: under license and is a registered trademark owned by HarperCollins. The trademark Harper’s Index is a regis-
tered trademark owned by the Harper’s Magazine Foundation. Printed in the United States. Periodicals postage
August 1st for the October issue. paid at New York, N.Y., and additional mailing offices. In Canada, second-class postage paid at Windsor, Ont. In
Canada, International Publications Mail Agreement #40013802. Canadian GST 12477 4167 RT. Return unde-
PAYMENT3UHSD\PHQWIRUDOOƓUVWWLPH liverable Canadian addresses to Harper’s Magazine, P.O. Box 885, Markham Station Main, Markham, Ont.
advertisers is required. Make checks L3P8M9. POSTMASTER: Send all address changes to Harper’s, P.O. Box 6237, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1737.
payable to Harper’s Magazine, ISSN0017-789X. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Please provide both address from last issue and new address. Allow
and mail to: Harper’s Magazine, six weeks’ advance notice. SUBSCRIPTIONS: $30 one year. Canada and United States possessions, add $3;
666 Broadway, FL 11, New York, NY other foreign, add $20 per year. Send orders to Harper’s Magazine, P.O. Box 6237, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1737.
SUBSCRIPTION PROBLEMS: Write Harper’s Magazine, P.O. Box 6237, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1737, or
$WWQ&ODVVLƓHGV%DQNWUDQVIHU call 800- 444- 4653, M–F, 8 AM –midnight, S&S, 9 AM –7 PM, EST. All requests for PERMISSIONS and
info may be provided upon request. REPRINTS must be made in writing to Harper’s Magazine, 666 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10012. The Readings
Please include telephone number in Harper’s Magazine every month include texts and documents found in the public domain, most of them
on all correspondence. abridged for reasons of space and not all of them reprinted with permission. Harper’s Magazine will not consider or
return unsolicited non-fiction manuscripts that have not been preceded by a written query, but will consider
TO RESPOND TO AN AD: unsolicited fiction. Unsolicited poetry will not be considered or returned. No queries or manuscripts will be
Harper’s Magazine considered unless they are accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Visit our website at www.harpers.org.
666 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
$WWQ&ODVVLƓHGV
86 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024
 PUZZLE
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
JOKE 12
By Richard E. Maltby Jr. 13 14

15 16
“___________ ________?” said Myrna to Letty.
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
1A (3, 1, 3, 3) 14A (1, 8)
“_____ _,” said Letty. 24 25 26
17A (8)
27 28
“Do ___________ ______ ______?” said Myrna.
7A (3, 3, 3, 4) 33A (6) 36A (7) 29 30 31 32
Letty replied, “___________ ________.”
33 34 35 36 37 38 39
44A (1, 5, 2, 4) 48A (5, 4)
40 41 42 43
Clued answers include seven proper nouns and one foreign
word. The entry at 12A is uncommon. 44 45
As always, mental repunctuation of a clue is the key to its
solution. The solution to last month’s puzzle appears on page 71. 46 47

48

across
1. (See instructions) (3, 1, 3, 3) 4. Part of a sparkling conversation? Show how dropping
9. In retrospect, you might find one in a shower cap (3) out gets you to like asses, almost (6)
12. Bullet trains with circular windows (8) 5. Member of a racist group? Sounds like a chicken, so
14. (See instructions) (1, 8) they say (4)
15. Nice craft showing dates, including a time! (7) 6. Geyser’s terminus is a river (4)
16. Salvages garbage—no sign of failure before start of 7. Offensive, but it’s written in stone (5)
school (6) 8. Appear in reverse order—that’s an improvement (6)
17. (See instructions) (8) 9. What have we here? A medley of hits (4)
22. Plot followed in a voice-over (5) 10. It’s soothing being single and nameless! (4)
24. It comes in little bits but sounds like a mouthful (4) 11. Singer-songwriter’s output reveals unexpected
25. Country Club has unregulated airline developing miserliness over time (12)
steadily (9) 13. Is it possible that place over there is a Gap (6)
27. (See instructions) (3, 3, 3, 4) 18. Ace put in a spin—it’s a key part of the service (6)
29. Against, after a flop, splitting a pair of kings? Twice, 19. A bit of an Adonis (4)
it’s a joke (5) 20. Zippo starts to lose its novelty and is returned (3)
32. Descartes’s revolutionary act—it produces many 21. Delight in the opening sound of “Gimme Shelter” (4)
issues (7) 23. Excavated area producing Spanish wine (4)
33. (See instructions) (6) 26. One over-charged thing (3)
36. (See instructions) (7) 28. Plant producing warmth in this place endlessly (7)
40. Coming back in, in an afterthought, make the cut (4) 30. Sensing complaint, gets upset—start to sit it out (6)
41. Company with initial offering of business? I’m all 31. One making the rounds in a track during physical
ears (3) training (6)
43. Food showing spoilage? Just the reverse! (3) 32. Football great and former wrestler who takes
44. (See instructions) (1, 5, 2, 4) direction (6)
46. Leading character in Tootsie canned: hammered and 34. One essential element of munitions (4)
wasted (6) 35. A Broadway musical turns up from Italy and
47. Heading west from two directions, guys find Germany (4)
enemies (7) 37. Fight to be part of a shell game? (3)
48. (See instructions) (5, 4) 38. Dad’s into kinky sex! Quick reaction! (5)
39. Touch Shift (4)
down 40. Locks in connection with the Great Lakes almost
1. One too often tearing up contracts—crabby? Yes! (7) any minute now (3)
2. At top of ninth, umpire turns toward you, and . . . 42. Disney’s invitation to sit in the sanctuary: “_____
bats (5) guest!” (4)
3. Playwright in range ran away (4) 45. Like the best gossip, it’s kept inside! Who told? (3)

Contest Rules: Send completed diagram with name and address to “Joke,” Harper’s Magazine, 666 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10012. If you al-
ready subscribe to Harper’s, please include a copy of your latest mailing label. Entries must be received by November 8. The sender of the first correct
solution opened at random will receive a one-year subscription to Harper’s Magazine (limit one winner per household per year). The winner’s name
will be printed in the January issue. The winner of the September puzzle, “The Count of Monte Cristo,” is Dean Yannias, Albuquerque, N.M.
PUZZLE 87
 FINDINGS

R esearchers determined that the Stonehenge Altar

Stone came from northeast Scotland, speculated that
of both Chinese and European ganders develop asym-
metrically, discerned the “previously enigmatic” role
an internal structure in the Step Pyramid of Djoser of INO80D in the spermatogenesis of the Chinese
was a hydraulic elevator, unveiled a cup from a Persian mitten crab, and used electroacupuncture to alter
necropolis depicting Hermes Psychopompos leading a the brain function of male rats to mitigate prema-
dead woman to the underworld, and compared the ture ejaculation. Turkish doctors reported a case of
newly discovered skeletons of a woman and a young penile autoamputation with religious delusion. The
man killed in the eruption of Pompeii, concluding gut microbiomes of month-old thoroughbred foals
that the former “stayed alive much longer . . . only to can predict future racing success. Forty percent of
collapse in agony, falling over the edge of the bed in recordings of Atlanta infants contain more squeal
the ash-charged air.” Mammoths may have been clustering than would occur randomly and 39 per-
killed with planted pikes rather than with thrown cent contain more clustered growls. Autistic Swedish
spears. It was determined that Viking Norway was less seven-year-olds are likelier than their neurotypical
hierarchical and more violent than Viking Denmark, peers to engage in gender-nonconforming play, brain
where the 6 percent of the population who died vio- scans can predict genetic markers of autism with 89
lently were almost always formally executed. An in- to 95 percent accuracy, and Liverpudlian autistic chil-
terdisciplinary team concluded that the last universal dren reported that social-deception games are useful
common ancestor was a prokaryote-grade anaerobic in learning how to lie.
acetogen that had a primitive immune system and
lived approximately 4.2 billion years ago. Geophysi-
cists found that warming upper waters in the extra-
A survey of 97,000 Japanese people between 2020
and 2022 found that the Nintendo Switch has a more
tropical North Atlantic weakens the trade winds in a pronounced positive effect on the mental health of ad-
feedback loop, proposed that the doldrums are caused olescents than the PlayStation 5. EEG experts dis-
by sinking rather than rising air masses, and warned agreed on whether, in the future, brain waves could be
that the center of the Greenlandic ice sheet may melt used to read dreams and long-term memories. The hip-
again sooner than expected. Large earthquakes may pocampus makes three copies of each memory. Psyche
be predictable weeks to months in advance. AI re- may not be the exposed core of a differentiated plane-
searchers determined that large language models pose tesimal but instead an entity that originated past the
no existential threat to humanity and created an AI snow line. Cocaine sensitivity may be decreased by
algorithm that can detect scientific articles written by rosemary extract, and the livers of thirteen Brazilian
other AI algorithms. Chemists warned of the risk sharp-nosed sharks all tested positive for cocaine.
posed by poisonous Victorian books. Humpback whales use bubble nets as tools. A newly ex-

C hinese doctors and veterinarians reported success

in using magnetic rings to circumcise eight beagles
cavated fossil species of small penguin was found to
mark the transition toward modern penguin wings,
and little penguins were found to be sensitive to
and in unburying the penises of forty-two adult men, pile-driving. Scientists coerced fruit flies into walking
discovered that from hatching to adulthood the testes on tiny treadmills. Q

Untangling Yarn (Bedimmed Boundaries), by Wangari Mathenge, whose work was on view last month at
Nicola Vassell Gallery, in New York City © Wangari Mathenge. Courtesy the artist and Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York City

88 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2024

 AT 92NY’S UNTERBERG
POETRY CENTER

MON, NOV 11, 7:30 PM THU, DEC 5, 8 PM MON, DEC 9, 7:30 PM

Richard Price Truman Capote: Edwin Frank
Lazarus Man A Centenary & James Wood
TUE, NOV 19, 7 PM
Celebration Stranger than Fiction
John Edgar John Burnham
Wideman Schwartz,
Slaveroad Griffin Dunne,
Sloane Crosley
THU, NOV 21, 7 PM and additional guests
Robert Caro to be announced
& Stacy Schiff
The Art of Biography

Explore the full Christopher Lightfoot Walker Reading Series

and get tickets at 92NY.org/Poetry, or call 212.415.5525.
New events coming soon!
All events are in person and online.

WHERE WORDS COME TO LIFE

 HAVE YOU EVER DREAMT OF
A BETTER VERSION OF YOURSELF?

"A FEARLESS
TAKEDOWN OF ABSURD
BEAUTY STANDARDS"
SCREEN RANT

"THE MOST SICKLY

ENTERTAINING THEATRICAL
EXPERIENCE OF THE YEAR"
INDIEWIRE

A FILM BY DEMI MOORE

CORALIE FARGEAT MARGARET QUALLEY
AND DENNIS QUAID

"AN INSTANT
BODY-HORROR
CLASSIC"
DAVID FEAR, ROLLING STONE

GET 30 DAYS FREE

mubi.com/harpers