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You are here: Home / Books / Eine Kleine Sunday Light Reading

Eine Kleine Sunday Light Reading

by Tom Levenson|  September 25, 20113:13 pm| 32 Comments

This post is in: Books

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I’ve been uncharacteristically quiet the last several days, I know.  That’s what happens when a lot of years thinking about Albert Einstein brings one an invitation to the city of Medellin, Colombia to talk Big Al to the public.

Medellin is a fascinating place, as it happens, though I didn’t get that much time to explore.  I was struck throughout my visit at the oddness of the mix of circumstances that brought me to a place I’d truly never imagined I’d go, to speak of relativity, Hitler, and all kinds of things.  Funny old life and all that.

It’s not that complicated to get to Medellin from Boston — a hop to Miami and then a direct flight from there — but the plane rides and the layovers added up to the longest stretch of uninterrupted pure reading time I’ve had in a while.  On the way down, I finished Tom Bissell’s really interesting Extra Lives: Why Videogames Matter — I may write about this non-gamer’s reaction to Bissell’s attempt to locate the game-specific artistic core of the genre — but what has me captivated from a couple of days ago is my re-entry into Tony Judt’s The Memory Chalet.

That book, a memoir written from deep within the consuming fact of Judt’s last illness — ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease — is really a collection of short essay/memories.  Judt was a historian — his work centers on post-war Europe — and a public intellectual, the author of essays that detailed the flaws and follies of politics and culture on both sides of the Atlantic with bite — even ferocity.  The Memory Chalet touches on such concerns only obliquely.  But even so, in the midst of this exercise of recollection, flashes of connection arc across time and wit to produce sudden, wonderful set pieces.

Like the one prompted by a remembrance of Britain’s end-of and post-war Prime Minister Clement Atlee — so precisely rendered as to strike switchblade slash of political observation that makes me wish (again) that this particular wit were still unsheathed:

Moral seriousness in public life is like pornography:  hard to define but you know it when you see it.  It describes a coherence of intention and action, an ethic of political responsibilty.  All politics is the art of the possible.  But art too has its ethic.  If politicians were painters, with FDR as Titian and Churchill as Rubens, then Atlee would be the Vermeer of the profession:  precise, restrained — and long undervalued.

 

Bill Clinton might aspire to the heights of Salvador Dali (and believe himself complimented by the comparison), Tony Blair to the standing — and cupidity — of Damien Hurst.

Blair as Hurst.  Perfect.

See what I mean, though?  Would that Judt were around to wrap mind and apply pen to the freak show of contemporary Republican politics!

One more thing.  Given that it’s Sunday, and we should not live by politics alone, here’s a bonus bit of Judt, pure memory here, in a brief passage that tries to capture an identity formed through a childhood transected by warring cuisines:  the postwar English assaults against food; his grandparents’ resistant strain of Eastern European Jewish Sabbath meals; the first hints of a world of food beyond Land’s End.  What did all this add up to for the grown up Judt, that sophisticated citizen of Intelligentsia?  This:

As for the madeleine that would trigger the memory?  Naan dunked in matzohball soup, served by a Yiddish-speaking waiter from Madras.  We are what we ate.  And I am very English

For me, it would be the wonton soup from the long lost Yee’s Canton Café — the consequence of having a Jewish historian of China for a father, who declared that the Chief Rabbinate’s writ ended at the door to a Chinese restaurant — followed by my mothers’ leg of lamb with red currant jelly.  You?

Image:  J. Vermeer, The Geographer, c. 1668-1669.

 

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Reader Interactions

32Comments

  1. 1.

    Laura

    September 25, 2011 at 3:26 pm

    The Memory Chalet is a treasure and a half. I loved his chapter about riding trains as a child. And the effort he went to in creating this book is harrowing to think of (sleepless nights, unable to move, collecting recollections for the next day….)

    My identity foods? Venison (hunted by my parents) served over polenta– the staple of our Swiss-Italian neighbors–served with a side of boiled-to-death pinto beans and tomatoes and a slice of white bread and margarine. Yes, I did grow up very poor. And the thought of those foods still make my mouth water.

  2. 2.

    suzanne

    September 25, 2011 at 3:30 pm

    Tony Blair as Damien Hirst? I’m not sure about that. He feels much more Miesian to me.

  3. 3.

    agrippa

    September 25, 2011 at 3:34 pm

    Jdt was very good. I enjoyed his book, “Post War”.

  4. 4.

    smintheus

    September 25, 2011 at 3:34 pm

    Tony Judt was extremely sharp. He was also a truly decent human being. First met him on a job interview at NYU, when he was a Dean, and he struck me immediately as one of the most courteous and considerate people I’d ever met in academia. Such a terrible end for a great man. He faced up to his disease with the same unblinking candor as he showed in everything he did. His final essays were, as you say, tremendous reads.

  5. 5.

    BGinCHI

    September 25, 2011 at 3:47 pm

    Kudos Tom for mentioning Bissell’s book. It’s really thought-provoking and I hope you’ll write more on it.

    And if you like Bissell’s ideas there, I highly recommend Ernest Cline’s recently released novel Ready Player One. It’s a terrific read and if you spent any time breathing in the 80s you’ll really love it.

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 25, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    The entire GOP field: whoever painted Elvis playing poker with dogs on velvet.

  7. 7.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 25, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    Uh oh. I’ve discovered a new magic word for being put in moderation. I think it may be “p0ker”

  8. 8.

    Mark S.

    September 25, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    Those look like two interesting books I might need to check out.

    Ross Douthat has probably written the worst defense of capital punishment in the history of mankind. The guy really can’t reason his way out of a paper bag. The best summary I can make of it is that abolishing capital punishment would make prison reform harder. Or something.

  9. 9.

    Exurban Mom

    September 25, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    That Vermeer painting is truly gorgeous. I feel like the geographer is about to stand up and move about his studio.

    And I’m adding both books to my extremely long list of books I will read when time permits. Thanks for this.

  10. 10.

    Brachiator

    September 25, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    Thank you very much for the notes on Tony Judt. I had read a number of very insightful celebrations of his life, and need to read The Memory Chalet.

    One more thing. Given that it’s Sunday, and we should not live by politics alone…

    Continuing the theme…

    Lots of good drama and history available, thanks to a conjunction of old and new media.

    Dramatization of Vasily Grossman’s novel Life and Fate on BBC Radio 4, available on iTunes. Set in the Soviet Union around the time of the Battle of Stalingrad. Twenty six episodes in digestible chunks (typically 44 minutes max).

    Very good overview of the novel and radio program from The Guardian.

    Everything about Vasily Grossman’s novel, Life and Fate is epic. It’s 900 pages long. It was deemed so dangerous when published in 1959 that the KBG arrested the book itself, and even confiscated the typewriter ribbons Grossman had used. Praise from its fans is dizzying, with the book described by many as the most important of the 20th century. And Radio 4 has this week for the first time ever given all of the station’s drama slots – bar The Archers – over to an eight-hour dramatisation of it.

    The amazing, sometimes whimsical literary magazine McSweeny’s is available for free on both the iPhone and iPad (additional material available for a modest subscription fee).

    Ken Burns’ great documentary on Prohibition comes to PBS and is also available on the iPad. Dovetails nicely with the new season of Boardwalk Empire.

    Lastly, the iBook version of the new Jackie Kennedy memoir includes some video and audio of the actual interviews she gave. This is the way that historical ebooks should be done.

  11. 11.

    pete

    September 25, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    Clem Atlee was a most unlikely revolutionary, and he had much help in all his good endeavors, but he sure made a difference. Imagine being the Prime minister who founded the National Health Service and never really bothered getting credit for it! (That generally goes to Beveridge and Bevan et al.) Not to mention starting to dismantle the Empire. Yes, the Conservatives of his time despised him and belittled him; they were of course wrong. Would that we had his like today.

  12. 12.

    pete

    September 25, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    @Mark S.: Yeah, and for a moral absolutist it’s amazing how relativist Douthat becomes when it suits him. Truly disgusting.

  13. 13.

    Lysana

    September 25, 2011 at 4:41 pm

    If we’re talking soup, my mom didn’t make it homemade often. With six kids, you learn how to cook what’s fast and what all six will agree on. So while I remember fondly the turkey noodle soup she’d concoct once the Thanksgiving leftovers were reduced to a bird skeleton, the one that speaks of childhood most to me is Campbell’s tomato served with bologna sandwiches cut on the diagonal.

    For solid food, I learned how to cook the singular recipe my mother learned from her mother-in-law. A Quebecois form of loose meat we called faure. Two parts beef to one part pork with spices. Meant to smell like dark-meat turkey when done. Heaven on a sandwich with enough mayo to drip onto your shirt from the heat of the meat.

  14. 14.

    Professor

    September 25, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    Thanks. Your comparison of Tony Blair to Damien Hurst is very apt. I do not admire or appreciate the works of Hurst, but this I know. Tony Blair is a two-faced, self-serving, corrupt, lying shyster. I voted for that hypocrite and he sold us down the river for his own selfish end. If there is a Gawd ……..

  15. 15.

    gnomedad

    September 25, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    @Mark S.:

    The best summary I can make of it is that abolishing capital punishment would make prison reform harder. Or something.

    From the article:

    Instead, he received a level of legal assistance, media attention and activist support that few convicts can ever hope for.

    Lucky ducky.

  16. 16.

    BGinCHI

    September 25, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    @gnomedad: Just the latest in the serial, “Conservatives don’t make arguments, only authoritative statements of fact, whether true or not.”

  17. 17.

    bjacques

    September 25, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Tony Blair is not Damien Hirst. He’s Han van Meegheren, or even Elmyr De Hory.

  18. 18.

    jeffreyw

    September 25, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    @Brachiator: Thanks for the boardwalk reminder!

  19. 19.

    BGinCHI

    September 25, 2011 at 5:08 pm

    @jeffreyw: We need a “Fall TV Premiere” thread.

    I’m not sure what’s starting that’s going to be good.

    Anyone know anything about “Terra Nova”? Starts tomorrow night with a pilot.

    Anything else look good?

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    September 25, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    @Mark S.:
    Here’s my attempt at a summary.
    Sez Chunky:
    1. If Troy Davis hadn’t been on death row,people wouldn’t have been so worked up about the need to get him a retrial.
    2. American prisons are so fucked up, a quick execution is kinder than a life sentence.
    3. Without the death penalty, people would no longer believe the legal system was fair.
    4. If the death penalty were banned, people would figure that either the legal system needed no further reform, or was beyond the reach of reform; and would thus give up on working to reform it.

    So the death penalty should not be abolished; instead, the legal system should be reformed so that it can be trusted to enforce the death penalty.

    The holes in his argument are glaringly obvious.

  21. 21.

    jeffreyw

    September 25, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    I’ll watch terra nova for a while, no clue on other shows
    Mad men seems delayed until next year

  22. 22.

    BGinCHI

    September 25, 2011 at 5:34 pm

    @jeffreyw: Yeah, looks promising.

    What’s cooking?

  23. 23.

    Snarkworth

    September 25, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    Love Tony Judt, but hoped you’d talk more about Medellin. We were there 23 years ago to adopt our son. Beautiful city, terribly and sadly dangerous at that time. I understand it’s much, much better now.

  24. 24.

    jeffreyw

    September 25, 2011 at 6:03 pm

    @BGinCHI:Our home made sauerkraut with venison sausage, fried potatoes.

  25. 25.

    BGinCHI

    September 25, 2011 at 6:12 pm

    @jeffreyw: I was going to make sauerkraut this year and it slipped by me. I miss the homemade stuff badly.

    And with venison sausage? You’re killing me.

    Will you please move to Chicago.

  26. 26.

    Kyle

    September 25, 2011 at 6:40 pm

    Shorter Douchehat:
    A few innocent deaths are a small price to pay to maintain the public illusion that there is nothing wrong with the prison system.

  27. 27.

    Mike G

    September 25, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    Blair as Damien Hirst.

    GW Bush would be a sleazebag standing outside the bus station selling pornographic drawings for a buck.

  28. 28.

    jeffreyw

    September 25, 2011 at 6:49 pm

    @BGinCHI: I was there in ’84 for a convention. Did you see me?

  29. 29.

    handsmile

    September 25, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    I fear the train has long left the station of this thread. Nevertheless, it is always a great delight to read an appreciation of Tony Judt, an historian of the 20th century and an analyst of the 21st century of the very highest order. His recent death remains a grievous loss for the public sphere.

    Historical writings such as Past Imperfect on French post-WW2 intellectuals and his comprehensive Postwar (Europe from 1945-1989) are magisterial. Ill Fares the Land is the most astute jeremiad of contemporary life in America and Europe that I have read.

    But his 2006 essay “Bush’s Useful Idiots” is quite simply one of the essential polemics of the past ten years. For those unfamiliar with it, the essay begins with the question, “Why have liberals acquiesced in President Bush’s catastrophic foreign policy?”

    Judt’s answer is a closely-reasoned but savage denunciation of liberal pundits and academics, as well as those mainstream publications such as the NY Times, Washington Post, New Yorker et al whose editorial profiles are identified ideologically as liberal or center-left.

    For those unfamiliar with it, this London Review of Books link will rectify that unfortunate lacuna: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n18/tony-judt/bushs-useful-idiots

  30. 30.

    Flounders

    September 25, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    Fried Spam with canned stewed tomatoes and a tablespoon of cod liver oil for dessert. Actual baby boomer here, you wimps.

  31. 31.

    Comrade Mary

    September 25, 2011 at 10:03 pm

    @Lysana: Wow. I’m from Québec, but I can’t remember anything called “faure”, although my family’s tourtière filling seems to fit the bill. There’s cretons, which is typically pure pork rather than pork and beef.

    Care to share your recipe?

  32. 32.

    IrishGirl

    September 26, 2011 at 1:32 pm

    Black eyed peas with bacon, pork chops fried hard in a cast iron skillet, mashed potatos, brown gravy, the ever present collard greens with a touch of vinegar and hot sauce, and topped off with an upside down pineapple cake made in the same skillet–God, I miss my mother’s cooking!

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