March 13, 2025

Last Week's New Yorker Review: 🌱 The Weekend Special (March 10)

The Weekend Special

Pieces are given up to three Boyles (for fiction), Harrimans (for essays), or Parkers (for random picks). As with restaurant stars, even one Boyle, Harriman, or Parker indicates a generally positive review.

🌱 Fiction

“Five Bridges” by Colm Tóibín. One Boyle. climb, claim, close. A simple and elegant little story about an Irish immigrant who has to leave the country under Trump, and his goodbye to his daughter. It could all be pretty sappy, especially because the metaphors Tóibín reaches for sound obvious in theory – a hike, the eponymous bridges – but on the page things aren’t too bad. Tóibín struggles to write a twelve-year-old’s dialogue – he keeps talking about her using “her adult, responsible tone” but these moments feel identical to the rest of her speech, which is all a bit mannered. The Kirwan material, about an Irish men’s group, is compelling but doesn’t lead anywhere much. A less novelistic version of this story might hit harder. This chooses a melancholy caress.

🌱 Weekend Essay

“The Imperialist Philosopher Who Demanded the Ukraine War” by James Verini. Two Harrimans. death, destiny, detonation. More of a weekend graduate thesis – this thing is hefty. You will leave with a fairly intricate understanding of Alexander Dugin’s twisted philosophy, and a decent understanding of the extent to which it’s influenced Putin. There’s a lot to chew on, and it can be intellectually overwhelming, but it’s ultimately rewarding; it’s also pretty classic that America’s death cultists are so much more gauche than Russia’s. Dugin is a nutjob and a despicable character, but he’s also a poet. Call him Ezra пуд.

🌱 Random Pick

“The Watergate Prosecutions” by Richard Harris. Two Parkers. crime, conduct, complicit. I swear on my life these pieces are selected entirely arbitrarily using random number generation. But my jaw was on the floor as this vigorous and very technical attack on the prosecutions surrounding Watergate proved also to be a prescient warning against the legal handling of the Capitol attack and Trump’s other crimes. If the belief that politics is corrupt went unchallenged, Harris writes, “public contempt and public cynicism would have created the ideal conditions under which demagoguery can be nurtured into despotism. To check this growing mood, it was essential to demonstrate that corrupt politicians, however high and powerful, can be made to pay for their transgressions under the rule of law." And at the very end: “Perhaps an even greater danger is that if another usurper ever takes power, he will have both the precedent of unfairness and the techniques by which it can be used — not for leniency but to destroy anyone who stands in his way.” Do I even need to comment? Harris’ main argument concerns egregious plea deals and, in some cases, a failure to file charges at all – especially, believe it or not, against businessmen and lawyers. Harris says it’s “not sufficient” to say that these deals were to help get evidence that would nail high-level offenders, because those offenders might “escape punishment entirely” – and while entirely is a strong word, well… Nixon got pardoned, G. Gordon Liddy became a right-wing radio personality (read the first line of that link, please), and John Mitchell got a book deal – and then didn’t write the book and got sued. C’est la vie!

🌱 Something Extra

Three big hits! Operation Mincemeat is a total delight (and thankfully seems to be selling well despite or because of its scrappiness), Grangeville (at Signature through the 23rd) is thoughtful, tender, and closely observed, and Fidelio at the met (one more chance this Saturday afternoon) is just a phenomenal collection of voices and a rather elegant staging.

Sunday Song: