whyroots

A finely made book is a pleasure to fondle … er, read. Think of the strong binding, solid hardcover, elegant font and layout, and, possibly, some lovely embossing. The pages smell new and freshly printed, or musty and mysterious with age.  Ahhhh … bibliophilia!

Right away, let us preempt the purists, who protest that it’s what is written on the pages that counts, and that fancy publishing is an unnecessary frill. Well, yes, but a book can also be a bel objet. Samizdat will suffice, but a luxurious volume is gangbusters.

It’s true that, for some books, superior printing does little more than lengthen the shelf life of a work that, sooner or later, will expire. For these damned attempts, graceful typography is nothing but a vanity. But otherwise, fine printing and binding can ornament what is already a work of art, like a gilt frame on an oil painting.

These thoughts came to mind recently when I purchased a novel on the sole basis of its unique appearance. The cover, seen above, was bound with cloth, and conveys Adam and Eve on their way out of paradise. The inside cover was individually stamped: Copy N. 326 in the series “Masterpieces from Yesterday and Today.” And there was a built-in bookmark, a thin strip of white ribbon. I wouldn’t even think about turning down the pages in this book. Incidentally, the title was Mort, où est ta victoire? by Daniel Rops, a rather obscure French author and Catholic historian.

After an intriguing beginning, the pages dragged on. The writing, sometimes evocative, was more often inexpert, and my suspicions of Catholic dogma did little to encourage me. I did appreciate some passages:

            « Notre vie est faite d’oublis. De longues années passent, ne laissant en
            nous nulle trace, obscurcies de brume et d’ennui, et parfois quelques
            instants, parmi tant d’autres, brillent en nous d’une éclatante lumière,
            jalonnant mystérieusement le cours de nos destins. »

            {Our life consists of forgetting. Long years go by, leaving no trace
            whatsoever, obscured as if by mist or ennui, and sometimes a few
            moments, among so many others, flash with a dazzling light,
            mysteriously marking the course of our destiny.}

But these lovely words were an exception and, after 150 pages, I was getting impatient. When the built-in bookmark fell out, the spell was over. Rops’ volume will continue to adorn my bookshelf, however -- an intriguing visual addition if nothing else.

In contrast, the previous book I had read was so shoddily bound that it was no match for my (admittedly feverish) attentions. A thick Dostoevsky, it looks like it survived a dog attack. This was truly shoestring publishing, to an extent that almost offended me. The cover, flimsy as magazine subscription card, has been torn, creased, and warped in both directions and pages splay wildly every which way. The poor Idiot is battered on all sides. And yet I’ll remember Prince Myshkin long after … what’s-her-name from the Rops book.

Yes, yes, it’s what on the pages that counts, let us give the anti-aesthetes their due. But, really -- a built-in bookmark? That is a thing to be cherished.

Who could have ever predicted that it would go so badly? The past eight years of malfeasance, incompetence, and very bad faith have been... staggering. We have looked into the soul of politics and … shuddered! George W. Bush is our exemplar, our archetype of failure. Rue that Election Day in November 2000 when we did not elect him! 

Is it even possible to choose one moment that is somehow representative of the past eight years? I’m still processing the newfound collective agreement that the Bush years were nothing short of disastrous. A few months ago, a friend e-mailed me a graph of Bush's approval rating with the subject line “I take it back, America.” Oh, we’ve reckoned with George W. Bush -- just a tad too late. And with some exceptions, as Hendrik Hertzberg notes in this week’s New Yorker:

A gangly Illinois politician [Abraham Lincoln] … once pointed out that you can fool some of the people all of the time. We now know how many “some” is: twenty-seven per cent. That’s the proportion of Americans who, according to CNN, cling to the belief that George W. Bush has done a good job.

Indeed, it is becoming clear that the second Bush presidency will be regarded as a stain on our history -- not just a low point, but a stain, a period when we renounced our principles and revealed our baser selves as a nation. The greedy grasping for the executive, the boldfaced lies, an unnecessary and cruel war -- bad intentions inexpertly carried out. There is enough shame for us in this administration in the two words, Abu Ghraib.

In a week, George W. Bush will be out of the White House, gone but not forgotten. He will live on in ignominy, a perverse idol in our American mythology. Not a great man, he has become great in our imaginations -- a looming symbol, out of proportion with reality. For this reason, the Bush years are a hurt that won’t go away.

... In other words, I agree with the baby.

-- Sarah Dalglish

Generation “Y” -- the Internet generation, the Obamaphile generation, the gay-friendly generation. The YouTube generation, certainly. The “greatest generation”? Unfortunately, that one’s already taken -- claimed by the stalwarts of World War II, our grandparents, who are, it seems, none too modest about their achievements.

But really, there’s no comparing the challenges of our grandparents -- the Great Depression, World War II, and their lamentable offspring, our parents -- with the challenges facing Gen Y today. Our wars are much more confusing and are coming off poorly (can anyone imagine “V-I” day -- Victory in Iraq Day?). Indeed, donating one's pantyhose and scrap metal is no longer a useful contribution to our country’s international fortunes. And I somehow doubt Generation Y is destined to become the progenitor of another baby boom. 

However, our recession, should it become a depression, may yet resemble that of our grandfathers. Both are painful comedowns off dizzy speculation and loosey-goosey regulatory policies, though the current crisis is rooted in financial schemes made possible by modern technology. Sober observers of the economy have detected a creaking of the machine that is reminiscent of the early 1930s. It’s a scary proposition.

But conditions have changed, and it’s hard to see a single, noble path leading out of the forest. For the Greatest Generation, World War II provided a boost to the economy, while simultaneously defeating the Nazis. Why, we should be so lucky! Our struggles are more ambiguous and our suffering seems more like malaise in the absence of a single rallying cry (Obama notwithstanding).

Awash in this unhappy sea, let us recall the enduring images of the last Great Depression -- ramshackle Hoovervilles and beaten-down Okies, starved and humiliated by the Dust Bowl. The poor always suffer most in any economic crisis -- a fact to be kept in mind as we attempt to stave off the current one. Taking care of our fellow citizens, particularly the worst-off among them: could it be our rallying cry?

-- Sarah Dalglish

I love when people look in the Bible and actually pick out the noble principles it contains, leaving aside the niggling examples of intolerance that are the vestige of Scripture’s human authorship. The Bible is at its best when it shows us at our best -- though, regrettably, it does contain fodder for our baser instincts. Ham, Onan, and Jezebel are just a few examples. I mean, here’s the Wikipedia summary of Jezebel’s downfall in Kings I and II:

“Jehu then confronts Jezebel in Jezreel and urges her eunuchs to kill the queen mother by throwing her out a window (defenestration). They comply, tossing her out the window and leaving her in the street to be eaten by dogs. Only Jezebel's skull, feet, and hands remained.”

The Old Testament is scary. But I digress. The point is that the Bible bursts with tolerance, forgiveness, love of one’s fellow man, and, hell, egalitarian economic and social policy. And it's a great thing when anyone -- evangelical or atheist -- can learn from it. So as for the "progressive evangelicals?" Let 'em in. Big tent.

-- Sarah Dalglish

I meant to post this Fragonard painting, which is on the cover of my copy of Les Liaisons dangereuses, with the post on the book.

-- Sarah Dalglish

Recently, Ariana Huffington went on the Daily Show to promote The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging, a new how-to on the blogging arts. As a newcomer to blogs myself, I carefully attuned my ears to hear the oracle's counsel. Yes, Ariana? What is the secret?

Ms. Huffington was up against my rather dismal view of blogs in general, particularly their informality and parochialism. Disconcertingly, she began by calling blogs the “first draft of history” -- have newspapers been so quickly replaced? It's true that newspapers have lost their monopoly on speed: they used to be the quickest form of print media, now outpaced by blogging, instant messaging, text messaging, and twittering. (Sardonic aside: Jon Stewart: “What’s black and white and completely over?” … “Newspapers.”)

But if blogs are a distinct form of media, as indeed Ms. Huffington was holding forth, then they complement rather than substitute for newspapers. And to each medium, its tone: the exaggerated syllables of TV news, the soothing sounds of NPR, the truncated words of text messages, and the casual, intimate tone of blogs. According to my Greek Mentor, achieving the ideal tone is a matter of composing posts off-the-cuff and publishing immediately. Blog posts should also be quite personal -- Huffington advises blogging your passions, both avowed and secret. While this is generally good writing advice, I prefer to edit my passions before clicking “Publish.” Neither Jon Stewart nor I was yet convinced that such immediacy was a good thing.

I perked up when Ms. Huffington touted her book’s “tricks for getting noticed.” Alas, her blogging mantra is “first thoughts, best thoughts” -- a theory to which I absolutely cannot subscribe. My “first thoughts” are at best irrelevant and at worst unprintable. My first thoughts could get me sued for libel in Great Britain. More likely, they could stultify readers' minds with their incoherence.

Ariana’s rejoinder:

“You don’t understand blogging, because blogging is not about perfectionism, blogging is about intimacy, immediacy, transparency, and sharing your thoughts the way you share them with a friend.”

Well, friend. It’s been lovely having this chat with you. Now, I think I may have a little nightcap and read my book for a while. Say, is it raining? Anyway, I’ll edit this last paragraph tomorrow, or maybe … maybe I’ll just post it …

-- Sarah Dalglish

"We must patiently explain why taxing or regulating noble things (like work, saving, and entrepreneurial risk-taking) means you’ll get less of what makes America great and why subsidizing other things (like idleness and single parenthood) means you’ll get more of the destructive behaviors that ultimately will drag us down."

— An excerpt from a piece in the National Review by the vice president of government relations for the Heritage Foundation.

Agh, what bullshit. While there’s a grain of truth in this quote -- that governments should incentivize productive behavior, such as work, saving, and entrepreneurship -- this is nothing more than the Right (capital “R”) using economic language to rationalize outmoded ideas about the traditional family and the familiar and still oversimplified notion of “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps.” This is pure propaganda, based on a kind of false patriotism (“what makes America great”) aimed at taking certain options off the table. I will not equivocate: bullshit.

-- Sarah Dalglish

The 18th century French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, examines the twin passions -- seduction and destruction -- of two former lovers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil.

Here is a reasonably close photographic depiction of their relationship:

My friend Jehanne recommended the book, describing it as a lengthy collection of letters written in old-timey French -- not a very tempting endorsement, I admit. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained -- and fortunately for my attention span, I was hooked from the first page, a “Warning to Readers”:

            « Nous croyons devoir prévenir le Public que, malgré le titre de cet
            Ouvrage, et ce que dit le Rédacteur dans sa Préface, nous ne
            garantissons pas l’authenticité de ce Recueil, et que nous avons même
            de fortes raisons de penser que ce n’est qu’un Roman. »

            {We find it our duty to warn the Public that, in spite of the title of this
            Work, and what is written by the Editor in his Preface, we cannot
            guarantee the authenticity of this Collection and even have strong
            reasons to believe that this is nothing more than a Novel.}

Has any other author so embraced the artifice of his craft? I was tickled. Laclos continually returns to this tension, such as when the “Editor” explains why a lost letter is missing from the sequence, or informs us that other letters were excluded because they were tedious and did not advance the story. In the instance I like most, the Marquise de Merteuil scolds the Vicomte de Valmont for confounding love and fidelity:

            « Celui qui s’en abstinent [des infidélités] aujourd’hui passe pour
            romanesque ; et ce n’est pas là, je crois, le défaut que je vous
            reproche. »

            {In our time, he who abstains [from infidelity] passes for a romantic;
             and that, I believe, is not the fault I reproach in you.}

In French, the twist is that the word romanesque (“romantic”) comes from the French roman (“novel”) and can also be translated as “fictional.” In other words, the Marquise de Merteuil is taking care not to accuse Valmont of being a character in a novel.
 
But these types of winks to the reader do not unduly interrupt the flow of the narrative, which is so engrossing that one tends to keep the book close at hand until it’s finished. Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil engineer downfalls, humiliations, and disgraces with casual delectation. They prey upon the innocent, the virtuous, and the merely convenient. Their adventures are contemptible, but also titillating -- any rising sentiment of moral outrage is quashed by the fact that book is so much fun.

The central action of the novel revolves around Valmont and the Marquise’s plan to revenge themselves upon two ex-lovers by corrupting the virginal daughter of a certain Madame de Volanges. The plot is thick and thickens, and Laclos skillfully weaves together the letters so that the narrative seems oddly natural. I admit to never having read another epistolary novel, but this time, at least, the trope worked.

In their machinations regarding the young Mademoiselle de Volanges, Valmont and the Marquise would not be content with a mere deflowering. Valmont, her corrupter, goes so far as to use “only the technical term” for certain love acts, with the goal of providing a nasty surprise for her fiancé on his wedding night. Valmont and the Marquise possess a perfect cynicism: take this gem from the Marquise de Merteuil:

            « Ne souvient-il plus que l’amour est, comme la médicine, seulement l’art
            d’aider la Nature ? »

            {Is it not often said that love, like medicine, is only the art of helping
            Nature?}

And yet the Marquise and Valmont both refer continually to their “principles”: together, they have created an ethical code that is as coherent as it is straight out of Bizarre-o World. Their cruel and sadistic Weltanschauung, which justifies all manner of horrors, is opposed by that of the “virtuous” class of characters -- the elderly Madame de Rosemonde, Madame de Volanges, and the benighted Présidente de Tourvel, the final victim of Valmont’s passions. These characters hold equally dear the values of fidelity, benevolence, and belief in God -- yet this seems no more than a helpless attempt at rebuttal to the depravity of Valmont and the Marquise. As for Laclos, we don’t know which side he favors. His work is a masterpiece of the philosophy of the Marquise and Valmont -- has it endured because it reveals not an essential noble truth, but rather an essential vileness in the human spirit? This would certainly put a damper on what was otherwise a lively read.

In the end, Laclos chooses to punish the sins of the guilty, but also the innocents caught up in their sinister maneuverings. As the French would say, il a coupé la poire en deux (“he split it down the middle”). I found it disappointing -- was he unwilling to judge his characters too harshly because they would be his posterity? Or was he really as conservative as Madame de Volanges, whose final letters bemoan the mortal risk of a "single dangerous liaison"? I tend to think it’s the former -- a prodigal son is, after all, still a son.

-- Sarah Dalglish

Sara the walrus, courtesy of Michael K.

How much is $5 billion? If we're going to be throwing thousands of millions of (hypothetical) dollars around, let's pause to apprehend the scale. Is $5 billion dollars a lot, or very little? The laws governing such difficult-to-fathom sums are Einsteinian: their value is relative.

According to the Forbes list of billionaires, only 203 people in the world know the feeling of possessing $5 billion fortunes. The rest of us can just wonder. Viewed from this perspective, having $5 billion is like catching a rare glimpse of the phoenix. We're talking big money. Type five billion into a calculator and turn it upside down: ooooooooo’s. Indeed.

Jest aside, let's parse a few comparisons. In the universe of U.S. government spending, $5 billion is nothing compared to budget monsters like national defense ($607 billion in 2008) or Medicare ($396 billion). Lower on the priority list, international aid comes in at $14 billion. And down in the $5 billion range, we find the National Science Foundation budget and that of the Judiciary branch. Reason, it seems, is inexpensive.

The 2008 election, the most expensive in history, cost a total of $5.3 billion. Each year, Americans spend approximately $5 billion on Halloween accoutrements, according to the Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions survey. Five billion remains to be spent of the total Hurricane Katrina aid package ($13.4 billion) -- a rare example in which $5 billion buys nothing at all. 

So, is $5 billion a budget bonanza or piddling pocket change? What about at the international level -- what does a $5 billion nation look like? The annual GDP

for Fiji, the idyllic honeymoon destination, is about $5 billion. But so is the annual GDP of another nation, also ringed by white sands and azure water, but somewhat less picturesque: Haiti. Five billion dollars is the value of the IMF loan to prop up Iceland's failing currency. Five billion dollars is what Charles Taylor smuggled out of Liberia. Five billion dollars is what one rogue trader cost French banking giant Société Générale. 

Reader, let's be honest -- this meditation on the worth of $5 billion has hardly been fruitful. I'm scarcely any clearer on the matter than I was before. And yet I haven't even proposed a single use for our hypothetical vault full of cash. I suppose I'll leave that unresolved, pending an epiphany on the $5 billion, the $5 billion, the $5 billion...

-- Sarah Dalglish