Geeks and comics
Sir, – Michael Saler’s review of recent literature on comic books (June 6) is
enjoyable and enlightening but, I fear, a little over-optimistic. He senses
a truce between so-called “elite and mass cultures”. I suspect that, like so
much else, the conflict has merely been displaced by digital technology. Its
current manifestation is evident in, for example, confrontations between
supporters of Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture and Andrew Keen’s The Cult of
the Amateur, the former a champion of mass culture, the latter a polemic
against it. Moreover, if we do accept that comics have overcome “irrational
intolerance”, we now have to consider whether such things as video games can
or should do the same. Are we right to condescend to “geeks” who spend hours
a day with such games? Is it time less well spent than time with comics,
genre fiction, or popular novels? Or are people (like myself) who hesitate
to accept games as equals to comics or novels, much better than those who in
the middle of the last century fought to keep comics out of public libraries
or even those who at its beginning fought to keep out novels?
PAUL DUGUID
School of Information, University of California, 102 South Hall, Berkeley,
California 94720.
Sir, – As someone who grew up reading the comics of the 1950s, but now prefers
“elite literature” (ie, I read Cormac McCarthy’s novels before I see the
movies), I find Michael Saler’s suggestion that some unique tie exists
between “experimental techniques” and graphic literature perplexing. What
era in literary history has not featured experimental techniques in at least
one genre?
Moreover, with comics today such an important genre in most East Asian
literatures, it seems presumptious of Saler to conclude his review with
Michael Chabon’s claim that “all literature, highbrow or low, from the
Aeneid onward, is fan fiction”. In Chinese literature, through the early
twentieth century, a clear bifurcation between entertainment genres (fiction
and drama primarily) for the folk, and various formal classical-language
verse forms for the scholar-elite, is evident.
WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER, JR
Department of East Asian Languages and Literature, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706.
‘Tudors’
Sir, – I enjoyed Clifford S. L. Davies’s article on the “Tudors” (June 13).
Arthur Ketton was correct to praise Henry VIII, who, in the Acts of Union
between England and Wales, freed the Welsh from their bondage, an argument
that this Nationalist has made many times in the Welsh press. The Welsh,
prior to the Act, were second class citizens in Wales, especially in the
wake of the rising of Owain Glyndwr, when penal sanctions were imposed on
them: they were not allowed to live in towns, trade, carry arms, marry
English spouses, etc. They were given a status equivalent to the apartheid
system, or the condition of the Palestinians. Though these laws were mainly
ignored by the sixteenth century, it was Henry VIII who gave the Welsh
equality with the English, not only in England, but also in Wales. The Acts
of Union created a new political state (that of England and Wales), the
start of a modern “British” identity, a point most English people are
unaware of, but which is reflected in such organizations as the England and
Wales Cricket Board. The downside of the Act was that use of the Welsh
language was banned in local government and the law, and did not get
official status until 1966, but you can’t have everything.
JOHN OWEN
6 Ludlow Street, Caerphilly.
V. S. Naipaul
Sir, – In my review of Patrick French’s excellent biography of V. S. Naipaul,
The World Is What It Is (May 23), I mistakenly assumed that the dedication –
to “MG” – was to Margaret Gooding (see Susan Wilkinson’s letter, June 13).
The book is in fact dedicated to Patrick French’s wife Meru Gokhale. Many
apologies for any embarrassment which this mistake has caused.
A. N. WILSON
5 Regent’s Park Terrace, London NW1.
Craftsmanship
Sir, – D. D. Guttenplan draws attention in his review to the “shocking” number
of typographical and grammatical slips in Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman
(May 16). The book has more errors due to copy-editorial oversight than any
book I can recall (examples on pages 4, 6, 13, 29, 33, 64, 73, 84, 94, 100,
236, 253, 255, 259 and 289).
It seems ironic for so many blemishes to have slipped into a book about
craftsmanship. Could these slips represent an almost intentional statement
that surface perfection is not the essential feature of true craft or even
that imperfections add lustre to an artefact?
Could the embarrassment of errors also embody the need just to get the work
out rather than fretting over every detail? As Sennett asserts, “the writer
will deliver on time, no matter that every comma is in place, the point of
writing being to be read”. Similarly, “to the practitioner, obsession with
perfection seems a prescription for failure”. Obsessive perfectionism is
identified as detrimental to craftsmanship – such a criticism cannot be
levelled at The Craftsman.
MATT CHAPPEL
Thornhill Primary School, Thornhill Road, London N1.
Useful idiots
Sir, – Lenin’s remark concerning the “useful idiots” to be found among Western
intellectuals, mentioned in the Commentary piece by Zinovy Zinik (May 30),
reminds me of an exchange in an interview with the poet Joseph Brodsky.
Having raised the matter of Soviet sympathizers, the interviewer asks “What
do you think motivates them? After all, many are highly intelligent”. To
which Brodsky replies witheringly, “No, this is the litmus test for one’s
intelligence; and, even more important, a litmus test for one’s ethics”.
JOHN SHAND
43 Norwood Road, Stretford, Manchester.
International law
Sir, – In his review (May 2), Lawrence R. Douglas simply fails to engage with
my book, Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law, or my constructive
critique of the architecture of international criminal law. I deal
extensively with the expressive value of adversarial criminal trials when
conducted in the aftermath of genocide or crimes against humanity. In fact,
I conclude that expressive justifications for such trials are more
compelling than either retribution or deterrence. Douglas ignores my
discussion while accusing me of paying no more than “lip service” to the
topic.
Douglas’s reaction to my critique demonstrates the difficulty inherent in
meaningfully conversing about the application of international criminal law
to recent tragedies in a diverse array of places ranging from Rwanda to
Uganda to Cambodia to Timor-Leste. In order to be robust, this conversation
requires us to revisit existing orthodoxies. Assuredly, these orthodoxies
may be very comfortable for scholars vested in them.
Douglas’s review also suffers from disappointing factual errors. The maximum
penalty contemplated by the International Criminal Court is not thirty
years, as Douglas states, but life imprisonment. Moreover, he is incorrect
in saying that only a “few” convicts at the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda have received “lengthy sentences”. As of May 2008, out of a total
of twenty-eight convicts, eleven have been sentenced to life and another
five to term sentences that exceed thirty years.
MARK A. DRUMBL
School of Law, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia 24450.
Disraeli’s influence
Sir, – According to the persuasive essay by Charles C. Nickerson (Commentary,
March 28), “Byron, Shelley and Miss Havisham”, it is “conceivable” that some
elements of Great Expectations (1860–61), such as Miss Havisham’s lugubrious
room and her control over Estella, may have derived from Dickens’s reading
of Disraeli’s novel Venetia (1837). It is in fact highly probable.
Unfortunately, Disraeli was too busy with politics (he stopped writing
novels between 1847 and 1870), when Great Expectations appeared, to have
recognized his hand in it. Nickerson points out that the two men “had
numerous opportunities of meeting”; they did so on at least one occasion, on
October 5, 1843, when Disraeli spoke at the Manchester Athenaeum, with
Dickens in the chair. They were also inspired by the same woman (Mary Boyle,
Lady Cork), who became the model for Lady Belair in Henrietta Temple (1836)
and for Mrs Leo Hunter in The Pickwick Papers (1836–7). And despite
Disraeli’s claim in 1857 that “I have never read anything of Dickens, except
an extract in a newspaper”, the numerous references to Dickens’s novels and
characters in Disraeli’s letters tell another story. Future volumes in our
series (Volume VIII: 1860–64 will be published next year) may reveal further
ties.
MICHEL W. PHARAND
Disraeli Project, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.
Dog collars
Sir, – J. C. asks (NB, May 30) if readers know of early evidence of dog
collars. Dogs wearing collars can be seen on the fresco from the Palace of
Tiryns, in the Peloponnese, dated to 1300– 1200 BC, where three hounds are
shown chasing a boar. As far as I know, this is the earliest. Later,
Xenophon mentions collars and leads as necessary for hunting dogs, and there
are several depictions of dogs wearing collars on sixth- and fifth-century
Greek vases and grave reliefs. The collection of dog collars at Leeds Castle
shows European examples from the sixteenth century.
DIANE TURNER
Ano Aprovatou, Andros, Greece.
Cold War summer
Sir, – I have just read Niall Ferguson’s review of Jeremi Suri’s biography of
Henry Kissinger (May 30). Kissinger did indeed run the Harvard International
Seminar, but it is quite wrong to describe it as “the Cold War Summer
School”. I was there in 1952, and there was nothing “Cold War” about it
except that, yes, we were all West Europeans. What we were there for, and
what we did, was to find out what America was about: for most of us it was a
first time.
Most vividly, I remember, under “summer school” auspices, staying with a black
family in Atlanta, Georgia. CIA propaganda? I think not.
WAYLAND KENNET
100 Bayswater Road, London W2.
Service slang
Sir, – Re your item on Service Slang (NB, May 23), I think J. C. is wrong
about the definition of “Gen”. My father, who was in the Royal Air Force
during the war, told us it was short for “general information”. Otherwise,
by your definition, “pukka gen” would be a tautology.
GRACE KENNY
9 Charleville Mansions, Charleville Road, London W14.
