The 50 Year Argument - The New York Review of Books

0:00:02 > 0:00:10This programme contains very strong language and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

0:00:50 > 0:00:55"There is no way by which the events of the world can be directly

0:00:55 > 0:00:58"transmitted or recorded in our brains.

0:01:01 > 0:01:04"They are experienced and constructed

0:01:04 > 0:01:06"in a highly subjective way.

0:01:08 > 0:01:11"Our only truth is narrative truth,

0:01:11 > 0:01:15"the stories we tell each other and ourselves.

0:01:15 > 0:01:20"The stories we continually re-categorise and refine.

0:01:22 > 0:01:26"This sort of sharing, this communion,

0:01:26 > 0:01:30"would not be possible if all of our knowledge, our memories,

0:01:30 > 0:01:36"were tagged and identified and seen as private, exclusively ours.

0:01:38 > 0:01:40"Memory arises..."

0:01:49 > 0:01:52NEWS REPORTER: 'Lawyers from the Washington-based

0:01:52 > 0:01:55'Partnership for Civil Justice Fund say,

0:01:55 > 0:01:59'"Massive false arrests are unconstitutional and without merit."

0:01:59 > 0:02:02'Police maintain the protesters were arrested

0:02:02 > 0:02:05'because they moved from the walkway to the bridge's roadway.

0:02:05 > 0:02:07Bob called me up.

0:02:07 > 0:02:10This is a phone call at 11, 12 at night, and he said,

0:02:10 > 0:02:12"There've been some arrests on the bridge.

0:02:12 > 0:02:16"700 or 800 of them. And I think there's something going on here."

0:02:16 > 0:02:18SHOUTING

0:02:21 > 0:02:24This is America!

0:02:28 > 0:02:31"Do you think you can go down and write something about it?

0:02:31 > 0:02:34"I think there's something interesting here.

0:02:34 > 0:02:36"It's not just nothing."

0:02:37 > 0:02:40"I've spent several days and nights are Zuccotti Park.

0:02:40 > 0:02:43"And the protesters of Occupy Wall Street

0:02:43 > 0:02:47"are still debating whether to make a single political demand

0:02:47 > 0:02:49"and what it would be.

0:02:49 > 0:02:53"A tricky proposition that, it seems to me, they have done well to defer.

0:02:53 > 0:02:56"What they cared about was the process."

0:02:56 > 0:03:01SHOUTING AND UPBEAT CHANTING

0:03:06 > 0:03:10"This was the people's mic. Used in lieu of bullhorns,

0:03:10 > 0:03:14"megaphones, or other amplification devices that were prohibited

0:03:14 > 0:03:17"because the protesters had no permit.

0:03:17 > 0:03:19CHANTING

0:03:19 > 0:03:21"In the large crowd,

0:03:21 > 0:03:25"the repetition created a kind of euphoria of camaraderie.

0:03:25 > 0:03:27CHEERING

0:03:27 > 0:03:31"Until now, the movement has seemed protected by public opinion.

0:03:31 > 0:03:35"Still, in response to Mayor Bloomberg's announcement on October 12th

0:03:35 > 0:03:38"that the occupants would have to temporarily leave the park

0:03:38 > 0:03:41"for it to be cleaned,

0:03:41 > 0:03:44"confrontation was likely as this article went to press."

0:03:44 > 0:03:47SCREAMING

0:03:47 > 0:03:48PANICKED SHOUTING

0:03:48 > 0:03:51- CROWD CHANTS: - Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!

0:03:51 > 0:03:53This is a peaceful protest!

0:03:53 > 0:03:56This is a peaceful protest!

0:04:11 > 0:04:13In 1984, after moving to New York,

0:04:13 > 0:04:16Bob and Grace invited Angela and myself and others

0:04:16 > 0:04:19to dinner at their home.

0:04:19 > 0:04:22And I remember Elizabeth Hardwick saying something.

0:04:22 > 0:04:24And as soon as she finished, Bob said,

0:04:24 > 0:04:26"I couldn't disagree with your more."

0:04:26 > 0:04:28GENTEEL LAUGHTER

0:04:28 > 0:04:31And they just continued to argue about what the point was.

0:04:31 > 0:04:34And nobody was angry and no-one was upset.

0:04:34 > 0:04:37And, to me, that's what The New York Review is. It's a long argument.

0:04:37 > 0:04:39I think it's a 50-year argument...

0:04:39 > 0:04:40POLITE APPLAUSE

0:04:40 > 0:04:42There she is!

0:04:42 > 0:04:45Hello, hello! Thank you for coming.

0:04:45 > 0:04:47I wouldn't miss it for anything.

0:04:47 > 0:04:50Hello, Tom, how are you?

0:04:50 > 0:04:52Jason is here.

0:04:52 > 0:04:56The initiator of the whole fucking thing. You know Jason Epstein?

0:04:56 > 0:04:581963 was the year when we did this.

0:05:00 > 0:05:01And that was 50 years ago.

0:05:01 > 0:05:06My wife, Barbara, and I lived in a wonderful apartment

0:05:06 > 0:05:10on West 67th Street. Our next-door neighbours who were the Lowells.

0:05:10 > 0:05:14Robert Lowell, the poet and his wife, Elizabeth Hardwick.

0:05:14 > 0:05:15And so, the four of us had dinner,

0:05:15 > 0:05:18and Elizabeth had written in Harper's Magazine,

0:05:18 > 0:05:20commissioned by Bob Silvers,

0:05:20 > 0:05:22who was an editor there then,

0:05:22 > 0:05:26a pungent attack on The New York Times Book Review.

0:05:26 > 0:05:29Which in those days was really a disgrace.

0:05:29 > 0:05:34It was very pious and timid, barely literate.

0:05:34 > 0:05:38"The flat praise and the faint dissension,

0:05:38 > 0:05:41"the minimal style in the light little article.

0:05:41 > 0:05:45"The absence of involvement, passion, character, eccentricity,

0:05:45 > 0:05:52"the lack at last of the literary tone itself have made,

0:05:52 > 0:05:57"The New York Times Book Review into a provincial literary journal."

0:05:57 > 0:06:01ANGRY SHOUTING, CAR HORNS BEEP

0:06:01 > 0:06:04- REPORTER:- The New York newspaper strike is now in its 75th day.

0:06:04 > 0:06:07Which could shut down several newspapers in New York

0:06:07 > 0:06:09and throw thousands out of work.

0:06:10 > 0:06:13The publishers are going crazy.

0:06:13 > 0:06:16Because there was no New York Times and no New York Times Book Review.

0:06:16 > 0:06:21The books are coming out and there's no place to advertise.

0:06:21 > 0:06:25Jason was a great publisher, said,

0:06:25 > 0:06:30"This is the only time when we'll ever be able to start a new Book Review

0:06:30 > 0:06:32"without any money."

0:06:32 > 0:06:33Seems like just yesterday.

0:06:33 > 0:06:36I really don't feel any great difference, Jason.

0:06:38 > 0:06:40The accident of a newspaper strike.

0:06:40 > 0:06:43The accident that the Lowells were living next door

0:06:43 > 0:06:45and came for dinner that night.

0:06:45 > 0:06:48The accident that we happened to be talking about her article,

0:06:48 > 0:06:50which was commissioned by Bob Silvers.

0:06:50 > 0:06:52And those accidents all came together

0:06:52 > 0:06:54and created a critical mass.

0:06:54 > 0:06:57As long as we could pay the printer

0:06:57 > 0:07:01we could publish anything we wanted and no-one could stop us.

0:07:01 > 0:07:04No-one could say, "You're being too daring.

0:07:04 > 0:07:07"You're being too...intimate.

0:07:07 > 0:07:10"You're being too political.

0:07:10 > 0:07:12"You're being too much on the right

0:07:12 > 0:07:15"or too much on the left or too much in the centre."

0:07:15 > 0:07:18We could do what we wanted in any way.

0:07:18 > 0:07:21MUSIC: "Take 5" The Dave Brubeck Quartet

0:07:23 > 0:07:26We waited a long time for freedom.

0:07:26 > 0:07:29Now is the time!

0:08:16 > 0:08:20When I was beginning to read and get books for myself,

0:08:20 > 0:08:22I came to Dublin in about '72.

0:08:23 > 0:08:26The presence of Robert Lowell

0:08:26 > 0:08:30in that world of mine was quite significant.

0:08:31 > 0:08:33And slowly, you realised

0:08:33 > 0:08:36that there was a small group. And you suddenly realised

0:08:36 > 0:08:38this small group actually spoke to you.

0:08:38 > 0:08:42On the edges around, there were people like Norman Mailer

0:08:42 > 0:08:44who were superstars.

0:08:44 > 0:08:46But then you found your own strange figures,

0:08:46 > 0:08:49who you would follow,

0:08:49 > 0:08:54you know, within that, and who were not necessarily so well known.

0:08:54 > 0:08:59And so the paper, the New York Review Of Books in Ireland,

0:08:59 > 0:09:02which is a strange idea, actually mattered.

0:09:02 > 0:09:06Actually was something that... It was a small group of people...

0:09:06 > 0:09:08I hesitate to use the word "intellectuals".

0:09:08 > 0:09:12But people that cared about ideas and books in Dublin would meet

0:09:12 > 0:09:17and we would talk about it as a crucial part of our lives.

0:09:17 > 0:09:20That ideas were maybe sensuous.

0:09:31 > 0:09:34Glen, it's Bob Silvers.

0:09:34 > 0:09:38I've just received, from Inge Feltrinelli,

0:09:38 > 0:09:43a book of Daniel Barenboim, La Musica e Un Tutto -

0:09:43 > 0:09:48a collection of essays by Danny.

0:09:50 > 0:09:53I'm very interested in publishing the essay entitled

0:09:53 > 0:09:59"Wagner Is Really A Palestinese" or Palestinesi?

0:10:00 > 0:10:02And the question is,

0:10:02 > 0:10:06is there any reason why we shouldn't go ahead and translate it?

0:10:09 > 0:10:14Could you call me at 2-1-2 7-5-7 8-0-7-0?

0:10:18 > 0:10:20TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH:

0:11:33 > 0:11:35We have invented the nigger.

0:11:35 > 0:11:37I didn't invent it.

0:11:39 > 0:11:40White people invented it.

0:11:43 > 0:11:45I've always known, I had to know by the time I was 17 years old...

0:11:47 > 0:11:50..what you were describing was not me

0:11:50 > 0:11:52and what you were afraid of was not me.

0:11:52 > 0:11:53It had to be something else.

0:11:53 > 0:11:58You had invented it, so it had to be something YOU were afraid of.

0:11:58 > 0:12:00You invested me with it.

0:12:01 > 0:12:04I learned this because I've had to learn it.

0:12:04 > 0:12:09But you still think, I gather, that the nigger is necessary.

0:12:10 > 0:12:14Well, it's unnecessary to me, so it must be necessary to you.

0:12:14 > 0:12:17So I give you your problem back.

0:12:17 > 0:12:20You're the nigger, baby, it isn't me.

0:12:20 > 0:12:23MUSIC: "Oh, No, Babe" by Jimmy Smith

0:12:36 > 0:12:41I had no idea why I was so absorbed in James Baldwin's novel,

0:12:41 > 0:12:45Giovanni's Room, but everyone else in the car knew.

0:12:45 > 0:12:49It was 1967 and we were days from Indianapolis

0:12:49 > 0:12:50on our way to Disneyland.

0:12:50 > 0:12:54We were actually on Route 66 and I didn't care.

0:12:55 > 0:12:58I was 13 years old and I wasn't causing trouble.

0:12:58 > 0:13:02Sitting between my two sisters with James Baldwin's novel,

0:13:02 > 0:13:05about a man's love for another man, in my face.

0:13:09 > 0:13:12I remember my mother glancing back at me.

0:13:12 > 0:13:16We'd driven through a dust storm awhile ago but I'd missed it.

0:13:19 > 0:13:21"Until I die there will be moments,

0:13:21 > 0:13:25"moments seeming to rise up out of the ground like Macbeth's witches.

0:13:25 > 0:13:29"When his face will come before me. That face in all its changes.

0:13:29 > 0:13:31"When the exact timber of his voice

0:13:31 > 0:13:34"and tricks of his speech will nearly burst my ears.

0:13:34 > 0:13:37"When his smell will overpower my nostrils.

0:13:37 > 0:13:40"Sometimes in the days which are coming, God grant me the grace

0:13:40 > 0:13:43"to live them, and the glare of the grey morning, sour mouths,

0:13:43 > 0:13:48"eyelids raw and red, hair tangled and damp from my stormy sleep,

0:13:48 > 0:13:52"facing over coffee and cigarette smoke, last night's impenetrable

0:13:52 > 0:13:57"meaningless boy who will shortly rise and vanish like the smoke.

0:13:57 > 0:14:00"I will see Giovanni again as he was that night.

0:14:00 > 0:14:02"So vivid, so winning.

0:14:02 > 0:14:05"All the light of that gloomy tunnel trapped around his head."

0:14:14 > 0:14:18I'd not read his essays because I knew that they were about race,

0:14:18 > 0:14:21a matter I was determined to put off for as long as I could.

0:14:26 > 0:14:28But the subject of race would not wait.

0:14:35 > 0:14:38And in 1971, a teacher who understood

0:14:38 > 0:14:41showed me Baldwin's Open Letter To My Sister,

0:14:41 > 0:14:44Miss Angela Davis in The New York Review of Books.

0:14:44 > 0:14:48"The enormous revolution in black consciousness that has

0:14:48 > 0:14:50"occurred in your generation, my dear sister,

0:14:50 > 0:14:53"means the beginning or the end of America."

0:14:53 > 0:14:57"I come from preachers, I recognise that speaker.

0:14:57 > 0:15:01"Away, and on my own at last, drinking and cruising,

0:15:01 > 0:15:05"I read in my dorm room what I refused to at home.

0:15:05 > 0:15:08"I fell under the spell of Baldwin's voice.

0:15:09 > 0:15:12"I can see the scratches in the desk in my room

0:15:12 > 0:15:14"where I was reading Notes Of A Native Son -

0:15:14 > 0:15:17"Baldwin's memoir of his hated father's death.

0:15:17 > 0:15:21"The day his father's last child was born in 1943,

0:15:21 > 0:15:24"one day before Harlem erupted

0:15:24 > 0:15:27"into the deadliest race riot in its history.

0:15:27 > 0:15:30"I can feel the effects of this essay within me still."

0:15:32 > 0:15:34Quite often I pick it up and I think,

0:15:34 > 0:15:38"I have no idea of anything to do with this subject."

0:15:39 > 0:15:45And I've lived this far without... without needing to know

0:15:45 > 0:15:47and I'm not sure I have any interest.

0:15:47 > 0:15:51You know, what I'm saying is I like it because it educates me.

0:15:51 > 0:15:55I mean, that's a sort of embarrassing thing to say

0:15:55 > 0:15:58cos it reveals all the failings of my formal education.

0:15:58 > 0:16:01But, I really... I bet, a lot of the people

0:16:01 > 0:16:04you're going to get in here are going to say this

0:16:04 > 0:16:06and that and they won't fess up to this.

0:16:06 > 0:16:11But, you know, it's really that... it's been part of my education.

0:16:13 > 0:16:17- That's great.- You like that? - I like it.- Which do you prefer?

0:16:17 > 0:16:21- I wonder if these legs go a little lower?- OK. That's it?

0:16:21 > 0:16:24- So, you make the whole thing a little bigger.- Yeah.

0:16:24 > 0:16:26- And the legs will come down to there.- OK, perfect.

0:16:32 > 0:16:34I put that in the text.

0:16:34 > 0:16:36This would be in...up there.

0:16:36 > 0:16:38So it would be more or less...

0:16:38 > 0:16:41but then we'd have to get the extra space for that.

0:16:43 > 0:16:46- Bob, we have changes from Bromwich. - Oh, great.

0:16:52 > 0:16:55In the last quarter of 2010...

0:16:55 > 0:16:58That's it. Let's have it reset, and we'll send it to Jenny...

0:16:58 > 0:16:59- Great.- ..just like that.

0:17:01 > 0:17:04Bob, he is, of course, extremely imaginative.

0:17:04 > 0:17:08Many of the books I have been asked to review by him

0:17:08 > 0:17:13have been really a bit outside my comfort zone or, superficially,

0:17:13 > 0:17:15not areas I'm particularly expert on.

0:17:15 > 0:17:20He sent me a book by the late John Boswell,

0:17:20 > 0:17:24which was on gay people in the Middle Ages and that was,

0:17:24 > 0:17:28the Middle Ages, quite outside my territory.

0:17:28 > 0:17:32Bob is interested in science, he's interested in art,

0:17:32 > 0:17:35he's interested in literature, he's interested in human rights.

0:17:35 > 0:17:39And every piece in The New York Review is something that holds

0:17:39 > 0:17:40particular interest to him,

0:17:40 > 0:17:44If you notice on the masthead the "Of Books" is much smaller

0:17:44 > 0:17:46than the "New York Review".

0:17:46 > 0:17:49And the reason for that is to open it up

0:17:49 > 0:17:52to allow it to be much more than a book review.

0:17:52 > 0:17:54In every issue of the Review,

0:17:54 > 0:17:57there are always some articles that are not book reviews.

0:17:57 > 0:17:59Maybe two, maybe three.

0:17:59 > 0:18:03A lot of it is simply a question of impulses.

0:18:03 > 0:18:07Natural impulses, and you can't contain them.

0:18:08 > 0:18:12I grew up in what used to be called Fleet Street.

0:18:12 > 0:18:17And you know on a Friday night some surly senior hack

0:18:17 > 0:18:22would come to me and say, "Bjorn Borg is getting married again.

0:18:22 > 0:18:26"You must, er, you must write a retrospective for tomorrow.

0:18:26 > 0:18:29"Here's the clippings file. Concentrate on the sex."

0:18:29 > 0:18:34LAUGHTER And in those days, you could...

0:18:34 > 0:18:37You would write on a very big old-fashioned computer.

0:18:37 > 0:18:40And the guy would hack into what you were writing,

0:18:40 > 0:18:43while you were writing it, and give comments.

0:18:43 > 0:18:47"Very boring! - ED. Get to the sex quicker!"

0:18:47 > 0:18:52So, naturally, I feel as if, when I finally bit the bullet,

0:18:52 > 0:18:56and started writing for Bob,

0:18:56 > 0:18:57I feel as if I've entered paradise.

0:18:57 > 0:19:02Even if you begin your piece with the nastiest word

0:19:02 > 0:19:05in the language for "vagina"...

0:19:06 > 0:19:08..Bob will take it on the chin.

0:19:08 > 0:19:12The problem with a lot of magazines is that they tend to edit

0:19:12 > 0:19:13by committee

0:19:13 > 0:19:15and you get this feedback of,

0:19:15 > 0:19:17"Well, it was felt that

0:19:17 > 0:19:19"the beginning would work better at the end."

0:19:19 > 0:19:20And they come back and,

0:19:20 > 0:19:22"Well, we had a meeting

0:19:22 > 0:19:26"and we thought that maybe we could do without the beginning."

0:19:26 > 0:19:27And when that happens too often,

0:19:27 > 0:19:30it inhibits you because the next time you write,

0:19:30 > 0:19:32you start to second-guess them.

0:19:32 > 0:19:34You say, "Well, this is the way I would do it,

0:19:34 > 0:19:38"but I bet they'll come back and say, 'Well, we felt that...'"

0:19:38 > 0:19:42That never happens with Bob. Because it's one man.

0:19:42 > 0:19:46It's one editor and you trust him. And he trusts you.

0:19:48 > 0:19:52Often in periods of crisis, Bob's had a very good sense.

0:19:52 > 0:19:55I mean, I think in the Bush The Younger period,

0:19:55 > 0:19:58The New York Review "had a very good war" as they used to say.

0:19:58 > 0:20:01They were sceptical from the beginning,

0:20:01 > 0:20:05even when everybody, including The New York Times,

0:20:05 > 0:20:09was pussy-footing around, terrified not to be unpatriotic,

0:20:09 > 0:20:12to be unpatriotic, and so on.

0:20:12 > 0:20:15And Bob had a very clear sense of where he stood.

0:20:15 > 0:20:18And I think it did the Review a lot of good.

0:20:18 > 0:20:22So, I think that's the... perhaps the latest instance of where

0:20:22 > 0:20:26he had a very sharp sense and has been proven right.

0:20:26 > 0:20:29Final question on the President's decision this week to disclose

0:20:29 > 0:20:31the documents dealing with terrorist interrogations,

0:20:31 > 0:20:33a series of officials

0:20:33 > 0:20:35who served with President Bush have come out and blasted it.

0:20:35 > 0:20:38One of the reasons the President was willing to let

0:20:38 > 0:20:42this information out was already the information was out.

0:20:42 > 0:20:45So, if they're saying that you basically exposed something

0:20:45 > 0:20:49it's been written, go get The New York Review of Books, it's there.

0:20:49 > 0:20:51I used to write for the Wall Street Journal

0:20:51 > 0:20:54and I would get phone calls from my editors -

0:20:54 > 0:20:58at the time I was based in Dubai - and they would call and they'd say,

0:20:58 > 0:21:01"Yasmine, we need a story that says XYZ,"

0:21:01 > 0:21:05and my response would be, "But XYZ is not happening."

0:21:05 > 0:21:09And his response would be, "Well, The New York Times wrote it.

0:21:09 > 0:21:12"The Washington Post wrote it, we have to write it."

0:21:12 > 0:21:16I decided a long time ago, that unless I am a witness to something,

0:21:16 > 0:21:18I won't write about it.

0:21:18 > 0:21:21GUNFIRE, CAR ALARMS BLARE

0:21:28 > 0:21:32That morning, I got a phone call very early that the police

0:21:32 > 0:21:36had surrounded the camp and that they were going to disperse.

0:21:36 > 0:21:37So I rushed over there.

0:21:37 > 0:21:40You know, once gunfire begins and once shootings begins,

0:21:40 > 0:21:43it is really hard to know exactly what is happening

0:21:43 > 0:21:45and it's quite scary.

0:21:45 > 0:21:46But I was there, I felt,

0:21:46 > 0:21:51long enough to see that there was violence from both sides,

0:21:51 > 0:21:55that the people within the camp, some of them had weapons

0:21:55 > 0:21:59and that there was a very clear exchange of gunfire.

0:21:59 > 0:22:04And I ended up writing a story that was very, very different

0:22:04 > 0:22:10to what all the other newspapers and magazines had written.

0:22:10 > 0:22:14I think the standard narrative was the Egyptian military

0:22:14 > 0:22:16massacred a thousand people.

0:22:17 > 0:22:19What was closer to the truth was,

0:22:19 > 0:22:22the Egyptian military sent the police force

0:22:22 > 0:22:25to surround these camps, to disperse them

0:22:25 > 0:22:28and people within the camps had weapons

0:22:28 > 0:22:32and there was an exchange of gunfire and hundreds were killed.

0:22:32 > 0:22:36And police were killed and people were killed in the crossfire

0:22:36 > 0:22:41and the aftermath and the rampage of angry Islamists attacking

0:22:41 > 0:22:44police stations and churches and homes.

0:22:44 > 0:22:47And I sent it in to Bob, and Bob kept sending me clips

0:22:47 > 0:22:49from The New York Times saying,

0:22:49 > 0:22:52"But they're saying this! But they're saying this!"

0:22:52 > 0:22:55There were long e-mails back and forth.

0:22:55 > 0:23:00I pushed back a lot and I explained why I can't take the stand

0:23:00 > 0:23:05that The New York Times is saying and why their information is...

0:23:05 > 0:23:09to me, was skewed, and why we had to take the stand.

0:23:09 > 0:23:12You know, he trusted me, as a writer,

0:23:12 > 0:23:16and he trusted my information, and so they ran this piece,

0:23:16 > 0:23:19that generated a lot of hate-mail for me.

0:23:23 > 0:23:25I don't know if you've seen it. It's a book we're reviewing.

0:23:25 > 0:23:28It's a very radical book.

0:23:28 > 0:23:32It's called Digital Disconnect. A book by Robert W McChesney.

0:23:32 > 0:23:34INDISTINCT VOICE FROM PHONE

0:23:34 > 0:23:38Well, I think you would find it rather fascinating.

0:23:39 > 0:23:41Very... yeah, we're reviewing it.

0:23:41 > 0:23:44So, it's not for review, but I'm going to send you a copy.

0:23:44 > 0:23:49Robert W McChesney, a professor at the University of Illinois.

0:23:49 > 0:23:51But it's about control of the media.

0:23:53 > 0:23:55Good evening. Just six days ago,

0:23:55 > 0:23:59the people of America were jolted by an announcement.

0:23:59 > 0:24:03Our casualties in Vietnam in a single week had exceeded

0:24:03 > 0:24:07the average weekly rate of dead and wounded in the Korean War.

0:24:07 > 0:24:11AMERICAN PATRIOTIC MUSIC

0:24:11 > 0:24:14Three months ago, the first Air Cavalry division shipped out

0:24:14 > 0:24:17from Charleston, South Carolina.

0:24:17 > 0:24:20Young men trained in a new concept of war.

0:24:20 > 0:24:25Proud. Sure of themselves. But still to be tested in battle.

0:24:25 > 0:24:28They were destined for the high country of Central Vietnam.

0:24:31 > 0:24:33Last week, some of them came home.

0:24:36 > 0:24:38Their lives were the price of victory

0:24:38 > 0:24:40and the Battle of Ia Drang Valley.

0:24:47 > 0:24:52In those days, the war in Vietnam was like a great cloud.

0:24:52 > 0:24:55A great central concern,

0:24:55 > 0:24:58and throughout the country.

0:25:15 > 0:25:21We were, from the beginning, sceptical about State power,

0:25:21 > 0:25:24matters of war, of human rights.

0:25:24 > 0:25:28of the use of napalm against thousands of people,

0:25:28 > 0:25:30a horrible weapon.

0:25:32 > 0:25:33The concept of legality

0:25:33 > 0:25:37and the concept of justice are not identical.

0:25:37 > 0:25:39They're not entirely distinct, either.

0:25:39 > 0:25:43Very often, when I do something which the State regards as illegal,

0:25:43 > 0:25:47I regard it as legal, because I regard the State as criminal.

0:26:04 > 0:26:07If we don't do anything more than sign our names.

0:26:07 > 0:26:11And this whole thing continues on its course, unarrested.

0:26:11 > 0:26:14If somehow, we aren't able to reach

0:26:14 > 0:26:18the political conscience of Washington,

0:26:18 > 0:26:21we will really not be much better off than the German people

0:26:21 > 0:26:25under the Nazis whose excuse was, "Well, we didn't know about it.

0:26:25 > 0:26:30Or, "What could we do? We were just one person." and so on.

0:26:31 > 0:26:33I would like to play some part,

0:26:33 > 0:26:37I would like to have some sort of political effectiveness.

0:26:39 > 0:26:43And, of course, one's always... It's always possible to write something.

0:26:43 > 0:26:48ROTOR BLADES WHIR

0:26:48 > 0:26:51"I confess that when I went to Vietnam early in February,

0:26:51 > 0:26:55"I was looking for material damaging to the American interest.

0:26:55 > 0:26:58"And that I found it. Though often by accident

0:26:58 > 0:27:00"or in the process of being briefed by an official.

0:27:02 > 0:27:03"Finding it is no job.

0:27:03 > 0:27:06"The Americans do not dissemble what they are up to.

0:27:06 > 0:27:10"They do not seem to feel the need, except through verbiage,

0:27:13 > 0:27:16"e.g., napalm has become 'incindergel'

0:27:16 > 0:27:18"which makes it sound like Jell-O.

0:27:20 > 0:27:23"And defoliants are referred to as weed killers,

0:27:23 > 0:27:25"something you use in your driveway.

0:27:25 > 0:27:28"The resort to euphemism denotes, no doubt,

0:27:28 > 0:27:31"a guilty conscience or, the same thing nowadays,

0:27:31 > 0:27:33"a twinge in the public relations nerve.

0:27:35 > 0:27:38"If you ask a junior officer what he thinks our war aims are

0:27:38 > 0:27:42"in Vietnam, he usually replies without hesitation,

0:27:42 > 0:27:44"to 'punish aggression'.

0:27:45 > 0:27:48"He probably imagines that he is thinking

0:27:48 > 0:27:50"when he produces that formula.

0:27:50 > 0:27:53"And yet, he does believe in something profoundly,

0:27:53 > 0:27:56"though he may not be able to find the words for it - free enterprise.

0:27:58 > 0:28:00"A parcel that, to the American mind,

0:28:00 > 0:28:04"wraps up for delivery hospital, sanitation, roads, harbours,

0:28:04 > 0:28:09"schools, air travel, Jack Daniel, convertibles, Stim-U-Dents.

0:28:11 > 0:28:13"That is the C-ration that keeps him going.

0:28:15 > 0:28:18"They plan to come out of the war with their values intact.

0:28:18 > 0:28:21"Which means they must spread them,

0:28:21 > 0:28:23"until everyone is convinced, by demonstration,

0:28:23 > 0:28:25"that the American way is better.

0:28:25 > 0:28:30"Just as American seed strains are better and American pigs are better.

0:28:30 > 0:28:33"Their conviction is sometimes baldly stated.

0:28:33 > 0:28:37"North of Denang, in a Marine base, there is an ice-cream plant

0:28:37 > 0:28:41"on which is printed, in large official letters, the words,

0:28:41 > 0:28:42"ICE CREAM PLANT:

0:28:42 > 0:28:45"A-R-V-N morale builder."

0:28:45 > 0:28:48"Or it may wear humanitarian disguise.

0:28:48 > 0:28:53"e.g. Operation Concern, in which a proud little town in Kansas

0:28:53 > 0:28:58"airlifted 110 pregnant sows to a humble little town in Vietnam."

0:29:04 > 0:29:07My own sense is that a number of factors

0:29:07 > 0:29:11have hardly been mentioned in some of these articles.

0:29:12 > 0:29:16One is the Iranian connection,

0:29:16 > 0:29:21and the cooperation with Iran in sending weapons to Syria.

0:29:23 > 0:29:26The second is the continued sectarian fighting.

0:29:28 > 0:29:30The third is the question

0:29:30 > 0:29:35of just where the various streams of revenue,

0:29:35 > 0:29:38particularly from oil, are going.

0:29:40 > 0:29:42- OK, shall I read that back?- Yeah.

0:29:42 > 0:29:46"My own sense is that a number of factors have hardly been mentioned

0:29:46 > 0:29:49"in some of these articles. One is the Iranian connection,

0:29:49 > 0:29:52"and the cooperation with Iran in sending weapons to Syria.

0:29:52 > 0:29:57- "A second is the continued sectarian fighting..." - No. No, no. Say Syria.

0:29:57 > 0:30:00But then, there was the larger question

0:30:00 > 0:30:05with relations between the al-Maliki government

0:30:05 > 0:30:07and the Iranians.

0:30:07 > 0:30:10- OK.- I'll be upstairs in a minute. - OK, I'll see you soon.

0:30:15 > 0:30:18Hey, Michael, how are things?

0:30:18 > 0:30:20No, I will tell you what, I am going to have one more look

0:30:20 > 0:30:22and if there is anything I'll call

0:30:22 > 0:30:24but otherwise, I thought it was very, very good

0:30:24 > 0:30:27and I was particularly glad about

0:30:27 > 0:30:32the critical kind of reappraisal, so to speak.

0:30:35 > 0:30:37An interesting role of the writer

0:30:37 > 0:30:39is to be always somewhat adversarial.

0:30:39 > 0:30:41You know, things are going too much in one direction.

0:30:41 > 0:30:44You say, "Hey, look at that side."

0:30:44 > 0:30:47You want to keep shifting what the centre is.

0:30:47 > 0:30:52And that means probably supporting things which are more marginal

0:30:52 > 0:30:57or more despised. Some people will have lousy views.

0:30:57 > 0:31:00And some people will have terrific views and actions

0:31:00 > 0:31:02and that's the human condition.

0:31:02 > 0:31:05And one doesn't worry about reputation

0:31:05 > 0:31:08if one is a person of honour. One just tries to do the best one can.

0:31:11 > 0:31:13In the mid-'70s,

0:31:13 > 0:31:17Hitler's favourite film-maker, Leni Riefenstahl, came to America.

0:31:17 > 0:31:22She was trying to remake herself and it was all going pretty well

0:31:22 > 0:31:25until the Review published Susan Sontag's piece,

0:31:25 > 0:31:31Fascinating Fascism, a reminder that Riefenstahl's sense of beauty

0:31:31 > 0:31:35went hand-in-hand with German Fascism.

0:31:36 > 0:31:41That article was so urgent, morally urgent.

0:31:50 > 0:31:53Sontag writes...

0:31:53 > 0:31:56"Riefenstahl's current de-Nazification and vindication

0:31:56 > 0:32:00"as indomitable priestess of the beautiful -

0:32:00 > 0:32:04"as a film-maker and, now, as a photographer -

0:32:04 > 0:32:07"do not augur well for the keenness

0:32:07 > 0:32:11"of current abilities to detect the fascist longings in our midst."

0:32:11 > 0:32:16"The force of her work is precisely in the continuity

0:32:16 > 0:32:20"of its political and aesthetic ideas."

0:32:20 > 0:32:23- I'm looking at... - The last issue that we did?

0:32:23 > 0:32:25Yes, middle of August. Nixon and Kissinger,

0:32:25 > 0:32:28and then Lars-Erik Nelson, "From Little Rock to Washington DC".

0:32:28 > 0:32:32The reason I read all that is it's a lot of politics.

0:32:32 > 0:32:36If you look inside, there is a Michael Wood piece on three novels,

0:32:36 > 0:32:41we try to cover novels that we think are lasting.

0:32:41 > 0:32:43We always try to aim for a kind of balance,

0:32:43 > 0:32:47we try to have something on science or something on art.

0:32:49 > 0:32:52I do commission all the articles

0:32:52 > 0:32:54and have since Barbara,

0:32:54 > 0:32:57my co-editor, died in 2006.

0:32:57 > 0:33:00We both shared some kind of quest.

0:33:00 > 0:33:06A quest for great writing and great... and brilliant writing.

0:33:06 > 0:33:08When Barbara and I started the Review, we were not seeking

0:33:08 > 0:33:12to be part of an establishment - quite the opposite.

0:33:12 > 0:33:17We were seeking to examine the workings

0:33:17 > 0:33:20and the truthfulness of establishments,

0:33:20 > 0:33:24whether political or cultural.

0:33:32 > 0:33:34It's down there.

0:33:34 > 0:33:36Box down there.

0:33:36 > 0:33:39- Now, Susan, smile. - HE CHUCKLES

0:33:39 > 0:33:41Say cheese.

0:33:43 > 0:33:47The movie camera lets us savour the mobility of each face.

0:33:47 > 0:33:49The still camera embalms it.

0:33:51 > 0:33:56Photographs show people there and then.

0:33:56 > 0:33:59Grouping together people and things which, a moment later,

0:33:59 > 0:34:01have already disbanded, changed,

0:34:01 > 0:34:04continued along the course of their independent destinies.

0:34:07 > 0:34:12Photographs are the way we possess people, places, time.

0:34:12 > 0:34:15They're the way we capture experience.

0:34:19 > 0:34:21Look at this advertisement.

0:34:21 > 0:34:25All but one of the group looks stunned, excited, upset.

0:34:25 > 0:34:27The one who wears a different expression

0:34:27 > 0:34:30is the one who holds a camera to his eye. He seems self-possessed.

0:34:30 > 0:34:32He's almost smiling.

0:34:33 > 0:34:38The others are passive, clearly alarmed spectators.

0:34:38 > 0:34:40Having a camera has transformed one of these people

0:34:40 > 0:34:43into someone active, into a voyeur...

0:34:44 > 0:34:49"Prague, Woodstock, Vietnam, Sapporo, Londonderry - Leica."

0:34:50 > 0:34:53Crushed hopes, youth antics, colonial wars

0:34:53 > 0:34:58and winter sports are alike - equalised by the camera.

0:34:58 > 0:35:01An event known through photographs certainly becomes more real

0:35:01 > 0:35:04than it would have been if one had never seen the photographs.

0:35:04 > 0:35:05Think of the Vietnam War.

0:35:05 > 0:35:08Or for a counter example, the Gulag Archipelago,

0:35:08 > 0:35:11of which we have no photographs.

0:35:11 > 0:35:14But the shock of the photographed atrocities

0:35:14 > 0:35:17does wear off with repeated viewings.

0:35:17 > 0:35:21Just as the surprise and bemusement that you feel the first time

0:35:21 > 0:35:24you see a pornographic movie wears off after you see a few more,

0:35:24 > 0:35:27and the horrible begins to appear more ordinary.

0:35:38 > 0:35:42I think they give one an unearned sense of understanding things

0:35:42 > 0:35:45and an unearned relation to the past.

0:35:52 > 0:35:55- OK, well. - That is rather interesting.

0:35:55 > 0:35:59- PhotoShelter is something we can get a hold of.- We can?- Yeah.

0:36:03 > 0:36:06- Title?- The Wild...

0:36:06 > 0:36:10The unkempt... In the Wilds of Leopardi.

0:36:10 > 0:36:13- In the Wilds.- With the hair? - With the hair...

0:36:13 > 0:36:16The funny thing about the blog was, when we started,

0:36:16 > 0:36:20we had writers who still wrote long-hand.

0:36:20 > 0:36:23The blog is so much a part of the Review,

0:36:23 > 0:36:26these writers are perfect for the blog form.

0:36:26 > 0:36:29It's hard to imagine now, but Garry Wills said,

0:36:29 > 0:36:32"Well, I don't about blogging, you know, I'll try."

0:36:32 > 0:36:36After the school massacre in the fall of 2012,

0:36:36 > 0:36:40he did this amazingly powerful piece called Our Moloch,

0:36:40 > 0:36:44which was just such a profound statement about gun culture.

0:36:44 > 0:36:45It could run at any time.

0:36:45 > 0:36:49So, it's been this kind of odd engagement with very new media

0:36:49 > 0:36:55from a very old tradition of writing and thinking about the world.

0:36:55 > 0:36:59HE PLAYS LILTING PIECE

0:37:05 > 0:37:10Where else could you start a blog and have Charles Rosen

0:37:10 > 0:37:13fax in a beautiful text about the dying pleasures

0:37:13 > 0:37:16of browsing in a physical book store?

0:37:16 > 0:37:19And then we would edit the text and fax it back to Rosen

0:37:19 > 0:37:22who, of course, didn't even have e-mail.

0:37:22 > 0:37:26There's this amazing intelligence at work from these writers,

0:37:26 > 0:37:29but often it needs a kind of dissection

0:37:29 > 0:37:32and you have to constantly ask these questions.

0:37:32 > 0:37:34The wonderful thing TS Eliot said, I mean,

0:37:34 > 0:37:37which is really the only thing worth contemplating.

0:37:37 > 0:37:41He just said that the critic, which is a stupid word in a way, "critic".

0:37:41 > 0:37:44But he said that the function of criticism

0:37:44 > 0:37:47was to be as intelligent as possible.

0:37:47 > 0:37:50And it's very beautiful. Eliot, of course, loved words.

0:37:50 > 0:37:53You know, "to be as intelligent as possible."

0:37:53 > 0:37:55It's what Elizabeth Bishop said,

0:37:55 > 0:37:57that the thing she got most pleasure from

0:37:57 > 0:38:00was something she believed in fundamentally.

0:38:00 > 0:38:04Being demolished by someone she knew well and loved.

0:38:04 > 0:38:07So, she never thought it again. I'm talking about that idea.

0:38:07 > 0:38:10And it's not, it doesn't necessarily always happen

0:38:10 > 0:38:13when someone demolishes someone because the paper,

0:38:13 > 0:38:15The New York Review of Books doesn't do that.

0:38:15 > 0:38:17I mean, it's not as though you are going to have

0:38:17 > 0:38:19blood on the floor in every issue.

0:38:19 > 0:38:22- ALL CHANT: - Sisterhood is powerful! Join us now!

0:38:22 > 0:38:24Sisterhood is powerful! Join us now!

0:38:30 > 0:38:32The Founding Father had strong views

0:38:32 > 0:38:35on the position of woman (under the man)

0:38:35 > 0:38:39and one of the few mistakes he ever admitted to

0:38:39 > 0:38:41was the creation of Lilith as a mate for Adam.

0:38:41 > 0:38:45Using the same dust as his earthly replica,

0:38:45 > 0:38:48but let us hear it in his own words,

0:38:48 > 0:38:51rabbinically divined in the 5th century, quote,

0:38:51 > 0:38:55"Adam and Lilith never found peace together.

0:38:55 > 0:38:58"For when he wished to lie with her, she took offence

0:38:58 > 0:39:01"at the recumbent posture he demanded.

0:39:01 > 0:39:04"'Why must I lie beneath you?' she asked.

0:39:04 > 0:39:09"'I also was made from dust and am, therefore, your equal.'

0:39:09 > 0:39:13"Because Adam tried to compel her obedience by force,

0:39:13 > 0:39:18"Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic name of God,

0:39:18 > 0:39:23"rose into the air and left him." End quote.

0:39:23 > 0:39:26The outcast Lilith is still hanging about the Zeitgeist,

0:39:26 > 0:39:30we are told, causing babies to strangle in their sleep,

0:39:30 > 0:39:32men to have wet dreams

0:39:32 > 0:39:36and Kate Millett, Betty Friedan, Eva Figes

0:39:36 > 0:39:40and Germaine Greer to write books.

0:39:40 > 0:39:44When a man and a woman have a bitter, furious, violent quarrel,

0:39:44 > 0:39:47there comes a point when he's either going to hit that woman or not.

0:39:47 > 0:39:50Now, if he hits the woman, he's lost the argument

0:39:50 > 0:39:54because finally he has blown up the premise of the argument.

0:39:54 > 0:39:56On the other hand, if a man swears to himself

0:39:56 > 0:39:58that he will never strike a woman

0:39:58 > 0:40:01and he's dealing with a woman who has less honour than he does,

0:40:01 > 0:40:03which believe me, ladies, is conceivable,

0:40:03 > 0:40:06- then that woman will proceed... - INDISTINCT SHOUTING

0:40:06 > 0:40:08You're asking for a dialogue - here it is.

0:40:08 > 0:40:11This is my half of the dialogue. You can counter.

0:40:11 > 0:40:13I'll teach you and you teach me! Fuck you!

0:40:13 > 0:40:17I want to teach you, too! I mean, fuck you, you know?

0:40:17 > 0:40:19MURMURS AND APPLAUSE

0:40:19 > 0:40:23You know, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you harridans

0:40:23 > 0:40:25harangue me and say, "Yessum. Yessum."

0:40:25 > 0:40:28APPLAUSE

0:40:29 > 0:40:33The response to Sexual Politics, Feminine Mystique et al

0:40:33 > 0:40:37has been as interesting as anything that has happened in our time,

0:40:37 > 0:40:41with the possible exception of Richard Nixon's political career.

0:40:41 > 0:40:45The hatred these girls have inspired is, to me,

0:40:45 > 0:40:49convincing proof that their central argument is valid -

0:40:49 > 0:40:52men DO hate women.

0:40:52 > 0:40:54Or as Germaine Greer puts it,

0:40:54 > 0:40:59"Women have very little idea of how much men hate them."

0:41:00 > 0:41:01Susan Sontag.

0:41:01 > 0:41:05I want to ask, I want to ask a very quiet question to...

0:41:05 > 0:41:07SHOUTING

0:41:07 > 0:41:11I want to ask a very quiet question to Norman.

0:41:11 > 0:41:15Norman, it is true that women find, with the best of will,

0:41:15 > 0:41:20the way you talk to them patronising.

0:41:20 > 0:41:24- And one of the things is your use of the word "lady". - SCATTERED APPLAUSE

0:41:24 > 0:41:27When you... And this is what I want to ask Diana.

0:41:27 > 0:41:32When you said "Diana Trilling, foremost lady literary critic",

0:41:32 > 0:41:35I, if I were Diana, I wouldn't like to be introduced that way

0:41:35 > 0:41:37and I would like to know how Diana feels about it.

0:41:37 > 0:41:40I don't like being called a "lady writer", Norman.

0:41:40 > 0:41:43I know it, it seems like gallantry to you.

0:41:43 > 0:41:45But it doesn't feel right to us.

0:41:45 > 0:41:48I could have called Diana a "woman critic" or a "female critic".

0:41:48 > 0:41:51- I could not call her...- A critic!

0:41:51 > 0:41:53Or I could have called her a critic.

0:41:53 > 0:41:57But I wished to say that she was the best in kind.

0:41:57 > 0:41:58Now...

0:41:58 > 0:42:01CLAMOUR

0:42:01 > 0:42:03SHOUTING AND HISSING

0:42:05 > 0:42:07And, anyway, as you all should have known,

0:42:07 > 0:42:09if you had had the wit,

0:42:09 > 0:42:12I was doing it precisely to put Diana on.

0:42:12 > 0:42:14CLAMOUR AND BOOING

0:42:18 > 0:42:20It is no accident that in the United States,

0:42:20 > 0:42:25the phrase "sex and violence" is used as one word.

0:42:25 > 0:42:30To describe acts of equal wickedness, equal fun, equal danger

0:42:30 > 0:42:34to that law and order our masters would impose upon us.

0:42:34 > 0:42:38Yet, equating sex with violence does change the nature of each.

0:42:38 > 0:42:42Words govern us more than anatomy.

0:42:42 > 0:42:45And it is quite plain that those who fear

0:42:45 > 0:42:49what they call "permissiveness" do so because they know

0:42:49 > 0:42:53that if sex is truly freed of taboo,

0:42:53 > 0:42:57it will lead to torture and murder.

0:42:57 > 0:43:00Because that is what they dream of.

0:43:00 > 0:43:02Or as Norman Mailer puts it -

0:43:02 > 0:43:08"Murder offers us the promise of vast relief. It is never unsexual."

0:43:08 > 0:43:11Why don't you ask him if he had a copy

0:43:11 > 0:43:15- of this notorious piece of writing? - This notorious piece of writing.

0:43:15 > 0:43:20He brought one page of it. A piece on women's liberation.

0:43:20 > 0:43:25And particularly, on the people who had started to attack the women.

0:43:25 > 0:43:29And some of the attacks, particularly Mailer, Irving Howe.

0:43:29 > 0:43:32I thought uncalled for in their tone.

0:43:32 > 0:43:35And, I suppose, I was kind of rough in mine.

0:43:35 > 0:43:37But, you know, these things aren't personal.

0:43:37 > 0:43:40And Norman is taking everything too personally.

0:43:40 > 0:43:43He happened to be one of my examples of what was wrong

0:43:43 > 0:43:47with what the women's-lib people would call "sexism".

0:43:47 > 0:43:51The good thing about him is his constant metamorphosis.

0:43:51 > 0:43:54He does re-bare himself like the phoenix

0:43:54 > 0:43:57and what the next incarnation will be, I don't know.

0:43:57 > 0:43:59Well, you seem to have me figured out as the next

0:43:59 > 0:44:02reincarnation for me is going to be Charles Manson!

0:44:02 > 0:44:06- Why don't you read what you wrote? - You let yourself in for it.

0:44:06 > 0:44:07And I will tell you,

0:44:07 > 0:44:11I'll give you a little background here that... Mailer...

0:44:11 > 0:44:14We all know that I stabbed my wife years ago.

0:44:14 > 0:44:17We do know that, Gore, you were playing on that. Now, come on.

0:44:17 > 0:44:20- I want to forget about... - You don't want to forget about it.

0:44:20 > 0:44:22You're a liar and a hypocrite. You were playing on it.

0:44:22 > 0:44:25But that wasn't a lie or hypo... I wasn't going to talk about it.

0:44:25 > 0:44:27The fact of the matter is the people who read

0:44:27 > 0:44:30The New York Review of Books know perfectly well.

0:44:30 > 0:44:33They know all about it. And it's your subtle little way of doing it.

0:44:33 > 0:44:34You know The New Yorker once...

0:44:34 > 0:44:36Oh, I'm beginning to see what bothers you now.

0:44:36 > 0:44:40- OK, I'm getting the point. - Are you ready to apologise?

0:44:40 > 0:44:44I would apologise if, if it hurts your feelings, of course, I would.

0:44:44 > 0:44:47No, it hurts my sense of intellectual pollution.

0:44:47 > 0:44:50- Well, I must say... - I mean...- As an expert,

0:44:50 > 0:44:53- you should know about that. - I would like to...

0:44:53 > 0:44:57'There has been, from Henry Miller to Norman Mailer

0:44:57 > 0:45:01'to Charles Manson, a logical progression.

0:45:02 > 0:45:07'The Miller-Mailer-Manson Man or "M3" for short.'

0:45:07 > 0:45:09You said I compared you to Charles Manson.

0:45:09 > 0:45:12I said, "Henry Miller in his way. Norman in his.

0:45:12 > 0:45:16"And Manson in his far-out, mad way are each reflecting

0:45:16 > 0:45:19"a hatred of women and a hatred of flesh."

0:45:19 > 0:45:21CONVERSATION INAUDIBLE, APPLAUSE

0:45:21 > 0:45:25- And, frankly... - LAUGHTER

0:45:25 > 0:45:26..if I may say so...

0:45:29 > 0:45:31"There has been, from Henry Miller,

0:45:31 > 0:45:33"Norman Mailer to Charles Manson,

0:45:33 > 0:45:35"a logical progression. Period.

0:45:35 > 0:45:38"The Miller-Mailer-Manson man, or 'M3' for short,

0:45:38 > 0:45:44"has been conditioned to think of women as, at best, breeders of sons.

0:45:44 > 0:45:48"At worst, objects to be poked, humiliated, killed."

0:45:48 > 0:45:50And from there on in the piece, you speak of Miller,

0:45:50 > 0:45:54the great writer Henry Miller. The greatest writer alive in America.

0:45:54 > 0:45:57If we're going to talk like muckers I'll talk, too, like a mucker.

0:45:57 > 0:45:59Henry Miller, the greatest writer alive in America.

0:45:59 > 0:46:01And myself and Charles Manson,

0:46:01 > 0:46:04a hugely complex Raskolnikovian figure

0:46:04 > 0:46:06are spoken of lumped together as "M3".

0:46:06 > 0:46:09Now, do you call that good intellect working?

0:46:09 > 0:46:12To lump together three people as curious as Henry Miller,

0:46:12 > 0:46:14Norman Mailer and Charles Manson?

0:46:14 > 0:46:17- You must read the piece. You can't go...- I've read it.

0:46:17 > 0:46:19You have to read it, but the audience has not.

0:46:19 > 0:46:22You are selecting this one passage as representative of the whole.

0:46:22 > 0:46:24I make my case very carefully.

0:46:24 > 0:46:27But I will say, given you a few minutes more on the programme,

0:46:27 > 0:46:28you will prove my point.

0:46:31 > 0:46:34Actually, the conflicts in the pages of The New York Review

0:46:34 > 0:46:37over the years have become legendary.

0:46:37 > 0:46:43Edmund Wilson versus Vladimir Nabokov about Russian translation,

0:46:43 > 0:46:47Edward Said versus Bernard Lewis on Orientalism,

0:46:47 > 0:46:50Gore Vidal versus...

0:46:50 > 0:46:53well, versus the whole world, on everything.

0:46:55 > 0:47:00A quote from Norman Mailer on Tom Wolfe's A Man In Full.

0:47:00 > 0:47:04In his article, A Man Half Full, Mailer writes...

0:47:04 > 0:47:08"Reading the work can even be said to resemble the act

0:47:08 > 0:47:11"of making love to a three-hundred-pound woman.

0:47:11 > 0:47:14"Once she gets on top, it's over.

0:47:15 > 0:47:18"Fall in love, or be asphyxiated."

0:47:20 > 0:47:24I may have some difference, some reservation.

0:47:24 > 0:47:28I am not going to impose my views on these people.

0:47:28 > 0:47:34I am interested in them doing their best to put forward their views.

0:47:34 > 0:47:41The Review is based on the idea that highly skilful, intelligent,

0:47:41 > 0:47:45interested people can write fascinatingly

0:47:45 > 0:47:51and revealingly about nearly any subject.

0:47:51 > 0:47:56And, of course, the great problem is to find that person.

0:47:56 > 0:48:00MUSIC: "Take Five" by The Dave Brubeck Quartet

0:48:19 > 0:48:22You can encompass all that's fascinating and deep

0:48:22 > 0:48:26and revolutionary about the current geology

0:48:26 > 0:48:31of plate tectonics and ceaseless motion with the following line...

0:48:31 > 0:48:36"The summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone." 29,002 feet,

0:48:36 > 0:48:40and it's marine limestone at the top, meaning it was deposited

0:48:40 > 0:48:44under water and there has been more than 29,002 feet of vertical motion

0:48:44 > 0:48:46to bring those rocks up to the summit

0:48:46 > 0:48:49of the highest mountain on Earth.

0:48:49 > 0:48:53I know you wrote a piece once for The New York Review of Books

0:48:53 > 0:48:56- about Migraine.- It's one of those classic sort of psychosomatic things

0:48:56 > 0:48:59and actually, the author of the book, Oliver Sacks,

0:48:59 > 0:49:02suffers from them himself, so he knows what he's talking about!

0:49:04 > 0:49:07HE ORATES IN GERMAN

0:49:09 > 0:49:11You might see the cover line -

0:49:11 > 0:49:15WH Auden, Hitler, God and you,

0:49:15 > 0:49:16all in the same size font.

0:49:16 > 0:49:19Not because you were as important as each other...

0:49:19 > 0:49:22Hello! Andrew, how you are?

0:49:22 > 0:49:24- Hey!- So good of you to come.

0:49:24 > 0:49:28..but because it was collegiate in that way.

0:49:32 > 0:49:36Neither time nor space have been spent on books

0:49:36 > 0:49:38that are trivial in their intentions

0:49:38 > 0:49:41or venal in their effects.

0:49:41 > 0:49:44Except occasionally to reduce

0:49:44 > 0:49:47a temporarily inflated reputation

0:49:47 > 0:49:49or to call attention to a fraud.

0:49:50 > 0:49:55Our one and only editorial for 50 years.

0:49:55 > 0:49:59One review in the very first issue of the paper opens

0:49:59 > 0:50:04with a sentence that many of us would have enjoyed writing.

0:50:09 > 0:50:11LAUGHTER

0:50:11 > 0:50:13'In the most recent issue'

0:50:13 > 0:50:16there are two brilliant pieces. One by Jeremy Waldron,

0:50:16 > 0:50:19reviewing a book on political thought,

0:50:19 > 0:50:21and one by Stephen Greenblatt,

0:50:21 > 0:50:24reviewing a book on the classical tradition.

0:50:24 > 0:50:26Both fantastically elegantly written,

0:50:26 > 0:50:30coming to diametrically-opposed conclusions

0:50:30 > 0:50:32about the classical world.

0:50:32 > 0:50:35It would be interesting to see if it sparks the kind of controversy

0:50:35 > 0:50:38that one would hope. As Waldron is saying,

0:50:38 > 0:50:42"Look, you might wonder why thinking about Herodotus

0:50:42 > 0:50:45"has got any use for us at all, when we're doing

0:50:45 > 0:50:49"modern political history. Why should we bother with Herodotus?"

0:50:49 > 0:50:53He goes through saying why you should. It's brilliant.

0:50:53 > 0:50:57Saying, you know, political culture is the culture of memory.

0:50:57 > 0:51:01We're always reflecting about ourselves, in relation to the past.

0:51:01 > 0:51:05We can't understand our own politics without understanding that.

0:51:05 > 0:51:09Greenblatt, with equal eloquence and elegance,

0:51:09 > 0:51:14looks at this history of the classical tradition

0:51:14 > 0:51:17and, basically, it is an elegy for the classical tradition.

0:51:17 > 0:51:20It says, you know, "This is over, guys", you know?!

0:51:20 > 0:51:24"Our obsession with the Greeks and Romans is gone.

0:51:24 > 0:51:27"No-one knows Latin any more...

0:51:27 > 0:51:30"and this is going to be the last book of its kind.

0:51:30 > 0:51:33"All the undergraduates, all the kids, want to know

0:51:33 > 0:51:34"is about what's happening now."

0:51:34 > 0:51:38"Across 11 years of the war on terror and two presidents,

0:51:38 > 0:51:43"the politics of fear have not been forestalled or banished or defeated.

0:51:43 > 0:51:45"The politics of fear have been embodied in the country's

0:51:45 > 0:51:50"permanent policies, without comment or objection by its citizenry.

0:51:50 > 0:51:52The politics of fear have won.

0:51:54 > 0:51:57'We have actually been living with enhanced interrogation,'

0:51:57 > 0:52:00I would call it torture, since 2004.

0:52:00 > 0:52:03When I say living with it, I mean,

0:52:03 > 0:52:05it's been exposed, we've known about it.

0:52:05 > 0:52:09There has been a large body of evidence about it. We know the techniques, we know who ordered them.

0:52:09 > 0:52:11I've published documents and others have.

0:52:11 > 0:52:17If September 11th remains undigested, it is surely, at least, in part,

0:52:17 > 0:52:20because the lines between history and drama,

0:52:20 > 0:52:23the genuinely political and the reductively personal,

0:52:23 > 0:52:27are being increasingly blurred throughout the culture.

0:52:27 > 0:52:3111 years after the disaster, all we have produced are a handful

0:52:31 > 0:52:34of hero and spy-themed entertainments,

0:52:34 > 0:52:39amounting to little more than smoke, shielding us from

0:52:39 > 0:52:41what we are not yet ready to see.

0:52:41 > 0:52:44People have this notion that writers don't like to be edited -

0:52:44 > 0:52:46we are all geniuses and editors are interferers -

0:52:46 > 0:52:47but that's not true!

0:52:48 > 0:52:51'That's what you WANT, as a writer,

0:52:51 > 0:52:53'to have an editor who knows more than you...'

0:52:53 > 0:52:56It's very, very good of you to stick it out.

0:52:58 > 0:53:01..who can then say, "I think you're going too far.

0:53:01 > 0:53:04"I don't think this is fair. You might want to consider this.

0:53:04 > 0:53:08"Have you looked at X, do you know about Y?" That's what you want.

0:53:08 > 0:53:09So it's going to be like Jordan.

0:53:09 > 0:53:13That is, the Islamists would get 35% or something.

0:53:13 > 0:53:16- They would be represented, but wouldn't control.- And they won!

0:53:16 > 0:53:17Of course, they got a majority!

0:53:17 > 0:53:20- What's up with you? - Well, I'm just working away, really!

0:53:22 > 0:53:25APPLAUSE

0:53:28 > 0:53:35Now, Michael Chabon, as it happens, was born only a few months

0:53:35 > 0:53:38after our first issue appeared.

0:53:38 > 0:53:41He grew up along with us.

0:53:42 > 0:53:46I grew up in a house that subscribed to The New York Review of Books.

0:53:46 > 0:53:49And so, you know, every time I get the latest issue

0:53:49 > 0:53:52and I look at the cover, the design of which,

0:53:52 > 0:53:55although it has been toyed with and adjusted,

0:53:55 > 0:54:00still very much resembles The New York Review, as I remember it,

0:54:00 > 0:54:03in the magazine rack that my dad kept next to his chair,

0:54:03 > 0:54:06with his Playboy and his Newsweek.

0:54:06 > 0:54:10The piece I'm going to share is just a short excerpt from a piece

0:54:10 > 0:54:14that I wrote about a time when being able to appear in the pages

0:54:14 > 0:54:17of the Review was just, you know, a far distant dream.

0:54:17 > 0:54:22"I slid a floppy disk into drive B.

0:54:22 > 0:54:25"I took a deep breath and started to write,

0:54:25 > 0:54:28"on a screen so small that you had to toggle two keys

0:54:28 > 0:54:31"to see the end of every line.

0:54:31 > 0:54:34"A passage that began like this..."

0:54:48 > 0:54:53"..wait to carry me up, up, up, through the suites of moguls,

0:54:53 > 0:54:58"of spies and of starlets, to rush me straight to the zeppelin mooring

0:54:58 > 0:55:03"at the Art Deco summit, where they keep the huge dirigible of August,

0:55:03 > 0:55:06"tied up and bobbing in the high winds."

0:55:07 > 0:55:11Reading and writing are done in silence.

0:55:11 > 0:55:15But they must, you must, have the idea that other people

0:55:15 > 0:55:19are reading the book you're reading and that other people

0:55:19 > 0:55:21will read the novel you're writing.

0:55:21 > 0:55:27And that idea of community, within a world which depends on silence,

0:55:27 > 0:55:31is so fundamental that often we don't think about it or remember enough

0:55:31 > 0:55:32how important it's been,

0:55:32 > 0:55:39if we don't join forces as readers. In some strange way, also in silence,

0:55:39 > 0:55:45we don't...our reading becomes a strange, desiccated Mr Casaubon

0:55:45 > 0:55:48sort of activity - for ever about to produce the book

0:55:48 > 0:55:50that you know nobody will read.

0:55:53 > 0:55:58I'd like to see this article cited here by Haley Sweetland Edwards.

0:55:58 > 0:56:00Do you see this footnote?

0:56:01 > 0:56:05Hello, Michael. You know, we're going to press with your piece

0:56:05 > 0:56:09and I suddenly looked at this rather powerful piece

0:56:09 > 0:56:11by Haley Sweetland Edwards.

0:56:11 > 0:56:14'The Review has always been'

0:56:14 > 0:56:19just the place where ideas really matter.

0:56:19 > 0:56:23I mean, I think it is the thing that engaged me in the very beginning,

0:56:23 > 0:56:29both as a reader and as a writer, but I really learned it when I worked

0:56:29 > 0:56:33with Bob on a piece about my late husband, Tony.

0:56:33 > 0:56:37The book Tony had written when he was ill, Thinking The 20th Century,

0:56:37 > 0:56:38was about to come out

0:56:38 > 0:56:42and I had this sense that I wanted to say something about it, but I didn't

0:56:42 > 0:56:44quite know if I was going to be able to do it.

0:56:44 > 0:56:48And so, I went to Bob and I talked to him about it

0:56:48 > 0:56:51and said, "I'd like to try to write something.

0:56:51 > 0:56:55"Will you work on this with me?"

0:56:55 > 0:57:00And we started on this path, which was a very, sort of,

0:57:00 > 0:57:03emotional thing for me. He was able

0:57:03 > 0:57:08to approach it with such restraint

0:57:08 > 0:57:12and he, in a way, helped me

0:57:12 > 0:57:16be restrained, because there would be certain passages where

0:57:16 > 0:57:19I was a little bit overwrought.

0:57:19 > 0:57:22He would say, "Well, I really don't think we need that.

0:57:22 > 0:57:25"I think it's stronger if we just have this sentence."

0:57:28 > 0:57:32And, for a while, I was stubborn and then I realised that he was

0:57:32 > 0:57:38actually right and, you know, that there was something almost

0:57:38 > 0:57:44classical in the way he approached a very difficult emotional situation.

0:57:46 > 0:57:49We are the ones who are supplicants, in a way.

0:57:49 > 0:57:51We are asking them for things all of the time.

0:57:51 > 0:57:54That is the life of the editor.

0:57:54 > 0:58:00We are not commanding anything. We are asking...and we are hoping.

0:58:00 > 0:58:07These writers are people that are in one's life, in one's mind.

0:58:07 > 0:58:11We are concerned about them - about them as people and writers.

0:58:13 > 0:58:18"Those blasted structures plot and rhyme.

0:58:18 > 0:58:22"Why are they no help to me now?

0:58:22 > 0:58:25"I want to make something imagined, not recalled."

0:58:38 > 0:58:42'I think that poetry, particularly, deals with'

0:58:42 > 0:58:46an eternal restlessness, a mortal restlessness, that is there

0:58:46 > 0:58:53of the spirit which is, "Where is the ultimate home?"

0:58:53 > 0:58:56The Bible has this quotation, which is a great quotation,

0:58:56 > 0:59:01"And man goeth to his long home," you know, which is death, of course,

0:59:01 > 0:59:03or anything beyond death.

0:59:03 > 0:59:08I think poetry may involve the quest of equality. What is equality

0:59:08 > 0:59:09of man's restlessness?

0:59:12 > 0:59:15"The life itself is shattering.

0:59:15 > 0:59:20"Lowell died at 60. Most of that life had been spent

0:59:20 > 0:59:25"recovering from, and dreading, mental attacks.

0:59:25 > 0:59:29"Of having to say early, "My mind's not right."

0:59:29 > 0:59:32"But more than drugs restored him.

0:59:32 > 0:59:35"The force that is the making of poetry,

0:59:35 > 0:59:40"while it took its toll of his mind, also saved him.

0:59:41 > 0:59:45"Bedlam, asylum, hospital -

0:59:45 > 0:59:50"his bouts of mania never left him, but they also never left him mad.

0:59:50 > 0:59:56"To use the past tense about him, not Lowell, so much as "Cal",

0:59:56 > 1:00:02"is almost unendurable. The present is the tense of his poetry.

1:00:02 > 1:00:07"The eyes, with their look of controlled suffering, still hurt.

1:00:07 > 1:00:09"We wince and look away.

1:00:11 > 1:00:17"I've described the sundering that put me off Lowell for a long time,

1:00:17 > 1:00:21"during which, he went into hospital and I cursed and told everyone

1:00:21 > 1:00:26"Yes, I, too, was tired of his turmoil."

1:00:26 > 1:00:31"But I want to record tears edging my eyes when he invited me,

1:00:31 > 1:00:35"later, to his apartment on West 67th Street.

1:00:35 > 1:00:38"The dissolving sweetness of reconciliation.

1:00:40 > 1:00:43"He opened the door, hunched, gentle, soft-voiced,

1:00:43 > 1:00:46"while he muttered his apology.

1:00:46 > 1:00:51"I gave him a hard hug and the old love deepened.

1:00:52 > 1:00:56"The eyes were still restless, haunted..."

1:01:03 > 1:01:06"During the breech I had asked his friends,

1:01:06 > 1:01:09"how badly had he treated them?

1:01:09 > 1:01:13"Violently, unutterably, forgivably.

1:01:13 > 1:01:16"Pity the monsters he had written.

1:01:16 > 1:01:21"No other poetry I can think of is as tender, as vulnerable,

1:01:21 > 1:01:26"in which a pitiless intelligence records its own suffering.

1:01:29 > 1:01:35"Lowell refuses to let go of himself. It is not masochistic, this refusal,

1:01:35 > 1:01:40"but a process of watching how poetry works, to learn if it can heal.

1:01:40 > 1:01:44"Once, I told him how much I admired that line of his in which

1:01:44 > 1:01:49"the ice floes are compared to the blank sides of a jigsaw puzzle,

1:01:49 > 1:01:52"and asked him how long it took him to see that.

1:01:52 > 1:01:55"He said it was like pulling teeth.

1:01:56 > 1:02:01"But the line from the same poem, Westinghouse Electric Cable Drum,

1:02:01 > 1:02:05"he had gotten from his daughter, Harriet, who had been skipping along,

1:02:05 > 1:02:06"repeating it."

1:02:07 > 1:02:12"I was at the Chelsea Hotel in September, 1977

1:02:12 > 1:02:16"when a friend called to say that Cal had died.

1:02:16 > 1:02:18"I felt more irritation

1:02:18 > 1:02:23"than shock. Death felt like an interruption, an impudence."

1:02:50 > 1:02:53They would do anything for their writers. They would do anything.

1:02:53 > 1:02:55And a lot of them were friends. And Barbara had

1:02:55 > 1:02:59a real capacity, or a gift, for friendship.

1:02:59 > 1:03:03And her girls would phone all day long -

1:03:03 > 1:03:05one amazing woman after another.

1:03:05 > 1:03:08The phone would just go, go, go, go, go.

1:03:08 > 1:03:10They also, sort of, employed me,

1:03:10 > 1:03:14because, I guess, I wasn't really employable anywhere else.

1:03:14 > 1:03:17I was, for instance, Helen Epstein's babysitter.

1:03:18 > 1:03:21They say there have been 15,000 pieces.

1:03:21 > 1:03:25Remember that Bob and Barbara have read them several times.

1:03:25 > 1:03:29And not only that, also the books under review,

1:03:29 > 1:03:32and I could never figure out how they became experts

1:03:32 > 1:03:37on what I was writing about before you hand in the piece.

1:03:37 > 1:03:41But they were, you know, always very present and ready.

1:03:41 > 1:03:43And they were doing this for everyone.

1:03:45 > 1:03:47Bob involved me in writing about stuff

1:03:47 > 1:03:50that I had no interest in, whatsoever.

1:03:50 > 1:03:53I mean, for example, domestic politics.

1:03:53 > 1:03:56I had no interest in domestic politics.

1:03:56 > 1:04:00I could go through 28

1:04:00 > 1:04:05Democratic and Republican conventions,

1:04:05 > 1:04:09I could be on the floor, I could be there with a floor pass,

1:04:09 > 1:04:12and I would have no interest, whatsoever.

1:04:12 > 1:04:19Bob, grasping this about me, in some way, immediately assigned me.

1:04:20 > 1:04:23And, at the conventions, there is nothing easier to get

1:04:23 > 1:04:26than yesterday's New York Times, right?

1:04:26 > 1:04:28Bob sent it down by messenger!

1:04:28 > 1:04:30SHE LAUGHS

1:04:30 > 1:04:35He was simply determined that anybody he assigned

1:04:35 > 1:04:39to do something would do it in the most efficient way possible.

1:04:40 > 1:04:46I needed him so much to... walk me through something.

1:04:46 > 1:04:53I mean, not so much to walk me through it, as to give me

1:04:53 > 1:04:57the confidence that I could walk myself through it.

1:05:04 > 1:05:08TV REPORTER: It is the ages of the accused, 14 to 17 years old,

1:05:08 > 1:05:12and the horror of their alleged crimes, that has caused a furore.

1:05:12 > 1:05:16A woman, jogging in New York's Central Park last Wednesday night,

1:05:16 > 1:05:18raped and nearly beaten to death.

1:05:28 > 1:05:32There was this big alarm in the city about that case.

1:05:32 > 1:05:35And I talked to Joan about it.

1:05:35 > 1:05:37And she said, "I want to write about it."

1:05:37 > 1:05:40It was her impulse. It was her idea. "I want to write about it."

1:05:40 > 1:05:44One reason it's so long is because Bob and I had this argument,

1:05:44 > 1:05:45this fight, about it.

1:05:45 > 1:05:51And, by the time I cried all night, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

1:05:51 > 1:05:58Then, he gave me some thoughts about

1:05:58 > 1:06:00places where it was deficient.

1:06:00 > 1:06:03And so, I took the places where he thought it was deficient

1:06:03 > 1:06:06and made them longer. And so, it ended up, probably, about

1:06:06 > 1:06:11three times as long as it would have, if he had never edited it.

1:06:11 > 1:06:12She simply thought

1:06:12 > 1:06:15there were gaps, big gaps,

1:06:15 > 1:06:18that were being filled by assumptions,

1:06:18 > 1:06:23assumptions of evil-doing, on the part of the young black men.

1:06:23 > 1:06:27And she felt that she should try to

1:06:27 > 1:06:31analyse this language in the press,

1:06:31 > 1:06:34the language on the television and radio,

1:06:34 > 1:06:39and the quickness by which guilt was assigned.

1:06:40 > 1:06:44"Although the American and English press convention of not naming

1:06:44 > 1:06:45"victims of rape

1:06:45 > 1:06:50"derives from the understandable wish to protect the victim,

1:06:50 > 1:06:54"the rationalisation of this special protection rests on a number

1:06:54 > 1:06:58"of doubtful, even magical, assumptions -

1:06:58 > 1:07:03"that rape involves a violation absent from other kinds of assault.

1:07:04 > 1:07:09"The convention assumes that this violation is of a nature

1:07:09 > 1:07:13"best kept secret, that the act of male penetration

1:07:13 > 1:07:18"involves such potent mysteries that the woman so penetrated,

1:07:18 > 1:07:22"as opposed, say, to having her face crushed with a brick or her brain

1:07:22 > 1:07:28"penetrated with a length of pipe, is permanently marked 'different',

1:07:28 > 1:07:31"especially if there's a perceived racial or a social difference

1:07:31 > 1:07:36"between victim and assailant, as in 19th-century studies

1:07:36 > 1:07:40"featuring women taken by Indians -

1:07:40 > 1:07:42"ruined."

1:07:45 > 1:07:49There was no question that these young men who had been arrested

1:07:49 > 1:07:52had been adopted as a symbol of a, kind of,

1:07:52 > 1:07:56anarchic violence in the city by young black men.

1:07:56 > 1:08:00That had been a, kind of, assumption throughout the coverage.

1:08:00 > 1:08:07And Joan perceived that this was a, kind of, leap beyond

1:08:07 > 1:08:10any evidence that we had been shown.

1:08:12 > 1:08:19That she saw that there were a number of highly-emotional devices

1:08:19 > 1:08:24in play. One of them was the,

1:08:24 > 1:08:31kind of, vision of these gangs haunting Central Park.

1:08:31 > 1:08:33And the word used was "wilding".

1:08:33 > 1:08:36TV REPORTER: While the rape victim remains in a coma,

1:08:36 > 1:08:38the police have arrested eight teenagers,

1:08:38 > 1:08:41charging them with rape, assault and attempted murder.

1:08:41 > 1:08:43Now that the police have learned what wilding is,

1:08:43 > 1:08:46they're now looking for ways of taming it.

1:08:46 > 1:08:52"There was, in this case, a special emotional undertone that derived,

1:08:52 > 1:08:55"in part, from deep and elusive associations and taboos attaching

1:08:55 > 1:09:00"an American black history to the idea of the rape of white women.

1:09:00 > 1:09:04"Rape remained in the collective memory of many blacks,

1:09:04 > 1:09:07"the very core of their victimisation.

1:09:07 > 1:09:11"Black men were assumed of raping a white woman.

1:09:11 > 1:09:15"Officials said they made public the names of the youths charged

1:09:15 > 1:09:20"in the attack on this woman because of the seriousness of the incident.

1:09:20 > 1:09:24"There seemed a debatable point here - the question of whether

1:09:24 > 1:09:28"the seriousness of the incident might not, in fact, have seemed

1:09:28 > 1:09:31"a compelling reason to avoid any appearance of a rush to judgment,

1:09:31 > 1:09:35"by preserving the anonymity of a juvenile suspect."

1:09:36 > 1:09:42"One of the names released by the police, and published in the Times,

1:09:42 > 1:09:47"was that of a 14-year-old. He was, ultimately, not indicted."

1:09:56 > 1:10:02Joan's analysis, I thought, a highly-imaginative venture,

1:10:02 > 1:10:03on her part,

1:10:03 > 1:10:10because she had to get outside what was the very much common, accepted,

1:10:10 > 1:10:13conventional wisdom of that moment.

1:10:13 > 1:10:15She had to stand apart and question it.

1:10:17 > 1:10:21That's what a journalist should do.

1:10:21 > 1:10:24They should examine below

1:10:24 > 1:10:30the surface of commonly-accepted and, often, official, statements.

1:10:32 > 1:10:34I was gratified.

1:10:35 > 1:10:38It didn't get me anywhere, being gratified,

1:10:38 > 1:10:44or the case being vacated didn't get me anywhere,

1:10:44 > 1:10:47but being right did.

1:10:58 > 1:11:02We do receive quite a few books, but you are welcome to send it along.

1:11:07 > 1:11:09"Dear David,

1:11:09 > 1:11:13"I see that Joanie did an introduction to a book of portraits

1:11:13 > 1:11:21"of human rights activists and that the book is dedicated to him.

1:11:21 > 1:11:24"I send the introduction, in case it is of any use.

1:11:24 > 1:11:25"My best."

1:11:29 > 1:11:30Robert Silvers' office.

1:11:32 > 1:11:34'I grew up in Mississippi.'

1:11:34 > 1:11:37I was editor of the newspaper there, that, for years,

1:11:37 > 1:11:40was the most racist paper in America.

1:11:40 > 1:11:42We completely changed it, won all of these prizes.

1:11:42 > 1:11:46My family fired me and I moved to New York. Most of the work that

1:11:46 > 1:11:52we did was investigative journalism that was actually quite dangerous.

1:11:52 > 1:11:55A lot of our photographers were threatened,

1:11:55 > 1:11:57I had police put guns to my head and pull the trigger,

1:11:57 > 1:12:00because of stories that we were doing about police brutality

1:12:00 > 1:12:04against blacks and a variety of other different stories.

1:12:04 > 1:12:06Reading The New York Review, I thought,

1:12:06 > 1:12:10"God, here is somebody that is trying to not just deal with human rights

1:12:10 > 1:12:13in a very local way, but globally,

1:12:13 > 1:12:15and that attracted me greatly.

1:12:23 > 1:12:27"As Occupy Wall Street enters its fifth month,

1:12:27 > 1:12:30"dislodged from most of the public spaces it had staked out

1:12:30 > 1:12:32"around the country last Fall,

1:12:32 > 1:12:36"the movement seems weakened, its future uncertain.

1:12:36 > 1:12:40"It sometimes appears to be driven by a series of tactics,

1:12:40 > 1:12:42"designed to maintain

1:12:42 > 1:12:46"its public presence, with no discernible strategy or goal.

1:12:46 > 1:12:51"A kind of muddled, loose-themed, ubiquity.

1:12:51 > 1:12:55"The movement has proven adept at provoking media attention,

1:12:55 > 1:12:58"but one may wonder what it amounts to, apart from its ability

1:12:58 > 1:13:03"to reaffirm its status as a kind of protest brand name."

1:13:06 > 1:13:09The typesetters would like to have the title for this letter.

1:13:09 > 1:13:13'The writers who we have dreamed of writing for us, have,

1:13:13 > 1:13:17'for the most part, been willing to do so.'

1:13:17 > 1:13:21- You get your thing and then we'll send it off.- OK.

1:13:21 > 1:13:25Isaiah Berlin was a great friend of mine. He simply enjoyed, I think,

1:13:25 > 1:13:27the whole idea of the Review.

1:13:27 > 1:13:29Whenever I asked him who should review something,

1:13:29 > 1:13:33he always had a suggestion.

1:13:33 > 1:13:36He wouldn't review books,

1:13:36 > 1:13:38because he always knew the person who wrote the book.

1:13:38 > 1:13:42He was willing to give us some of his grand and important essays

1:13:42 > 1:13:45that fit in with his idea

1:13:45 > 1:13:49that the Enlightenment, and the philosophers of the Enlightenment,

1:13:49 > 1:13:55with their universal aspirations of rights and liberties for all,

1:13:55 > 1:13:59that this project of the Enlightenment

1:13:59 > 1:14:03had run into a Counter-Enlightenment.

1:14:03 > 1:14:06EXPLOSION

1:14:06 > 1:14:11RUSSIAN SPEECH

1:14:15 > 1:14:16I think the idea of "the best"

1:14:16 > 1:14:19is, perhaps dangerous, but the idea of "the better" is all right.

1:14:19 > 1:14:23That's to say, we must say, poverty, we must eliminate,

1:14:23 > 1:14:26as far as possible. There is a great deal of injustice, we must cure it.

1:14:26 > 1:14:30There is a great deal of oppression, we must do our best to eliminate it.

1:14:30 > 1:14:33I don't mean to say that there aren't acute problems,

1:14:33 > 1:14:35for which we must bend our efforts.

1:14:35 > 1:14:38It is all right to have crusades to eliminate this problem,

1:14:38 > 1:14:41that problem, this misery, that misery, but the idea that

1:14:41 > 1:14:46there is a single solution, which, therefore, any amount of sacrifices,

1:14:46 > 1:14:48so to speak, justifies any amount of sacrifices -

1:14:48 > 1:14:51hundreds of thousands of people must be slaughtered, in order that

1:14:51 > 1:14:54hundreds of millions might be happy. About that, I feel doubts.

1:14:54 > 1:14:57I think it was the Russian thinker Herzen, whom I often read,

1:14:57 > 1:15:00who said, "When people say we must kill millions

1:15:00 > 1:15:03"in order that hundreds of millions might be happier,

1:15:03 > 1:15:05"we can't ever be certain about the hundreds of millions,

1:15:05 > 1:15:07"but what is certain is that millions are dead."

1:15:07 > 1:15:09I like to say,

1:15:09 > 1:15:10"Ich bin ein Berliner",

1:15:10 > 1:15:12meaning Isaiah Berliner.

1:15:12 > 1:15:17His attempt to combine liberalism and pluralism...

1:15:17 > 1:15:21..is more relevant than ever, now,

1:15:21 > 1:15:26because we all live in incredibly diverse multi-cultural societies.

1:15:26 > 1:15:29Everybody lives cheek-by-jowl on the Internet.

1:15:29 > 1:15:33China, India, Brazil and others are setting the agenda,

1:15:33 > 1:15:36intellectual as well as political, so there you have it.

1:15:36 > 1:15:39This incredible diversity and pluralism.

1:15:39 > 1:15:41How do we negotiate that relationship

1:15:41 > 1:15:44between an incredibly plural world

1:15:44 > 1:15:49and the basic fundamental principles of liberalism,

1:15:49 > 1:15:55like equal treatment for all under the law, for example?

1:15:55 > 1:15:58Fundamental human rights, free speech.

1:16:15 > 1:16:19It was better to write to The New York Review of Books

1:16:19 > 1:16:24about Israel and get response in Israel, ricochets there,

1:16:24 > 1:16:26than to write to an Israeli newspaper,

1:16:26 > 1:16:30in many cases, because, first of all,

1:16:30 > 1:16:32I mean, it was magnified.

1:16:32 > 1:16:37You knew that you had the space to be explicit

1:16:37 > 1:16:39and tell the story in full.

1:16:39 > 1:16:45This is actually the platform that unites a great deal of people

1:16:45 > 1:16:48who are interested in books and ideas in the world.

1:16:48 > 1:16:51It's a cosmopolitan magazine

1:16:51 > 1:16:55anchored in this kind of mental Europe.

1:16:56 > 1:17:01We - The New York Review, The West, liberal internationalists,

1:17:01 > 1:17:03Enlightenment liberals, in the broadest sense -

1:17:03 > 1:17:09speak about the universality of individual human rights.

1:17:09 > 1:17:14THEY - Russia, China, Saudi Arabia,

1:17:14 > 1:17:17English Eurosceptics who want to renege

1:17:17 > 1:17:20from the European Convention on Human Rights -

1:17:20 > 1:17:22speak about sovereignty.

1:17:22 > 1:17:25And so that's the way the conversation is set up -

1:17:25 > 1:17:27us talking about universal individual human rights,

1:17:27 > 1:17:30them talking about the sovereignty of states.

1:18:00 > 1:18:03I think the world has an idea that if a government

1:18:03 > 1:18:06and a president are democratically elected,

1:18:06 > 1:18:08it means you have democracy,

1:18:08 > 1:18:11and we actually just had fascism.

1:18:11 > 1:18:15I think we need to learn about really what democracy is.

1:18:15 > 1:18:18What does it mean to be democratic?

1:18:18 > 1:18:23My generation, you know, we grew up under this dictatorship

1:18:23 > 1:18:29and we say we want to free ourselves from those behaviours,

1:18:29 > 1:18:35but, when I look at how we have acted so far,

1:18:35 > 1:18:38I wonder if we know anything else.

1:18:39 > 1:18:43You know, we've put our deposed leaders in cages,

1:18:43 > 1:18:48and, looking at Libya,

1:18:48 > 1:18:53they slaughtered their own president

1:18:53 > 1:18:59and paraded him, paraded his flesh.

1:18:59 > 1:19:03So I feel we are making, in a sense, the same mistakes.

1:19:03 > 1:19:09I just wonder what it will take to learn new moral codes

1:19:09 > 1:19:13and to undo the learning of the past 30 years

1:19:13 > 1:19:15and to move forward in a different way.

1:19:15 > 1:19:18I feel we have a really long way to go.

1:19:37 > 1:19:41In 1969, in Havana, Cuba,

1:19:41 > 1:19:45Heberto Padilla surreptitiously gave Bob Silvers

1:19:45 > 1:19:48a sheaf of poems which the Review published

1:19:48 > 1:19:51after Silver's return to New York.

1:19:51 > 1:19:55Padilla was later arrested and publicly confessed to crimes

1:19:55 > 1:19:58he had never committed.

1:19:58 > 1:20:02It would be almost ten years before he was allowed out of Cuba.

1:20:05 > 1:20:09One of the sad and terrible things

1:20:09 > 1:20:14is that sometimes the very people who we supported

1:20:14 > 1:20:16because they were being repressed,

1:20:16 > 1:20:20once they got power, engaged in repression themselves.

1:20:20 > 1:20:23When the war in Vietnam was coming to an end

1:20:23 > 1:20:25and the Americans were preparing to leave,

1:20:25 > 1:20:29there was an article we published by Father Gelinas,

1:20:29 > 1:20:31who had been in Saigon

1:20:31 > 1:20:35and observed the repression that was taking place

1:20:35 > 1:20:38by the North Vietnamese.

1:20:38 > 1:20:40The burning of books,

1:20:40 > 1:20:44the finding in certain places of dead bodies

1:20:44 > 1:20:46that had been people rubbed out.

1:20:46 > 1:20:50When we published this article, we got dozens of cancellations

1:20:50 > 1:20:57by people who were only willing to see the North Vietnamese as victims,

1:20:57 > 1:21:00as they WERE victims...

1:21:00 > 1:21:04but, once they were taking power,

1:21:04 > 1:21:07we published a number of articles calling attention

1:21:07 > 1:21:11to their OWN authoritarianism, brutality and repression.

1:21:34 > 1:21:38TRANSLATED: You should ask the Soviet authorities that question.

1:21:38 > 1:21:40I don't have my own opinion on that.

1:21:40 > 1:21:43I probably don't have the right to have one.

1:21:43 > 1:21:46The Soviet authorities must resolve this question.

1:21:47 > 1:21:50We actually published ten articles by Andrei Sakharov

1:21:50 > 1:21:52when he was a leading dissident.

1:21:54 > 1:21:56I don't want to exaggerate...

1:21:56 > 1:21:58Magazines don't change the world,

1:21:58 > 1:22:03but they shape a certain kind of climate of ideas.

1:22:10 > 1:22:12There is this metaphor...

1:22:12 > 1:22:16Influence goes like the knights in chess.

1:22:16 > 1:22:20One move straight and then diagonal.

1:22:20 > 1:22:23It doesn't go in straight lines.

1:22:27 > 1:22:32I never wanted to be a political writer.

1:22:32 > 1:22:35I think that good writers and directors,

1:22:35 > 1:22:39and particularly good theatre, is always political.

1:22:42 > 1:22:46We published one article after another by Vaclav Havel.

1:22:46 > 1:22:51The first essay he wrote was called Kicking the Door.

1:22:51 > 1:22:56And how he had been so frustrated, he'd kicked the door of a bar,

1:22:56 > 1:22:58and he knew that that kind of behaviour

1:22:58 > 1:23:00could have gotten him into prison,

1:23:00 > 1:23:04just because the regime had set up rules by which people

1:23:04 > 1:23:08who were frustrated and showed it were therefore vulnerable.

1:23:09 > 1:23:12It was a very brilliant and subtle essay.

1:23:12 > 1:23:151989 was this year of wonders.

1:23:15 > 1:23:20First in Hungary, then in Poland, then in East Germany.

1:23:20 > 1:23:22And then it...

1:23:22 > 1:23:23The balloon went up in Prague,

1:23:23 > 1:23:29and I was of course on the next plane into Prague.

1:23:29 > 1:23:34I found Vaclav Havel in his basement pub.

1:23:38 > 1:23:40"Students started it.

1:23:40 > 1:23:43"Small groups of them had been active for at least a year before.

1:23:43 > 1:23:48"They edited faculty magazines, they organized discussion clubs,

1:23:48 > 1:23:52"they worked on the borderline between official and unofficial life.

1:23:52 > 1:23:55"They got permission to hold a demonstration in Prague

1:23:55 > 1:23:59"to mark the 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of Jan Opletal,

1:23:59 > 1:24:02"a Czech student murdered by the Nazis.

1:24:04 > 1:24:08"But the numbers grew and the chants turned increasingly against

1:24:08 > 1:24:10"the present dictators in the castle.

1:24:14 > 1:24:18"The demonstrators decided - perhaps some had planned all along -

1:24:18 > 1:24:21"to march to Wenceslas Square,

1:24:21 > 1:24:25"the stage for all the historic moments of Czech history,

1:24:25 > 1:24:30"whether in 1918, 1948 or 1968.

1:24:30 > 1:24:32"Here they were met by riot police

1:24:32 > 1:24:35"with white helmets, shields and truncheons,

1:24:35 > 1:24:39"and by special anti-terrorist squads in red berets.

1:24:41 > 1:24:44"Large numbers of demonstrators were cut off and surrounded,

1:24:44 > 1:24:47"both along Narodni Street and in the square.

1:24:47 > 1:24:50"They went on chanting "Freedom!"

1:24:50 > 1:24:53"and singing the Czech version of We Shall Overcome.

1:24:55 > 1:24:59"Those in the front line tried to hand flowers to the police.

1:24:59 > 1:25:02"They placed lighted candles on the ground

1:25:02 > 1:25:07"and raised their arms, chanting, "'We have bare hands.'

1:25:07 > 1:25:10"But the police, and especially the Red Berets,

1:25:10 > 1:25:13"beat men, women and children with their truncheons."

1:25:20 > 1:25:26- TRANSLATED:- We are now experiencing very dramatic days.

1:25:26 > 1:25:28Young people are brutally beaten in the streets.

1:25:28 > 1:25:32And the ideals for which I have been struggling for many years

1:25:32 > 1:25:34and for which I have been several times in prison

1:25:34 > 1:25:37are beginning now to enter real political life,

1:25:37 > 1:25:44as an expression of the will of the Czechoslovak public.

1:25:45 > 1:25:48"The great new idea of this revolution

1:25:48 > 1:25:50"was the revolution itself.

1:25:50 > 1:25:52"It was not the 'what' but the 'how'.

1:25:52 > 1:25:55"Not the end but the means.

1:25:55 > 1:26:01"The new idea of 1989 was non-revolutionary revolution.

1:26:01 > 1:26:02"In talking of these events,

1:26:02 > 1:26:06"the word revolution has always to be qualified with an adjective -

1:26:06 > 1:26:11"peaceful, or evolutionary, or self-limiting, or velvet -

1:26:11 > 1:26:14"because the leaders of the popular movements

1:26:14 > 1:26:17"deliberately set out to do something different

1:26:17 > 1:26:19"from the classic revolutionary model

1:26:19 > 1:26:24"as it developed from 1789 through 1917,

1:26:24 > 1:26:28"right up to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

1:26:28 > 1:26:32"As I remember people actually discussing at the time

1:26:32 > 1:26:36"in the Magic Lantern Theatre in Prague,

1:26:36 > 1:26:38"an essential part of earlier revolutions

1:26:38 > 1:26:41"had been revolutionary violence.

1:26:41 > 1:26:44"Here there was a conscious effort to avoid it."

1:26:50 > 1:26:52When the time came in 1989

1:26:52 > 1:26:56and Havel was suddenly elevated to President,

1:26:56 > 1:26:59as President, again and again,

1:26:59 > 1:27:02he was willing to say things that were unpopular.

1:27:03 > 1:27:08When it comes to someone who, after a revolution, has taken power,

1:27:08 > 1:27:13and the question is posed to them,

1:27:13 > 1:27:17will they support the rights of opposition?

1:27:17 > 1:27:21Or the rights of people who are frowned on?

1:27:21 > 1:27:23Havel said yes.

1:27:32 > 1:27:35Of course, not every transition in history is as peaceful,

1:27:35 > 1:27:40and so it's amazing that so much writing has survived.

1:27:40 > 1:27:44So many stone tablets and cylinders have been shattered

1:27:44 > 1:27:47and so many manuscripts have been destroyed

1:27:47 > 1:27:51and so many libraries have burned to the ground.

1:27:51 > 1:27:55In 1992, during the Siege of Sarajevo,

1:27:55 > 1:27:58people formed a human chain to rescue as many books

1:27:58 > 1:28:01as they could from the National Library

1:28:01 > 1:28:05before the building was reduced to rubble by Serbian shelling.

1:28:07 > 1:28:12A woman named Aida Buturovich died trying to save those books.

1:28:12 > 1:28:14She was killed by a mortar.

1:28:28 > 1:28:30If The New York Review has, from the first,

1:28:30 > 1:28:35been a kind of movement - and it has -

1:28:35 > 1:28:38one of our longest-standing

1:28:38 > 1:28:41and most admired comrades is Darryl Pinckney.

1:28:44 > 1:28:47..as new works by James Baldwin came out in the 1970s,

1:28:47 > 1:28:50they showed a falling-off in his writing.

1:28:50 > 1:28:55His exhortations to the nation came across as perfunctory.

1:28:55 > 1:28:57Baldwin's loss of his cool

1:28:57 > 1:29:00was a subject I thought I'd thought a lot about

1:29:00 > 1:29:04when, in 1979, Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein

1:29:04 > 1:29:09suggested that I try to write about what would be his last novel.

1:29:09 > 1:29:12Just Above My Head is a sprawling saga

1:29:12 > 1:29:16about a black, gay gospel singer and his family.

1:29:16 > 1:29:21I'm embarrassed three decades later by the knowingness of that review,

1:29:21 > 1:29:24from the typewriter of Mr Little Shit.

1:29:24 > 1:29:27CROWD CHUCKLES

1:29:27 > 1:29:30I was young, Baldwin was young no longer,

1:29:30 > 1:29:33and therefore I had his number.

1:29:33 > 1:29:35I eased scorn

1:29:35 > 1:29:39on what I saw as his sentimental portrayal of a gay couple.

1:29:39 > 1:29:43Because the two men in Baldwin's novel considered themselves married,

1:29:43 > 1:29:48I accused him of having them imitate heterosexual behaviour.

1:29:48 > 1:29:51He'd given up on sexual liberation, I said.

1:29:51 > 1:29:55Mary McCarthy advises that a good way to get started

1:29:55 > 1:29:57as a writer is to publish reviews.

1:29:57 > 1:30:00I was going about the business of trying to become a writer,

1:30:00 > 1:30:02willing to do so at the expense

1:30:02 > 1:30:05of this tender, brave, and brilliant soul.

1:30:06 > 1:30:08A few years later, at a party for Baldwin

1:30:08 > 1:30:11after he read his blues poems at the Y,

1:30:11 > 1:30:16I, drunk, asked - yes, asked - if he'd seen that review.

1:30:16 > 1:30:20CROWD LAUGHS

1:30:20 > 1:30:23He graciously said no.

1:30:24 > 1:30:28And I'm afraid I can't pretend that I did not,

1:30:28 > 1:30:30in a seizure of self-importance,

1:30:30 > 1:30:33rehearse some of my arguments against his book

1:30:33 > 1:30:38right there in the middle of a cocktail party for him,

1:30:38 > 1:30:40this adored figure.

1:30:41 > 1:30:44His smile was all forbearance and understanding.

1:30:44 > 1:30:46He had my number.

1:30:46 > 1:30:50James Baldwin died in France in 1987.

1:30:50 > 1:30:52His funeral at the Cathedral of St John the Divine

1:30:52 > 1:30:55was the first funeral I'd ever attended.

1:30:55 > 1:30:57In 1998, the Library of America

1:30:57 > 1:31:00published Baldwin's collected essays.

1:31:00 > 1:31:04The Library of America edition of his novels came out two years later.

1:31:04 > 1:31:06The New York Review let me turn these reviews

1:31:06 > 1:31:09into opportunities to make up for the past.

1:31:09 > 1:31:12I'd some experience and had more sympathy

1:31:12 > 1:31:14for the pressures in Baldwin's life,

1:31:14 > 1:31:18especially toward the end of the Civil Rights Movement.

1:31:18 > 1:31:22"Suffering has everybody's number," he once wrote.

1:31:22 > 1:31:26I remembered and tried to honour that Baldwin's exalted prose

1:31:26 > 1:31:30had made me decide something about myself.

1:31:30 > 1:31:33He was right about so much in our political and social culture,

1:31:33 > 1:31:35not to mention gay marriage

1:31:35 > 1:31:39and how liberating is the freedom to be like everyone else.

1:31:40 > 1:31:44I said then and say again that his voice has not aged

1:31:44 > 1:31:46because of the purity of his language.

1:31:46 > 1:31:49The journey out of Egypt is his true theme,

1:31:49 > 1:31:53and in the kingdom of the first person, he has few peers.

1:31:53 > 1:31:58James Baldwin has been on my mind all my writing life,

1:31:58 > 1:32:01as has been The New York Review of Books,

1:32:01 > 1:32:06ever since 1973, when the great Elizabeth Hardwick,

1:32:06 > 1:32:09surprised I'd not read FW Dupee on Baldwin,

1:32:09 > 1:32:12which appeared in the very first issue,

1:32:12 > 1:32:14sat me down with a big red bound volume

1:32:14 > 1:32:17of the first decade of the paper.

1:32:17 > 1:32:20Over the years, certain names on the cover of the Review

1:32:20 > 1:32:22have made my heart race.

1:32:22 > 1:32:25I miss Barbara Epstein every day,

1:32:25 > 1:32:28as do many, many gathered here.

1:32:28 > 1:32:31I am humbled by the lessons of Robert Silvers' dedication.

1:32:31 > 1:32:37I have received so much from this noble intellectual enterprise.

1:32:37 > 1:32:41I learned of that English poet James Fenton

1:32:41 > 1:32:43from the pages of The New York Review of Books.

1:32:43 > 1:32:46"This is the wind,

1:32:46 > 1:32:47"the wind in a field of corn.

1:32:47 > 1:32:50"Great crowds are fleeing from a major disaster.

1:32:50 > 1:32:54"Down the long valleys, the green swaying wadis,

1:32:54 > 1:32:57"down through the beautiful catastrophe of wind.

1:32:57 > 1:33:00I thought, "Whoa", and I still do...

1:33:00 > 1:33:03CROWD LAUGHS

1:33:03 > 1:33:06..even after 23 years of making him cups of tea.

1:33:06 > 1:33:08And so thank you.

1:33:10 > 1:33:12'Are you interested in Plato's Republic?

1:33:12 > 1:33:14'Well, I am Plato's Republic.'

1:33:14 > 1:33:16I'll recite myself for you whenever you like.

1:33:19 > 1:33:22'Now, here is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

1:33:22 > 1:33:25That skinny fellow is Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

1:33:25 > 1:33:28Oh, you see the little blonde coming towards us? Watch her blush.

1:33:28 > 1:33:32I am Jean-Paul Sartre's "The Jewish Question." Delighted to meet you!

1:33:40 > 1:33:44"Literature", said Samuel Johnson,

1:33:44 > 1:33:47"is a kind of intellectual light,

1:33:47 > 1:33:51"which, like the light of the sun,

1:33:51 > 1:33:55"enables us to see what we do not like."

1:33:56 > 1:34:01Then Johnson asks a very disturbing question -

1:34:01 > 1:34:05"Who would wish to escape unpleasing objects

1:34:05 > 1:34:08"by condemning himself to perpetual darkness?"

1:34:10 > 1:34:13- TV:- We managed to get inside the field hospital in the sit-in,

1:34:13 > 1:34:15which is very difficult.

1:34:15 > 1:34:19The only entrance to the Rabaa sit-in that's still open

1:34:19 > 1:34:22has government snipers firing down an alley

1:34:22 > 1:34:25targeting people going to and from the hospital.

1:34:25 > 1:34:26Once you get inside,

1:34:26 > 1:34:29the first thing you notice is that the floors are slick with blood.

1:34:29 > 1:34:32There's blood everywhere - on the walls, on the floors.

1:34:32 > 1:34:34There's a constant stream of dead and wounded

1:34:34 > 1:34:37being shuttled in and out of the hospital.

1:34:37 > 1:34:40The youngest I saw was a boy no older than 13 years old.

1:34:40 > 1:34:44We saw four floors at the main field hospital

1:34:44 > 1:34:46and each floor is full of the dead and wounded,

1:34:46 > 1:34:49most of them having suffered from gunshot wounds.

1:34:49 > 1:34:53Now, that meshes with what you see outside and what you hear outside.

1:34:53 > 1:34:55There's the constant sound of automatic gunfire

1:34:55 > 1:34:58ringing around from every place around the camp.

1:34:58 > 1:35:02You also hear the sharp crack of sniper fire

1:35:02 > 1:35:06from government snipers positioned on buildings surrounding the sit-in,

1:35:06 > 1:35:08so a very chaotic scene this morning

1:35:08 > 1:35:10at the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in.

1:35:10 > 1:35:14Now, we did not see any of the pro-Morsi demonstrators

1:35:14 > 1:35:18carrying anything other than rocks and Molotov cocktails...

1:35:20 > 1:35:23..I think one of the great novels.

1:35:23 > 1:35:27I also like The Mill on the Floss.

1:35:27 > 1:35:30It's a rather different kind of book

1:35:30 > 1:35:32and there's certainly more picture painting,

1:35:32 > 1:35:36more delicate watercolour...

1:35:36 > 1:35:40..What kind of thing is a right? Is it something you have at birth?

1:35:40 > 1:35:41Is it something stamped upon you?

1:35:41 > 1:35:44Is it something intrinsically characteristic of a man?

1:35:44 > 1:35:47Is it something which someone has given you? Who, for example?

1:35:47 > 1:35:49Can rights be conferred or taken away?

1:35:49 > 1:35:51Can you waive a right? What does that mean?

1:35:51 > 1:35:54Can you lose a right, or is a right something which somehow

1:35:54 > 1:35:57is an intrinsic part of your nature

1:35:57 > 1:36:02in the way in which thinking is, or choosing, or having will?

1:36:02 > 1:36:03Or something...

1:36:03 > 1:36:06..not a phenomenon in America. I can't see the good side

1:36:06 > 1:36:07or the bad side.

1:36:07 > 1:36:10I hate no longer, I love no longer. I've got to get out of here.

1:36:10 > 1:36:12I'm looking back on it now because,

1:36:12 > 1:36:15when you write a book, you don't say you'll do it for these reasons...

1:36:15 > 1:36:18..but perhaps what we all seem to be talking about is very casual,

1:36:18 > 1:36:20private criticism,

1:36:20 > 1:36:24which you try to write as well as you would try to write a poem...

1:36:24 > 1:36:26..I believe all history is fiction.

1:36:26 > 1:36:29In a way, I suppose, one might say that all fiction is history.

1:36:29 > 1:36:35After all, most novels are about who went off with someone else's wife

1:36:35 > 1:36:39last summer at Sussex University...

1:36:39 > 1:36:41Considered a very important subject for a novel.

1:36:41 > 1:36:45It's considered a little excessive to write about a Roman Emperor,

1:36:45 > 1:36:49and that means one runs the risk of being trivial...

1:36:49 > 1:36:55..1977, Greg had come to one of the hospitals where I work.

1:36:55 > 1:37:02He was a 25-year-old with profound memory and other problems...

1:37:02 > 1:37:04..around 700 police and navy officers

1:37:04 > 1:37:07entered the Lins de Vasconcelos favelas.

1:37:07 > 1:37:10In less than an hour, control of the 12 communities

1:37:10 > 1:37:13had been placed into the hands of the special police unit...