The novelist Martin Amis is the son of Kingsley Amis, whose Lucky Jim (1954) was a spectacular success. Noting the father’s “brilliance and ‘facile bravura,’” Atlantic critic Geoffrey Wheatcroft asserted that Martin “misunderstood his hereditary gifts when he turned from playful comedy to ‘the great issues of our time.’” Among his “great issues” is that of Nazi concentration camps,...
The cover of your November issue suggests the truth that we, conservatives and especially conservative Christians, are engaged in spiritual warfare. And yet, smack in the middle of that issue, you print an article, “Remembering C. S. Lewis.” The reader is led to believe that this man has been a powerful instrument of truth and has...
A day like today reminds you of how you got here, of the struggle, of the good in your life—and of a tiger, a lion, and an old man. The sun shines stark white, shimmering in a way that reminds you that it is a star, technically a yellow dwarf, but it seems not so...
In 1945, liberal Democrat Frank Sinatra recorded a song about the meaning of America, “The House I Live In.” It was a perfect match for the honeyed voice of the young Sinatra, one that Sinatra continued to sing as his voice matured and his politics moved rightward. I have been vaguely familiar with the song since...
This is for you writers out there: if you’re not canceled, you’re no good. The good Dr. Seuss is out, as is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Adolf Hitler is still in, although I can’t say the same for William Shakespeare. Everyone who is anyone is getting canceled, so I was glad to see Captain Cook...
The right’s failure in 2020’s election may herald the start of a new conservative ascension. But it cannot happen under the current Republican Party leadership. The problem is greater than the Republican-in-Name-Only politicians ignoring the legitimate charges of election-rigging and jumping Trump’s ship. For years, the established conservative political class has looked away from...
The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War; by Fred Kaplan; Simon & Schuster; 384 pp., $18.00 In 1958, former RAF officer Peter George (under the pseudonym Peter Bryant) wrote Red Alert, a novel about a communication accident that almost triggers a nuclear war. In a series of short, increasingly tense, time-stamped chapters,...
It became up close and personal real quick. A favorite restaurant for brunch was closed on Valentine’s Day, a Sunday, because it was already cold and icy. So my wife and I walked to a place only blocks from the house. Then, the power at our home in Austin went off around 2:00 a.m. on Monday....
The latest election cycle did not deliver happy results for the political right. Our dismay is compounded by the strong impression of an unfair result. Whatever you think of the integrity of last November’s elections, it cannot be denied that in the months prior a great many very big thumbs—Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the...
Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife; by Bart D. Ehrman; Simon & Schuster; 352 pp., $28.00 Were popular success an index of scholarly mastery, Broadway musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber would be recognized as a world authority on Christology. He is not, but Bart D. Ehrman is, and his presumptive expertise in the...
The political theorist Leo Strauss (1899-1973) is perhaps an unlikely subject for Chronicles’ “Remembering the Right” series. Although no one can deny the extensive influence of his ideas on the conservative (and later, neoconservative) movement in America during the Cold War and beyond, Strauss usually gave the impression that he was not a conservative in...
I Care a Lot Directed and written by Jonathan Blakeson ◆ Produced by Andrea Ajemian and Sacha Guttenstein ◆ Distributed by Netflix The Shrike (1955) Directed by José Ferrer ◆ Written by Ketti Frings ◆ Produced by Aaron Rosenberg ◆ Distributed by Universal Pictures Rosamund Pike is one of the most versatile and accomplished actresses in...
The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech, by William Deresiewicz (Henry Holt; 368 pp., $27.99). Members of a book club at my highly selective undergraduate business school were stung by William Deresiewicz’s portrait of careerist, grade-grubbing college students in his scathing 2015 book,...
The novelist Martin Amis is the son of Kingsley Amis, whose Lucky Jim (1954) was a spectacular success. Noting the father’s “brilliance and ‘facile bravura,’” Atlantic critic Geoffrey Wheatcroft asserted that Martin “misunderstood his hereditary gifts when he turned from playful comedy to ‘the great issues of our time.’” Among his “great issues” is that...
In January, Donald Trump’s President’s Advisory 1776 Commission released its 45-page “1776 Report,” which, according to The New York Times, is “a sweeping attack on liberal thought and activism that…defends America’s founding against charges that it was tainted by slavery and likens progressivism to fascism.” Joe Biden scrapped it the day he entered office, and...
Illuminating History: A Retrospective of Seven Decades; by Bernard Bailyn; New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2020; 288 pp., $28.95 Great historians must be first or primarily expert storytellers, insists historian Bernard Bailyn in his latest book. But the Pulitzer Prize winning author also declares that historians must be social scientists as well. Yet, if greatness...
“Decolonization” is the new badge for right-thinking professors and teachers. The word reveals more about those who use it than about their imaginary oppressors. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The great haters in our midst have the word “hate” perpetually on their lips. So do the decolonizers. What that term...
