Mixing mournful self-interrogation about sex, art, and politics; less than lucid delvings into spiritual matters; and wry chatter about acquaintances both obscure and celebrated, Isherwood's voluminous diaries provide rather too wide a window onto the eminent novelist and memoirist's foibles. Isherwood emigrated to America from England in 1939, and during the years covered here he lived in Los Angeles, worked as a screenwriter, studied and wrote about Vedanta Hinduism, wrote novels (Prater Violet, The World in the Evening, and most of Down There on a Visit), and had a few major love affairs. Close to half of this volume covers the first five years of Isherwood's expatriatism. Edited and annotated heavily by the author himself in 1946, these wartime diaries are sprinkled with the kind of artfully ironic character sketches familiar to readers of Isherwood's novels. The author socialized with the likes of Aldous Huxley, Charlie Chaplin, and Greta Garbo, but much of his time was spent with his guru and fellow disciples of Vedanta, which his musings do not enliven for the reader. Isherwood was criticized for not returning to Britain during the war; he is forthright here about his pacifism. Fussing about the obligations imposed by his swami and his lovers, the author indulges in mopy rants that tire even himself: ``I'm so bored with myself. . . . The whole of this diary is becoming a bore. Let's snap out of it. Come on, St. Augustine—amuse us. A little less about your sins.'' After substantial ellipses, the diaries become less consistently fretful in the mid-'50s, when Isherwood met the artist Don Bachardy, who would remain his companion until Isherwood's death in 1986. Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Igor Stravinsky, Somerset Maugham, and a raft of movie stars were Isherwood's pals in the '50s; finally, after hundreds of pages in which the creative process seldom merits a mention, Isherwood occasionally comes alive as a working artist in the latter entries. Maundering, prolix, altogether daunting.
Pub Date: Jan. 6, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-118000-9
Page Count: 1056
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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