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I
t is difficult to square the idealized portrait of
the “Chinese convert” Shen Fuzong by Sir
Godfrey Kneller (as seen on p4) with the
comment of the man who commissioned it,
James II, on the sitter: “He was a little blinking
fellow was he not?” But some Westerners (and
particularly Britons) have long based their
view of the Chinese more on fantasy than
observation. As Frances Wood shows in her
discussion of Christopher Frayling’s history of
“Chinaphobia” and its quintessential bogeyman, Fu Manchu, many of these fantasies were
laughable rather than terrifying. But for the
Chinese themselves, the legacy of racial stereotypes is difficult to shrug off so lightly,
involving as it does “the implication of evil”
without any attempt at substantiation.
This week we also look at the myths nations
construct for themselves. Reviewing Robert
Tombs’s new history of the English, Linda
Colley thinks that “Tombs is right to argue that
geographically bogus notions of being an
island have nonetheless often been important
for imaginings of England”, before wondering
whether “interchange” between England and
its neighbours, rather than splendid isolation,
is its defining characteristic.
Colley sees the fact that Tombs is not a specialist in English history (he is Professor of
French History at Cambridge) as an advantage, allowing him to be “shrewdly detached”.
Azar Nafisi (pictured), the author of the bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, similarly
applies an outsider’s perspective to the selfimages of her adoptive country, viewing them
through the prism of classic novels, including
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and suggesting that “America owed its most sacred foundational myth – that of restless individualism –
to that orphan boy who’d left home to escape
being ‘sivilized’ by his aunt”. Reviewing
Nafisi’s The Republic of Imagination, Adam
Begley finds that the author “celebrates literature, and especially fiction”, but takes issue
with her view of the influence of great books
on everyday living: “Some may find their
inner lives enriched, their heads filled with
splendid dreams, but it is impossible to say
what the practical result of that might be”.
DH
CULTURAL STUDIES
3
Frances Wood
Christopher Frayling The Yellow Peril – Dr Fu Manchu and the rise of
Chinaphobia
LITERARY CRITICISM
5
Adam Begley
Azar Nafisi The Republic of Imagination – A case for fiction
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
6
HISTORY
7
‘Common People’, Proust and the Bible, Haute food, etc
Linda Colley
Gary Sheffield
RELIGION
9
Robert Tombs The English and Their History – The first thirteen
centuries
William Philpott Attrition – Fighting the First World War
Ruth Coates
Antoine Arjakovsky The Way – Religious thinkers of the Russian
emigration in Paris and their journal, 1925–1940; Translated by Jerry
Ryan. Paul L. Gavrilyuk Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious
Renaissance
PUBLISHING
10
Ritchie Robertson
Anna Nyburg Émigrés
COMMENTARY
12
Leo A. Lensing
Lydia Davis
Then & Now
‘I did not want this’ – The uses and abuses of Karl Kraus’s The Last
Days of Mankind
Freelance
TLS December 7, 1984 – Contemporary themes
POEM
13
Beverley Bie Brahic
Degas’s Bather
ARTS
15
Kelly Grovier
Alex Danchev
Allen Jones RA (Royal Academy of Arts)
Conflict, Time, Photography (Tate Modern). Simon Baker and Shoair
Mavlian, editors Conflict, Time, Photography
FICTION
17
Michael Saler
John Whittier Treat
William Gibson The Peripheral. Distrust That Particular Flavor
Nogami Yaeko The Labyrinth; Translated by Maya and Anthony
Mortimer
Eileen Chang Half a Lifelong Romance; Translated by Karen S.
Kingsbury
Lynn Pan
POLITICS
19
Nile Green
Ayesha Jalal The Struggle for Pakistan – A Muslim homeland and
global politics. T. V. Paul The Warrior State – Pakistan in the
contemporary world. Aqil Shah The Army and Democracy – Military
politics in Pakistan. Brian Cloughley A History of the Pakistan Army
– Wars and insurrections
BIOGRAPHY
20
Mary C. Flannery
Veronica Mary Rolf Julian’s Gospel – Illuminating the life and
Revelations of Julian of Norwich
Sara Cockerill Eleanor of Castile – The shadow queen
Barnaby Phillips Another Man’s War – The story of a Burma boy in
Britain’s forgotten African Army
Helen Castor
James Copnall
IN BRIEF
22
CLASSICS
24
Jens Mühling A Journey into Russia; Translated by Eugene H.
Hayworth. Andrés Ibáñez Brilla, mar del Edén. Kate Charlton-Jones
Dismembering the American Dream – The life and fiction of Richard
Yates. Ian Nairn Nairn’s London. Rowan Williams Meeting God in
Mark. Jona Oberski A Childhood; Translated by Ralph Manheim.
Helen Constantine, editor Vienna Tales; Translated by Deborah
Holmes. James Grande William Cobbett, the Press and Rural England
– Radicalism and the fourth estate, 1792–1835
Llewelyn Morgan
W. V. Harris
Philip Hardie The Last Trojan Hero – A cultural history of Virgil’s
‘Aeneid’
Philip Kay Rome’s Economic Revolution
POETRY
25
Rory Waterman
Vidyan Ravinthiran Grun-tu-molani
TRAVEL
26
Caroline Moorehead
Lutz Kleveman Wanderjahre – A reporter’s journey in a mad world
This week’s contributors, Crossword
27
NB
28
J. C.
(The) Naked Lunch, RIP Eric Korn, Arrant nonsense
Cover image: digital illustration adapted from the film poster for The Return of Dr Fu Manchu, 1930, with Jean Arthur and Neil Hamilton © Everett Collection/Rex
Features; p2 © Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star/Getty Images; p3 © The National Archives, Kew; p4 © The Royal Collection Trust/Bridgeman Art Library;
p5 © akg-images; p7 © The British Library Board/Bridgeman Art Library; p9 © Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images; p12 © Deborah
Sengl/Photo by Mischa Nawrata; p15 © Allen Jones/RA London; p16 © Chloe Dewe Mathews/Tate Gallery; p17 © Mark Colbe/Getty Images; p18 ©
Ullstein/Lebrecht Music & Arts; p19 © Zuma/Rex Features; p20 © Jason Bye/Alamy and © Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Gallery; p26 © Lutz Kleveman
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TLS JANUARY 9 2015